Yellowcake Summer

by Guy Salvidge

  “I thought you were going to say, ‘it’s easy to remain objective’ and I would have agreed with you. But I don’t agree that the situation gives cause for optimism.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. Your sentence may well be commuted, and if it is, our movement will suffer a devastating blow. Even if the appeal fails, we will lose momentum in the interim. You have become a plaything of governments, David. I very much doubt that this was your intention in ‘58.”

  “No,” David said slowly, “but we will receive a great deal of media attention over the next couple of years and that can only be for the good of the cause. And if the sentence is commuted I can continue my work from prison, as I have been doing these past three years.”

  “I don’t agree,” Eli insisted. “Do you realise that both sides are using you to score points against the other in parliament? You’re an election issue, David. You’re a thing to bash the Chinese with. This can’t be allowed to continue; it cheapens us.” His face reddened.

  David leaned forward, staring his would-be usurper down. “What’s your solution, Eli? We need to grow before there can be any prospect of revolution. You know that.”

  “Indeed. We need a defining moment that only you can provide. I come here to implore you to give yourself to the cause.”

  “You’re asking me to withdraw the appeal?”

  “We must not give them the satisfaction of being able to claim that they have meted out their justice. We need decisive action and we need it now. My cell marches on Yellowcake Springs in a fortnight and Sylvia will be among us.”

  “This is a power grab, nothing more,” David said. “You want me out of the picture.”

  “You will never be out of the picture, David. You will be our martyr. Misanthropos is founded on death and yours will be the seminal one. I must respectfully ask this of you. You must commit yourself fully so that we may carry on the work in your name.”

  “Spoken like a true zealot.” David sat back. “How did you get in here? I didn’t authorise it.”

  “We have many friends,” Eli said, his hands balled into fists. “Some of them are within these walls.” He opened his palms and laid them on the table, revealing a small, white capsule.

  “No time like the present, is there?” David said. “You’re a fast worker, Eli, but I’m not so easily swayed by your rhetoric.”

  “You’re fading,” Eli whispered. “It isn’t too late for you to shine again.”

  “I want to continue my work.”

  “Death is your work, David. You must lead by example. Candidly, I’m disappointed that you have not chosen this path more willingly.”

  “I’m not ready and I’m not leaving our history in your hands to rewrite.”

  “I’m not giving you an option, David. You will go willingly or unwillingly and you will go today. This minute.”

  “No.” David’s pulse raced; he was ready to strangle the life from his unruly acolyte.

  “You are stronger in body but weaker, it seems, in mind,” Eli said. “And yes, I will rewrite this. I will recast you as the true martyr you were in ‘58.”

  Eli pushed the pill across the table. David picked it up, considered it briefly, and put it down.

  “You’ll need water,” Eli said, producing a plastic bottle from his jacket. “Don’t be afraid of oblivion, David: embrace it. You must have faith.”

  David held the pill and he held the bottle. His mouth was dry. He raised the pill to his lips but his lips remained tightly pursed. He put both items down again. “I can’t and I won’t,” he said. “You’ll have to make me.”

  “At this final hurdle,” Eli murmured. He went to the cell door which was not locked. Security had been entirely circumvented, but whether through collusion or subterfuge David did not know. Eli went out into the corridor but the door remained open. It was the only exit. That or the white pill.

  Eli walked back through the door and this time he was joined by other men, other conspirators to the patricide. They strode toward David and he got to his feet and started backing away into the corner of the room.

  1. Agenda Items

  Jeremy sat at the head of the boardroom table in the Eye, beset by an assembly of hostile faces. He had a nasty headache, but that wasn’t anything new. He’d gotten plastered on New Year’s Eve and made an ass of himself in front of Hui and her mocking friends, and he was still feeling the effects almost a week later.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” he said, and the hubbub barely lessened as he began. In fact, after a few moments it actually grew louder, too loud for him to be heard. “Look,” he said, holding out his hands. “I know you’re pissed off about having to be here today. I’m pissed off too.” That got their attention. “I’m hungover and I need a good sleep. It’s the fifth of January and I’m at work on a Thursday morning when I should be in bed, but here I am. Want to know why? Because the Grand Director demands it.” Silence now.

