A buzzer on the door sounded as I walked in. I quickly ducked behind a row of make-up and nail polish, and peered out. I could just make out some of the writing on the side of the box.
Nutrition. Balanced formula. Intravenous.
I’d seen enough. I ran out the door and down the street to my bike. I frantically unbolted the chain, pulled on my helmet, and hopped on, ready to follow Sumo to my sister.
I pulled out my phone.
‘Boges!’ I shouted. ‘It’s Oriana! Oriana has Gabbi!’
An electric charge of excitement went through me. She was alive! There was only one reason Sumo could have been collecting intravenous food. It had to be for Gabbi.
Oriana was one hell of an evil woman, but at least she was making sure that my sister stayed alive.
Sumo walked out of the chemist, package in tow, and down to the Mercedes. He backed out of his parking spot and drove off.
I pedalled after him like I’d never pedalled before.
The Mercedes was veering towards the freeway out of the city.
A large State Road Authority sign overhead warned, ‘No pedestrian or bicycle access’. I ignored it. I didn’t know how I could possibly keep up with him, but there was no way I was going to just give up.
I saw the speed limit–110 kilometres per hour–and started pedalling even harder. It seemed like Sumo was going at least ten kilometres over the limit, and in what felt like seconds, I’d lost him. He’d completely disappeared from view.
I let the pedals go and just glided along, sitting back on the bike and running my hands through my hair in frustration.
125 days to go …
‘Yes, Oriana de la Force is the person responsible for Gabbi’s kidnapping,’ I repeated to Boges and Winter as we sat around a table at her flat. ‘But Gab’s not being kept at Oriana’s house. Sumo was heading out of the city on the freeway when I lost him, so I’m sure they’re hiding her somewhere out of town.’
The three of us were just sitting around, waiting for my phone to ring. It was becoming too familiar a scenario. We were all getting fidgety.
When my mobile finally rang, all of us jumped out of our seats.
‘Yes? I’m here,’ I said, fumbling with the phone nervously.
‘If you want your sister back alive,’ said the same distorted, digitised voice from the last call, ‘listen carefully to what I’m about to say.’
‘I’m listening,’ I said, frozen to attention.
‘First of all, tell no-one about this. If you do, we’ll find out, and you do not want that to happen.’
I looked at my two friends. They already knew what was happening. I hoped the kidnapper was referring more to the authorities.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
The anonymous voice continued as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Come alone to the town of Billabong. Wait at the Billabong Café–it keeps late hours. Be there by nine pm, and wait until you receive another phone call with instructions on exactly what to do. You must come alone, and unarmed, and bring with you all of the items and information you claim to possess. Do you understand? You must be prepared to hand over everything, including yourself. Is that clear?’
‘I get it. But how do I know that you won’t just take me and not return Gabbi?’
The voice didn’t seem to hear or care about my question.
‘The exchange itself will take place on the roadside. You will only be given further instruction as you require it. You will be told at the café exactly where to go and not a moment before.’
‘Hang on,’ I said, trying to think fast. ‘If you’re taking me, you can’t just drop Gabbi on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere! My sister’s in a coma, for crying out loud! The deal is off unless you allow me to bring someone with me. A girl. Someone to collect Gabbi. Someone who will ensure she’s taken home safely.’ I lifted my eyes and looked directly at Winter.
She read the question in them. Solemnly she nodded. New courage surged through me. I had brave friends.
There was silence at the other end of the line, but I could tell that my proposition was being discussed. I strained my ears to try to pick up the murmured consultations.
It seemed to take ages.
Finally, the voice came back. ‘Very well, you may bring a girl along, but if anything goes wrong, and you bring anybody else …’
‘I’ll bring the girl only,’ I said.
‘And no police.’
I couldn’t help but laugh at this. ‘You have to be joking,’ I said. ‘Deal. The Billabong Café. I’ll wait there with the girl. When?’
‘Be there at nine pm on the 31st.’
The line went dead.
‘Dude, I want to be there, too!’
‘I can’t risk anyone else being there on the road or near the road when the exchange takes place. And surely they’ll be watching the Billabong Café earlier, making sure I’m only joined by one person.’
‘Well, we’d better start making a plan,’ said Boges. ‘The double doublecross.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s meet up with Nelson Sharkey and do just that.’
Nelson gestured to us to join him in the tiny gym office. He was sitting at a computer and wanted to show us something. The four of us crowded around the monitor, staring at a detailed online map.
‘It’s way out west,’ said Nelson, as he zoomed in on the tiny town of Billabong, a place on the banks of the Spindrift River, and on the train line, about ten kilometres from the larger township of Melrose.
‘It sure is small,’ said Winter, studying the image on the screen. ‘It only has one main street.’
‘How can we make any plans,’ I asked, ‘when we don’t know where exactly the exchange is going to take place?’
‘We don’t know where it will happen, but we can familiarise ourselves with the location and the general area,’ said Nelson. ‘Get as much information as we can beforehand and be as prepared as possible so that when we do know the location, we can move quickly and confidently. Exchanges like this are often made in remote places where there is little or no traffic. Let’s take a look at Billabong and its surrounding area. They know you’ll be on foot, so it can’t take place too far from the café.’
