by Paula Weston
Ryan doesn’t have much time before the guy comes to. He drags him to the nearest conveyer belt. Zip-ties him to the steel leg and gags him. He relieves him of his knife and handgun, scoops up his own weapon and crouch-runs for the lunchroom.
There’s another crash inside and he can smell smoke. The voices are quiet in his ear…shit. His earpiece is gone. He presses his back against the wall, clicks off the safety and catches his breath. The door to the lunchroom is ajar, orange light flickering inside.
‘Frenchie?’ he says through the gap.
‘Paxtons at three o’clock,’ Frenchie says from inside the doorway. ‘They’re not armed. Your girl is, though.’
Ryan nudges the door with his boot in time to see Bradford Paxton rush at Jules. He has a split second to take it all in—the fire, the black smoke, Jules with her hands covered in snapping blue lightning—and lifts his gun.
‘No,’ Frenchie hisses and knocks his arm down. ‘He’s going for the fire.’
And he’s too close to Jules. Ryan moves after him, gun raised.
‘Heads up,’ Frenchie says.
Ryan reacts in time to see an airborne plastic chair. He bats it aside with a forearm and registers Peta Paxton by the sink.
‘Get the Major,’ she barks.
‘He’s busy.’
Ryan turns back in time to see Bradford blasting the fire with dry powder. Jules is watching him, strangely calm. Is she in shock?
‘Jules, are you okay? Jules.’
The charge in her hands shorts out and her eyes meet his. ‘Is Angie out there?’
‘Yeah, somewhere. We have to go.’ Acrid black smoke gathers and curls against the ceiling.
‘Open the window,’ Frenchie says.
Ryan nods. It’s the best option if they move quickly. ‘Give me a hand.’ He wants Jules away from Bradford. If Frenchie wasn’t in the room Ryan would have pistol-whipped the prick already.
Jules draws up the blind and Ryan opens the window. It takes a double thump with his palms but the screen gives.
Frenchie switches on her torch before Bradford puts out the last of the flames. ‘The window is for the smoke, soldier, not you.’
‘They’re coming for Jules. We’re not staying.’
‘You’re not leaving without the order. Ah, shit, Walsh. Don’t point that at me.’
Ryan keeps the gun on her. ‘Is it clear on this side?’
‘I’m not helping you get yourself court-martialled.’
‘Is it clear?’
A beat while she listens to her earpiece. ‘Far as I can tell.’
Ryan holsters the gun and is half-turned to the window when Bradford lunges at him with the extinguisher. Ryan ducks on reflex and before he can recover, Jules steps into the space between them.
‘Get back—’
Bradford doesn’t finish because Jules unloads her charge into him on his backswing.
62
Bradford twitches and jabbers and his eyes roll back into his head. It’s horrible to watch but Jules can’t look away. She reels in the current but he keeps quivering on the floor, spittle dribbling down his chin in the torchlight.
‘Shit, Walsh, go if you’re going, before she kills him.’
Private French is right: another dose into his chest and she could kill him. Bradford curls into himself, moaning. Does she want to? The stink of urine fills the lunchroom and revulsion shudders through her.
She wants to hurt him. But end his life? She’d never be able to carry that.
In the corner by the sink, Peta Paxton is silent.
A burst of gunfire erupts close by. Not random semiautomatic firing but targeted shots inside the packing house.
‘Come on.’ Ryan’s touch is tentative, as if she might turn on him too.
They spill out the window with the smoke. Outside, the breeze is bracing. Jules hears shouting in the distance over the siren and takes off in that direction.
‘Jules, wait—’ Ryan catches up and grabs her before she can round the corner of the packing house. He pulls her behind a stack of crates and puts his finger to his lips. He’s got a knife in his other hand. ‘Trust me?’
She nods.
He lifts the cords hanging from the neck of her hoodie and cleanly slices off the knotted ends, tosses them into the dark. ‘Surveillance tech. The Major bugged you while you were unconscious. Frenchie’s been listening in all afternoon.’
