Black Ice Part 22

Christian, she thought, it's time to thank you for those beautiful flowers.

Byron shook his head at the loser in the Commodore next to him. Don't bother, he tried to tell the family man with his eyes. You're definitely outcla.s.sed.

The Commodore's engine growled. Oh, you want a go, do ya, f.u.c.kwit? Byron asked Family Man with his eyes.

Byron focused on the traffic lights; his foot hovering above the accelerator. He knew he didn't need to worry. He could give this p.r.i.c.k half the intersection and he'd still thrash him. He tried not to smirk it ruined the image. That's why he bought this car, an electric-blue Subaru WRX a Rexie. He'd wanted one since they first came out. A Rexie could beat almost any street-legal car from a standing start, especially with the right driver. And he knew he was the right driver. Family Man, you're about to be humbled, he thought.

The lights changed and the Rexie screamed off the mark, hurtling through the intersection as though ratcheted through a spear gun.

'f.u.c.k yeah!' yelled Byron, hurled back by the speed against the headrest. He saluted out the window to the Commodore behind him, middle finger held high and proud. 'Suck me off, Family Man!' he shouted.

Byron continued to smile as he rolled up Woodville Road, elbow out the window, blowing smoke in the breeze. Oh yeah, this is a sweet ride, he thought. He laughed, remembering the conversation he'd had with Damien when he'd paid his deposit on this car. What a k.n.o.b.

'I told you, Byron,' Damien had said to him, 'you shouldn't go buying things that can create a paper trail.'

'What paper trail?' Byron had countered. 'I'm paying cash.'

'Well, it's a figure of speech,' said Damien. 'It means that you're acquiring a.s.sets that you can't afford. Anyone looking into your declared income and purchases will see that you can't afford to buy that car.'

Byron had waved the order for the Rexie in front of Damien's face. Proof that he could.

'Legally,' said Damien.

'You ever heard of horse races?' said Byron. 'The casino? I'm a lucky c.u.n.t is all. That's what I'll tell 'em.'

'They've heard that before, Byron. They've got ways of figuring that s.h.i.t out.'

'Look, chef. You worry too much, man. You just do what you do and I'll do what I do so well,' Byron had told him.

Byron cut into the left lane without indicating. Business had already picked up, he thought. With Nader in, they had new orders coming out of their a.r.s.eholes, even just over the past couple of days. And Damien would have to cook the s.h.i.t to fill those orders. Byron knew that pretty soon Damien was going to be too busy to worry about anything other than the stove.

He punched in the cigarette lighter on the dash and thought about asking Kasem if he could hire a runner. He knew that he was supposed to be the runner, but there was a lot of s.h.i.t to move; he could use a hand. Still, this new contact Nader had given them might be enough without getting anyone else involved.

He considered the delivery waiting in the wheel well in the boot. That's a lot of eccy, he thought, and our whole batch of ice. Nader reckoned this new p.r.i.c.k would take them into lounge rooms all over the Eastern suburbs; he'd said they'd be turning over a lot more than that soon.

He pulled onto the M4 and opened up the Rexie a little, scaring the bejesus out of some nanna who'd wandered into the right lane. He laughed at the woman's ashen face as he shot past. That'll teach ya, he thought. You b.i.t.c.hes should keep to the left! He glanced at the time on the dash. He'd better get a move on for real. As the streetlights winked to life, Byron raced his Rexie into the city to meet their new distribution partner.

Who'd have f.u.c.ken believed it, he thought, shaking his head and lighting another smoke. The hot new connection was Mr Pro Bono himself. Christian f.u.c.king Worthington.

46.

Sat.u.r.day 13 April, 12.15 pm.

After leaving the uni, Jill and Gabriel spent the rest of their Sat.u.r.day at Central in Surry Hills, the Sydney headquarters for the New South Wales police. Superintendent Last had organised for them to meet up with two of the most senior drug investigators in the country. Cameron Genovese and Olsen Lanvin were at the pointy end of the Australian Crime Commission's Special Intelligence Operation into amphetamine type stimulants.

