by A. G. Taylor
“Both of you stay here and don’t move,” he ordered.
Sarah began to follow him, but he looked round, his face deadly serious.
“For once, just do as I say,” Daniel said before he turned and joined Barker in the doorway. They exchanged words and disappeared inside.
“What’s going to happen?” Robert asked, looking after them.
“Why don’t you check inside the truck?” Sarah said, trying the handle of the door and finding it unlocked. “See if there’s anything we can use.”
Robert was only too eager to start searching through the cab of the truck and was quickly engrossed. Sarah took the opportunity to run quickly to the house. She moved around the side to the kitchen window.
Peeping around the frame she saw Daniel and Barker in conversation at the table. Daniel said something and the other man stood, knocking over one of the chairs. She felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach, convinced that she was about to see something bad, remembering the gun.
What did happen was quite a surprise.
Daniel put his shoulder bag on the table and pulled out the silver glasses case she’d seen him fussing over just before the plane crashed. Unclipping a hidden panel on the bottom, he removed a small velvet bag and opened it. A glittering object dropped into his hand and he held it up for Barker to see.
A diamond.
Judging by the size of the bag, it wasn’t the only one Daniel was carrying.
Keeping low, Sarah moved to the door, pressing her ear against the frame to hear anything she could.
“…enough to buy five more utes,” Daniel was saying. “And your family will need medical help when all this is over. This can buy a lot of help.”
“What about those kids?” Barker asked after a moment’s thought. “Are they really yours?”
“They haven’t been for a long time,” Daniel replied, weighing the velvet bag in his hand. “But they are now. Look, I’ve got a delivery to make and I need that vehicle.”
“What am I going to do with a diamond?”
“Here’s the name and number of an associate in Melbourne,” Daniel said, passing a scrap of paper across the table. “Call him when the phone gets fixed. He’ll buy the item, no questions asked. Just don’t take less than $50,000 for it.”
There was silence, followed by the unmistakeable sound of a set of keys being thrown down on the table.
“Take it and go,” Barker said.
Sarah hurried back round the house to the truck, trying to reach Robert first. He jumped out of the ute with a question in his eyes as she approached. Sarah raised a finger to her lips to silence him – she had to think. She knew one thing for sure: an engineer didn’t carry around diamonds hidden in his flight bag. That was the kind of thing smugglers did. Was this why Daniel had left all those years ago? Had Mum thrown him out because he was a criminal, and if so, why hadn’t she warned them?
From behind, Sarah heard the sound of the door opening again and Daniel’s footsteps approaching. He carried Barker’s shotgun in one hand and the set of keys in the other.
“Our carriage awaits,” he said, jingling the keys at them. “Let’s split this joint.”
“Cool,” said Robert. “I knew you’d do it! Can I carry your stuff, Daniel?”
Daniel raised a hand defensively to the bag on his shoulder and the secret it contained.
“That’s okay, Bobbie,” he said as he walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle and tucked it under the seat. “I’ll look after it. You take care of the backpack.”
Robert shrugged and grabbed the bigger bag, throwing it into the open back of the truck.
“Mr. Barker was very nice and agreed to give us a box of food as well,” Daniel said, nodding to the house. “Do you want to go and get it for us while I fix the battery?”
Robert didn’t need to be asked twice, running back to the building. Alone, Daniel looked at Sarah carefully.
“Everything all right?”
She shifted her feet on the ground and looked at the road stretching away into the distance.
“Just looking forward to getting out of here,” she said.
8
They found a map in the glovebox of the ute truck. Daniel spread it out on the dashboard as they drove a bumpy parallel track across the desert. The rain had passed and the landscape was now an endless sea of shifting red dunes as far as the eye could see.
“Looks like we landed somewhere in the Simpson Desert,” Daniel said, pointing to a spot on the map whilst keeping an eye on the difficult track.
Robert sat between them, holding the map open, while Sarah examined the area across which they were travelling. She knew a little about the geography of Australia, having been made to study up by Mum. She could see that they were in the state called South Australia. The plane had gone down somewhere in the desert area and, if Daniel had his directions right, they were heading away from it towards the nearest settlement of any size: Innamincka.
“This way should take us right past the McKeever–Sikong oil refinery,” Daniel explained, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “We’ll be able to get petrol there.”
Sarah took another look at the map.
“Why aren’t we heading to Adelaide?” she asked. “It looks closer than Melbourne.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Melbourne’s bigger and we’ll pass through more places on the way,” he explained. “Trust me. Besides, Adelaide was probably affected by the virus when the cloud passed over.”
“I guess so,” replied Sarah. Clearly Daniel’s sights were set on Melbourne and he wasn’t going to be persuaded against it. She kept quiet for a while and watched the dunes pass by, thinking all the time about the secret she had learned back at the house.
At least Daniel was a good driver. A couple of times the truck almost lost control as it went over one of the ridges, but he always managed to keep it on track.
Having grown tired of looking at the map, Robert folded it up and put it down on the floor. He watched Daniel for a while.
