Free No Man's Land - A Russell Carter Thriller by Roland Fishman Page A

black desk, facing the door with her arms folded, glaring at him.
    He took a step back and studied her disguise.
    She wore a shoulder-length black wig with a fringe, red-rimmed glasses, a white blouse, black jacket and a matching pencil skirt that just covered her knees. Her shiny black shoes had three-inch heels; red lacquered toenails peeked from the open toe. An unfamiliar small tattoo of two hearts entwined sat just above the inside of her right ankle and her daypack lay behind her feet within easy reach.
    Her outfit created the impression of a woman making her way up the corporate ladder. The major difference being that Erina would have at least two lethal weapons concealed on her body.
    She pushed off the desk and stood upright. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
    “Great to see you again too,” he said.
    “You’re supposed to be on your way to Sydney.”
    “Change of plan.”
    He walked behind the desk, free of clutter except for an open bottle of still mineral water, a set of keys and an eleven-inch MacBook Air hooked up to a screen and keyboard.
    She followed his every move.
    He took a long sip of cool water from the bottle, screwed on the lid and placed it back on the table. He then unplugged her laptop.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
    Paying off the receptionist had bought him a little information and some time, but not a whole lot more, certainly not her loyalty.
    He picked up her keys and laptop and held them out. “Your film-industry days are over. We need to get out of here.”
    Erina understood him well enough to recognize when it was best to take notice of what he said and follow his lead.
    She took her things from him and said, “I trust you know what you’re doing.”

5
    Five minutes later Carter was driving along the two-lane highway at seventy-five miles an hour, several car lengths behind Erina’s black four-wheel drive. They were heading toward a local restaurant, which she said served breakfast and lunch all day. He was in need of food. He hadn’t eaten anything except for a banana he’d grabbed when he went home that morning to pick up his daypack and ute.
    He glanced in the rear-view mirror for the third time. An iron-grey van maintained an even distance of a hundred and fifty yards behind him. It suggested his visit to the resort hadn’t passed unnoticed.
    Erina would’ve spotted the tail as well.
    Up ahead he saw a sign for the Billabong Restaurant and Guesthouse.
    Erina’s four-wheel drive turned right and headed toward a clapboard cottage with a bullnose verandah sitting a hundred yards in from the highway. A parking area in front of the verandah was marked Restaurant Visitors . A single-storey red-brick motel wing had been built to the left of the restaurant, looking like it’d been tacked on as an afterthought without any effort to match the original homestead-style architecture. It had a flat roof with a large white satellite dish placed on top of it at the far end of the building. There were car spaces in front of each of the six rooms, none of which was occupied.
    Further to the left of the motel there was an additional parking area marked Coaches and Truck Stop , which backed onto thick scrubland. That was empty.
    He pulled into a car space in front of the restaurant between Erina’s car and a white Winnebago motorhome covered with fine red dust, the only other vehicle.
    After switching off the ignition, he looked in the rear-view mirror. The van slowed while it passed the restaurant, then accelerated away.
    Carter pulled the binoculars from the bottom of his daypack, stepped out of his ute and watched the van speed off toward the horizon.
    Erina climbed out of her vehicle and stood next to him. “Great work, Carter. First you blow my cover and now you pick up a tail. I hope you’ve got a good explanation.”
    “Let’s grab a table and I’ll fill you in.”
    Carter followed Erina up three wooden stairs to the verandah, which led into a