  “Sir, please begin,” a young sycophant at the front said, getting a number of dirty looks for his trouble.

  Jeremy nodded. “Now I hope you all had a great break, even if it was curtailed, because right now we have some serious problems that have the Grand Director hopping mad. Item one.” He held up a finger. “We’ve got a murder case that we’re no closer to solving more than a month after the fact. This is very embarrassing for the company.

  “Item two.” Second finger. “A bunch of peaceniks are coming here to Yellowcake Springs to protest against CIQ Sinocorp, nuclear energy and nasty foreigners in general. They’re coming in a little over a week and the weak as piss Australian Government won’t lift a finger to stop them.

  “Item three: David Baron, formerly an employee of this organisation, formerly the man who masterminded the June First attack, formerly the man who designed this very building and whom we like to call the Great Criminal, has killed himself in his cell, thus giving immense added momentum to the aforementioned tree-huggers and their protest.

  “Item four is the salient fact that the protesters have chosen as their talisman none other than Sylvia Baron, also formerly an employee of this organisation and the widow of the Great Criminal.

  “Item five is the fact that Grand Director Li has tasked this Security bureau with resolving items one to four in a speedy fashion, hence the need for us to return a few days early from our well-earned rest. All unused leave credits will be reimbursed and you will be allowed to take the remainder of your allocation as soon as the crisis is resolved. I will have your comments and I will have them now.”

  He closed his mouth and listened to what his staff had to say. None of it helped but that was freedom of speech for you. Lillian Chu, his notional deputy, stole the most oxygen. He nodded at the appropriate times and offered the occasional word of ersatz encouragement. Then he gave them a big rev up and sent them scurrying to their posts, while he retreated into his office and his plush leather chair. It was far too early for a drink and yet that was all he could think about. He had a midday drinking rule but in recent weeks he had come to think of his morning pick-me-up as an exception to that. The feel of the whisky bottle was a source of reassurance. He hefted it, listening to the slosh of the goodness within. The moment the amber fluid touched his lips, his thoughts turned to his many other problems, like a man lamenting his infidelity at the point of illicit orgasm.

  Item six, he muttered under his breath: he was an alcoholic and it was getting worse. It had become a bottle a day habit and his liver couldn’t take it even if his bank balance probably could.

  Item seven: he hadn’t had sex in three weeks and the last time with Hui he’d been impotent. Afraid of similar failures in the future, he hadn’t yet tried it on with his PA or one of the interns. And he knew better than to drop in on Clarissa. He’d heard through the grapevine that Tiffany had made it difficult enough for her already. So he was stumped.

  Item eight: Hui wouldn’t speak to him and the situation was in danger of becoming a tawdry scandal.
He knew that she blamed Given’s death on him. It was natural for her to think him jealous and yet the topic of Given was taboo between them. To raise Given in that context would be to concede that their marriage was finished, that their continued cohabitation was purely a matter of convenience. The fact that he had not had Given murdered, that in truth he remained clueless as to the killer and their motive, was immaterial.

  What else? He racked his brain. Item nine was that the vagrant Rion had so far evaded AFP capture. Lyncoln Rose assured him that it was a matter of time, but he had his doubts about Lyncoln Rose and the AFP in general. He wouldn’t mind getting his hands on Rion, see what he could squeeze out of him, but that was hardly his biggest problem.

  Item ten, and this was the key one: someone, possibly the Grand Director, had locked him out of crucial Security files, which was so embarrassing that he was now forced to cover up that fact. He felt sure that it all linked in with Yang Po and the Fearless Six, which was why he’d had Lui Ping, Jiang Wei’s fiancée, put on a salary. Time for her to earn her keep.