Last had insisted that Jill take the bas.e.m.e.nt entrance to the multistorey building and had arranged for Genovese and Lanvin to meet them in a secure interrogation room. Jill noticed that the CCTV cameras in the corridors were not operating. She appreciated it. It had been three months since she'd had such regular contact with other police, and she was antsy. She couldn't afford any slip-ups. Even this far from Fairfield, she could still be made as a cop by a civilian.

But meeting Lanvin and Genovese actually worried her more than being recognised on the street. Her cover could be blown in here just as easily as out there. While Last had promised her these were the good guys, the ACC had been brought almost to its knees a couple of times by its own double agents. Parasites within, who'd been hooked up to the highest-level intel in drug enforcement, and who'd used it to get really rich, really fast. The most recent scandal had involved one of the ACC's senior operatives, caught mid-shipment trying to import six hundred kilograms of pseudoephedrine.

Jill paused at the door to the closed room. You've got to trust someone sometime, she told herself, and turned the handle. Gabriel followed her in.

The guy who stood when they entered seemed somehow see-through to Jill, kind of transparent. His suit and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses, his hair and even his skin, seemed all the same shade of featureless fawn.

'Olsen Lanvin.' He reached his hand across the table to Jill.

'Jill Jackson,' she said, with a quick grip of his hand. She stepped to the side to introduce her partner. 'And this is '

'Delahunt,' said the third man in the room. He stayed where he was, seated on the table, his big feet in black boots resting on a chair. He wore a blue police jumpsuit tucked into the boots, and even sitting he seemed to take up most of the room.

Jill reached forward to shake his hand; hers was completely lost in his. 'I see you know Gabriel,' she said, maintaining eye contact, but unable to prevent herself taking a small step backwards. The guy was huge. 'So, you'd be Genovese?'

'Cameron,' he said.

'Jill,' she said.

Gabriel just waited.

Lanvin cleared his throat, gestured to the chairs. 'We should get on with it, then,' he said.

Jill and Lanvin took a seat. Gabriel and Genovese didn't move. Jill sighed inwardly. The boy thing. Again. Lanvin gave Genovese a neutral glance and inclined his colourless eyes to a chair. Genovese dropped into it. Gabriel took the remaining seat.

'Our brief,' said Lanvin, 'is to give you both a rundown on precursor substances used in the production of ATS.'

Lanvin continued. 'You're going to have to forgive me if I cover s.h.i.t you already know. But stop me on points that require clarification.'

Jill pulled her notebook and a pen from her bag. Straight into it, then. Suited her fine.

'You'd be aware that the precursor substances used for illicit ATS production are also used by the chemical industry for licit purposes,' he said. 'Because of this, it's been difficult to control the production and importation of many of these substances, and criminal elements actively exploit the holes to get their hands on this stuff.'

'Could you tell us a bit more about these holes?' said Jill. 'Last probably told you we're watching a clan lab now, and we'd like to know where they might be sourcing the precursors.'

'Well, everyone knows about the pseudo-runs, of course,' said Lanvin. 'Buying or stealing cold and flu medications from multiple pharmacies and then extracting the pseudoephedrine. That's harder for them now since we got the chemists to put this stuff behind the counter and restrict bulk purchases.'

Genovese spoke for the first time. 'Which has increased the number of stick-ups and smash-and-grabs in chemists,' he said.

'True,' said Lanvin, 'but those are only the small-time cooks, anyway. If you've found yourself a big player, you want to be looking for someone who's importing. They'll be channelling shipments through countries with poor control systems.'

'Like Papua New Guinea,' said Gabriel.

Genovese raised his eyes.

Lanvin said, 'Yeah, maybe. Your boy got links there?'

Gabriel shrugged. 'Not sure yet,' he said.

'How do they get it through these countries?' Jill asked.

'There're a number of methods,' said Lanvin. 'Some Pacific island nations are not party to the international control convention on these chemicals, so there is some trafficking to and through these nations. There's also bribing of corrupt officials, product mislabelling, falsification of authorisations or official doc.u.ments and misuse of free trade zones and bonded warehouses. Of course there's also traditional smuggling in private vessels or in seemingly innocuous shipments.'

Jill listed the methods as bullet points in her notes. She felt Genovese watching her, sizing her up. She met his eyes.

'You're gonna need our help with this, if you've got yourself an importer,' he said.

