John Birmingham - Without warning

‘How would you get there, to England?’ she asked. ‘The border is closed.’

‘I’m not a tourist, baby.’

‘No. I suppose not. But you are still hunted, non?’

‘We are still being hunted,’ Caitlin reminded her.

‘Do you think? Really? Don’t you think they have bigger problems? After all, you are no longer working on your mission, are you?’

For the first time in many days, an accusing tone crept back into Monique’s voice, but unlike the first twenty-four hours after their escape from the hospital, it was unaccompanied by any whining or hectoring. If Caitlin wasn’t mistaken, Monique was almost gently mocking her.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘The mission’s been scrubbed. By me, by circumstance, or whatever. My priority now is getting the hell out, and I will take you with me, if you still want to come. But if you believe you’re safe here, I’ll go alone.’

Monique held her gaze for a long moment, lifting her chin in an almost defiant gesture. ‘What was your mission, Caitlin? Why did you lie to us? And why did those men kill Maggie and the others?’

Caitlin shook her head as she put down the empty bowl. ‘I don’t know why they were killed, Monique. I’ve told you that. It was probably just a fuck-up. I don’t think it had anything to do with my mission, although it obviously had something to do with me, since I’m the one they were trying to grab.’

‘But we were your mission. Your target.’ She said the word with more venom than Caitlin was expecting.

‘No, you weren’t,’ the American replied, trying to sound soothing without being patronising. She paused then, on the verge of a significant departure. To go on would be to acknowledge that not just the mission, but her whole world, had been scrubbed. She stared out of the window, looking at but not really seeing the bleak scene below. She missed Wales, missed the security of knowing he was out there somewhere, watching her back, keeping her safe.

She felt guilty at being unable to help him, but of course there was no way of knowing whether he was even in the country when the Disappearance went down. He may well have been out of Paris or out of France altogether, especially with her laid up at the hospital for so long. He may have been in Washington.

Her training reasserted itself. Putting aside pointless speculation, she had to go with what she knew, addressing the situation right in front of her. ‘You were going to lead me to my target,’ she explained. ‘To a man, a blind recruiter, called al Banna.’

Monique looked confused. ‘But I don’t know any blind men.’

Caitlin shook her head. ‘Sorry – jargon. Al Banna’s not blind. You are. He had targeted your group as mules, carriers. You were going to take something back to the UK for him.’

‘What bullshit.’ And in an instant, the old Monique was back, her face an angry mask of disbelief. ‘I’ve never heard of this al Banna. None of the others mentioned such a name. Do you take us for fools?’

Caitlin kept her face professionally blank at that question, but Monique seemed not to notice. A switch had flipped over somewhere and a torrent of impacted rage was released.

‘We are not idiots, you know, Caitlin. We are not blind or even one-eyed, like some. We saw oppression and violence on all sides, not just from you and your masters. I have worked as a volunteer in a women’s shelter; I have seen what happens under the burqa, non? The broken arms, the smashed ribs and bruises everywhere. Do not imagine that just because we opposed your stupid oil war, we did not understand the nature of your enemies. You were as bad as each other. They may even have been worse, possibly, but they lacked your means. So please, this stupid conspiracy of yours, don’t imagine that -’

‘Monique,’ Caitlin sighed, tired from a bone-deep weariness. The inertia and fatigue in her voice seemed to trip the other girl up.

‘What?’

She shook her head. ‘Sweetheart, you’d already been recruited.’

‘What do you mean?’ Monique demanded to know. ‘By who?’

Caitlin squared off and gave it to her cold. ‘By your boyfriend.’

The Gurkhas were a real find, the first stroke of good luck they’d had in a week. The Nepalese warriors were long famed as members of one of the finest regiments in the British Army. Fearsomeness alone did not make them special, however-the world wasn’t short of violent men. The Gurkhas were special because they combined a well-deserved reputation for savagery in battle with an equally well-founded renown for disciplined professionalism.

The British Army had recruited Gurkha infantry since the 1850s, and thousands still served in the regiment named for them. Such fame had they earned that former members were in high demand by private security concerns all over the world. Of course, this too made them little different from old boys of any of the world’s A-list military outfits, but for Julianne Balwyn the five Gurkha warriors standing before her were of singular appeal because they had, until a week ago, been employed as shipboard security by Carnival Cruise Lines, headquartered in Florida.

Unfortunately, the Disappearance had robbed them of an employer and any way of getting home from Acapulco. Jules chewed at the stub of a pencil while she pondered exactly how much legitimate work she might have for them, but she pushed that thought to one side. For now, she needed some tough, reliable men who wouldn’t fall apart if you pointed a gun at them, and who, just as importantly, she could trust not to sell her out.

‘So, Mr Shah, how long did your serve in the regiment?’

‘Twelve years, ma’am,’ replied the short but powerful-looking man who acted as the group leader. His accent was quite polished, for a sergeant from Nepal. ‘Four years as a private soldier. Eight as a non-commissioned officer.’

‘A sergeant?’

‘For the last six, yes, ma’am.’

Jules nodded as she scanned the employment history of the five men. The minimum any of them had served was six years. Shah had the longest stretch, at twelve. He was the only one who’d risen above corporal, making him the natural leader, even though they no longer took Her Majesty’s coin. Jules was thankful for that last point – it made negotiating with them a simpler affair.

She leaned back in the old wooden chair behind a scarred table on which sat a small pile of papers, the men’s resumes, and a loaded handgun within easy reach. A big shiny Mac 10, unsafed and set to full auto, for which she had traded away her former skipper’s beloved yacht, the Diamantina. The beautiful wooden cruiser had been worth the gun, a thousand rounds of ammunition, two Mexican Army M16s, one crate of 5.56 mm reloads, and a half-pallet of rice, milk biscuits and flour, all packed tightly into bags stamped A Gift from the People of America – US AID. The guns and stores were secured in a cage behind the Gurkhas. She would’ve preferred to have transferred them to the super-yacht, but had decided with Fifi and Mr Lee that hiring reliable security was their first priority.

‘Do you mind if I ask why you left the Cunard Line?’ she asked. The men had all been employed by the premier British cruise liner, and some had even worked on the QE2. In her admittedly biased opinion, signing on with the Florida-based party-boat operators, Carnival, was not the first step on the happy staircase to success.

‘Downsizing,’ said Shah. Coming from him, the western technobabble sounded almost alien. ‘The labour hire firm that subcontracted our services to Cunard was bought out by P amp;O, who were taken over by Carnival a year later. We were transferred to their Caribbean operations a fortnight ago. We were to pick up our next berth here at Acapulco.’ The former sergeant shrugged as a way of finishing his explanation.