by Frank Tayell
The car was parked beneath an awning, and easily identified as its engine was gently humming. The short walk to the car wasn’t as tortuous as the long walk from the plane, but the heat was still a burdensome weight he was glad to discard when he climbed into the vehicle. A moment’s confusion as to why there was no steering wheel was solved when he got out, and walked around to the other side.
“Stick-shift. Of course it is,” he muttered. Then he breathed out. And again. Finally, he was alone. Sweat was already beading on his brow, and his new shirt stuck to his back, but he’d made it through the airport. Despite what Rampton had said, there had been questions, but none Pete couldn’t answer. Although perhaps it was best he didn’t linger. He opened the bag, took out the satnav, turned it on, and found it was already set up. After a brief fumble with the gears, he found first. A minute later he was driving along Airport Road and towards the town. Twenty seconds after that he drove beneath the sign he’d seen in the photograph: Welcome to Broken Hill, Where The Outback Begins.
The pre-programmed route took him down Airport Road, onto Bonanza Street and into a suburb of small houses. They all seemed to be one-storey, low to the ground, ringed by fences or walls, occasionally shadowed by sprawling trees of a type he’d never seen before. There were taller buildings behind, but only two or three storeys high, and they appeared more industrial than residential.
The satnav beeped and he turned onto the less exotically named B79. The houses were replaced by an industrial facility on his right, an arid orchard on his left, the trees looking as parched as he felt. He was tempted to open the cooler on the backseat and grab some water, but that would require stopping, and so might invite questions from passers-by. Not that there was anyone about, but no, better not to stop until he was out of the town. Unless he already was.
“That can’t have been the entire town.”
It wasn’t. The suburbs returned, and he had the road almost to himself as he drove by houses, a cafe, a trio of retail units, offices, and then a squad of municipal buildings. There were even fewer people than cars, but the town didn’t appear dead so much as asleep.
“Or at work.”
He drove by a mining firm, a new-car lot, a diner, a high-fence hiding whatever lay inside, a roundabout, houses, offices, a shop, a car park, more houses, and then nothing but distantly spaced trees on either side, none more than four metres high, their small leaves wilting in the heat. Beyond the trees, the oxidised earth stretched as far as the horizon, only broken by the occasional depression and struggling desert grass.
“That was the town?”
He glanced in the mirror, then checked the satnav. It seemed happy that he was on the right road. He leaned forward, peering at the small screen.
“Yep. Silver City Highway. That’s what the doctor said, wasn’t it? Okay. Yes. Good.”
This was nothing like the highways he knew from home. It was paved, sure. And the line down the middle divided it into two lanes, but it was nothing more than a ribbon of concrete laid on top of the ancient soil, ephemeral, a temporary intrusion. Part of him wanted to stop so he could properly take it all in, but at the same time, he’d never felt so alone before in his life. He wanted to drive and keep driving until he reached civilisation again, but it was only just dawning on him how far away that was.
Then there were no more trees, only telegraph poles, with wires looping off towards unseen and distant settlements. Ahead, to the east, to the west, there was nothing but rust-coloured scrub, parched soil, and distant hills. Finally, he stopped. But he didn’t get out. He reached behind, cracked open the cooler, fished around in the melting ice, and took out a bottle of chilled water. He took a sip, and took in the wide expanse. Even up in the sky, there was nothing to see. Not even a cloud. No, there, ahead, there was something. A bird? If it was, it was massive, a shimmering silver-blue, bigger than an eagle, hovering above the road.
“They have giant birds in Australia? I suppose they have kangaroos, and those are like giant rabbits, so why not giant birds?”
That explained the doctor’s instruction to stay in the car. He hauled the cooler onto the passenger seat, and set off, one eye on the road, the other on the hovering bird, and so almost didn’t see the eighteen-wheeler barrelling towards him.
“Left!” he yelled, swinging the car into the correct lane while the juggernaut charged onward, horn blaring, barely slowing.