'We're not sure what we've got right now,' said Jill, eyes on her notes as she spoke. 'The clan lab's pretty small-scale to date, but there is a new entrant and we don't want to move too quickly and lose him now.'

'Agreed,' said Lanvin. 'Last has sketched in some of the details, so we're giving you a little leeway at the moment. I understand you have a direct line of communication with this new entrant?'

'That's right,' said Jill. I'm having dinner with him tonight. She ignored the nervous thrill that came with the thought.

'It sounds to us,' said Genovese, who still hadn't looked away from her, 'that what you've probably got here is a boxed lab being muscled in on by organised crime.'

'Ah, you think?' said Gabriel.

Jill ignored Gabriel's sarcasm; these two obviously had a history. And she, for one, hadn't heard the phrase before. 'Boxed lab?' she said.

'It's just a term for a small, local enterprise,' explained Lanvin. 'They can be mobile within a few hours, box the whole kitchen up and find somewhere else to cook. They're particularly prevalent in southeast Queensland at the moment. You often find that the cooks don't even have a criminal record. Sometimes it's just a group of friends who got together and came up with what sounded like a good idea at the time.'

Jill nodded. Sounded familiar. She pictured Damien's miserable face and his untouched falafel burger at the university cafeteria.

'What we're noticing lately, though,' continued Lanvin, 'is that the professionals are locating and muscling in on these pigeons. They just buy the job lot and subsume the whole operation. You got the usual suspects involved. Outlaw bikies are probably still number one, especially with the speed. The Triads and Middle Eastern crime gangs slug it out over the ice and the eccy.'

Jill wondered how much they knew about Nader. They seemed to have a very good picture of what was going on in this particular investigation. She dropped her eyes to her notes and chewed her bottom lip. She wondered whether this was a st.i.tch-up. Was she being used? It suddenly occurred to her that these guys might not be here to help with her investigation, but to check them out to make sure she wasn't compromising theirs. Organised crime gangs weren't the only people known to muscle in on small, promising operations and take over.

It never changes, she thought; bull elephants at the edges of the clearing, d.i.c.ks in the wind, preparing to take out their rivals. She sighed. When it comes right down to it, she thought, they could have the bust lord knew they needed some good PR, and she wasn't going to raise her hand for a media interview. The main thing that worried her, though, was the potential for casualties of war. She glanced at Lanvin and Genovese the invisible man and the armoured tank. When they went in, she knew it would be heavy. She caught Gabriel's eye. He raised one eyebrow, smirked just a smidge. Yeah, the whole thing could be considered pretty funny, except that caught up in the middle of it all was Damien, a kid in way over his head. She wasn't sure what kind of punishment he deserved, but she knew it wasn't death.

And then there was Kasem Nader. Right at the heart of the web. He'd be preparing for their dinner tonight, and here she was briefing the exterminators.

47.

Sat.u.r.day 13 April, 7 pm.

Seren left Marco and Angel with homemade plum pork ribs and store-bought fried rice. Before she walked out the door, Marco had let her kiss the top of his head without ducking away. He was pretty happy with the food. Angel smiled at her from the kitchen, one arm draped around his shoulders. Thanks, Seren mouthed at her friend as she pulled the door closed.

She just hoped that the smells wouldn't entice any hungry neighbours. One in particular. Angel had told her that she'd seen Tready this morning, limping back from the mailboxes.

'Did you say hi for me?' Seren had asked, falsely bright. Her stomach had dropped into free-fall at the mention of his name. 'How'd he look?' she'd asked, not wanting to know.

'All f.u.c.ked up.' Angel had laughed. 'His nose! Oh my G.o.d! And his eyes are completely black. Remind me, b.i.t.c.h, not to get on your bad side.'

'You're talking!' Seren gave a flat laugh. She and Angel shared a look. They joked about the violence, but they both knew it wasn't funny.

Within a week of meeting Angel in gaol, Seren had shocked herself by telling her new friend about her stepfather's violence. She hadn't told anyone since Alexandra, her best friend in Year 7. She even told Angel what happened to Bradley, her little brother, and she'd never told anyone that. How she used to hear him screaming and could do nothing. How she'd tried, smashing at her stepfather's back with her fists, as he leaned over her little brother's bed. How he hadn't even turned around while backhanding her across the room, before going on with the beating. How her mother's pleading and screaming had drawn his attacks back to her. Holding her stomach in the prison laundry, hunched forward with the pain of talking about this for the first time, Seren had told Angel how she hated her mother for not leaving that man, her heart tearing as she admitted it, because she had also loved her mother so much.

