The original idea, that Kim should die in order to render Diedrich harmless, was no longer workable. She was off the boat, she was known by at least a few neutral observers to be alive, the scheme could not play out. On the other hand, though Manville and Kim could report they’d been attacked by Curtis’s people, they had no way to prove it. And although they knew Curtis was up to something illegal and dangerous, they didn’t know what it was — just something involving a soliton wave, and good luck explaining that to some policeman in a Brisbane precinct house. So, at this point, did Curtis consider them a peril, or merely a nuisance, or nothing at all?
Before they showed themselves to anyone, official or otherwise, they had to know how much danger they were in. They’d been lucky to escape from that first batch of men Curtis sent after them, but they weren’t apt to be that lucky again, and Curtis could hire all the men he needed.
So once they found a safe hiding place, they both had some telephoning to do, discreetly. Manville would try again to reach either Tom in San Francisco or Gary in Houston, while Kim wanted to talk to Jerry Diedrich, to let him know what had happened and to find out if he had any idea what Curtis’s scheme might be. First, though, to hide out, in a crowd.
The little red car Manville had rented was an Australian-made British-designed Ford, with the steering wheel on the right, because Australia follows the British system of driving on the left. “I feel as though I’m driving,” Kim said at one point, in the passenger seat beside him. “I keep pressing down on the brake, and there isn’t one.”
Barely half an hour south of Brisbane, the pastel world of vacationland began. Men and women and children dressed in pink and topaz and aquamarine strolled in couples or ricocheting family groups past buildings painted in pink and topaz and aquamarine. Sunburned overweight undressed bodies were everywhere. A glittery sheen of grease and excitement vibrated in the warm humid air. Then at Coomera, the northern rim of the Gold Coast, less than forty miles south of Brisbane, the crowds grew even denser, tourist hordes packed hip to hip and camera bag to camera bag. “One thing for sure,” Manville said, “nobody will find us here.”
Expensive high-rise hotels fronted the beach along Cavill Avenue, the main drag, but a block or two back from the sea were the economy motels. While Kim waited in the car, Manville checked into one of these. The room was clean and anonymous, with one bed along each side wall, and except for the cute paintings of koala bears over the beds could have been anywhere in the world.
Kim went straight to the smaller bed, a single along the right wall. “I’m starving,” she announced, and lay on her back atop the bedspread. “I’ll just rest for a minute, and then we’ll go get something to eat.” And fell sound asleep.
“What time is it?”
Manville looked up from his paperback, to see Kim half-risen, blinking at him in the dim illumination from the bedside lamp. “Hi,” he said, and looked at his watch. “Quarter to nine.”
“Day or night?”
He had shut the blinds over the only window. “Night.”
Slowly she blinked again, absorbing that information, then looked startled and said, “My God. I’ve been asleep...”
“Almost ten hours.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I thought you needed it.”
“I thought I needed lunch.” She sat up the rest of the way, wincing and clutching briefly at her rib cage, then said, “Now I’m really starving. Now I need lunch and dinner both.”
“Fine.”
She rubbed her eyes. “What’s that you’re reading?”
He showed her the cover. “It’s a caper story, called Payback, by an Australian writer named Gary Driver. He’s imitating the Americans, but he’s pretty good. He’s teaching me how to behave in dangerous situations.”
Grinning at him, she said, “You behave fine.”
“Thank you.” With a nod of the head toward the packages on the bed next to him, he said, “I got you some stuff. Toothbrush, toothpaste. Some more clothes. Don’t know if they’ll fit.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.” She put her legs over the side to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Maybe you want to shower and change before we go out.”
“I would. Is that okay?”
Getting to his feet, dropping the paperback on the empty bed, he said, “I’ll just try my friend in Houston again while you shower.”
She blinked around at the room. “Oh. There’s no phone.”
“There’s one by the office.”
“You’re going to call someone at this hour?”
“Thirteen-hour time difference. It’s quarter to ten tomorrow morning in Houston, Gary should be just coming into the office this minute.”
Rising, tottering a little, she said, “When you come back, I’ll be transformed. And hungrier than ever.”
“I’ll be quick,” he promised, and left the room, and walked around to the front of the building.
The pay phone was in an alcove just inside the office door, separated from the main part of the office by a plywood partition; not a lot of privacy, but some. Manville used his phone card to make the call, and after one false try got the receptionist at Gary’s offices. “Millbrook and Tennyson.”
There was no way to tell from that what sort of firm they were, but Gary Millbrook and his partner were architectural consultants, not the designers of structures for the most part but the people brought in by large corporate clients to vet the designs of others and make corrections and improvements where needed. George had worked with the company several times over the years, and he and Gary had gradually moved from a business relationship to an easygoing friendship.
“George Manville for Mr. Millbrook.”
“One moment.”
It was about three moments, in fact, and then Gary’s familiar voice came on, saying, “If you want to know do I believe it, of course I don’t. Is there something I can do to help?”
“What?” It seemed to Manville that Gary was starting well into the conversation, reacting to Manville before Manville had told him anything.
“I don’t know how you got Richard Curtis mad,” Gary went on, “but I assume he’s playing dirty pool here.”
“Gary, Gary, back up a little. What are you talking about?”
“The Wall Street Journal, of course.”
“What about it?”
“George? Aren’t you calling about the piece in today’s Journal, that I just read maybe three minutes ago?”
“I’m in Australia,” Manville explained. “I haven’t seen the Journal.”
There was a startled pause, and when Gary spoke again his manner was subtly different: “You mean you are in Australia?”
“Yes. Why? What does the Journal say?”
“It’s a short piece deep in the paper, they don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“What does it say, Gary?”
“It says that yesterday Richard Curtis swore out a warrant against you in Brisbane, Australia—”
“A warrant!”
“—for industrial espionage. You’re described in the piece— It’s short, I could read it to you, if you want.”
“Just tell me what it says.”
“It says you’ve been working for Richard Curtis.”