“Sorry, sorry,” Pete muttered, keeping his eyes fixed firmly ahead, his hands at ten and two. A building appeared on the horizon beneath the bird. As it turned with the breeze, he saw it wasn’t a bird, but a kite the size of a hang-glider. The building was a house, again behind a wall, and with a man sitting on the porch. The man stood as Pete approached, but Pete didn’t stop.
Twenty minutes later, he did slow when a kangaroo bounded across the road half a kilometre ahead.
“Olivia would like a photo of that.”
He took a hand from the wheel, reaching for his phone. Except he didn’t have it. His phone had been in his pocket, but he’d changed clothes before reaching Hawaii, and again before they landed in Broken Hill. That was why he’d been told to change into the steward’s uniform. Why else? Without the phone, how would he contact anyone? Who knew anyone’s phone number? He realised he’d not been told where he was being taken until after he’d given up his phone.
Now he stopped the car. He opened the bag that Rampton had given him. There was water inside, a fold-up hat, a pair of sunglasses, a box of protein bars, a small medical kit, and the sat-phone. He took out the phone. It had a number pad, a small screen, and a large folding aerial. He couldn’t even go online and message her through social media.
He put the phone back in the bag, then stared at the satnav. It wasn’t Olivia they were worried about him contacting, but his sister. Or was it the police, because he’d certainly entered Australia illegally. Then there was the driver’s licence in the bag. It looked real. It had his name on it, but it wasn’t his. Surely that was something you had to apply for in person.
What should he do? What could he do? There were two choices. Broken Hill would have a police station. He could turn back and hand himself in. That would lead to a lot of unpleasant questions with immigration, and with whatever the Australian equivalent of the FBI was, before being extradited and questioned by the Feds. Or he could continue onward, hope to find his sister and then… and then probably face the same fate.
It was a long time since he’d seen Corrie, and if she’d disappeared once, she was liable to do so again. This might be the last time he’d ever get to see her. He started the engine, and continued driving north.
Chapter 3 - Cornelia
The Dog Fence, New South Wales
Five Hours Before the Outbreak
As the day turned to afternoon, Pete sped along the almost-empty Silver City Highway with the car window open. The fast moving wind sucked the heat from the vehicle, if not from him. As his destination neared, the satnav directed him off the road and onto a dirt track. Even at thirty kilometres an hour, the wheels churned the ochre soil into a fine dust that forced him to close the window, and once more rely on the car’s struggling air conditioning. The temperature rose. Sweat beaded. The wipers slapped against the windshield, worsening visibility as the settling grit was spread across the glass. He dropped his speed. Droplets of sweat turned to rivulets, trickling across his face, along his neck, down to a growing pool in the small of his back.
“You have reached your destination,” the satnav chimed, but it had to be wrong. He was forty minutes and forty kilometres east of Tibooburra, where he’d refuelled to the amusement of a small group of spectators. He’d gone through the same experience at the Packsaddle Roadhouse where a larger group had been waiting for his arrival. He blamed the clothing: he looked like he was on his way to a comic-book convention. He’d had enough fuel not to stop at Tibooburra, but a full tank gave him more options, and the delay had given inspiration longer to strike. It hadn’t, and a
ccording to the satnav, he should have run out of time.
“As soon as possible, turn around,” the satnav sang. But there was nowhere to turn. A dry creek bed was to his right. To his left was a low fence, beyond which a trio of four-legged animals languidly strolled through wilted-brown tufts of spindly grass. Dingoes? Maybe. He remembered rule five, and decided he shouldn’t get out of the car. Should he turn around? Could Lisa Kempton have been wrong about his sister’s location? Certainly. But as he leaned forward, looking for somewhere to turn, a flagpole emerged from behind a hill. No, not a flagpole, but a scaffolding tower on which an Australian flag had been hung. A radio mast? Possibly. The mast was perched on a shallow hill, but there were no buildings nearby.
“As soon as possible, turn around,” the satnav said. He was inclined to take its advice.
