There was surprise on Zoe’s face as she said, ‘You know about that?’
‘Let’s see,’ I said, trying to think of a concealment for ‘yes’. ‘Yacht side smell.’
Zoe smiled. ‘He would’ve used Facebook, he would’ve got in touch somehow.’
‘Instead of stealing a plane and flying it over the city?’
‘You really think my brother would pull a cheap stunt like that?’ Zoe said.
‘I was there.’
‘So you saw him with your very own eyes, did you, even though he was hundreds of metres away?’
The turtle, having decided that the cabbage was not to its liking, had moved on to a piece of cauliflower. And I needed to take a breather; too much information too quickly and my brain was having difficulty processing it.
Eventually I said, ‘So what are you saying, that your brother’s been kidnapped?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
‘But by who?’
Absent all day, the sun had appeared in a chink in the clouds. Suddenly it was warm. Zoe took off her hat, shook out her hair.
‘Why do you want to catch my brother so much?’ she asked.
The obvious answer, the logical answer, was, ‘The reward, of course,’ but something told me this wasn’t going to cut it with Zoe. She was clever, she would’ve done a background check on me, found that my father was one of the richest men in Queensland.
‘Not for the reward, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ I said. ‘I don’t need the money. It’s the challenge. The cops couldn’t bring him in. Hound ended up with empty handcuffs. I thought I could be the kid who caught the Zolt.’
Again Zoe took time, turtle time, to consider what I’d just said.
She must’ve found my answer satisfactory, because she said, ‘I really don’t know why somebody would want to kidnap my brother.’
‘Maybe it’s something he knows,’ I said.
She considered this for a while.
‘I’ve just got this funny idea that the safest place for my brother right now is actually in jail.’
She was right: it was a funny idea, but I didn’t have time to think just how funny it was, because two men in jeans and leather jackets appeared near the meerkat enclosure and started walking towards us.
‘Cops!’ said Zoe, getting up quickly, ready to make a run for it.
It was too late, however; they were almost on us.
‘Federal Government,’ the taller of the two said, bringing out a wallet, flashing some sort of badge.
Wow, I thought. Zoe had a right to be so paranoid.
‘You’re Dominic Silvagni?’ he said.
‘That’s me,’ I said, wondering how he knew my name.
‘We’d like you to accompany us to answer a few enquiries we have.’
‘I think you’ve got the wrong person,’ I said, looking at Zoe, sister and accomplice of the notorious criminal Otto Zolton-Bander.
‘Dominic Silvagni?’ said the shorter man. ‘Resident of Halcyon Grove? Born seventeenth of February, 1997?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘Then you’re the right person, alright. Let’s go, buddy.’
‘You’re a minor!’ said Zoe. ‘They’re not allowed to question you without a guardian being present.’
I’m sure Zoe was right, but I also figured that I might as well get this – whatever it was – over with.
‘It’s okay,’ I said to her. ‘Let’s stay in touch.’
We left, leaving Zoe alone with the Galapagos turtles. The two men said nothing as I got into the back seat of a dark car that was parked right outside the zoo in a No Parking zone.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked.
‘You’ll find out,’ said the taller man.
Ten minutes later we pulled into the carpark of an anonymous-looking office building and they told me to get out. I followed them through a back door, down anonymous-looking corridors and into an anonymous-looking room.
I sat down. They sat down.
They looked at me. I looked at them.
Who were they?
‘Could I possibly have a look at your badge, again?’ I said.
The taller cop reached into his pocket, brought out a wallet, and flicked it open in front of my face.
The badge certainly looked like the real thing: there was a kangaroo and an emu and the words ‘Australian Federal Police’.
‘Okay,’ I said.
Even if it wasn’t the real thing, even if they were impersonating Federal cops, I was intrigued as to what they wanted from me.
‘Dominic, we’d like to talk to you about Otto Zolton-Bander,’ said the shorter cop.
‘Sure,’ I said, because I figured there was no use denying that I didn’t know of him.
‘From what we understand, you and Mr Jazy may have visited his hideaway recently.’
‘We may have,’ I said, but already I had this feeling that I was getting out of my depth here.
‘So what we need you to do is tell us everything that happened yesterday,’ said the shorter cop.
‘Take your time,’ said the other cop.
Getting further and further out of my depth.
But I did as they asked and I was back at Reverie Island.
I was in the helicopter with Cameron Jamison. And I was looking in through the open window. At the inflated airbag. Tristan saying, ‘Become what you are.’ I was running back to the helicopter. Where Cameron was holding his mobile phone.
‘It’s not the Zolt,’ I was saying. ‘It’s Tristan.’
‘His dad’s on his way,’ Cameron Jamison said.
But how did Cameron Jamison know that it was Tristan in the car? Why hadn’t he assumed it was the Zolt like everybody else?
Really, there was only one answer to that question: Cameron knew it wasn’t the Zolt because he had the Zolt!
‘Dominic?’ said the shorter cop. ‘What can you tell us?’
I remembered what Zoe had said: ‘They’re not allowed to question you without a guardian being present.’
