Chapter 41

Fuck me! Talk about a firing squad.

We were grilled for about four hours. It seemed that every bit of evidence was questioned as to its validity and if we used correct procedures in acquiring it. Hearing that evidence had gone missing or had been tampered with, had made several of the delegates very unhappy.

We got a break when they stopped for lunch halfway through. We were, however, detained and guarded. We were not happy to be split up for the second session. It was if we were the ones on trial.

After about an hour, they brought me back in by myself. My team was left in the room, and I got to sit in front of the delegates to get reamed again. It felt really weird because the single chair was in this space with nothing close to me.

“Mrs Carmichael tell me about the incident in Port Moresby?” one of the women I had been told was Delegate Anula, asked me.

She had been really snarky at me all morning, and I could see some of the other delegates were thrown by her question, but others were not. I could only guess that she had finally run out of patience with trying to denigrate me.

“I’m sorry, what incident?” I asked.

“The robbery you had supposedly stopped,” she snarled.

“Excuse me, what the fuck is going on?”

I stood, “My name is Detective Danny Carmichael. I am assigned to P3 on Luna, on loan from the Military Police Division, Enoggera Base, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Earth. If you have any questions regarding my record previous to being based on Luna, you must contact the Australian Armed Forces, as I do not have the clearance to answer them.”

“Come on, we know it was you, did you have a falling out with Sheik Hasid? Is that why you shot him and his team? Didn’t he fuck you enough or offer you enough money?” she yelled at me, and her face flickered.

For several moments I stood there stunned. I walked over closer to Anula. Several guards moved to intersect me. Major Carmichael signalled for them to stop, but I wasn’t really watching him.

I smiled at the woman and saw true fear in her eyes. She knew what I was capable of, as she had seen me in action.

“Now I recognise you, you were the lady in the dressing room, the one who had to go pick up her kids. The only person who didn’t see the linger smashing through the window of the dress shop.”

“You must have moved fast to get around the block and come in the back way. I thought there was something odd about the security tapes when I reviewed them.”

“You were in the back hallway when I ran in. I thought you were moving oddly, but that was because you were turning to duck into the change room, and I wasn’t really concentrating on you since I was diving for the floor.”

“You were also in the Sigma Dome pretending to be one of Rashid’s guards outside the hospital. The assassin was one of your people. That was why you were scowling at me and then the Prince when he went into the hospital.”

“I’m surprised you never got your eyes fixed or wore contacts. You do know odd-coloured eyes are recognisable on security tapes these days?”

“I bet that when we have another look at those tapes from when the weapons disappeared that you were one of those guards too. The pattern of piercings around your left ear is very distinctive. Where is your round tattoo?”

“Oh, I know. Yes, Hasid thought it would look better on your arse didn’t he, so he could slap it. He was a real arse man, wasn’t he? He certainly loved playing with mine.”

She lunged at me, screaming like a banshee. It wasn’t a very smart thing to do since the table was between us and I wasn’t that close to it. She climbed onto the table, and I watched her as she launched herself at me and became airborne.

As she tried to tackle me, I elbowed her in the jaw. I hit with enough force that she was pushed away from me, and she crashed to the floor on her side and even skidded until she stopped.

Two of the guards grabbed my arms and pulled me away from her, while the other two, grabbed her as she tried to scramble to her feet. She struggled and screamed, as she told them, to get their filthy Swedish hands off her.

I looked at the two men who were firmly holding my arms. “Damn, woman, you have no taste. I can’t see anything wrong with the Swedish hands I got holding me. I’d rather either of these two hotties than Hasid any day.”

The poor men blushed from head to toe. Hey! They were hot. Their two metres of tall, blonde, fit and gorgeous was nothing to sneeze at, as far as I was concerned. I might be married, but I wasn’t dead.

Anula looked at me, incredulously. “So, it was you. You were the cunt fucking him, I knew it!” she cried and struggled to get to me.

I huffed out a breath, “Lady, I had never set eyes on that arsehole until the night of the robbery. If he was fucking someone in Port Moresby, it wasn’t me. Do you know what I did to him when he tried feeling up my arse? I shot off his middle finger, holed his femoral artery and then put a bullet in his chest to make sure. The only man who touches my arse is my Justin.”

I turned to the man on my right, “Yeah, sorry, you’re cute but not my Justin.”

He grinned at me, “Thank you, Detective Carmichael. We will let you go now and make darn sure we don’t touch your arse.”

“Wise decision,” I replied with a grin, as they let me go and stepped back away from me a bit. I turned to the other delegates who had simply sat shocked as they watched the confrontation.

“Now, I assume that she has diplomatic immunity. However, even diplomats are not allowed to strike an Officer of the Law. I suggest you gentlemen and ladies work out how to remove her status.”

“She is wanted in Australia for one. I think the Americans have a bone or two to pick with her and you may wish to keep her well away from the Arab Alliance since she was responsible for killing forty-five people in their dome.”