And then he saw it. Beyond the shallow hill, nestling close to the low fence, was a small compound containing a pair of single-storey, wind-worn, peeling-paint buildings. The sloping corrugated roof of the smaller building extended a further four metres, creating an extension beneath which squatted a dusty pickup. A raised wooden patio ringed the larger building, with faded cloth awnings bolted above the windows, creating shade for the motley collection of bleached benches and warped chairs. Ringing the compound was a two-metre-high chain-link fence, broken by a gate almost as high. There was no barbed wire, which he took as a good omen. No signs of life, though, and surely someone would have heard his car approach. He stopped in front of the closed gate, watched, waited, and wondered what to do next. When no one appeared, he reluctantly opened the car door.
He’d been expecting the heat, but not the smell. It wasn’t the gasoline tang of the diesel-stop, the burned rubber of the airfield, the scrubbed air of the plane, or the comforting fug of the city. This was rich, deep, almost alive, utterly natural, and weirdly unsettling.
He trudged over to the gate. It was bolted, but there was no padlock. There were a forest of signs. None were overly welcoming, but each was reassuringly official, with the largest listing a string of phone numbers, with a note that there was a radio inside.
He reached for the bolt, but then paused. The silence was striking. The car clinked. Something behind the low buildings softly hummed. The veranda’s cloth sunshade flapped as a ghost of a breeze danced across the compound. Otherwise, there was absolute silence.
“As soon as possible, turn around,” the satnav chimed, breaking the spell the beautifully harsh isolation had weaved.
He’d come too far to go back, so he pulled the bolt, tugged the gate outward, turned to head back to the car, and saw a rifle walking towards him. He saw the figure carrying it a second later. A woman. Short. Slim. Wearing a faded checked shirt, and cargo trousers tucked into calf-high boots, with a wide-brimmed hat that shielded her face. The rifle barrel dropped a few inches, then a few more as she let the weapon dangle from her right hand. With a casual flip of her left, she knocked the hat back from her head, letting it fall until the lanyard caught around her neck. Her hair was roughly cut, cropped short. The face was one he didn’t recognise, but she recognised him.
“Hey, Pete,” she said.
“Corrie?”
She smiled, and he saw a shadow of his sister in the unfamiliar face. Corrie glanced into the backseat of the car before laying the rifle on the roof. She walked over to Pete and hugged him. “It’s wonderful to see you,” she said. “Wonderful and terrible all at the same time.”
Pete stepped back from the embrace. “You look different. Very different.”
“I had plastic surgery in Hungary,” she said. “About five years ago.”
“Oh.”
“Doctor Dodson said you were travelling alone, is that right?”
“It is. How do you know? He called you?”
“The outback teems with life, but not much of that’s human. Doctor Dodson and I are friends, I suppose. Or near enough. He called to say some bloke had arrived claiming to be my brother. What did you tell him my name was?”
“Corrie, I think,” he said. “What else would I have said?”
“No surname? Out here, I go by Cornelia, not Coriander,” she said. “That way, I can go mostly by Corrie. I tried changing it to something else, but it’s a name that cuts too deep.”
“Speaking of cutting too deep, I get why you might use a different name, but why did you change your face?”
She shook her head. “Later. Doctor Dodson said you flew in on a jet belonging to Lisa Kempton?”
“That’s right. That’s why I’m here. I’m to give you a sat-phone so you can call her.”
“Kempton flew you here?” Corrie asked. “Are you sure it was her?”
“She didn’t fly the plane herself,” Pete said. “A couple of pilots did.”
“No, I mean are you sure it was Kempton who sent you?”
“I met her,” Pete said. “She picked me up outside work yesterday. I think it was yesterday. The time zones are confusing.”
“Do you mean that carpet store?”
“How do you know I work there?” he asked.
“It’s all part of the same, very long story,” she said. “But you came here alone? No one followed you?”
“Why would they need to? They gave me a satnav so I could find this place.”
“And you actually met Lisa Kempton? You’re sure?”
“Positive,” he said. “Why?”
“Because I’m on the run, Pete. And Kempton is one of the people I’m running from. Out of all the people who could have found me, she is the least worst, but that doesn’t make this good. Bring the car inside. We’ll talk in the shade.” She hugged him again. “It is good to see you, Pete. I just wish it could have been under any circumstances than these.”