‘I want a guardian present!’ I said.
But as soon as I said that, I realised that my mom or my dad were the last people I wanted here.
‘Actually, I want my lawyer,’ I said.
The two men exchanged looks.
‘Let’s keep the lawyers out of this, shall we?’ said the shorter one.
‘I want my lawyer,’ I said.
The other cop shrugged. ‘You’re making a dumb move, but you do have a right to call your lawyer.’
Problem was, I didn’t have a lawyer.
I scrolled through my iPhone looking for somebody who at least vaguely resembled a member of the legal profession. Jeremy Gallard’s mother was this hotshot barrister, but Jeremy had been caught twice stealing from the school canteen, so they sort of cancelled each other out. Really there wasn’t anybody, but I certainly didn’t want the cops to know that.
They were clever, they knew every cop trick in the cop book, and I needed all the help I could get.
So I rang Gus. As I did the shorter man got up and left the room.
‘Dom?’ answered Gus.
‘Mr Giuseppe,’ I said. ‘It’s Dominic Silvagni here.’
‘Dom,’ said Gus ‘What’s going on?’
‘That’s right, Mr Giuseppe –’ I started, but then the line dropped out.
I was about to dial again but the taller cop said, ‘You can go if you like, Dominic.’
‘I can go?’
‘You can go.’
The other cop came back into the room and I noticed that he gave his partner a sort of wink.
‘We’ll drop you back at the zoo, if you like,’ he said.
‘Can you take me home?’ I said.
‘Sure.’
Outside the wind had picked up, and black clouds were banking up towards the ocean. The cops dropped me off outside the gates of Halcyon Grove, but as I made for my house, my phone beeped.
; It was a message from Zoe: you ok?
But as I went to reply there was another beep, different to the last one.
There was a message on the screen that said: Warning! Unauthorised Base Station is attempting to connect to your phone. Accept or Reject?
It took me a while to realise that it was the app Miranda had installed, the anti-tapping app.
And I remembered how one cop had left the room while I was making the call to Gus.
The cops were trying to tap my phone!
How dare they?
I was just about to choose ‘Reject’ when I had second thoughts: maybe I should play along with them, maybe I should let them listen to my calls for a while, and hopefully they’d soon realise that I wasn’t some criminal mastermind and leave me alone.
I knew it was risky, but I chose ‘Accept’.
Back in my bedroom, I opened Facebook on my laptop and went to the Zolt fan page.
I created a phoney Facebook profile, calling myself the Technicolour Monkey, and even found a photo of one for my profile picture.
And I added an entry.
Zolt no expert
Straightaway I got a couple of replies – yes he is! and your an idiot – but neither was from Hera so I ignored them. I waited for another half an hour but there was no further replies, so I went to bed to get some much-needed sleep.
When I woke up, I discovered that Hera had replied to my post.
You are stupid!
I entered my own reply.
Idiot!
kids can own show
we smash ordinary
heros via sms
or fight to oblivion
Okay, it probably wasn’t going to win the school poetry prize, but it worked, because it only took a minute for her to reply.
legs have ten toes
men have even feet
Gus was sitting outside his house, reading a book.
‘I’m running in the Reverie Island All-Comers Mile Race on Saturday,’ I told him. ‘And you’re driving me there.’
Of course, he had a thousand reasons – most of them pretty good – why this was a bad idea.
‘Okay, then,’ I said. ‘You’re not driving me.’
‘That’s the ticket,’ he said.
‘I’ll hitchhike instead, and just hope I’m not picked up by some homicidal maniac.’
Silence, then a sigh, and then Gus saying, ‘We’ll leave at six Saturday morning.’
‘That’s the ticket,’ I said.
A RACE WORTH WINNING?
For somebody whose whole life has been about speed, about getting runners to run as fast as they can, Gus is a very slow driver. Yes, his old ute is a very slow car, but he drives his very slow car very slowly. Even the music he plays – delta blues – is slow music.
The only conversation we had as we slowly made our way very slowly to Reverie Island was racing conversation, Gus warning me how ruthless these professionals could be. Telling me stories to illustrate their ruthlessness.
When eventually we got to the island, there was an hour before the race was due to start. Many of the roads, including the main street, had been closed to traffic, and there was multi-coloured bunting strung everywhere; the race was obviously a big deal. And as we registered I could feel those characteristic butterflies in my stomach. I was racing today! I quickly came to my senses, however. Racing wasn’t why I was here. I told Gus that I’d see him at the starting line before the start time.
‘That’s fine,’ he said and I figured he knew that this trip was more about The Debt than running some crazy race.
There were only a few people in the café: a couple deep in conversation, their noses almost touching, and a hippie-looking character with a tangle of hair in her face and scruffy clothes.
I ordered a Zoltocino, sat down in a corner, and waited.
I was pretty worried: already she was five minutes late, and our plan depended on meticulous timing. After fifteen minutes of waiting I knew I should never have trusted her.
