On the horizon, I could just make out the shape of the USS Altoona. Pretty soon there would be a heavily armed shore party trampling through the orchards and all over the vegetable garden, looking for the second missing warhead so that everyone could return to the happy state of being able neither to confirm nor deny their existence.
Would the Americans take the nukes back now, I wondered, scared off by the close call? Or would Operation Chester still go ahead? We’d probably never know. All those involved in the scheme would close ranks and deny everything.
I heard the crunch of pebbles and Julie was beside me, her submachine gun hooked back across her chest in the combat harness.
‘Well, it looks like you’re going to be the golden-haired boy in Canberra for a minute or two,’ she said.
‘Only if I keep my mouth shut. And that’s going to come at a price. I think Peter Sturdee is odds on to get reinstated and promoted, don’t you?’
‘Definitely. But only after he and all the Sturdees have had a nice little holiday in Tahiti, with hot and cold running babysitters, all at the government’s expense.’
‘I like the way you think, Ms Danko.’
I picked up a flat pebble from the stony beach and spun it out onto the bay. It skipped four times across the water. Julie picked up a pebble, crouched low, and let it go with a lightning flick of her wrist. Five, dammit.
‘Not bad for a girl in full battledress and armed to the teeth,’ I said.
She grinned. ‘It’s all in the wrist, Alby,’ and I wasn’t sure if we were still talking about skipping pebbles.
I was searching for just the right response when she was suddenly in my arms and I was falling backwards. As I hit the beach with Julie on top of me, I might have thought all my Christmases had come at once, if it hadn’t been for the staccato, breathy, cough-like exhalations caused by the impact of the bullets from Chapman Pergo’s submachine gun slamming into Julie’s back.
TWENTY-NINE
Pergo was firing on full auto and on the run, so how he managed to hit Julie right between the shoulderblades was beyond me. I could hear Ed yelling and then everything went into slow motion. Pergo was closing in on us, spurts of dust kicking up from under his pounding feet and a crazed look in his eyes. He might not have been much chop as a boxer, but a nine-mil submachine gun at close range packs more than enough punch to put someone on the canvas and keep them there.
Julie’s eyes were closed and her face was ashen. As I struggled to ease her off me, my hand closed round the grip of the submachine gun strapped to her chest. My thumb must have pushed the fire selector up from SAFE to FULL AUTO by reflex, and as Pergo lifted his weapon and screamed, ‘Fuck You, Murdoch!’ I twisted Julie’s inert body clear and squeezed the trigger.
The noise was deafening and I felt a sudden burning sensation in my chest. I thought for a moment that Pergo had shot me, but it was only the red-hot brass shell casings ejected from Julie’s submachine gun pressing into my skin. The impact of my slugs knocked Pergo backwards, and from somewhere in the distance an SAS trooper emptied the magazine of his Browning into the bastard’s back. It was damn good shooting at that range, and bloody amazing for someone firing from a sitting position. Pergo was down for the count, and this time it was permanent.
Ed was suddenly beside us and he pulled Julie’s body off me. ‘That Cristobel bird passed out,’ he said, ‘and when the SAS bloke turned to check on her Pergo biffed him with a rock and took his gun. Oh Jesus, Alby, is she hurt bad?’
Then an SAS medic was pushing me aside and tearing off Julie’s gun harness and ripping at the Velcro side tabs on her bulletproof vest. I tilted her head back and made sure the airway was clear before I started giving her mouth-to-mouth. Her eyes flickered open for a moment and closed again. The Kevlar vest was off now and the medic expertly ran a pair of scissors up the front of her black rollneck. Underneath she was wearing a lacy black bra and for one bizarre moment I wondered if it was SAS issue.
‘Roll her,’ the medic grunted. ‘But carefully.’
Even at a distance I could see the chopped flesh of Pergo’s torso, but when we turned Julie over, although her back was a mass of rapidly blackening bruises, the skin was unbroken. The medic reached for the discarded bulletproof vest and inspected it. Through the torn fabric and ripped fibres, I could make out the nicked and dented ceramic insert plate that had saved her life. The medic counted the dents.
‘Five hits,’ he said. ‘She’s a bloody lucky girl.’
‘No major damage, then?’
‘Not that I can see. Hopefully it’s nothing worse than bruising, and I think she was winded by the impact. Might have cracked a rib or two, though, so we need to get her to a hospital.’
More SAS troopers were around us now, and as they wrapped Julie in a silver space blanket, I heard someone radio for a medivac chopper. It was over us in seconds, lowering a metal stretcher basket by winch. As they strapped her in, her eyes flickered open again and she turned her head in my direction. A strap was holding her arms by her side and her right index finger beckoned me. I leaned over her, putting my ear close so I could hear above the noise of the chopper.
‘Just a tip, Alby,’ she whispered. ‘Next time you give someone mouth-to-mouth, no tongues, eh?’
‘You started it.’ I gave her a smile and then she was gone, the Blackhawk heading for Hobart before they’d even finished winching in the stretcher.
Adamek Island was suddenly very quiet. The SAS medics were gathered round the injured trooper who’d somehow managed to down Pergo at maximum pistol range, even though he was slightly concussed. These blokes were bloody tough – tough as Tasmanian miners – but then they’d have to be to keep up with Julie.
Thankfully, someone had thrown a tarp over Pergo’s body, weighing it down with half a dozen rocks and improving the view considerably. I knew nothing could bring Max back but I was glad to see this evil prick dead.
With Artemesia and Pergo both gone, the Reverend Priday would now be sitting pretty. What could he actually be charged with? Nobody from the American side would be allowed to testify about events that had officially never happened, and we had no evidence of the conspiracy. All we had was a benign LNG tanker cluttering up Sydney Harbour on a holiday Monday morning.
I looked at my watch. Ten past eight, and suddenly I was starving. There was a lush little herb garden near the cafeteria, I remembered, with some nice flat-leaf parsley. Scrambled eggs were looking good, or maybe a cheese omelette. Too bad there wouldn’t be any bacon, but I knew where to put my hands on some Spam if anyone was that desperate. I wondered if Ed and the commandos and SAS blokes would want breakfast, and then I realised it was a silly question.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to everyone at Penguin, especially publisher Ben Ball for his advice and encouragement, Meredith Rose for her finely honed editing skills, and Belinda Byrne for her continued support.
Thanks also to the people at Screensound Australia for a viewing of The Siege of Pinchgut, and to the staff in the Harbour Control Tower, who must have one of the best offices in the world: ninety metres above Sydney Harbour and 359 degree views – magic.
And as always, many, many thanks to my agent Selwa Anthony for her boundless energy, passion and commitment.
Sensitive New Age Spy Page 21