“Bathroom’s through there,” Corrie said, pointing to the clearly marked door to the right of the entrance. “Bunk-room is at the back on the right. Kitchen is on the left. My room is behind it. I’ll get us something to drink if you want to wash up and change.”
“I don’t have anything to change into.”
She looked him over. “You look like you’re in costume. I’ll see if I can find something. The archaeologists always leave things behind.”
As she headed into the back, he looked around the place his sister called home. On one side of the door, a squad of un-matching armchairs sprawled around a patched sofa facing an ancient TV. A table, teetering beneath a library of battered books, stood by the window on the door’s other side. In the middle of the room was a desk and bulky radio-set. Underneath, wires snaked across the floor to join those leading to electric fans set up in each corner.
Corrie returned with a tray on which were two glasses, a jug, and a silver-wrapped foil package. “Let’s sit down. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but I’m not sure how much time we have, so you better start with Lisa Kempton and this phone call I’m supposed to make.”
He told her, beginning with the limo ride, jumping back to Kempton’s purchase of the carpet store, before ending with the plane trip. “Are you going to call her?” he asked when he’d finished.
“I don’t know,” Corrie said. “Sorcha Locke isn’t Kempton’s head of HR. She’s her deputy. Tamika Keynes is not a chauffeur. Among other things, she’s in charge of security and the captain of Kempton’s ship. Rampton and Jackson are in the inner circle, too. Did you see anyone else? Speak to anyone?”
“Just them,” Pete said.
“They’re senior executives, multi-millionaires in their own right. They shouldn’t be flying you halfway around the world just so you can give me a phone.”
“They were worried you’d disappear if they approached you,” Pete said.
“They were? I’ve been here four years. No one’s come asking about me before now. That’s why Mick Dodson thought to warn me.”
“What’s going on, Corrie? You said you were in hiding, but from whom? Why do you have a new face? Why are you living out here? Why didn’t you ever call?”
“Because I am in hiding, but clearly I didn’t hide well enough,” she said. “I don’t know how much I should tell you, because the less you know, the less you’ll have to tell. But okay. That Kempton met you, that Keynes was driving, that Locke spoke to you on the phone, and that Rampton and Jackson flew the plane means she doesn’t know whom to trust. That’s not a good sign.”
“Her company is about to go bust, isn’t it?” Pete said. “That’s what this is about.”
“It’s a lot worse than that,” Corrie said. “She gave you the satnav, with this address?”
“It was in a bag on the plane,” he said. “Rampton gave it to me after we landed. The address was already programmed in.”
“Then they know where I am. They’ve probably been watching. If this was just about a phone call, Kempton or Keynes or Locke could have come here themselves. But if they were watching me before, they’ll be watching now. No, I don’t mean they’d have followed you,” she added as Pete turned towards the window. “She has her own satellites, and probably has one overhead. This is bad, Pete. I’m sorry, I really am. I thought by disappearing, I was keeping you safe, but I was wrong. I’m sorry. Where’s that phone?”
“In the bag in the car. You’re going to call her?”
“I don’t see I have much choice. We’ll talk afterwards.”
She went outside, and Pete found himself alone. He sipped from the chipped glass, placed it on the burn-marked tray, leaned back in the worn chair, and took in the room more closely. Everything was patched and repaired, a function of how isolated the cabin was. There would be no please-take furniture left on the kerb. No thrift-store treasures discovered on the way home. No spur-of-the-moment online purchases waiting on the doorstep.
The posters on the wall veered towards the official, with a focus on health-and-safety. The nearest had photographs of the ten deadliest spiders in the region. After a frantic glance, and then a more measured one, he couldn’t spot any cobwebs, but he didn’t feel reassured.
The few pictures on the wall appeared to be cut from magazines, except for a copy of the photograph of Doctor Dodson and his politician daughter, standing beneath the welcome-sign at Broken Hill. The newspaper on the table was two weeks old, the magazine beneath it older still. He got up, and walked across the room, pausing in front of the entrance. Above it hung a hand-smoothed plank of wood on which someone had carved the message Rule One: Check Your Boots. He glanced down, uncertain what he was checking them for.