  She took her time, maybe an hour, although at least this time she’d been persuaded to put her kid in the crèche. Natasha sent her through. Lui Ping wasn’t amazing to look at, he decided. Thin in the face, straight black hair, and not much up front. But the prolonged rest must have done her good, for today he was worth a pursed-lipped smile.

  “And how is little Lijia?” he asked. “Enjoying her holiday?”

  “She’s happy,” Ping agreed. “Happy to see her mother so much. It’s good.”

  “A drink?” He knew she wouldn’t accept a whisky, but it gave him an excuse for a small one. She shook her head. He poured himself a glass and she waited while he sipped.

  “Are you sending us back home?” she asked.

  “Not yet, I still need you here for my investigation. That’s why I wanted to talk to you today.”

  She nodded. “Yang Po has recovered?”

  “He’s getting a little better, I’ve heard, but he’s still very weak. He won’t be coming back to Australia.” That, at least, was one less problem for him to think about.

  Ping offered no further comment. She was a tough one, sinewy and stern. Not much love there for anyone except her daughter. For all he knew she had sworn off men since her fiancée’s death. He speculated that it had probably been so long that she’d shut up shop altogether.

  “I want to ask you some more questions,” he said. “If you provide me with some useful information, then I’ll have a reason for you to stay longer. You understand?”

  She did. “Ask. I tell you everything.”

  He had her run through the events as she remembered them and her memory was good. He was particularly interested in the fact that Yang Po had personally visited them at Regal Perth Hospital in Jiang Wei’s final hours. “He asked your fiancée to withdraw his euthanasia application?” he asked, recapping.

  “Yes, the company made him, but he didn’t care, really. He came to... how do you say? To gloat.” Her face hardened; there was real hatred there.

  “And you say he admitted that he deliberately sent the men into the reactor without radiation suits? He didn’t try to deny it?”

  “He said if I make trouble for him, he would send me to a work camp.”

  He shook his head. “He has no authority anymore; I’m in charge here now.”

  She shrugged as if to say, so what? “Mr Peters,” she said. “I mean this with respect. Since Jiang Wei died, I don’t trust one person. Nobody. Yang Po killed Lijia’s father. I don’t want her to be an orphan.”

  “He can’t hurt you now; I promise.”

  She crossed her arms. “He said the homeland needs martyrs. He said that the Controlled Waking State trial was a failure. He said he didn’t want to go to a work camp. That’s why he sent them. He knew they would die.” She spat out the words with venom.

  He could see it now, the cold calculation, the collateral Yang Po had used to buy his way clear of trouble. Six men, six martyrs.

  “Did anyone else from the company speak to you after Jiang Wei’s death?”

  “No one. I only spoke to one Australian man working at the hospital. He said he was at Yellowcake Springs when it happened.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me the name of the bomber, David Baron.”

  The name had been all over the media in the aftermath of course, but not then, not in the first few days after the attack. “What else did he say?”

  “Just that he knew David Baron’s wife. Nothing else.”

  “He knew Sylvia Baron? You said this guy was working at the hospital?”

  “Just an orderly, yes.”

  Now came the key question and he knew that she knew the answer before she said it, even before he asked. “Do you remember the Australian man’s name?”

  Ping nodded. “He had a strange name, Orion.”

  “Orion Saunders?”

  “Yes. You know this man?”

  “We haven’t met,” he said. “Not yet.”

  Ping didn’t know anything else, but what she knew was enough. He sent her on her way with a promise that he’d try to get her visa extended and that as far as he was concerned she was working for Security from now on, even if she never set foot in the Eye except to report to him.

  He put a call through to the AFP. “Get me Lyncoln Rose,” he said.

  2. Ley Farm

  For three days now, Rion, Marcel and Vanya had been awaiting further instructions at their new forward position halfway between East Hills and Yew. Their encampment was in what had once been endless fields of wheat, but was now just another dustbowl. Down near the bank of the dry Blake River, nestled between hills in the heart of the Belt, the place was called Ley Farm. So proclaimed the lone remaining gate, its twin having vanished during some forgotten calamity, leaving the rubbled track to the fire-scorched farmhouse, only partially gated.

