Redback (48 page)

Laura was livid. Scott was gobsmacked. Director Janeway was already asking questions.

The agents reporting in from the hospital were instructed to secure Kyle McTeal's body for an FBI
autopsy, and obtain all security-camera footage from Arlington Memorial. Janeway also ordered an
immediate but low-key internal inquiry into who else knew about McTeal's name turning up; or Laura
and Scott's visit to the hospital.

Laura pointed out that if someone, like Jesse-Jay Baggett, had killed Kyle the timing may have
just been a coincidence. It may simply have taken him that long to find him amongst the survivors
scattered around the different hospitals.

Janeway said there was no such thing as a coincidence and wasn't taking any chances, and took
leave of them. Half an hour later she was back down with Laura and Scott to pick up where they'd
left off. The SAC and two other senior Dallas Office agents joined them around the table.

Janeway, who had been using the computer to access her own in Washington, began by returning to
the
Atlantes
. 'Do you know what the word means?'

'They're statues,' Laura said. 'First I thought the game-maker couldn't spell Atlantis, but I
looked it up just in case.'

'Atlantes are not simply statues. They are building supports or columns, sculpted in the form of
a man. Sometimes they're a complete male figure, sometimes just the head and torso forms the top of
the column. They are always holding something up. The plural of the word atlas, atlantes are
therefore named after Atlas, one of the Titans who were forerunners to the Greek gods. Atlas was
forced to hold the earth, or rather to keep the sky above the earth, on his shoulders for
eternity.'

Scott and Laura both nodded at Janeway as if to say,
that's nice
.

The Director's return smile implied that there was, obviously, a point to this architecture
lesson.

Janeway swivelled the computer screen so everyone in the room could see. 'They're quite splendid
really, and found throughout the world. We use them ourselves on our courthouses and other state and
federal buildings. This row of atlantes is on a palace in Warsaw,' she said.

Before the captured audience could fully appreciate the muscle-bound godly figures holding up a
portico on the other side of the world, Janeway clicked the mouse and brought up another image.

'This is a variation on the theme. The female equivalent of atlantes is caryatid - the most
famous of which grace the Parthenon.'

Scott frowned. 'Is that a tattoo?'

'It is indeed,' Janeway said. 'And this particular tattoo graces the back of one Ilia Dushenko,
mastermind of the Luxembourg train bomb, carried out in the name of Atarsa Kára under her
codename Caryatid.'

'Man,' Scott moaned. 'I new this was a Plot with a capital P.'

He recounted his whole story for the benefit of the EAD, until Laura picked it up from when
they'd joined forces and gone to Nuevo Laredo. They finally came full circle to the topic of the
Australians and what they had learned from them.

'So I'm thinking I might fly out to Sydney tomorrow and check out what they've got and see how it
fits with what we've got.'

'You see, now this is what I'm talking about,' Special Agent Hayden said, as if he had been
talking.

'What?' asked Scott.

'You can't just go off to Australia and give the Australians our Intelligence.'

I doubt they'd want it.
'Why not?' Scott asked. 'It's mostly
my
information, now
mixed with theirs. It's certainly not yours, or ours to keep. This affects a hell of a lot more
people than just us.'

The SAC simply gestured at Scott like that explained everything to Director Janeway. 'This has to
be a matter of national security. We've already had one possible leak and allegedly lost the bomber.
And now he wants to share intel with a foreign country. He's a reporter for heaven's sake. I mean
we…'

The sight and sound of Scott Dreher bumping his forehead on the table was the only thing that
stopped the SAC from venting.

'Scott, stop it. Scott,' Laura said.

Scott stood up, rummaged through their files and pulled out a photo. He turned it around so that
everyone could see, as he waved his hand in front of it like a pre-school teacher with a picture
book.

'This is Jamal Zahkri al Khudri, known terrorist, arms dealer, and the Emissary of Atarsa
Kára. This is Micah O'Brien, the murdered Fort Hood conspirator. This picture was taken a
couple of years ago - not at some terrorist training camp in the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan,
but at the Dallas War Fair. That's an arms convention held right here in Texas.

