‘Thompkins? Judd Bell.’
‘Judd? What’s going on —’
‘I know where Atlantis is.’
‘You what?’ Thompkins’ voice is so loud through the satellite phone’s speaker that Spike’s ears prick up, and he’s sitting five metres away. ‘How do you know this?’
‘‘Cause I’m looking at it.’ Judd stares through the Australian’s dented telescope at the distant runway, Atlantis large in the eyepiece. ‘And Rhonda’s on board.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Where you sent me. The Northern Territory.’
‘Where exactly?’
Judd turns to Corey. ‘Where are we exactly? I need a name.’
‘Doesn’t have one.’
‘Where are we close to?’
He thinks about it. ‘Midway between Lake Mackay and Nyirripi.’
Spike barks.
Corey looks at him. ‘Sure, if you wanna split hairs.’ He turns back to Judd. ‘A bit closer to Lake Mackay.’
Judd speaks into the sat phone. ‘It’s midway between Lake Mackay and Nyirripi in the Northern Territory. If you have a spy satellite overhead you won’t miss the runway they’ve built. It’s lit up like the Vegas strip.’
‘Who’s the other voice?’
‘The chopper pilot who picked me up at the airport.’
‘He knows about this?’
‘How do you think I got out here? I’m in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘There’s something else you need to know. They have choppers.’
‘What kind?’
‘Nasty black ones!’
Judd holds up a hand to silence the Australian. ‘Attack choppers. European, from the look of it. I don’t know how many. At least one.’
‘Understood. Anything else?’
Judd pans the telescope, notices something behind a very large tent set up near the runway. ‘Hold on.’ He focuses, tries to work out what it is. It seems to be covered with tarpaulins.
‘Christ.’ He pulls the telescope from his eye. ‘They’re gonna fly the shuttle out. There’s a jet, a big one, covered with tarps. I can only see the side of one engine. Could be an old 747 - no, it’s a Galaxy. Wasn’t there one stolen from an air-force base last week?’
‘Davis-Monthan. Yes.’ Thompkins’ voice sounds cheerless.
Judd’s first thought is that they’ll need to lift a hundred-tonne shuttle off the ground, swing it through the air then fasten it to the top of another aircraft. That’s not the easiest thing in the world to do unless you have a seriously large crane. He pans the telescope, searches for something that could do the job.
There. A crane arm, painted the yellow of heavy construction machinery. It’s so big that it protrudes from behind the very big tent. ‘I see the crane. It’ll do the job.’
Thompkins exhales unhappily.
‘What happens now?’
‘I send the marines.’
‘We’re a long way from anywhere. What’s the ETA?’
‘Asap. What number are you calling from? It didn’t show up on the screen.’
‘Don’t know. It’s not my phone. I took it from one of the hijackers.’
‘You what?’
‘Long story.’
‘Christ. Okay. Sit tight and keep your eyes on Atlantis. Anything happens, call in.’
‘Will do.’ Judd hangs up and studies the satellite phone’s screen. Half a bar of power remains. He turns to Corey. ‘Cavalry’s on the way.’
‘They’re sending horses?’
‘No, no horses.’
‘You said cavalry.’
‘It means the military. The US military, and, I guess, some Australians too.’
‘What do they want you to do?’
‘Sit tight, keep an eye on it.’
‘So that’s what you’re gonna do, right?’
Judd doesn’t answer, just focuses the telescope on Atlantis again.
**
Thompkins hangs up, takes a deep breath and nods to himself. This is it, the end game. It’s not how he expected it to go but he’s well prepared. He knows what to do and how to do it. He takes another breath, momentarily widens his eyes to focus his nerves, then starts for the door and dials his phone.
It rings and is answered by an older woman. ‘Administrator Cunningham’s office.’
‘Barbara, it’s Will Thompkins. I need to see the boss right away. We’ve found Atlantis.’
**
28
Atlantis rolls to a stop on the makeshift runway.
The landing was smooth and by the numbers, the runway perfectly lit and prepared, the weather cool and dry, exactly what Henri expected from a September evening in Central Australia. He didn’t even need to use the drogue chute in the shuttle’s tail to slow the spacecraft down.
He turns and looks out the windscreen as Dirk’s Hummer pulls up nearby. The German knows it’s unsafe to approach the shuttle straight after landing - it must be left to stand for five minutes so the superheated fuselage can cool after the extreme heat of re-entry and the poisonous fumes from the attitude controller’s hydrazine fuel can dissipate.
Henri draws the walkie from the leg pocket of his flight suit and triggers the talk button.
In the Hummer, Dirk hears his walkie crackle to life. He knows what Henri will ask even before he hears the words.
‘What happened to the Loach I saw before we landed?’
Yep, that’s the question. Dirk triggers the walkie: ‘Claude and Cobbin are taking care of it. They haven’t reported back yet.’
‘Be sure it’s been dealt with.’
