Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

“Third door on your right,” Kurt’s escort said.

The corridor was gloomy. The paint on the walls peeling. Equipment covered by dusty tarps lay stacked against the wall, as the fluorescent lights flickered. It looked like the kind of place where they might keep the electroshock therapy equipment.

“Aren’t you going with me?” Kurt asked.

The guard stood with his hands behind his back. He said nothing.

“Guess not.”

Kurt took a deep breath and moved slowly down the hall until he reached the third door. He twisted the handle and stepped into a moderately lit room with all the equipment of an ICU. Lying in a bed on the right — with an oxygen line attached to his nose and an IV drip hooked up to his arm — was Cecil Bradshaw. He did not look well.

Kurt closed the door.

Bradshaw turned his head. His eyes were dark, sunken, and half closed.

“Glad to see you,” Kurt said. “Thought I was about to get hooked up to the power grid for a moment.”

Bradshaw’s eyes crinkled a bit, the closest he could come to a smile. He stretched for the switch that controlled the hospital bed, but he couldn’t reach it.

“Prop me up, will ya?”

Kurt found the button that raised the back of the bed and pressed it, holding it down until Bradshaw was almost in a sitting position.

An alarm began to flash on the monitor for a second, indicating Bradshaw’s pulse had dropped into the fifties and that his pressure was a little low.

“That’s what happens when you lose half your blood,” Bradshaw said. “They’ve been pumping it back in all night.”

“Surprised you had any left to begin with,” Kurt said.

“I’m a heartless bastard,” Bradshaw insisted. “We don’t require much.”

“Lucky for you.”

“I made them take me off the painkillers,” the ASIO chief went on to explain, “so I could talk to you clearly. First, I want to thank you for being the type of idiot who doesn’t know when to quit. I reckon that Hayley, Wiggins, and I all owe you our lives.”

Kurt appreciated the sentiment. “There’s a rugby match I’ve been wanting to see. Get me good seats, and we’ll call it even.”

Bradshaw laughed a little, but it made him cough. “The other night, after you intervened at the Opera House, I almost asked you to help out. I had a feeling about you. But once you mentioned the decompression sickness, I was able to put the puzzle together, so I let it go. Good thing I did or you’d have been right alongside us when we got hit. And then we’d all be dead.”

“A bit of luck,” Kurt noted.

“Seems so,” Bradshaw agreed. “I hope there’s more where that came from. I don’t have enough wind to beat around the bush, so I’ll just say it straight. I want you to take over the investigation.”

Kurt’s eyes narrowed.

“You guessed right,” Bradshaw explained, “I have a leak in my department. I don’t know how it’s possible, but it’s the only logical explanation. Despite my efforts, someone seems to know what we’re doing almost before we do. They’re batting a perfect record at beating us to the punch.”

“Is that why we’re here on the air base instead of in a civilian hospital?”

“That’s exactly the reason,” Bradshaw said. “My men are being told I’m still in surgery, and then they’ll hear that I haven’t regained consciousness. Aside from Wiggins and Hayley — who are temporarily being held in solitary like you and Zavala — no one is being informed of your presence or interference.”

“These things have a way of leaking out,” Kurt noted, “especially if we start poking around asking questions. Which, considering that we’re Americans, might be a little tricky down here on Australian soil.”

“It would be tricky,” Bradshaw agreed, “if you were staying on Australian soil.”

Kurt leaned against a desk. “What are you saying?”

“We’re dealing with terrorists here,” Bradshaw replied. “We believe the next phase of their plan will be launched from somewhere offshore.”