The assault rifle in Madison's hands dipped towards the ground.
"The powers that be are also going to have to bump off the few top level Custodians who know about you lot as well," I added.
"They have already ordered you to do that, haven’t they, Specialist Madison Taylor?" Bhagya asked softly as she stepped out so Madison could see her.
Madison jolted as though struck, since she didn't know Bhagya was there.
"Come on, tell us how many senior, non-Korean Custodians have you been asked to assassinate?" Bhagya pressed.
"How do you know about that – wait – what are you even doing out here?" Madison demanded gruffly.
"I came to see what all the shooting was about. As to why I know about your orders? I overhear things, that is all,” Bhagya replied.
"Three," Madison said, speaking as though from a great distance. "I have been ordered to arrange ‘accidents’ for three senior Custodians within the next eighteen months."
“Anyone else?”
“Four doctors.”
"The question is, Madison,” I asked, more gently now. I couldn't believe I’d finally managed to break through to her. “What are you gonna do about it now you know they’re gonna kill you too?"
"I will leave Newhome tonight – right now, in fact. With you," Madison declared without hesitation.
"I can live with that. What about you, Bhagya, you gonna come too?"
"No, I will stay."
I stepped back so I could see both girls more clearly. "Why?"
"So I can continue in my work to undermine and destroy the government, the geneticists, and their abominable genetics program," Bhagya replied.
“You’ve only got eighteen months to achieve this,” I pointed out.
“I know.”
“If it looks like you can’t pull it off within that time, you gotta find a way to escape,” I insisted.
“I will bear that in mind,” Bhagya said.
I turned to Madison. "What about the other ten echolocator girls. Would they come with us if you explained to them that their lives are in danger?"
"They would not believe us, just like I would not have had I not spent the past month with you," she replied.
"Leave them to me, Jones. I will find a way to inform them of what you revealed about the Korean echolocaters tonight, and I will keep working on them until I bring them around," Bhagya said.
"Eighteen months, Bhagya. Then get out," I said again.
"Where will you be at that time, should we wish to come looking for you?"
Honestly? Probably touring Australia after having divorced Nanako. But as that hadn't happened yet and I couldn’t let on, I gave her a slightly different answer. "Just come to Hamamachi. If we’re not there, we’ll probably be in Inverloch."
Any further attempts at conversation were destroyed when we heard many pairs of booted feet running our way – Custodians.
"We must leave, and quickly!" Madison said.
I turned back to Bhagya to suggest that she leave too, but she was already gone.
"Agreed." I quickly rushed down the steps. But I stopped and turned to face the approaching Custodians.
"What are you doing? Come on!" Madison urged.
"It's Captain Smith and Delta Company," I said, refusing to move.
"But what if they arrest you?" she asked.
"They won't," I said as I hurried down the street towards them. I recognised Captain Smithson, Sergeant Xiao, and many other familiar faces.
The captain, a large, square-jawed Anglo-Saxon Aussie, saw me first and drew the company – what was left of it, anyway – to a halt with a quick gesture of his hand. He stared at me, hard, and then indicated Madison with a flick of his chin. I gave him a quick thumbs-up and a small nod.
He raised an eyebrow, doubting my vote of confidence that it was safe to talk in front of Madison.
"Oh for goodness sake, Captain Smithson," Madison interrupted impatiently, "I know all about you and Jones and the mission you gave him."
"But weren't you sent out to..." he continued, unconvinced.
"Yes, yes, but all that changed when Jones rescued me from the Skel. After that, I joined him and his group, and I guess you can say my eyes have been opened. You can trust me, Captain."
"Very well, report, Sergeant Jones!' the Captain said, as though we hadn't been out of touch for nigh on a month.
"The Rangers who attacked the chancellery are all dead, Sir, and the chancellor is safe. The families are holed up in the kitchen on the seventh floor. I regret to inform you, however, that many others, including some of the councillors, General Lee and Colonel Kim, have not been so fortunate. Also, a small party of Skel was trying to take several truckloads of our citizens off as slaves, but we dealt with them. And of utmost importance, one of North End’s gates has been blown off its hinges," I informed him.
The captain nodded and ordered two platoons to proceed into the chancellery to go to the aid of, and provide protection for, the chancellor and the families, just in case there were more Rangers. Then he called Custodian HQ on his radio and requested that tradesmen be sent to repair the gate pronto.
After that, he turned back to me. "Couldn't you have warned us the Rangers were coming? We got our backsides handed to us on a platter! It took us until now just to get past the Ranger squad who were barring our entrance to North End. I lost a lot of men."
"I'm sorry, Sir," I replied, genuinely apologetic. "My team, including Specialist Taylor here, exposed the Rangers' activities and they were in the process of getting rounded up and arrested by the Hamamachi Militia, when a bunch of 'em escaped. As soon as we were informed of that, Madison and I came straight here."
"I – we – also dealt the Skel a crippling setback by destroying their munitions warehouse. Furthermore, Ethan killed their leader," Madison added.