'Now, sir, how about you explain
that
to Director Janeway, before you even mention the
words journalist and national security in the same sentence. I mean, I for one am still wondering
how Zahkri was right here in this very city, obviously under surveillance,' Scott waved the photo,
'and yet remains at large to wreak bloodshed and havoc all over the fucking planet.' Scott blinked.
'Sorry about that, I was trying very hard not to swear.'

'May I see?' Janeway said trying to catch hold of the photo. Except for a hint of displeasure,
her expression was almost unreadable. Then she sighed. 'Go see the Australians Scott. I will give
you direct access to my office and any kind of assistance that is possible, practical and
sensible.'

Back Door, Sydney, Australia
Thursday 3 pm

Gideon took the stairs to the Redback Bivouac. Her run had only been 10 km today so
jogging the last eight floors to her lounge room was the trade-off. She passed through the kitchen,
grabbed a bottle of water and headed down the west corridor to see who was up. Coop's door was open.
Triko's door wore its big do not disturb red dot, but she banged on it and pushed it open
anyway.

'Game update in the Hub in nine minutes, Triko,' she said.

The door at the far end of the west wing was also shut, but even new recruits were required at
this meeting. She smiled, entered the guest suite and walked on, through the small interior lounge,
to the bedroom doorway.

'Redback recruit Rossi,' she said sharply, trying not to laugh. 'Up and at em. We have a full
briefing in the Recon Room in the Hub four floors down in 11.5 minutes.'

'Bugger off Bryn,' Jana said from beneath her pillow.

'I'm serious Dr Rossi. You wouldn't want to be the only one to miss out on the goss would
you?'

In a single neat manoeuvre Jana rolled over, sat up and swung her legs out of bed. She was
wearing just undies and a singlet, her short hair was travelling in more directions that Qantas, and
her face said:
leave or, sometime around next Sunday, I'll think about knocking you flat
.

'Have a quick shower Jana, there'll be food and coffee waiting downstairs.'

When Gideon entered the Recon Room 15 minutes after her own shower the place was full of people,
including everyone she expected and a few she didn't.

Jana barrelled into the room but stopped dead in her tracks to avoid running into Gideon; and so
she could stand in awe.

'My God, I'm in a James Bond movie. This is 007 HQ, NCIS command and the NASA control room - in a
lounge.'

The right half of the room was all computer banks and screens and the two people who operated
them. The left half was a mini-movie theatre with a couple of rows of very comfy looking seats and a
screen that filled the entire wall. In between was a huge boardroom table surrounded by chairs and
laden with food.

Gideon led her to the head of the table and sat her down. Coop placed a freshly brewed coffee in
front of her. Then a disturbingly attractive man, old enough to be her father, with dark but greying
short hair and a physique that screamed gym-jock, sat down next to her. She had a vague recollection
of meeting him in a group of other strangers when they'd all arrived at Back Door yesterday
evening.

'Eric Ryder,' he said helpfully.

'The Boss Dog,' Coop said, also helpfully.

Jana nodded. 'Right,' she said, and smiled at Ruth Jardine who took the seat on her left.

'Top Dog,' Coop added, pointing at Ruth as he sat beside her.

'Righto you lot, gather around,' Gideon said.

It took a couple of minutes for everyone, except Bamm-Bamm Kennedy who reclined across two of the
theatre seats with his leg up, to settle around the table. Jana knew everyone: Coop, Triko, Brody,
Mudge, Ryder, Ruth, Bryn, and Marco and Wade
- two of the other Redbacks from Laui. The exception was the grinning young man who suddenly stood
beside her.

'Jana,' Gideon said, 'this is Oliver, our primo techie.'

Oliver grinned again and shook her hand. 'Welcome aboard,' he said and returned to his computer
station.

Coop leant over to Jana. 'Don't ask how, but we think he's got a crush on you.'

Before Jana could even react, the big screen which had been showing a satellite map of the world
divided into eight separate displays, each still bigger than the average home-theatre TV screen.

'Oliver has been running a search on all the key words, phrases, images, names, notions, vague
ideas, you name it, that he, we, you and the other American, the reporter guy, could think of in
order to build a data map of everything we know,' Gideon said.

'Or should know,' Ryder said.

'Or would like to forget,' Triko said.