“What’s going to happen to them?” he asked eventually.
“Who?”
“Mr. Barker and his family,” Robert explained.
“Oh, they’ll be okay,” Daniel replied casually. “They’re just sleeping really. Mr. Barker is there to look after them.”
“But how will they eat and drink? He can’t feed them if they’re asleep. What will happen? What will happen to everyone from the plane?”
Daniel fell silent, seemingly able to ignore the fact that Robert was going to stare at him until he got an answer.
“As soon as we reach a town we’re going to send an ambulance to rescue them,” Sarah said finally, realizing that it was up to her to reassure her brother. “They’ll take Mr. Barker’s family to hospital. They have ways to feed people who are sleeping. It’s called intensive care.”
Robert thought about this and nodded.
“Like Mum?”
Sarah’s voice choked in her throat a little. “Yeah, like Mum.”
Daniel glanced around at this, but made no comment.
They drove on through the desert until the dunes began to even out and the landscape became less sandy. The day was getting late and night started to fall quickly due to the dense clouds above. Daniel pulled the truck over by the side of the road and cut the engine.
“We’ll stop here for the night,” he said, rubbing his tired eyes. “It’s too dangerous to keep on driving.”
“Where will we sleep?” asked Robert.
“Where do you think, kid?”
“Under the stars?” Robert’s voice was excited now. “Can we make a fire?”
“It wouldn’t be camping without a fire.” Daniel clapped him on the shoulder and jumped out of the truck.
They made their preparations for the night quickly. It was still warm, but a chill was coming to the air as the clouds finally started to roll away. By the time the sun had sunk in the west, a camp
fire was burning with the blankets laid around it, ready for them to bed down for the night. Sarah opened a tin of beans and some corned beef from the box Barker had given them. They set about making a simple meal.
Later, they lay back on their blankets and looked up at the night sky, visible now that the clouds were breaking up. Spreading out above them was an amazing vista of stars like Sarah had never seen. She’d lived in London most of her life, where at night the stars were all but lost in the ambient haze of the street lights. Out in the desert they shone brilliantly in the blackness, however. And not just one or two. Hundreds upon hundreds, packed together in clusters and constellations. It took her breath away.
“Wow,” breathed Robert, who was lying on the other side of the fire.
“It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?” Daniel said from his own blanket. He’d removed the whisky bottle from his pocket and now took a swig. “At least this hasn’t changed. Whatever goes on down here, the stars will shine on. See that constellation?”
They both looked to the area where he was pointing. A pattern of five stars stood out.
“The Southern Cross,” Daniel said. “You can’t see it from England. You have to be in the southern hemisphere, like Australia. That makes it special down here.”
They watched for a while, enjoying the silence after the events of the day. Sarah heard Robert’s breathing become heavier and across the flickering flames of the fire she saw that his eyes were closed. Getting up quietly, she placed another blanket over him.
“You’re doing a good job looking after him.” Daniel was watching her across the fire. She shrugged and settled back in her own place.
“Someone’s got to,” she replied, before realizing how it sounded. For once, she hadn’t meant it as a dig. “Sorry.”
“No worries,” he replied. “I haven’t been anyone’s idea of Dad of the Year in the past. Eight years ago, when I left—”
“You didn’t leave, Mum threw you out,” Sarah corrected. “I’m not stupid, you know. I heard you two arguing all the time.”
Through the flickering firelight, Sarah saw Daniel wince and take another drink. “Did she tell you why?” he asked.
“She never would. Want to let me in on the secret?”
“Another time maybe,” he responded quietly. “So, she was still angry with me.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re angry with me too.”
“I guess so.”
“Your mum and I spoke, those last days at the hospital,” Daniel said. “She told me that you’ve been angry a lot recently.”
Sarah fell silent. She remembered Mum’s strained face, full of pain at another bad report from school. Trouble. That’s what Sarah’s last teacher had called her. That just made matters worse. In her last few months at school, Sarah had spent more time in the head-teacher’s office than in class. After Mum became sick she just didn’t like anyone telling her what to do.
“Everyone said she was going to get better,” Sarah said finally, trying to control her voice. “All the doctors, the teachers. Even Mum.”
“I’m sorry.” Daniel took another drink from the bottle. His voice was starting to sound a little slurred…and sleepy.
“They lied to us,” Sarah said, looking round at him, suddenly feeling angry. Angry at the plane crash and the meteorite. And angry at Daniel for lying too, keeping secrets. She almost challenged him about the diamonds, but stopped herself.
“All those months they knew she was going to die and they didn’t tell us till the end,” she said finally.
“Perhaps they were trying to protect you.”
“Well, they shouldn’t have,” Sarah replied emphatically. “I’m sick of people keeping secrets. And I’m sick of lies. From now on I’m not trusting anyone.”
For a while they didn’t speak. Daniel seemed to pick up on the fact that she didn’t want to discuss it any more and fell silent, which she had to give him credit for. She listened to him take another gulp from the bottle.
A sudden thought occurred to her and she pushed herself up on her elbows.