Nelson moved the picture on the screen to take in more of the surroundings of the tiny country town.
‘That bridge would be the perfect spot,’ he said, pointing to a bridge over the river. ‘Bridges have been used before for this sort of deal. A bridge can be managed more easily–it can be secured–traffic can be blocked with phoney detour signs. Not that there’d be a whole lot of traffic through Billabong. Let’s consider this as a possible site for the exchange.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing to what looked like another bridge, a smaller one that crossed the river further downstream.
Nelson focused on the small bridge, zooming in on it. Slowly, he nodded. ‘This one is more likely,’ he said. ‘This is the one I’d pick for an exchange. There’d be very little traffic. Looks like it was the original crossing point, before the bigger one was built closer to the township.’
It turned out Billabong only had two bridges, so we felt confident about the two we’d scoped out, and were pretty sure the smaller one would turn out to be the meeting place.
Finally, Sharkey swung around in his chair. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘we have to be ready for anything. Here’s the plan. I’ll take the three of you with me as far as Melrose. Cal, from there you and Winter will take the train to Billabong–I will sort you out with a fake ID, although you probably won’t need it there. You two get off and wait at the café. They’ll be watching to make sure you two come alone. Once they’ve called, you must alert me immediately. By that time, I will have arrived at the Billabong Motel, with my freshly shorn son here,’ he said, tugging at Boges’s lengthy locks.
‘Freshly shorn?’ Boges scratched his head fiercely.
Any other time I would have laughed out loud. ‘Your turn, Boges,’ I said, ‘for a makeove
r.’
‘It’s possible they know what you look like,’ said Sharkey, turning to Boges, whose shocked face had brought a smile to Winter’s lips. ‘So I think a pair of clippers would do the trick. You won’t know yourself, and neither will the enemy.’
‘It will suit you,’ said Winter. ‘I’ll do it for you.’
‘As soon as Gabbi is clear of the kidnappers,’
Nelson said, ‘we’ll launch ourselves into the scene in a surprise attack. Boges, you and I will deal with the kidnapper, or kidnappers–if there’s more than one. While we’re doing that, Cal and Winter, you need to focus on getting Gabbi safely into my car. Then we all take off. The whole thing should happen in a matter of seconds so that they won’t know what’s hit them. We only get one chance at this. OK?’
‘OK,’ the three of us agreed in unison.
123 days to go …
It had been raining constantly for the last couple of days, but as we sat on the train, after leaving Sharkey and Boges behind in Melrose, the downpour eased. I was already cold, pulling my hoodie closer around me, and the thought of meeting the kidnappers in the rain added an extra layer of gloom to my already lousy mood.
Although we’d made copies of the drawings, and hoped we’d escape without giving anything away, I didn’t want anyone else to have the originals. Each line had been drawn by my dad’s hand, and I wanted to hold onto that. I also didn’t want to give all the clues away. Winter came up with a brilliant idea–to make replicas of the drawings to hand over, but mess with them a little. Last night we sat around while she skilfully re-sketched Dad’s pictures, but made tiny, subtle differences that we hoped would completely throw anyone trying to decode them.
On the drawing of the butler with the black-jack, she changed the two cards on his tray to add up to an insignificant number; she removed the ball from under the collared monkey’s paw; she changed the ‘five’ in the oval above the door to a ‘six’, and then moved the dot in between the two place names on the transparency.
I leafed through them. She’d done such a convincing job–I would have been fooled into thinking they were my dad’s work.
I reminded myself that even though we had fakes, if all went to plan, the criminals wouldn’t get their hands on them anyway. Nor on me. And Gabbi would be safe again. But there were so many chances for things to go awry. What if Sharkey and Boges didn’t turn up in time? What if they weren’t strong enough to tackle the kidnappers? I’d warned Sharkey that they could be up against all sorts of weaponry, and silently hoped he was coming prepared with his own. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to my friends.
Winter had taken the clippers to Boges’s fuzzy mane this morning. She trimmed it down to about a centimetre and a half. He looked like he was going to cry as he watched his long tendrils fall to the floor in a circle around him, but he looked awesome. I reminded him of how he’d always complained about his hair, and in the end, he was pretty happy with how he looked too–Winter and I both caught his reflection grinning in the mirror.
Now, in the train, Winter sat opposite me. She appeared calm and collected, staring out the window at the evening light on the gentle curves of the foothills. Behind them, the Spindrift Mountains loomed, lightly dusted with snow at their peaks.
I shivered.
Winter and I got off the train and walked the short distance to the main street. The rain had eased to a drizzle as we crossed the road to the Billabong Café. A pale yellow neon light spelled out its name. I hoped Boges and Sharkey were already there, somewhere in the shadows.
Apart from the Billabong Café, the motel, and the pub on the opposite corner, nothing else seemed open.
‘Are you OK?’ Winter asked.