'Oh, and the American is on his way here,' Ruth said.

'Why?' Jana asked.

'He probably fancies you too,' Gideon said.

'He's bringing his
WarTek
disk, his info and his journalistic curiosity,' Ryder said.

'Can't his disk just be downloaded and sent via the ether?' Jana asked waving at the room.

'Not everything that's on the disk,' Oliver said. 'And we need everything.'

'Rawley also contacted me last night,' Gideon said. She glanced at Brody, Mudge and Kennedy - the
newbies to that part of their adventure. 'He's the US Marine from the botched raid on Laui who got
nabbed in Thailand by the bad guy - or who or whatever the hell Nick Kelman is.

'Anyway, Rawley's heard something on the grapevine about the Titan Guards. He was going to check
it out for us, and find an internet café to hook up with us about now-ish.'

'What's this about the Titan Guards?' Ryder looked both baffled and surprised.

Gideon filled him in about Kelman having trained the Titan Guards and how he'd been with them
when they'd rescued Prime Minister Harvey and the Canadian PM from the attack by Groh Sitaarah at
CHOGM in New Delhi.

Ryder shook his head. 'I had a call from Mick Fleming. Remember the Foreign Minister's sidekick
who hired us to retrieve Jana? He wanted to know if we'd consider providing close protection - well,
one step back from the Secret Service - but protection for Arlen Conte, the Vice President of the
United States, when he's here on the weekend.'

'I hope you told him we don't do that,' Gideon said.

'Of course, Bryn. But the thing is he was hoping we'd make an exception because the original
request came 'direct' via a circuitous route from the American VP himself; via their Deputy
Secretary of State Adam Lyall, through Teddy Drake the head of one of Britain's spy networks, and
endorsed by Jennifer Leland,
our
High Commissioner to the UK. And it was not for us, but for
the Titan Guards. He wanted visas granted for them to operate here.'

'Oh. Shit,' Gideon said. 'I think.'

'Yes, yes, do think that,' Jana said. 'Remember that Rawley told us it was Adam Lyall who sent
him to Laui.'

'And that it was possible, though he didn't really think so, that it was also Lyall who'd placed
Kelman on Lau to help the rebels that he, Rawley, was supposed to go in and rescue Jana from,' Coop
said.

'Hey, don't put me in their equation. I was your Prime Objective, not theirs,' Jana said.

'Except that it means it was probably Adam Lyall who sicked Kelman on to Rawley in Chiang Mai,'
Coop said.

'What is it that you're all saying here?' Ryder asked.

Gideon spread her arms as if it was obvious. 'That there's definitely something screwy going
on.'

'So if we said no to Mick Fleming…' Ruth began.

'It means that our Prime Minister will bend over for the Americans again. This time he'll cave in
and allow a bunch of mercenaries, led by a covert operative, provide Vice President Conte with
security while he is at our SETSA conference,' Gideon said.

'Why does that not fill me with good things?' Ryder asked. 'What other bad news is there?'

'I've got some,' Oliver said. 'News, I mean. You can decide whether it's good or bad. Screen
please everyone.'

Everyone did as they were told and turned to face the changing images on the wall screen.

'The guy on the right is Assad bin Khalid al Harbi. That picture was sent to us by a lovely woman
named Brenda Janeway from the FBI Field Office in Dallas, where our new American friend Scott Dreher
was before he left to come here.'

'Oliver,' Ryder said.

'Sorry Boss. The guy, Assad bin Khalid al Harbi, had a connection to the shonky American version
of the
WarTek
disk, and possibly to the Dallas bombings. He was photographed here, as you can
see, with Jamal Zahkri, the Emissary of Atarsa Kára. This was at a weapons convention in
Dallas a couple of years ago. And '
had
a connection' is actually the operative phrase of that
previous statement, because the guy was killed in a bus crash in Paris a couple of weeks ago.

'At the time of his death he was studying engineering at Berkeley, but being of the
vomitously-rich Saudi Arabian category, though not
of
the House of Saud, this Assad was as
much a playboy as a serious student.

'The photo on the right, same guy different place. This was seven years ago, also at the Uni of
California where Assad was then studying anthropology, economics, literature - anything and
everything apparently.'