Chapter Nineteen
Throughout the fourteen-hour journey not a Guardian had said more than the perfunctory, keeping everything to logistics before they leaned back and closed their eyes. Since they'd all been together, they had never gone anywhere as a team without Damali and without a sure plan. While flying nonstop from night into day, losing a full day at the International Date Line, with only a delay to refuel, they had remained stone-faced. Even in their sleep she could feel the weight of their broken spirits.
Marlene appraised them quietly as their rented equipment bus lumbered behind their limo. The team, as well as the Covenant squad, seemed totally demoralized. There was no other word for it. Rider hadn't even passed a sarcastic quip to anyone when they went to the Thomas Cook offices to convert their currency. Maybe she should have let him and Jose ship their bikes on cargo planes, as extravagant a request as that might have been. But when would they have the time to ride?
Perhaps they could rent something when they got there for after the concert, but she really didn't want them going off to the Blue Mountains ninety miles west of the city before the gig. There was just too much to do, and too many unknowns, to be traipsing through Sydney Harbor National Park's wildlife.
No. She'd been right, even though she had to admit that her decisions had been hard ones clouded by doubt. This was not going to be like Brazil. This time the guys weren't going to get a chance to relax and enjoy the local flavor. There was no time before the mission to take a Sydney Harbor Explorer Cruise to see the scantily clad women on Sydney's forty-beach embarrassment of riches. After the concert they wouldn't be going to fine restaurants like Guillaume at Bennelong or Claude's and Tetsuya's with new chicks on their arms, a Foster's brew the size of an oil can, and shrimp on the barbie; this wasn't anything close to the Brazilian job.
Something had happened last night. Something serious, that had put a cold sweat on her body and had made Father Pat sit up and look at her across the plane aisle.
All she'd need was for Rider and Jose to get caught up and lost in the raucous nightlife at King's Cross. Energy from 1788, when Captain Arthur Phillip dropped anchor and turned loose a shipload of convicts from England's overcrowded jails, was probably still making the air crackle along that stretch of real estate.
Just like she was sure that the famed tourist attraction, the Rocks, under Sydney Harbor Bridge where the first ships came in, and the colonial Macquarie Street area, still held a significant charge - ghosts and disembodied spirits were probably there, at the very least. On a job like this, they didn't need any additional variables. Places had power. Marlene closed her eyes.
She'd picked the Westin Sydney because it was only blocks from a trinity zone of hallowed ground at St. Andrew's Cathedral, the Great Synagogue, and Hyde Park. Open-land parks were good, always retained prayer lines from the native people, and all of that was a short distance to Victoria Street and Darlinghurst Road on the other side of the park where the fellas could let off a little steam.
But she wondered now if they even needed to be near the corridor of burlesque joints, massage parlors, and video dens that ran hot after ten o'clock at night - prime time for vamps. Right now her team needed to be isolated, and not run into a minor vamp battle that could drain resources. She had to make herself relax, knowing that there were some good vibes where they were going to perform.
The Sydney Opera House was built on a natural land formation called Bennelong Point by the Aussies, which jutted out into the bay with Sydney Cove dividing the Rocks from it. The grand theater was near plenty of open ground by the Royal Botanical Gardens and Domain Parkland, with tremendous creative energy filtering along Writer's Walk, and just a bit beyond that was Macquarie Place, once a site of ceremonial and religious importance to Aboriginal people. The song lines remained, just like the giant obelisk did - a point from which all distances from Sydney were once measured. Interesting feng shui. Yet for all its clean, modern beauty and rich history, there was a dark underbelly to be wary of. She just hoped that Damali hadn't fluxed and had been able to pull from the indigenous prayer lines in the area.
However, every big city had a dark side. She tried to force herself to relax, knowing she couldn't put her team in a protective bubble, much as she wanted to. It was a foolish thought. They weren't destined to be blind to the dark side or protected from it, but in her heart she wished that she could, anyway. This indefinable thing that had happened, coupled with the significance of this particular mission, made her know that one, or some, of her beloved guardians might not come home this time. She knew it as sure as she knew her name, and no amount of mental bracing could bring her acceptance, no matter how many years she'd tried to prepare herself for that fact.
They'd just have to use their best judgment until they could get a flight out. She hoped that the guys would be satisfied watching the Australian winter game, rugby. But she knew better than that. They were grown men, warriors, and not about to hide from the night.
Marlene absently gazed at the Georgian and Victorian architecture as they passed neat suburban homes, remembering the endless streams she'd seen upon their United Airlines flight approach. She wondered if the four million residents tucked away in mundane comfort ever knew what lurked amid the branching waterways. Probably not.
She could feel her energy dipping as they neared the hotel. None of them had been the same since Damali had left with Carlos. She peered at Big Mike. His eyes said it all; the team's leader and daughter had abandoned him. Jose was positively bereft. She sighed silently as she glanced at J.L. and Dan. They still seemed stunned. The muscles in Rider's jaw were working. And Shabazz... The man's complexion was practically gray. She could feel his deep soul mourning; although he hadn't said a word, it clouded his entire aura.
She looked out the window during the traffic-impacted five-mile stretch between Kingsford-Smith International Airport, watching the billowing white-tiled sails of the Sydney Opera House come into view, renewed tension winding the muscles in her shoulders tight. Father God, where was her baby girl? This time, there was no plan. Damali hadn't even come back to develop a strategy with them to get everyone on the same page, help come up with new weapons, or anything like that, much less perfect the show.
All they had was this new, very-unlike-Damali song, some fleeting instructions about a rendezvous time and location, and a tape that had mysteriously shown up in the compound one night
16
