Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

“The bloodstained pages our dead friend was grasping when he spoke his last. I notice the police haven’t asked us about them. Me and my overactive imagination think someone might have misplaced them before the police arrived. Maybe even handed them to the two guys in suits who came running toward us but stopped when they realized it was too late.”

The false smile vanished, replaced by a look of surprise and then almost tears. Kurt sensed her reaching out to him. “I didn’t—”

Before she could say anything more, a young man in a dark suit

appeared on the steps beside them. Kurt could see the bulge of a shoulder holster under his jacket and the earbud in his right ear.

“Could your timing be any worse?” Kurt muttered.

The man ignored him. “Ms. Anderson, Mr. Austin, come with me.”

Hayley looked as miserable at this suggestion as she had about the possibility of answering Kurt’s question, but she stood dutifully, and Kurt did the same.

Two minutes later, they were inside one of the undamaged structures. One of the agents, who’d run their way and then stopped during the incident, let them into a conference room.

Kurt followed Hayley inside. There, two other men and a woman stood around the table, examining the bloodstained pages. They used tweezers and wore gloves. One of them seemed to be taking photos of the contents under a UV light. In the far corner, a second woman tapped away on a laptop.

“Nothing on that,” she said, answering some question that had been asked before Kurt and Hayley entered. “Next line, please.”

The group froze at Kurt and Hayley’s arrival.

A stocky man with rolled-up sleeves and a buzz cut stood at the head of the table. “Clear the room,” he grunted.

This was the boss, Kurt guessed. He looked none too happy.

The others began to move, putting down whatever they were working on and filing out one by one. The last one to leave pulled the door shut.

“Are you okay?” the burly man asked Hayley.

“No, I’m not okay,” she said. “People are getting killed right in front of me now. You said nothing like this would happen.”

“I thought this would be the last time,” the man said.

Kurt had guessed right. Some kind of rendezvous was in the works, but the way Hayley was acting, she didn’t sound like an operative.

“Don’t mean to be rude,” Kurt said, “but would someone clue the dumb foreigner in as to just what’s going on here?”

The boss man turned toward Kurt. “You’ve walked yourself into a dangerous situation, Mr. Austin.”

“You’d be surprised how often that happens.”

“Actually,” the man said, “in your case, I wouldn’t be. I’ve read your file. Trouble seems to find you. And when it doesn’t, you go looking for it.”

“My file?” Kurt asked. “Why would you have a file on me?”

“Because I’m Cecil Bradshaw, deputy chief of counterterrorism for the ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. And you are a wayward member of the National Underwater and Marine Agency as well as a former specialist with the CIA.”

“I agree with everything but the wayward part,” Kurt said. “I’m here on vacation.”

Bradshaw looked like he didn’t believe that. “Really? And your vacation just happened to land you in the middle of the most sensitive operation we’ve conducted in years.”

Kurt could imagine how it looked, especially considering his background. “Bad timing,” he insisted. “I’m not a spy or anything. I’m a nautical engineer and head of NUMA’s Special Projects Branch, which generally involves research and development, though we do get into our share of scrapes. As for the CIA, I did salvage work mostly. Refloating sunken ships. Retrieving important parts from inside them, or blowing them up to keep others from doing the same. And even that was a long time ago.”

“So it says in your file,” Bradshaw replied.

“Look,” Kurt said, “I’m just here for the conference. And, once it’s over, I plan on surfing, diving, and knocking back a few Fosters. But I don’t stand around and watch people burn to death or let them get shot, if I can help it. That’s how I got involved.”

Bradshaw seemed to be weighing this, perhaps acknowledging Kurt’s actions in his mind. His tone softened a bit, but his face remained gruff.