His chest rises and falls and he doesn’t move away. Jules rests her head against his collarbone while she finds her breath. He gives her a few seconds and then lifts her chin so he can see her.
‘Are you okay?’
Jules has no idea how to answer so she tells him the only thing that matters: ‘They’re here to kill Angie.’
‘And you.’ He reaches behind him. ‘Do you know how to use one of these?’ He presses a gun into her hand. It’s rough and heavy, a soldier’s weapon.
‘No.’
The last time she held a handgun she was at an army shooting range with her dad. She was fourteen and he wanted her to learn, but the recoil set off the current. It was a once-only visit.
Jules attempts to give it back but Ryan traps her fingers around it. ‘That’s the safety. Leave it on until you want to fire.’
‘Don’t you need it?’
‘It’s not mine.’
Jules chews her lip, nods to herself. If this is what it takes to get to Angie, she’ll do it. She lifts the hem of her hoodie and tucks the gun down the back of her jeans. The metal is a shock of cold against her skin.
Ryan checks around the corner. ‘We’re clear.’
He leads her between the packing house and the endless solar field. It’s like running along the outskirts of an abandoned city. If they’re going to get to the railway line, they’ll have to run through it—
A blast bucks the ground, sends Jules sprawling. She lands on her hip and barely registers the shock of impact before Ryan’s hauling her up and into a gap between greenhouses. She recovers beside him as the solar panels flicker orange.
‘What was that?’
‘Grenade. The Major called in another favour from our mate in Adelaide. The gear arrived this arvo.’ He checks his handgun. ‘If we run out into that paddock now, the Z12 guys will pick us off. We need to keep cover for as long as we can.’
He squeezes her wrist. ‘Shoot anyone carrying a weapon: our guys are suited up.’ He taps his vest. ‘Put two in the chest. No head shots.’
Jules is a soldier’s kid so she understands the double-tap principle; that doesn’t mean she can deliver it.
They sprint between the greenhouses, the sky above them a sickly tangerine and the air slick with burning fuel. They’re more than halfway along when Ryan fires two loud shots in rapid succession. He keeps sprinting with his weapon raised.
Jules spots the target at the end of the alley: a black-clad soldier slumped against a huge water tank. Ryan takes his weapons and headset and probes his vest to confirm the shots. Satisfied, he steps back.
‘Sorry, mate.’
He fires into the soldier’s calf to keep him down. The gunman mewls, finds the strength to clamp a hand over the wound.
Ryan leads Jules to the cover of a second water tank, equally high and wide. The stench of smoke is stronger here and there’s a blast of heat on the wind. They hedge their way around the tank and Jules finally has her bearings. They’re back to where they came in earlier today: the compound that forms the nexus between the greenhouses, work huts and solar fields.
Jules catches her breath, counts three black vans, two SUVs, a white sedan and a silver hatchback. One of the SUVs is engulfed in flames. The heat is ferocious. Metal pings and cracks, and glass shatters. The tyres are melting faster at the front, giving the burning beast a weird tilt.
The passenger window of the van she arrived in is missing. It must have blown out in the blast.
‘Will the other cars go up?’ Jules covers her mouth with her T-shirt to keep out the fumes.
> ‘Not unless someone drops a grenade in them.’
A generator starts. Spotlights flare, illuminating the compound. Jules and Ryan stay close to the water tank, in shadow as four figures emerge from the packing house. Two of them have balaclavas and rifles; the other two are Bradford and Peta Paxton.
What happened to French?
The soldiers spread out as they close in on an SUV. Peta glances around the compound—is she unnerved to find no sign of Q18?—and bolts for the hatchback without a word to her brother. The gunmen keep their eyes on the shadows, unconcerned when she slams the door and starts the engine. Bradford strides for the SUV with the confidence of a man who’s never stared down a gun barrel.
The weapon is in Jules’ hand before she’s thought it through. The safety clicks off without a sound. She doesn’t want to kill Bradford, but she wants him to remember he was here. Jules takes a steadying breath and takes aim, the current giving her arm an unexpected lightness.