‘Yes, Commander. There is one other thing. The operatives at Kinabara Dish have not reported in for over an hour. It may be the result of an equipment failure but I’ve dispatched a team to retrieve them.’
‘Make sure they’re back before sunrise. Is everything set for the turnaround?’
‘Yes, sir. Just give the order.’
‘Thank you.’
The German clicks off then changes the frequency on his walkie, triggers the talk button: ‘Claude, do you read?’
There’s no reply. He’s not happy about it.
**
Rhonda doesn’t know much about the Loach’s fate after eavesdropping on the Frenchman’s last walkie exchange. What she does know is that a ‘turnaround’ of some kind is on the agenda, which she guesses has something to do with her shuttle.
She wants to be out of this chair before it happens. Unfortunately her wrists are still tightly ziplocked to its frame and she’s surrounded by people who want her to stay put. She needs a plan, she just hasn’t been able to think of the right one yet.
When stumped for an answer to a particularly vexing question, Rhonda finds that if she lets her mind wander to other matters a solution usually presents itself. So she decides to do that and let her subconscious go to work.
At that moment her ex-best friend Martie unlocks the shuttle’s mid-deck hatch, or ‘front door’ as Judd nicknamed it. She remembers that because it was one of the first things he said to her, right before he suggested they go jogging to a movie.
Yes, jogging to a movie. When he asked her she laughed because she thought it was a joke. It wasn’t - and that’s what they did on their first date. She can’t remember which movie they saw but she always remembers the route they ran to get to the cinema. She knew the jogging component of the date had been nothing but a stunt to win her favour, exercise being something everyone in the program knew was her one addiction, but it worked. It became their thing, the way they connected. Judd was so funny then. Often she had to stop running because she was doubled over from one of his asides or observations. For years they jogged every day. Until Columbia. She missed it very much.
Martie steps back onto the flight deck and addresses Henri. ‘What should we do with her?’
‘She stays here. You watch her.’
/>
Rhonda glares at the Frenchman as he stands. She tries her hardest not to look at the pistol jammed into his belt, pressed against his protruding belly. She’s going to need that gun or one just like it. That’s all it will take to end this, or at least put a big cat among the Frenchman’s pigeons . . .
Mountain biking!
And just like that she has an escape plan. Good old subconscious to the rescue again. And Judd, who made her think about how much she loved exercise.
Rhonda loved mountain biking, as in biking on mountains, but it was frowned upon by the NASA hierarchy because it was stupid-dangerous. She did it anyway, until the day she hit a tree at 50 k’s an hour and, luckily, dislocated her right shoulder instead of snapping her neck. Not only did this bring her mountain-biking career to an abrupt conclusion, but also, as she was in training for a mission at the time, she had to keep using her injured arm as if everything were just fine and dandy. As a result, it never healed correctly. Her shoulder has only popped out once since, when she was pulling herself out of a bath, of all things, and it hurt like a bastard until she worked out that if she jammed it into the bathroom wall at a very specific angle it would pop back in. It was three minutes of agony she hoped never to relive.
The plastic ties that hold her wrists to the chair are strapped before her gloves. She’ll never be able to pull those through the ties because they’re too bulky, but if she can flex her forearm and stretch the tie she might be able to get a wrist free inside the suit, then pull it down the sleeve, then dislocate her shoulder and slip her arm out of the sleeve and move it to a position where she can unzip the suit and get out of it, and the chair. Just thinking about it is exhausting but it’s the only option going so she must give it a try.
Martie slides into the pilot’s chair, her back to Rhonda. The Frenchman nods to the Italian and they exit the flight deck, move down the ladder. As soon as they’re gone Rhonda starts flexing her forearm against the plastic tie while making sure it doesn’t look like she’s doing that.
She’s pleased the dislocated shoulder prompted her to give up mountain biking for Pilates, something she was doing long before it became fashionable, because it had greatly increased her arm’s strength.
**
Henri and Nico climb down the aluminium ladder from the shuttle’s hatch. The Frenchman steps onto the desert like he owns it and, in a way, he does, at least for the next few hours.
Henri triggers his walkie, the message broadcast to the whole crew. ‘Atlantis will be loaded and ready for wheels up by sunrise.’
On cue, a diesel engine barks to life. The enormous yellow Kato mobile crane belches a cloud of black exhaust from its stack then rolls from behind the Galaxy towards Atlantis.
Two hundred metres to the left, Dirk and Big Bird’s Tiger lifts off in a blizzard of dust. The Frenchman turns and watches it skim the desert until it outruns the glow of the runway lights and disappears.
**
29
Judd lies at the top of the ravine and focuses the telescope on the black chopper. He really hopes it doesn’t fly towards him.
It flies directly towards him - then breaks left. Relieved, he pans the telescope, focuses on the yellow mobile crane as it trundles towards Atlantis. He pans the telescope again, focuses on the circus tent. It’s being lowered. Behind it the tarps are being removed from the big jet, which he can now confirm is a Galaxy.