Finally, Seren had told Angel how she hated herself more, even, than she hated that pig. She hated herself for not killing him while he slept. Any night would have done; she'd planned it a thousand times, lying frozen in her bed, so taut with tension and fear that she felt her teeth would shatter in her mouth. But she'd never acted; not even when the cops had carried Bradley out of the house and into the care of the state. Not even the night she'd spent an hour trying to wake her mother from unconsciousness, pink fluid drizzling from her ear after yet another bashing.

Angel had held her, quietly, while the washing machines sloshed and whirred around them. Somehow, Seren had known that Angel would understand. As it turned out, she did: Angel had repaid Seren's confidence by telling her about her husband, Danny. She'd loved him once; all she'd ever wanted was to have his children and look after a family. She told Seren about the miscarriages giving birth, howling, to jellied globs, after being head-b.u.t.ted in her pregnant stomach, or rammed, belly first, into the corner of a lounge. She'd told Seren how she'd screamed for her babies to stay with her, not to die. And how Wayne had snored through it all, sleeping off his drunken slugfest. Angel had told Seren that she'd had the same murderous fantasies, every night. And how now she felt his brains on her hands, every night. And that she wasn't sure what was worse.

Now, in a taxi yet again, on the way to meet Christian at his office, Seren closed the door on those memories. She checked her glossy, barely-pink fingernails, and angled her bare legs towards the door, away from the cabbie's eyes in the rear vision mirror. Every now and then, a spear of brightness from the streetlights lit up the shadows around her feet. Her patent stilettoes glinted like blades when they caught the light. She was a long way from her gaol-issue tracksuit in this outfit. And yet, so close. If Maria Thomasetti knew where she was going right now, and why, she'd be bunking with Crash and Little Kim tomorrow night.

As the cab idled in traffic near Chinatown, she wondered why she hadn't told Angel about her blackmail plot. As far as her friend knew, while she was babysitting Marco, Seren really was working. Seren was aware that Angel didn't buy the whole story. Angel knew that Seren wasn't off to waitress, dressed like this. She knew what Angel thought she was doing: the kind of work most girls got into when released.

Seren stared out into the dusk. She figured that Angel wasn't that far wrong. After all, Seren actually was giving Christian s.e.x in return for money. But the cab vouchers, clothes and petty cash would only temporarily dull her self-disgust for sleeping with the man who'd sent her to gaol.

Seren held her mobile phone up in front of her face and in the reflective screen checked her lips for shine. Oh well, she was pretty sure that the million dollars he was going to pay would have a more lasting effect at cheering her up.

48.

Sat.u.r.day 13 April, 7 pm.

'You know, I really don't have time for this.' Jill angled her face towards Gabriel and her hair snagged on a twig in the gra.s.s. She tugged, and it snarled further. She snorted in frustration and sat up.

'No! Lie back down,' said Gabriel. 'It's going to happen soon.'

'But it's getting cold.'

'Shh. Wait.'

Jill scowled and reclined into the almost damp gra.s.s under the canopy of a ma.s.sive Port Jackson fig tree. She had to admit that the fading autumn light around Mrs Macquarie's Chair was gorgeous. As she watched, the transparent oranges blushed into reds, bruised into purple, and then slipped, almost imperceptibly, into inky wine.

And then it happened.

The skies erupted. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of the night exploded from the trees above her, and swarmed across the sky. She tried to exclaim, but found she had no breath, as though it had been sucked from her by the downdraught of the countless bat wings. The little bodies spun and circled, careening and twisting, silent, but for the shushing, breathy noise of their wings. Her hand on her heart, Jill stared as suddenly, almost as one, the bats soared away from the harbourside park and headed across the water for the city. She sat up on the gra.s.s, peering after them, her eyes straining against the darkness. When the cloud approached the lights of the skyline, it seemed suddenly to shatter, to splinter apart.

The thousand dots of darkness spread out across Sydney to hunt for smaller, more defenceless things on Sat.u.r.day night.

49.