  The three men had had little to do these past days but cower from the furious summer sun and pray that there was no fuel in those blighted fields left to burn. They played never ending card games in the suffocating, airless rooms, praying for night to fall so that they might venture outside. It was on the afternoon of the third of those intolerably sultry days that the radio came to life and Rion heard the words he’d long feared:

  “The AFP are here and they want to speak to you, Rion. They’ll be arriving at your location within the next hour.”

  The words were spoken by Turley but to Rion it was like the judgement of some vengeful god. He made the appropriate noises into the receiver in response and then slumped down onto the concrete floor.

  “You all right, bud?” Marcel said, still brandishing his hand of poker, the cards turned protectively into his ample chest.

  Vanya kneeled over where Rion had slumped. “Dude, what’s up?” he asked.

  “You’re gonna have to talk these AFP goons,” Marcel said. “You might even get out of this fucking heat. They’ll have a nice cool cell for you somewhere.”

  Rion sat up, his head pounding.

  “You’re going to run?” Vanya asked.

  “I have to,” Rion said. “If they catch me they’ll hand me over to CIQ Sinocorp. I’ll be taken back to Yellowcake Springs.”

  “It’s the feds, not Sinocorp,” Marcel pointed out.

  Rion got to his feet. “Same difference,” he replied. “They all want a piece of me.”

  “But you haven’t done anything,” Vanya said.

  “I’m a poor man and I’ve got something over them,” Rion said. He didn’t ask either of them to go with him. He knew they’d both decline and that they’d be well within their rights to do so. He made his way into the kitchen and started stuffing cans into a bag.

  “You know we’re gonna get questioned,” Marcel said. “I’m gonna say you up and bolted, just like that. Took a shottie and made for the door.”

  “What if they arrest us?” Vanya asked.

  “Then we’ll get some fucking airco
n, all right?” Marcel said, placing a big hand of warning on Vanya’s shoulder.

  “I might be back later,” Rion said, picking up one of the shotguns. “If they’ve gone by then.”

  “I’ll send you a signal,” Vanya said. “I’ll fire off a shell.”

  “That could be the sound of us getting blown to fuck,” Marcel grumbled. “No more discussion, bro. Just leg it.” He slapped Rion on the back and it turned into a sweaty hug. Rion stood half crushed. “I’m not trying to be a cunt,” Marcel explained.

  “I know you aren’t,” Rion said, extricating himself. “The less you know, the less you can spill.”

  “Right.”

  The heat hit him the moment he set foot out into the shimmering world. The sun was long past its zenith, but he thought only of shade. Knowing that he couldn’t run far, he searched for a subterranean bolthole, some crevice or cavity in the earth itself. The machinery sheds were too close to the farmhouse, but there were other structures further afield, down near the riverbed. A concrete water tank, partially dug into the barren earth, seemed a possibility. Of course it would be empty, and of course it was an obvious place to look for an escapee, but he had no other options. He scaled a ladder and scrabbled atop the hot tank in search of an access point. The hatch he found was badly corroded and for a moment he thought that he couldn’t get it open, but it opened with a screech and he peered down into the gloom. He pushed his pack through the opening, not expecting to hear a splash, and there was none. He tried to gauge the depth of the tank and the likelihood of him being able to climb out of it. He lay flat on the tank, his head and torso halfway through the opening, swishing blindly inside the tank for an interior ladder, but there was no ladder. Like a fool, he’d already dropped the pack containing his meagre supplies inside. The sun bore down, imprinting his skin, and he was very thirsty. He decided that he would have to risk it.

  He cocked the barrel of the shotgun to check that it wasn’t loaded – it wasn’t – and then he dropped it into the tank and lowered himself down. The corroded metal of the hatch scorched his fingers as he hung, not quite willing to drop the few feet but knowing that it was already too late to change his mind, as he would not have the strength to lever himself back up.