Free Redback by Lindy Cameron

they did,
just because they could. That in itself was amazing for a bunch of mercenaries. Let's turn them into
your army.'
    'Now you are being ridiculous,' Thorpe said, nodding thanks to the waiter who'd arrived with
fresh drinks. 'Those ex-soldiers - ex being the operative word - are no different to the countless
other security firms that have been operating in Iraq over the last too-many years. Granted many of
those private armies, personal protection firms, special-forces units and spies for hire - like
Acorn, Carrington, Black- water, Aegis, Greystone, HarkerFleet and the Titan Guards - have been
doing the work no one else can, or wants to do. But so many others like them, or unlike them, have
been working under the radar in Iraq, and in Afghanistan and the Gulf States, running drugs, selling
arms, and getting very rich.'
    'Yes, yes; they've been doing the same in Morocco, Somalia, Central America, Colombia, you name
it,' Drake said, distracted by a new image on the BBC World channel. 'That's why we'd need to start
our Inter-Force from scratch.'
    'Inter-Force, Teddy? You've even named it,' Ebrey noted.
    'Can we have the sound up on the tele please, Robert?' Drake asked the waiter. 'And the lunch
menu.'
    The much touted live hostage update involved a split-screen showing a correspondent on a beach,
somewhere, and the TV anchor in a studio somewhere else. The reporter was talking about the ongoing
discussions in Wellington while waving pointlessly at the dark Pacific horizon, allegedly in the
direction of Laui Island where 'the PLA was still holding 36 hostages'.
    Oh yeah, thought US Deputy Secretary of State Lyall, who knew otherwise. So much for the latest
news. He, and the one man in the room he'd told about Kelman and the scheduled SEAL raid on Laui,
knew that as of two hours ago the situation on that tiny spec in the Pacific Ocean would have to be
quite different to the 'no end in sight' claimed by the reporter.
    Adam Lyall also knew that the fallout from that mission would change everything, though not
exactly in the way he'd imagined.
     

Chapter Ten
    HMAS Harris, Pacific Ocean
Tuesday 11.30 pm
     
    'Can you describe this foreign soldier?'
    'They were all bloody foreign,' Alan said. 'It was a Polynesian Island, not a Barrier Reef
resort.'
    'The stray foreigner - amongst the locals ,' Jana stressed, 'was a white guy with cropped
red hair. He was maybe six-two and wearing neat black fatigues, but not an army-type uniform. It
looked more like SWAT gear.'
    'I didn't see anyone,' Alan stated.
    'You were too busy asserting your - self, Alan.'
    Alan glared at Jana before turning back to the studious-looking ASIS agent, John Brand. 'I did
hear Ifran talking just before we entered but when we did, the guy was alone.'
    Agent Brand nodded. 'Tell me about the equipment.'
    'Let me think. He had a TV, a video recorder with the Sky News tape he wanted us to watch, a
laptop.' Alan waggled his head, as if trying to shake more information loose, then shrugged.
    Jana wondered, and not for the first time, how a person as unobservant as Alan had ever got
beyond copyboy, let alone become host of a top current affairs show.
    'There were several laptops,' she corrected, hesitating as the cabin door opened to admit
Commander Gideon. Brand took no notice of her entrance and Alan didn't notice she had, so Jana
continued.
    'At least one laptop had a camera, you know so someone elsewhere could see Ifran, or whoever, on
Laui. The image on its screen was a room somewhere but it was static or maybe it was online, but
empty. There was a variety of other seriously high-tech gear, none of which I could name. And it was
all new, which struck me as very odd.'
    'I dare say,' Brand agreed.
    Alan simply stared at Jana as if he had no idea what she was on about, or on.
    'I don't think the island itself was under their camera surveillance though,' Jana frowned.
'Which, in retrospect, is also quite strange.'
    'He had his horde of ratbag soldiers for that,