Ryan sucks in his breath. ‘Jules, no—’
She squeezes the trigger.
The recoil slams her shoulder into the steel tank and she almost drops the gun. Ryan drags her around the curve of the tank a heartbeat before bullets slam into the metal. Tyres spin in gravel—Peta’s gone.
‘Help me with cover.’
Ryan takes point using the rifle. Jules’ heart punches her ribs, the charge a swelling orchestra beneath it. Did she hit Bradford? She lifts the gun again—she’s shaking now, from the recoil and adrenaline—and stares into the night on the dark side of the tank, braced for a rearguard attack.
Everything is loud. The siren blaring across the salt flats. Voices shouting and car doors slamming in the compound. Another round of bullets thwacks into the tank, forcing them further back. Vehicles leaving. More sirens, this time from the direction of the highway.
Ryan repositions the rifle butt against his shoulder. ‘If we can reach one of those vans, I can get us out of here.’
‘What about Angie?’
He’s stopped listening, already focused on what he needs to do. ‘Wait here.’
He crouch-runs across the compound and grabs the drivers door handle of the first van. It snaps back under his fingers. Locked. Boots crunch on gravel and he spins around. Three figures rush at him from the shadows, assault rifles drawn. One of them is French. She must have fled the lunchroom before the mercenaries reached the Paxtons.
Ryan doesn’t resist. He holds his rifle out in front of him and French takes it. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ he shrugs.
He’s not giving Jules up but he can’t help her from there. Alone by the tank, Jules flexes her fingers and tries to think.
All he needs is a distraction, enough to make a run for it.
The vests.
Jules tries to steady her hand but her shoulder aches where it slammed into the steel tank. She lifts the gun anyway, aiming for French’s chest.
Cold metal kisses the skin under her ear. ‘That would be unwise.’
For a big man, the Major can be frighteningly quiet.
‘Give it to me before you hurt yourself. And my safety’s off, so I wouldn’t advise using that other weapon of yours either.’
Her fingers are slippery. The Major takes her gun, keeps his in contact with her neck.
‘You two…’ he mutters. ‘You’re doing your best not to see the night out.’
‘Major—’
‘Save it.’
He prods her forward and into the light. Ryan’s on his knees, hands behind his head. His eyes meet hers, bitterly frustrated. He might disobey an occasional order but he’s not going to take on his own unit. Jules drops to her knees beside him without being told and the gravel bites through her jeans. Heat radiates from the burning SUV, warming her face and neck.
Two Q18 guys grab fire extinguishers from the vans and douse the SUV. The sirens are closer. Beyond the railway line there’s sporadic gunfire. Someone is shooting at the protesters with real ammo.
‘Major, I need to find Angie.’
The Major grunts. ‘Another De Marchi problem I have to sort.’
‘Please—’
‘You need to worry about yourself right now. Your mother can look after herself.’
Jules opens her mouth to disagree when the ground rumbles. It’s another explosion, big enough to rattle the glass in the SUV behind her. It’s come from the west, either from the nuclear plant or the protester camp.
Oh God, where is she?
63
Angie lurches into consciousness to find the world a violent blur, her bones rattling as she’s thrown from side to side. She reaches out to brace herself. It’s only then that she realises she’s strapped into a car’s passenger seat.
She sits up and the night comes into sharp focus. They’re bouncing through the scrub in a four-wheel drive ute, Xavier murdering the gears in search of third.
‘What the…’
Ahead of them, a power line tower is toppling sideways in slow motion, cables snapping one by one. The saltbush burns where the tower’s feet have been uprooted, and beyond it the nuclear plant winks out. The searchlights are gone. The siren silenced.
‘Ollie,’ Xavier says by way of explanation.
Angie tastes blood in her mouth. ‘What’s the point? The plant has a generator.’
‘And when that fails…’
The plutonium rods overheat and the plant goes into nuclear meltdown.