Blue-white sparks arc from two positions high on the big jet’s fuselage, one at the front, one at the rear. He immediately knows they’re welding connection points for Atlantis to lock onto.
The jet will be gone before the cavalry arrives, he’s sure of it. He’ll need to go over and retrieve Rhonda himself. There’s no choice. She’s just there, just over there. The idea of sitting here and watching the jet leave is not an option. Of course he doesn’t know if they’ll even take her with them but then he knows nothing at this point.
Actually, he knows this: Deke Slayton would go and get his wife. Gordo Cooper would go and get his wife. Neil Armstrong would go and get his wife. Those astronauts would work out a plan and execute it, no matter the situation, no matter the odds, because they were steely-eyed missile men.
‘I’m going over there.’
‘Are you crazy?’
Ten metres away Corey works under the Loach’s instrument panel. The yellow chopper looks awful, pockmarked by gunfire and blackened by oil smoke. The Australian looks almost as bad. Pale and drawn, his clothes dirty and burnt. The evening has taken its toll.
‘They’re leaving.’
‘And so are we. Come on, dog.’ He clicks his fingers and Spike hops inside.
Judd stands, moves to the chopper. ‘I want you to stay. I’m going to get Rhonda and I need you to fly us out of here.’
‘Sorry, but no way. It won’t be long before they come looking for that.’ Corey nods at the remains of the black chopper still smouldering in the ravine below. ‘And I’m not going to be here when they turn up.’
‘I need to get her before the shuttle leaves.’
‘The guy on the phone told you to wait for the cavalry.’
‘They won’t be here in time. Please, I need your help.’
‘Mate, that runway is lit up like New Year’s Eve. They’ll see you coming a mile off. Literally a mile off. Trust me, you don’t want to die here. I was born here and even I don’t wanna die here. It’s a flat, dusty, lonely place. Now come on, get in.’
‘I can’t.’
Corey exhales and hits a switch. The Loach’s turbine whines. He whispers: ‘Please-baby-please-baby-please —’
The turbine screams to life and blades turn. Corey looks at Judd, shouts over the noise: ‘Last call, Mandy.’
‘I can’t leave.’
‘And I can’t stay. I’m sorry.’
Judd believes him. Even though the Australian’s face is only lit by the dull glow of the instrument panel he can read his conflicted expression.
The dog barks.
‘I know he didn’t teach me how to tie the knot!’ Corey works the controls and the Loach lifts off, pivots 180 degrees then thunders away, its running lights blinking softly against the night.
Judd watches it vanish into the darkness as the thump of rotor blades fades. Left alone in the darkness he realises he has to do it all on his own. He rubs his face, takes a breath. ‘Christ.’
The thump of rotor blades returns. ‘He’s coming back.’ Judd’s elated. Relief floods over him. He won’t have to do it on his own after all.
The thump of rotor blades draws closer but the sound is different: deeper, fatter. Judd looks up. A shape appears in the sky before him, silhouetted against the radiant star field. It’s not the Loach.
‘Damn.’ He turns and runs as hard as he can. It’s pitch black and he can’t see a damn thing. Then a bright light splashes across the desert and he can see everything. He’s at the edge of an incline. It’s only five metres high but it’s steep. Momentum carries him over and he falls, hits the ground, rolls.
His head hits something hard and he stops dead. His skull vibrates like a tuning fork. Groggy, he forces his eyes open. Fifty metres away the black chopper hovers above the ravine. Its searchlight points down, illuminating what remains of the wreck below.
There’s something wet in Judd’s eyes, on his face. He tastes it. Blood, from a gash on his forehead. He looks at what caused it. A boulder, large and blasted smooth by an aeon of desert wind.
The black chopper pivots, swings its searchlight towards Judd. He moves as fast as he can, drags himself behind the boulder. Was he seen? He awaits the answer, a blast of cannon fire or a missile that will vaporise this very old rock and his life along with it.
**
In the Tiger, Dirk surveys the other chopper’s wreckage, Claude and Cobbin’s remains visible inside the burnt-out cockpit. The German finds it almost impossible to believe the Loach brought down a state-of-the-art attack chopper. Claude mu
st have screwed up and flown it into the ground. It’s very disappointing, not only for the loss of Claude and Cobbin, but because he was hoping they had solved his Judd Bell problem. Unfortunately there’s no sign the yellow chopper was destroyed.
So the Loach is still out there and now they’re a Tiger down. From a tactical perspective it’s a concern. The choppers were an insurance policy against a military or law enforcement attempt to disrupt the mission. To make matters worse, Dirk just received word that the Loach and its occupants, Judd Bell, a pilot and a dog, had reached Kinabara Dish and managed, somehow, to subdue both the operatives placed there and take their satellite phone. The German grits his teeth in frustration.
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