“Everybody calls her Mikie.”
“Fuck you!” yelled Mikie.
“Nice to meet you, too, Mikie. Okay, Mary, let’s go to work. Whose camper van is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Kincaid pretended to be patient as she asked, “What does it look like?”
“Toyota Hilux, white box, blue cab.”
“What is a Toyota Hilux?”
“A four-berth camper on a Toyota truck.”
“Beds to screw you on!” Mikie screamed.
Kincaid said, “Give me back my phone— Careful reaching in your bag, Mary.… Thank you. And my bracelet… Thank you.” Switching the gun smoothly from hand to hand, her eyes never leaving the three women in front of her, she put on her bracelet and pocketed her phone.
“And my bag.”
Mary found it on the floor behind the passenger seat and tossed it where Kincaid indicated.
“And my ring.”
“No fucking way!” yelled Mikie.
Kincaid gestured with the gun. Mary tightened her grip on Mikie’s neck. Mikie yanked the ring off her finger and twisted around to throw it out the driver’s window. Kincaid cracked her wrist with the gun barrel. Mikie screamed in pain, and Kincaid caught the ring falling from her hand. The gun barrel stayed on target as Kincaid slipped the ring Janson gave her back on her finger.
“So how are we going to get out of this?” she repeated.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Mary said.
“You said you’re a cop, right? What rank?”
“Detective sergeant.”
“Even better. What about Doris? You’re a cop, too, Doris, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” came the tight-lipped reply.
“What rank?”
“Senior constable.”
“How about Mikie?”
“No fucking way,” said Mikie.
“Didn’t think so. Okay, Mary, you’re a detective sergeant and Doris is a senior constable. Why don’t you arrest the South African?”
“ Arrest?Are you having me on? Too many questions, when I march him into the station.”
“Did I tell you to march him into the station?”
* * *
“33°51′08″ S, 151°12′38″ E” read Janson’s Iridium screen. He had lost Jessica Kincaid’s GPS asset tracking signal as the battery grew weak. Suddenly it was back, spitting out the coordinates of the Swatch’s location.
Google Earth showed her Swatch smack in the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
He saw the bridge a quarter mile ahead, a dark arch like the humpback of a symmetrical stegosaurus. There was movement on top, just under where the flags flew. Tourists shackled to a safety line on the famous guided Bridge Climb—climbing the arch, silhouetted against the glowing clouds, plodding up the slope like prisoners of war.
Then the GPS coordinates faded from the screen, her battery dying again, or the device blocked.
* * *
“STOP THE VEHICLE!” Kincaid ordered. A very good idea was falling apart even before they entered Luna Park’s garage.
“What’s wrong?” said Doris.
“Read the sign.”
It was suspended over the driveway, a white board held by chains.
MAXIMUM VEHICLE HEIGHT 1.9 METRES
“We’re not that high.”
“A camper on a truck is. He can’t fit in there. Who told him he could?”
“Mikie.”
“Who else?…” Kincaid thought hard. “Turn around, Doris. Head back where the road went under the bridge approach. We’ll cruise the area. He’s got to be waiting nearby.”
They circled for five minutes. All of a sudden Mary reached reflexively toward her belt.
“Is that your phone?”
“Yeah. It’s on vibrate.”
“Check if it’s him.”
She turned the phone so Kincaid could see the screen. “BLOCKED.”
“Answer it. If it’s him, tell him we’re waiting where the road goes under the highway to the bridge—see down there by those stairs, Doris?”
Doris steered the van toward the steps, which were barricaded with sawhorses and signs that the walkway was closed for the ongoing bridge upgrade and renovation. Walkers were directed to the bike path.
“Tell him we’re down there, Mary. Make him come to you.”
“Hello?” said Mary, listened a moment, and nodded to Kincaid. “Yeah, sorry about that. We’re here.… Yeah, I know you can’t fit. We’re parked down the road at the bottom of the steps to the bridge.… No. Past the tow truck garage— No, there’s no one around. The stairs are closed for the upgrade. It’s cool. It’ll just take a second to put her in your vehicle.” She turned off the phone. “Five minutes.”
“How good are you two? This guy is really tough.”
“We need our guns back,” said Mary.
“Sure.”
Watching the Australian detective’s eyes, Kincaid popped the magazines out of their police pistols, cleared the chambers, emptied the magazines, put them back, and tossed the pistols to them. “He’s strong enough to break your disposable cuffs. Got steel?”
“Yeah.”
Kincaid could see that both women were hunkering down into themselves, preparing for action—tough street cops pumping up for a bust. Excellent. Bent as hairpins, but still good at their job.
“Cuff him hand and foot. Throw him in the back of the camper. Chain him to something he can’t break loose. I’ll take him from there.”
“And you’ll just let us go?”
“If you don’t screw up.”
“What about the money he’s supposed to pay us?” asked Mikie.
“Mikie. Come here. I want to show you something.”
“What?”
“Put your hands behind you. Come closer. Look at this.” Kincaid rapped her hard on the temple with the Tomcat, and Mikie collapsed in a silent heap.
“What did you do that for?” Mary cried.
“So she can’t try to screw it up to get me killed.”
“Good move,” said Doris.
“Here he comes.”
Kincaid watched from inside the van, through the open window on the driver’s side, as the two cops executed a thoroughly professional takedown. They waited until Van Pelt stepped out of the camper’s cab. Then flashed their badges and drew their weapons.
Caught flat-footed in what Kincaid assumed Van Pelt must be guessing was some sort of police sting, the big South African did not resist. He turned around as the cops ordered with the resigned expression of a man who knew that expensive attorneys would shortly rally to his defense and placed his big hands on the hood of the Toyota. Doris kicked his feet apart, without getting too close, and covered him with her empty pistol. Mary patted him down. She removed a gun from a belly holster and another from the small of his back. More evidence, Kincaid thought, of SR’s long reach. Moments after passing through airport security, the operative had gotten fully equipped.
Kincaid raised her own weapon now that Mary had a loaded gun in her hand. But the Australian detective continued the procedure as if this were an ordinary arrest. She clamped a cuff on Van Pelt’s left wrist and told him to bring his hands together. Van Pelt obeyed, sliding his bandaged right arm across the hood. But just when the cops felt safe was the most dangerous moment.
Kincaid yelled, “Heads-up!”
The South African mercenary exploded into motion, straightening up and swinging both arms wide, knocking both women to the ground and lunging for his guns, which had fallen to the pavement.
Kincaid fired through the open window. But Van Pelt was still in motion and the Tomcat lay too small in her hand to shoot accurately at any distance. The slug fanned Van Pelt’s face. Startled by lead flying from an unexpected direction, he jumped back from reaching for his own guns, grabbed one of the Glocks that the cops had dropped, and dove behind the camper. In the seconds it took Kincaid to get out of the van, the Securité Referral operative leaped the sawhorses and bounded up the stairs to the Harbour Bridge.
TWENTY-FIVE
Kincaid vaulted the barricade and chased after Van Pelt, two steps at a time.