And to make matters worse the hippie was making for my table. Was she looking for a handout? Did she want to sell me drugs? Who knows, but I was pushing my chair back, ready to escape, when the hippie mouthed, ‘Dom.’
I was thinking, How the hell does that hippie know my name? when I realised that the hippie wasn’t a hippie at all.
‘Got you,’ said Zoe Zolton-Bander.
‘Whatever,’ I said.
She sat down at the table and I said, ‘You get them?’
Her hand went into her pocket and when it reappeared it was holding five SIM cards, each from a different carrier.
‘And they’re all …’ I began to say, before I bit my tongue – of course they were all okay; this was a Zolton-Bander I was dealing with, not some amateur.
‘Okay, let’s get to work,’ she said.
‘Here?’
‘It’s as safe as anywhere.’
We got to work.
We spent half an hour swapping SIM cards in and out of phones, sending texts to my number. When we’d finished I put my SIM card back into my phone and turned it on.
‘So you’re sure they’re monitoring your texts?’ she said.
I opened Miranda’s app. Warning! Unauthorised base station is connected to your phone.
‘Definitely,’ I said.
I composed a text: first meeting of teenage hacker society today at 4 @ 242 the esplanade, reverie island. And sent it to the other five phone numbers. By now I only had fifteen minutes until starting time.
After going through the plan once more with Zoe, I left my backpack with her, and hurried back through town. The race really was a big deal; there were people everywhere, lining the route. I’d considered not going through with the race, but I’d eventually decided that wasn’t a good idea. The race was my reason for coming to the island, and as much as I didn’t feel like running, I needed to make sure I didn’t blow my cover.
Back at the starting line the other runners were already out of their tracksuits, already warming up.
Gus was standing there with a worried look on his face, which disappeared when he saw me approaching.
‘Just treat it as a training run,’ he said. ‘You’re not out to win anything.’
‘I’m not?’
‘Look, I know what these charity runs are like. These rich types put up a grand just to make it a bit interesting. That may not be much to them, but it’s a fair bit to some poor fellow on the pro circuit. Don’t even try to mix it with them, Dom. They’re as mean as junkyard dogs.’
Just as he finished telling me this, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, some exciting news! Local identity Mr Cameron Jamison has matched the previous prize money, so our runners today will now be competing for two thousand dollars.’
I could see Cameron Jamison himself, standing at the back of the crowd. Our eyes met and a wry smile appeared on his face. Immediately, I looked away.
‘Junkyard dogs,’ repeated Gus.
As I stood on the starting line, I could see exactly what Gus meant: quite a few of the other runners had the half-starved look of the semi-professional athlete. They looked around, their cold eyes sizing up the competition.
‘On your marks! Get ready! Go!’ said the starter, and there was a huge cheer as we took off down the main street.
Already there was pushing and shoving, elbows flying everywhere. So I immediately removed myself from the traffic, running out wide, close to where the spectators were.
Just a leisurely two-kay stroll, I told myself as we left the town. Taking in the wonderful postcard-worthy scenery.
But around the half-kay mark, when a bunch of five runners suddenly increased the pace, I couldn’t help myself: I went with them. Even with Gus’s ‘treat it as a training run’ looping through my head, I went with them.
One of the junkyard dogs looked behind, saliva dripping from his canines, and told me that my company wasn’t appreciated, though not
exactly in those words.
I dropped off the pace.
Another runner came up alongside me. He was tall, sinewy, fresh-faced; nothing doglike about him at all.
‘Do you know how much longer it is?’ he asked.
‘Four or five hundred, I reckon.’
‘Thanks,’ he said before he kicked, moving rapidly away from me.
He had a nice uncomplicated style and looked a likely winner to my eyes. But when he caught up with the leading pack, and went to move past, one of the junkyard dogs put his paw out and tripped him up. He hit the bitumen hard, rolling a couple of times, ending up sprawled on his stomach.
‘You okay?’ I said, stopping next to him.
‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘You go get ’em, buddy, go get those mongrels.’
I looked up: the mongrels were a fair way ahead now.
You’re only on a training run, said one part of me as I took off. This is just an alibi, said another. But yet another part was having none of this.
I shifted up a gear, quickly making ground on the leaders. Luckily for me none of them had kicked yet; they were still in a tight knot, jostling for position. And when I say jostling, that’s exactly what I mean – this looked more like mobile wrestling than running.
When we turned back into the main street, I was right behind them. And when the finishing line banner came into sight, about a hundred metres away, they all kicked at the same time.
I was ready for that, though, and went with them, running out wide.
With fifty metres to go there were three of us left, then there were two: me and the man who’d had impolite words with me earlier.
With twenty metres to go, I could see the pain contorting his face, I could hear the raggedness of his breath.
I felt good, I felt great.
I thought of what Gus said about two grand not being much to a rich person, but being a quite a bit to some poor runner on the pro circuit. I slowed down and let the junkyard dog and his ragged breathing catch up. But when the winning line was within reach, a surge of energy, of power, of pride, of something, picked me up and took me over the line first.
Catch the Zolt Page 15