“You don’t think that it’s happening all over the world, do you?” she asked. “The sickness, I mean. The virus?”
Daniel shrugged and began to answer, but stopped short as a light flared in the distance to the south-east. They both looked round to see a pillar of fire rising into the air, illuminating the clouds and desert around it.
“Is it another plane crash?” Sarah asked, standing to see better.
“I don’t think so,” replied Daniel, scratching his chin slowly. “It looks like a fire in the direction we’re headed. The McKeever–Sikong refinery, most probably. One of the oil tanks must have exploded. What a mess!”
Sarah looked at the glow in the distance and shivered in the night chill. Suddenly everything in the world seemed more threatening than it had a day before.
“Get some sleep,” Daniel said, wrapping the blanket around himself. “We’ve got a long way to go tomorrow.”
Sarah lay down, but didn’t close her eyes. She watched as Daniel worked his way to the bottom of the whisky bottle and passed out. Then she waited until she could hear him snoring, worried that he might be pretending to sleep. Finally, taking care not to disturb either him or Robert, she pulled off her blanket and stood up.
Sarah crept to the truck, opened the door and felt under the seat for Daniel’s bag. It took a minute of fumbling to find what she was looking for. Unclipping the false back of the case as she had seen Daniel do in Barker’s kitchen, she removed the velvet bag. Drawing it open, she allowed three of the precious stones to drop into her palm. They shone in the light of the distant oil fire as she turned them over in her hand. Judging by the weight of the bag, it must have contained another twenty such diamonds at least.
Replacing the stones, she closed the bag and went through the situation in her mind. Finally she knew why Mum had thrown him out: Daniel was a criminal and had been on the run for the last eight years. He might have come back for them in their hour of need, but that didn’t mean she trusted him. The only thing she knew for sure was that he needed to look after the diamonds.
And as long as she had them, he would have to look after her and Robert too.
9
Daniel muttered under his breath. His head was stuck in the engine of the truck as it had been for the last half-hour. On waking, they’d found clouds covering the sky again and the truck unable to start.
“I thought you said you were an engineer,” Sarah said, watching him fumble with various parts of the engine without success.
“I build bridges, not cars,” Daniel replied with a distinct edge to his voice. “Why don’t you two go and play for fifteen minutes while I sort this?”
“But I want to help you!” Robert protested as Sarah dragged him away.
They wandered in the dunes for a while.
In the east, a column of smoke stretched across the horizon where the fire had been the night before. The flames of the fire weren’t visible in the daylight, but judging by the amount of smoke, it looked as if it was still burning.
To keep Robert occupied, Sarah got him to collect rocks that looked interesting. That worked for all of two minutes before he started complaining he was bored. Normally Sarah would have just shouted at him, but she bit her tongue. She really didn’t want to argue any more.
In the distance the sound of the truck engine firing sent them running back. They found Daniel standing by the open door to the vehicle.
“You fixed it!” Robert cried, running to the door. Daniel slammed it as he got close, drawing him up fast.
“What’s wrong, Daniel?”
“Ask your sister,” Daniel replied, his face dark and serious as he held up the shoulder bag in his right hand.
Robert looked round at Sarah, who managed a casual shrug.
“Lost something, Daniel?” she asked, meeting his gaze and holding it.
“I think you know what I’ve lost,” he said, pul
ling the glasses case from the bag and tossing it at her feet. “I guess I should have kept a closer eye on my stuff.”
Robert looked from Sarah to Daniel and back again in confusion.
“Sarah? What’s he talking about?”
“He’s not an engineer, Robert, just some kind of smuggler,” she said, taking his arm and pulling him away.
“That’s not true!” Robert cried, looking back at the man. “Tell her, Daniel.”
“Sarah, it’s not what you think,” Daniel began, shaking his head. “I am an engineer. But sometimes I’m paid to transport things around the world as well.”
Sarah let out a laugh.
“That’s why you’ve got diamonds hidden in your flight bag, is it?”
“I need them back, Sarah,” Daniel said evenly. “They don’t belong to me and if I don’t deliver them to Melbourne I’m going to be in serious trouble.”
“And what if I don’t want to go to Melbourne any more?” she said, standing firm. “What if I want to head to Adelaide? Or Sydney? Or the nearest police station?”
Daniel grimaced and reached through the open window of the truck, pulling out the keys.
“Then we’d have a problem,” he said, taking a step towards them. “Why don’t you just give back the diamonds, Sarah. We can carry on like nothing happened.”
Robert turned on his sister. “You ruin everything!”
Sarah backed away in shock. “You don’t understand, Robert…”
“Daniel saved us!” Robert’s eyes were big and filling with tears. “Daniel helped us and you stole from him.”
“He’s the thief! How do we know we can trust him? He’s lying to us, just like all the others!”
Without warning, Daniel stepped between them, his hand closing around Sarah’s upper arm and squeezing. His eyes bore into hers and she felt her knees weaken as she tried to pull away.
“Where are they?” he demanded.
“Buried. In the desert.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I did it last night. While you were sleeping.”
“You’re lying.”