‘I’m as OK as I can be,’ I said, ‘under the circumstances. You?’
‘Same,’ she said, taking my hand.
‘You don’t have to do this with me, Winter.’
She just smiled at me and squeezed my hand, as if to say there was no way she was backing out on me.
We’d had a few curious looks from locals back at the station, but probably just because we were unfamiliar faces in their small town. I hoped, anyway.
‘Am I imagining it,’ Winter whispered, as we walked together, ‘or do you also feel that someone is watching us?’
‘I don’t think you are imagining it,’ I muttered as we stepped up onto the footpath. I felt pretty certain we were being watched. Not just by locals.
We sat down at a table right at the back of the café–in a long, narrow space with dusty bunches of synthetic flowers on vines hanging from the light fittings. We were the only people there, and the owner looked like he was anxious to pack up for the night. The smell of stale fish and chips hung in the air.
It wasn’t until I tried to sit still that I realised I was trembling, but it didn’t feel like fear, more like tension and anticipation. Winter ordered a couple of milkshakes for us while I sent a pre-prepared text to Boges from under the table.
waiting in café for further instructions.
1 know. standing by.
I tried to swallow some milkshake but my throat felt constricted, as if something was blocking it. I was trying another mouthful when I jumped at my mobile ringing. I snatched it up.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have everything with you?’ the distorted voice asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Proceed to the Spindrift River Bridge immediately. Keep the station on your right, and follow the main road to the bridge on the other side of town. It shouldn’t take you more than half an hour. You are to wait there without crossing it. You will be provided with more information once you are in position. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, but I–’
‘Do you understand?’ the voice demanded.
‘I understand.’
I turned to Winter and tried to speak without moving my lips and without showing any expression, in case someone was hidden inside the café, watching my reaction. ‘They’ve chosen the main bridge, after all,’ I said. ‘I have to let Sharkey and Boges know.’
Winter’s eyes looked down, indicating under the table.
I punched in the words, blindly, while my phone sat on my knee. I hoped I’d typed enough of it correctly for them to get the right message.
big bridge.now
Leaving our milkshakes almost untouched, we paid and hurried out into the night. The drizzle had stopped, but the night was cold and a misty vapour hung in the air.
We continued walking past the short row of shops and soon we were past the garage at the other end of town and out on the highway on the other side of the small township.
I looked back. Billabong had settled for the night. Apart from the street lights, very few windows of the houses were lit up.
We’d reached the end of the pedestrian footpath, and had to follow a vague track through the grass by the side of the road.
‘If anything happens tonight–’ I began.
‘Our plan will work, Cal. It has to.’
‘But if anything goes wrong … with me,’ I said, ‘promise me that you and Boges will do everything you can to get Gabbi safely home.’
Winter stopped walking and pulled on my arm to stop me. Her eyes looked suddenly worried and scared. She knew she couldn’t guarantee I’d make it out OK, but she was trying really hard not to let it show.
‘Gabbi will be in safe hands,’ she said. ‘You can count on me.’
And I knew I could count on Boges.
We continued walking, our breath making little clouds ahead of us.
The land rose slightly and when we reached the top of the rise, I looked down to see a two-lane bridge at the bottom of the incline.
‘There it is. Spindrift River Bridge,’ I said. Six lights dotted the length of its arch.
‘Listen to that,’ said Winter, pointing out the sound of gushing water. ‘It’s the river, running wild after all the rain. It’s caught all the run-off from the mountains.’
We both watched the water thrashing over the rocky Spindrift River, metres beneath the bridge.
In the twenty minutes that it had taken us to walk from the Billabong Café to the bridge, only one car had passed us along the lonely road.
The two lanes of the bridge were empty, and we couldn’t see anything in the darkness on the other side either. But somewhere over there, Gabbi and her kidnappers were waiting for me.
I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and get Gabbi.’
‘But what about Sharkey and Boges?’ Winter asked as we hurried downhill towards the start of the bridge.
‘I’m sure they’re here somewhere, watching our backs, waiting for the action to start.’
‘But where’s Sharkey’s car?’ she said, carefully surveying the landscape around us.
‘It’s here somewhere. It has to be. I reckon they’ve parked it on that rise just behind us,’ I said. ‘We’ll have the element of surprise, too,’ I reminded her. ‘The kidnappers aren’t expecting a fight–just a couple of kids doing what they’ve been told to do. When they attack, you grab Gabbi and take her up there, OK?’
Winter nodded, anxiously. ‘So then we all meet up back at the car, speed away leaving the kidnappers stranded–without Gabbi, without the information and without you?’
‘You got it,’ I said.
‘They’ll come after us,’ she warned.
‘They may not. Nelson intends to drive Gabbi to the nearest police station for an escort to the hospital. We’ll jump out before that, of course.’
Winter looked really unsure. As unsure as I was feeling inside.
‘Can you drive?’ I asked her. ‘If we take too long to join you back at Sharkey’s car, I want you to drive the car, with Gabbi inside, away from here without turning back,’ I explained. ‘Tell me you will?’
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