‘Ollie’s not getting to the generator,’ she says. ‘He won’t get near the plant, even in a blackout.’ The thought that he might is a cold fist in her belly.
Xavier grips the steering wheel and stares ahead. ‘Not without another distraction.’ He reefs the wheel and heads for the railway line. It’s pointless, because there’s a prison-grade cyclone fence protecting it, as sturdy as the one hemming in the Anti-Nuke Assembly camp. They won’t get past it unless…
Ollie’s been busy here too. There it is, a gap wide enough for a single vehicle.
Xavier has to brake hard to fit through, changing hamfistedly down to first gear. The jagged wire scrapes the duco on both sides and they’re halfway through when something heavy lands in the tray of the ute. Angie twists around to see a figure crouched there, struggling to stay upright. Waylon. Thank God.
Xavier grimaces in the green dash light and guns the ute, swerving left and then right in the soft sand, trying to throw him out. When that fails, he grinds back up to second and veers up the verge, onto the railway track. Angie’s jaw bangs on her shoulder as they judder over the sleepers. They’re heading towards the highway. She assumed his plan was to ram-raid the plant via the railway line, so this option makes no sense.
‘What are you doing?’
Xavier doesn’t answer. Meaty fists white-knuckled on the steering wheel, eyes fixed ahead. He pushes the engine harder. Waylon staggers forward and manages to grip the roll bar behind the cab, finally steadies himself. He presses his face to the back window.
‘Get out of there,’ he yells at Angie. ‘Look!’
Ahead on the track, a single bright light punctuates the darkness in the distance. Is that—
No, no, no.
The only trains on this line are loaded with radioactive waste. Angie tastes ash. ‘Xavier, there’s a train coming.’
He hunches further over the wheel.
‘You’re a lunatic.’ She reaches for him—
His elbow flies up and her head snaps back. The night splinters again.
‘Hey, hey!’
Angie’s vaguely aware of Waylon banging the butt of his gun on the back window. Her cheek throbs in time with the impact, shards of white forking through her skull. She tries to sit up, can’t. Her head hurts too much. She fights to stay conscious because the truth is taking shape in the fug. Xavier knew a train was coming; he’s been checking his watch all night. The march on the plant was the first distraction, this is the second. Xavier is going to derail a shipment of radioactive waste by dr
iving this ute into an oncoming train. With both of them in it.
Her heart climbs into her throat. She rests her aching head against the window and tries the door: it’s centrally locked. She fumbles for the button to open the window. Nothing. She’s trapped. A horn sounds. The train driver’s seen them. Why didn’t they brake when the tower went down?
‘I have to get to Jules,’ she says, pulling on the doorhandle again.
‘You need to be with me.’
The light on the track is brighter, closer. The horn blasts, longer this time. Waylon bangs again and Angie cranes her neck to see him pointing the gun at the rear window, eyes frantic.
‘Why?’ She’s pleading now. Praying for Waylon to shoot. Anything to get this ute off the tracks.
Xavier doesn’t look at her when he answers.
‘Because if you’re still a threat after tonight, Bradford Paxton’s going to stop paying for my sister’s treatment.’
64
‘Go,’ the Major orders. ‘Now, before we have company.’
Two of his soldiers disappear to investigate the explosion. Three more head in opposite directions to guard the perimeter and the other four are already on their way to give Bradford Paxton’s war dogs something to think about other than shooting at unarmed protesters. French takes point a few metres away.
The night has gone to shit in spectacularly unexpected ways.
He didn’t have the resources to stop Z12 extracting Peta and Bradford from the lunchroom. He had no imperative to intervene anyway, given they left willingly. Both of them. Fucking Paxtons. Of course they’d stick together. The Major has never believed the adage about blood being thicker than water but maybe there’s something to it. Or maybe it’s a mutual fear of shareholder losses.
And as for Walsh…
‘What was going through that tiny brain of yours when you took De Marchi out of the lunchroom?’
Walsh lifts his head. ‘She wasn’t safe.’
‘What is it you think we’ve been doing here all afternoon?’