twice as much as the other eight suits combined.
‘Well, well, well,’ Julie said. ‘Chapman Fucking Pergo.’
Jules sometimes has a problem with authority, but since she’s an unerringly accurate judge of character and consistently shoots the tightest groups on the pistol range, she gets away with it.
Pergo was standing in front of the surveillance camera, waiting.
‘Shall I buzz him in?’ Julie said.
I shrugged. ‘Guess so.’
Julie’s fingers moved rapidly over her keyboard, then she reached across and pressed the button that opened thesecurity door. As Pergo walked into the office she looked at me and said, just loudly enough for him to hear, ‘So I guess this means our no-arseholes policy is out the window then, Mr Murdoch?’
One of Pergo’s heavies accompanied him into the office while a second stationed himself outside the front door. On the surveillance monitors, I could see the others take up positions along the pier. They were all about two axe-handles wide across the shoulders, had their suit jackets fitted loose to hide a pistol in a shoulder holster, and appeared to be wearing earpieces and tiny microphones. Their body language suggested ex-Special Ops, and their bulk said almost certainly steroids. A dangerous combination, definitely not the kind of dudes you wanted to mess with.
The thug who accompanied Pergo into the office had bleached white hair and wraparound sunglasses with mirrored lenses. He kept the glasses on, which was a good thing since I was damn sure he’d have seriously creepy eyes.
Chapman Pergo was just a little taller than me, forty-ish, lithe, and he carried himself like the amateur boxer he claimed to have been. He flashed an icy smile at Julie.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Danko, always a pleasure. Enjoying the weekend?’
‘Up until quite recently,’ Julie said, deadpan.
‘And Alby, how are things with you?’ Pergo was usinghis best Sloane Square drawl. He liked to play the superior Pom slumming it out in the colonies, and he was rather good at it.
‘That’s Mister Murdoch,’ I said.
He smiled again, with the practised insincerity that only working in Canberra can give you. ‘Of course, of course, you do outrank me – slightly. You’re acting department head now, aren’t you?’ He put a lot of emphasis on the ‘acting’ part.
‘And maybe you should starting acting like it,’ I said. I hadn’t pulled rank since being promoted, and it was surprising how much fun it was.
‘My apologies, Mister Murdoch.’
‘Apologies accepted,’ I said, ‘but let’s not be so formal. You can call me sir.’
I could see him making a mental note to break me in half at some later date.
‘So tell me, Chapman ,’ I went on, ‘what brings you out of your burrow on such a fine afternoon?’
Pergo was a fixer for the Defence Minister, and his methods, while they suited the tenor of the current government, had made him few friends. Pergo’s style could best be described as a steel fist in an iron glove, clutching a set of brass knuckledusters and an electric cattle-prod just for good measure.
The rumour was he’d been serving with the British paras in Iraq – a gung-ho defender of Queen, flag and country – until he was chucked out after being sprung by a BBC news crew while conducting an over-enthusiastic, boots-and-allinterrogation in a back alley in Basra.
Things being what they were in Iraq, Pergo was immediately recruited at ten times his army salary to head the Black Falcon Group, one of the many dubious private security companies running mercenaries in Baghdad, and it wasn’t long before things really got nasty. So nasty in fact that after six months, with a dozen different government factions and terrorist groups offering big money for his head on a stick, Pergo was forced to flee the country.
He shipped out one evening covered head to foot in a burkah, reportedly leaving close to a million bucks in US dollars in his private safe. If he hadn’t got
‘Well, well, well,’ Julie said. ‘Chapman Fucking Pergo.’
Jules sometimes has a problem with authority, but since she’s an unerringly accurate judge of character and consistently shoots the tightest groups on the pistol range, she gets away with it.
Pergo was standing in front of the surveillance camera, waiting.
‘Shall I buzz him in?’ Julie said.
I shrugged. ‘Guess so.’
Julie’s fingers moved rapidly over her keyboard, then she reached across and pressed the button that opened thesecurity door. As Pergo walked into the office she looked at me and said, just loudly enough for him to hear, ‘So I guess this means our no-arseholes policy is out the window then, Mr Murdoch?’
One of Pergo’s heavies accompanied him into the office while a second stationed himself outside the front door. On the surveillance monitors, I could see the others take up positions along the pier. They were all about two axe-handles wide across the shoulders, had their suit jackets fitted loose to hide a pistol in a shoulder holster, and appeared to be wearing earpieces and tiny microphones. Their body language suggested ex-Special Ops, and their bulk said almost certainly steroids. A dangerous combination, definitely not the kind of dudes you wanted to mess with.
The thug who accompanied Pergo into the office had bleached white hair and wraparound sunglasses with mirrored lenses. He kept the glasses on, which was a good thing since I was damn sure he’d have seriously creepy eyes.
Chapman Pergo was just a little taller than me, forty-ish, lithe, and he carried himself like the amateur boxer he claimed to have been. He flashed an icy smile at Julie.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Danko, always a pleasure. Enjoying the weekend?’
‘Up until quite recently,’ Julie said, deadpan.
‘And Alby, how are things with you?’ Pergo was usinghis best Sloane Square drawl. He liked to play the superior Pom slumming it out in the colonies, and he was rather good at it.
‘That’s Mister Murdoch,’ I said.
He smiled again, with the practised insincerity that only working in Canberra can give you. ‘Of course, of course, you do outrank me – slightly. You’re acting department head now, aren’t you?’ He put a lot of emphasis on the ‘acting’ part.
‘And maybe you should starting acting like it,’ I said. I hadn’t pulled rank since being promoted, and it was surprising how much fun it was.
‘My apologies, Mister Murdoch.’
‘Apologies accepted,’ I said, ‘but let’s not be so formal. You can call me sir.’
I could see him making a mental note to break me in half at some later date.
‘So tell me, Chapman ,’ I went on, ‘what brings you out of your burrow on such a fine afternoon?’
Pergo was a fixer for the Defence Minister, and his methods, while they suited the tenor of the current government, had made him few friends. Pergo’s style could best be described as a steel fist in an iron glove, clutching a set of brass knuckledusters and an electric cattle-prod just for good measure.
The rumour was he’d been serving with the British paras in Iraq – a gung-ho defender of Queen, flag and country – until he was chucked out after being sprung by a BBC news crew while conducting an over-enthusiastic, boots-and-allinterrogation in a back alley in Basra.
Things being what they were in Iraq, Pergo was immediately recruited at ten times his army salary to head the Black Falcon Group, one of the many dubious private security companies running mercenaries in Baghdad, and it wasn’t long before things really got nasty. So nasty in fact that after six months, with a dozen different government factions and terrorist groups offering big money for his head on a stick, Pergo was forced to flee the country.
He shipped out one evening covered head to foot in a burkah, reportedly leaving close to a million bucks in US dollars in his private safe. If he hadn’t got
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