LITMIR.BIZ

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but his tone had implied a lot more than irritation.

      With a mental note to look into Craig's background in detail, John turned back to the folder McSwain had given him.

      His pulse quickened as he read. Although he'd been informed that the project they'd been working on at Duralinga for some years now was classified Above Top Secret, it was the first time McSwain had given him any clue as to the nature of it. As he continued reading, he understood why McSwain had been so focused on maintaining contact with Leon Thompson. If data like this was being leaked, they were in the shit big-time.

      John hesitated at McSwain's office door before knocking. He waited for his boss's growled 'Come in', then turned the handle and walked inside.

      'Well?' The growl deepened.

      John put the folder on the desk. 'If Thompson gets his hands on this and sells it to the wrong side.' He shook his head.

      'Exactly.'

      'Who else knows about this?'

      'The others know that this operation is important, but they don't know why, and that's how you'll keep it. Now, what's your progress with Thompson?'

      John sat on the opposite chair. 'As you know, it's taken me months to build up a rapport with him. He's naturally suspicious, hard to tail, and double-checks everything.'

      'Your cover held up. The false background we created for you worked. And ASIO's still cooperating. They're keeping the real arms dealer on ice indefinitely.'

      'There's no problem in that area. Thompson's checked the bank account, he knows the money's there when he has the goods. Buying that ex-Army stock off him convinced him I mean business.'

      'And that information on the bio experiment. We paid a lot of money for that data we planted for him. If you fail in getting what we need from Thompson we'll be screwed by the finance section in the future. You know the government's cost-cutting where it can.'

      'But our agency reports only to the Prime Minister's office, surely-'

      McSwain snorted. 'Even PMs have to account for what they spend.'

      John tried to gauge McSwain's mood. Getting on the wrong side of his boss was not a good idea, but he couldn't shake the guilt that gnawed into him each time he thought of the dead girl. He'd made a few discreet enquiries about the brothel, and everything had checked out as being above board. Room Seven was designated as a spare room and the door to the outside was a service entrance for deliveries.

      'Did the comfit images of the two men in Room Seven match anything on our records?'

      'No. But we were able to match one of the images to a sixty-five-year-old businessman whose car was found near a remote section of the Brisbane River with a suicide note and his wallet on the front seat.' McSwain switched back to his original focus. 'When are you next meeting Thompson?'

      Before John could reply, the phone on McSwain's desk rang. By the end of the conversation John was aware that Leon Thompson had slipped off the surveillance radar. He had also learned that whoever had lost track of Leon would be expecting a demotion by the end of the day. The timing was lousy for the case. But it provided John with a potential opportunity. He watched McSwain's face, saw the brooding anger there, and decided to take a chance. 'I'd like a few days off.'

      The heavy eyebrows almost joined. 'No-one goes on leave until the assignment's over.'

      'Thompson calls me on my mobile if he wants to contact me. It doesn't matter where I am. There's nothing more I can do here at present.'

      A long moment stretched out. McSwain's assessing look might have unsettled some of the other agents, but John held his gaze, not a movement betraying how badly he needed to get away.

      'If Thompson doesn't contact you in the next two weeks you can take some leave.'

      John bit back the urge to argue. Two weeks of waiting. Thinking. Remembering.

      After fourteen drawn-out days of hanging around Leon's usual haunts and fourteen nights where sleep only came after hours in the gym and kilometres of running, John approached McSwain again.

      'Where will you be?' his boss asked.

      'Canberra.'

      McSwain nodded dismissively. 'I want to know where you are every minute.'

      As the plane began its descent over the snow-capped Brindabella Ranges into Australia's capital, John had no feeling of coming home. His unit in the neatly laid-out city was no more his home than the short-term flat he'd rented in Brisbane while negotiating with Leon Thompson, or the little cottage where his mother lived in a small town in outback New South Wales. This lack of belonging hadn't bothered him for years, but the thought of who he was now going to see brought it back with an ache he'd thought long buried.

      The face of the dead girl started changing in his mind, growing older, the hair darker. But the expression of pain was the same, the foetal curl of the body the same. Sweat filmed his forehead as he tried to banish the image, and he concentrated instead on the meeting ahead of him. It had been years since he'd seen Toni Webster, but he knew the guilt they both felt would never be erased.

      CHAPTER 4

      Even with her eyes closed and swaying in rhythm to the music, Kate could feel the intensity of Nathaniel's gaze. She concentrated on singing the words, trying to lose herself in the melody and block out Nathaniel and the warm room and the other bodies moving in unison with hers.

      A memory surfaced. Priests and altar boys in their flowing white garments; music, singing, rising, swelling, taking over her body, her soul, making her believe that anything was possible if she 'walked with God'. Her father's hands, lifting her high so she could see the spectacle unfold, and see the bishop under his silken canopy raise the golden monstrance high and turn it to the crowd. The exotic aroma of incense filling her nostrils…

      Her body jerked to a stop, her eyes opening wide. She hadn't been able to smell the incense as a child. She'd seen the altar boys swinging the holders from which the smoke had curled lazily into the bright sunshine, but she'd been too far away to smell it.

      'Kate, you seem upset.'

      Nathaniel's mellow voice close beside her forced her back to the present. She tried to compose herself, but it was impossible; the memory had been too strong. Tears formed, threatening to spill, and she grappled with the need to stay focused, to not give herself away. But the music and the singing flowed around her, and, she realised, the incense was real, wafting from two burners on either side of the group. They hadn't been there when the music had started. Now they seemed to take her where she wasn't sure she wanted to go.

      'My father took me to a Corpus Christi procession when I was young.' Her voice lowered, husky with memory and an acute sense of loss. 'It was beautiful.'

      'Are you a Catholic?'

      'No. Though I once went to a Catholic school for a couple of months. We moved around so much that most of what I learned came from the school books I got at the beginning of each year.'

      Nathaniel's deep brown eyes held hers, seeking answers, his voice kind, soothing, almost mesmerising. 'Why did he take you to the procession?'

      Memory returned again, her father telling her to listen to the singing, to how it could move people, ignite passions, expose feelings. 'Music has power,' he'd told her, and even then she knew that it was his first love and she would never hold that big a place in his heart.

      With a flash of clarity she saw that was how it must have been for her mother. She'd always thought her parents had been so in love that her feeling of 'being left out' came from them only sharing what little they had left over from each other. But now she wondered if her mother had felt as second-best as she did.

      She could no longer hold back the tears. They flowed down her cheeks as Nathaniel eased her away from the group. 'Let it come out,' he murmured. 'Let the pain out, let the fear go. I can help you. I can set you free from your fears.' He kept intoning the phrases as they walked

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