Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

virus that caused this mess. They had the front to fly me there in my own bloody jet, so I’ve got the co-ordinates. Wrote them down on the back of my daughter’s wedding photo. It’s in there.”

“I’ll get it,” Bianca said. She paused in the doorway to the panic room, took a shallow breath, and darted inside.

The photo she returned with showed a young woman in a white dress, her smile barely making it past her lips. There was no groom in the picture. Tess took the picture out of the frame. On the back of the photograph was a set of co-ordinates.

“You want someone to put on trial, that’s where you go,” Baker said. “I bet that buys me a nice safe cell.”

Clyde and Teegan returned with a crate of bottled water, and a bottle of bleach. Leaving the team to gather evidence, and Clyde to douse the prisoner, Tess stepped back out into the hallway.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Mick said. “If I were creating a biological super-weapon, I wouldn’t bring a newspaper magnate to the lab. Not even one as corrupt as him. Especially not him, since he might run the story just so he could write himself up as the hero.”

“Yes, sure,” Tess said. “Except… except Dr Avalon was adamant it was created somewhere.”

“Are you saying you believe him?” Mick asked.

“I don’t disbelieve him,” Tess said. “I reckon he’ll still get the death penalty. But he’s correct. We’re not going to execute him while we still think he’s got some useful information. There’s one thing he certainly could help with: the identity of the Australian torturer. I think it’s the same killer who was in Broken Hill.”

“What about Colombia?” Mick said. “The coordinates seem about right, though I’d like to check them on a map.”

“Not my jurisdiction,” Tess said. She checked her watch. “If we get in the air now, can you radio Brisbane, tell them to send a team here? It’d make a good farmstead.”

“You’re not looking to collect evidence?”

“Oh, I am. But it’d take a week just to box this place up. We’ll have to leave that to Brisbane, because we should get Baker back to Canberra so O.O. can announce his arrest. That should stop any vote of no-confidence.”

“You’re a supporter of his now?” Mick asked.

“No, but I’m a supporter of Anna’s. If Owen goes, so does she.”

Chapter 3 - A New Parliament

Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

It was an uneventful, if noisome, flight back. Until more permanent accommodation could be arranged, Baker was installed in the detention cells at Canberra’s airport.

“Zach, find a car. We better inform Mr Owen we caught our suspect,” Tess said. “Clyde, you stay on guard here until an official replacement can be found.”

“Commissioner, can I have a word?” Toppley asked. “Bianca filled me in on what Baker said about the sisters while Clyde and I were impersonating personal shoppers. I didn’t want to say anything while Baker was listening.”

“That door’s soundproof,” Tess said. “But let’s move down the corridor. Bianca, take notes.”

Toppley looked at the socialite, but shrugged. “What purpose do secrets ever have?” she asked.

“You tell me,” Tess said. “You know about these sisters?”

“I know they had a base in Colombia,” Toppley said. “They’re real, and a presence to be avoided. If they were active in a region, you backed away, and stayed away.”

“Did you back away?” Tess asked.

“As grotty as it might seem, I was just in facilitation,” Toppley said. “Some people had guns. Some people had raw materials. Some people had the kind of tourist-facing businesses where gems could become jewellery, and so be a catalyst to create cash. High-end tourists, high-end jewellery, but still the kind of business where you stay under the radar.”

“How does this connect to these sisters?” Tess asked.

“They bought weapons in bulk, and sold them to those who’d swear fealty. Their competitors were armed with regionally produced old-model Kalashnikovs, but the sisters provided hardware from the U.S. and Britain. Hardware which came with export certificates signed and stamped to prove they weren’t being shipped to the very places where they ended up.”

“They had connections with customs officials?” Tess said. “That’s not unheard of.”

“Consistent connections lasting many years,” Toppley said. “They owned more than just customs officers. If you operated on their territory, you got a warning. Second time, they made an example. Warnings were polite. The examples were brutal. I really was just a facilitator. Though I was a participant in enough midnight escapes to make for a profitable biography, most of my work was in daylight, in towns, and over a drink or a meal. A few years ago, I had an assistant who went his own way. He wanted to take a few more risks in exchange for a life-changing payday. He took a shipment of MDMA as payment instead of cash, and sailed it into the Philippines. He was found in a cemetery, burned alive.”

“So they live up to their reputation,” Tess said. “What else? Specifically.”

“They were from Colombia. They are, probably, sisters. Must be at least sixty by now. That’s all I know, but I heard that one of them is a chemist. Russia offered them sanctuary for a while when they were younger, but they were thrown out. You must know how the North Korean government was involved in the drug trade as a way of generating hard currency? The sisters were the facilitators. In turn, that gave them a source for weaponry. That’s how they began.”

“Other than they’re about sixty years old, it sounds like more rumours,” Bianca said.

“They were said to have a small house on the Caribbean Sea. Not a palace,” Toppley said.

“Which matches what Baker told us,” Tess said. “Okay, so that’s confirmation he wasn’t lying about everything.”

“I have a name, too, for whatever that’s worth,” Toppley