Читать книгу Vivienne. Just an ordinary suburban housewife… no more - Colin Palmer - Страница 9

Foster Barnes was frustrated. He hated frustration. He hated bureaucracy, his most common cause of frustration. He sat in the sleeper section of the huge black rig, wondering why he had even bothered coming to this wretched place.

Forty-eight hours ago he had been in the sunny warm climate of an Hawaiian winter, albeit chasing one of his career challengers, the one that had escaped him in the Camaro. Now he wished he were back there again. The promise of what awaited him in Australia seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

A bank of radios to his left squawked and fluttered continuously. Their flashing LEDs’ advised him of the constant radio traffic from airport, marine and police, as well as all forms of public access frequencies. Computers monitored the chatter, continually searching bands of the spectrum and zeroing in on conversations, eliciting single words that may indicate his prey had been located. Positive responses were recorded on computer to be replayed and analysed at his leisure. Identification of multiple words of interest from a single conversation would automatically and immediately be amplified through his headset, until he manually rejected them. There had been nothing for almost two days. Not a single word except lazy conversations between patrolmen commenting on the case, or users of citizen band radios across the country gossiping about his quarry – and the astonishing things she had done.

Foster Barnes was frustrated. Frustrated and excited too, as this was the one thing, the one person he had waited his career, his life, to discover. He heard the tap of the security code, and the hum as the retina scanner operated before the pedestrian door shooshed open, and the craggy faced features of Peter entered the truck. Barnes eyed him off, knowing that even though Pete had come from the night outside, his vision inside the giant pantech would be limited by the fact that apart from a squillion tiny, flashing LEDs, it was in pitch black darkness.

“You here Boss?”

Foster thought he may stay silent – he could already tell Pete had nothing good to pass onto him. But he liked this man, really had enjoyed their ten hour jaunt up the highway with him. It was certainly not Petes’ fault the investigation had gone nowhere.

“Here Pete.”

“I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. Which would you like first.”

Pete walked unerringly toward him, even though Barnes remained invisible in the darkness. He stopped about a metre away and looked him squarely in the eyes.

“You knew I was here.”

“Wasn’t hard boss. You ain’t moved in near twenty-four hours. Get any sleep at all?”

“Nope. Tell me the bad news.”

“After piss fartin’ around with the state cops yesterday, it looks like we’ll finally get cooperation from them.”

“That’s the bad news? That’s good.”

“Not really. The cooperation will be limited to passing on any reports. And if they pass on reports near as efficiently as they found us a parking bay, I reckon we’ll hear about anything of interest, oh, about New Year if ya get my drift.”

“That isn’t so bad.” Foster slid a lever and a soft red light bathed the two of them, enough to see clearly but not enough to disturb their night vision. He waved at the surrounding technology. “I’ll find out as they do anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah. No doubt.”

“The good news then?”

“They’ve got us a permanent parking space, permanent until this is over one way or t’other anyway.”

Fosters eyes did brighten. It was good news. They had arrived at the Broadbeach Police Headquarters early yesterday, very early, and the greeting had been less than cordial. They were now parked outside the little Federal Police building at Robina, a few kilometres inland. It was located in a fairly new area, however the truck was not secure. The building itself was almost completely surrounded by ongoing excavations and construction that interfered with the reliability of the equipment and made discretion impossible. A huge black pantech behind an equally big black prime mover was obvious enough, but being parked behind a Federal Police building, with the automatic aerials, antenna, and receiver displays activated on the roof made the vehicle as conspicuous as a cat at a rodents only party.

Exacerbating this was a large sign in front of the nondescript building announcing it to all and sundry as the Australian Federal Police. In the immediate proximity were a major shopping centre, high school, and combined railway station and bus terminal ringing the building, and therefore the truck as conveniently as a sporting stadium. And the truck was the home team everyone would want to see play.

“Excellent! Where?”

Peter dropped his very large head. Foster realised he’d already heard the good news. The words that followed confirmed his worst fear.

“Right here Boss.”

Foster ripped off his head set and tossed it against the wall cursing loudly. He stood up and brushed past Pete and stalked up and down the centre of the pantech swearing loudly at bureaucracy, Australia, Police Forces, koala bears and anything else remotely related to his current location and predicament. On his second lap, the overhead speakers squawked longer than usual, automatically activated by the removal of his headset and the provision of enough key words to be retransmitted directly. Barnes stopped dead and cocked his head. He held one finger up to Pete to be quiet.

“Playback,” he commanded.

There was a moments pause then a short conversation followed – two Police Officers in a brief radio exchange.

“Yeah, can’t wait to get off. Hey did you hear the woman Vivienne rang in?”

“You’re kidding?”

“No way, I was in the Operators Room when she called.”

“What did she say?”

“It was pretty short. She asked for the FBI guy, Foster Barnes, and hung up when she was told he wasn’t there.”

“Fuck hey, just like that? What about the Broncos game this…”

“Save,” Barnes commanded and looked at Pete. “Can we get a car or do we have to take the rig back in there?”

“It’s the middle of the night boss. The office is closed here, there’s no cars.”

Foster Barnes began another tirade.