"So that is the end of the Rangers, and the Skel should leave us alone for a while, then?"
"I expect so, Sir."
"Good," he grunted. "And thank you, Jones. You could have run off and abandoned us to our fate, but you didn’t. And for that we are eternally in your debt. Now skedaddle before they lock down the town. I’ll send Lieutenant Xiao and his platoon to see you out."
So the sergeant had been promoted since I’d last seen him. Good for him. I tipped my head in respect and he returned the gesture.
"There is one small thing I’d like to do before I leave, though, Captain, since I probably won’t be back," I said.
"Which is?"
"I want to say goodbye to my family."
"I'm sorry, Jones, as much as I'd like to grant that request, I must deny it. Major Harris is on his way with the reinforcements, and you must be out of town before he shuts the whole place down."
"But Sir..."
The captain gripped my shoulders. "Jones, for your own sake – go!"
Frustrated, but seeing the logic in his argument and the genuine concern in his eyes, I nodded. The captain and his command staff rushed off into the chancellery.
Madison and I hurried down the road towards the town gates with Lieutenant Xiao and his platoon. They numbered only seven rather than twelve, no doubt thanks to their frantic effects to get past the Rangers who'd been holding the gates leading from Newhome proper into North End.
The area before the town gates was like a ghost town. Four black 4WDs, the Skel trucks, and the lone Bushmaster sat motionless, like silent sentinels in the night. Xiao glanced about at the Skel who lay scattered around their trucks in ungainly heaps. "You two did this?" he asked.
I nodded.
“Impressive.”
"Sir," called out one of the Custodians, who was checking his comrades who lay near the gates and guard towers. "We've got some wounded here!"
"Call an ambulance and perform first-aid," he yelled back, before turning back to us. "How did you two get here?"
"The Bushmaster," I replied.
"Oh, the one that went to Hamamachi."
"That's right.
"
"Well, you'd better start her up and get out of here. And Jones?"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Your family's fine – I check in on them from time to time. Your sister got married two weeks ago to your old boss, the guy who runs the Recycling Works," Xiao informed me.
"Really? That's great – thanks for the news," I said and shook Xiao's hand.
Madison and I then made our way quickly out the gates to the Bushmaster and climbed in through the rear door.
While I swung the door shut and locked it, Madison switched on the ignition and turned the clumsy vehicle around. I climbed into the front passenger seat beside her as she drove off across no-man's land and into the ruins beyond. As we drove, I watched the foreboding walls of Newhome slowly disappear from view through the window in the rear door, and wondered if I'd ever see my family again. My father, who'd disowned me, choosing to believe the Custodians' word over mine. My mother, who'd always doted over me. And my two sisters: one just married after thinking she was cursed to be single for life, and one finally enjoying life again after a spell of poor health.
"Well," I said, "never in a million years would I have guessed you'd be making this return trip with me, Madison."
"Me either," she said wryly.
"Can't believe I finally got through to you."
"I’ve seen clues, the signs that things were amiss. I just refused to face or admit them. But when you told me what the Korean children said, it was like this veil was torn from my face and I realised you were speaking the truth."
"Hey!" I exclaimed suddenly. "The councillor asked me to give him a call when we were done to let him know how it went."
I pulled the Smartphone from my pocket, thumbed it unlocked, and searched for the councillor's phone number, when the most overwhelmingly powerful sense of déjà vu exploded in my mind, convincing me with complete and utter assurance that this had happened before. And then, as the seizure continued and a memory was dredged up from the depths of my mind, I realised that on this occasion, the feeling of déjà vu was right. I had been through this before...
...it was two years ago and I was sitting dejectedly on a crumbling redbrick fence on the outskirts of Skel territory. I'd just been forced to kill my own Ranger teammates to stop them from handing a bunch of innocent refugees over to the Skel. And while the faces of my teammates as I shot them kept going through my mind on continuous replay, I pulled my Smartphone from my pocket, thumbed it unlocked, and rang someone to report what had happened. He asked me where I was, and then told me to stay put and he'd come and get me.
An hour passed, then two. I was still sitting on the fence, with my assault rifle on my lap and my Smartphone in my hand when I heard a big 4WD approach and park nearby. The driver – the chauffeur – remained in the car, as he normally did, and the passenger, an older, heavier man, got out of the vehicle. He approached me from my left and sat on the wall beside me.
"Are you alright, Ethan?" Councillor Okada asked kindly.
Chapter Thirty-Four
"What do you reckon? You asked me to infiltrate the Rangers to find out what they were up to. You never hinted they could be doing something so despicably evil, or that they'd try to kill me when I tried to stop them." My voice trailed off to a whisper. "You never mentioned I'd have to kill them."
"I am sorry, Ethan, if I had known it would come to this, I would not have asked to you infiltrate them."
He asked me something else then, and I replied in the negative, but the memory was kind of fuzzy and I couldn't make out what he said.
"So what happens now?" I asked tiredly.
"There will be an internal investigation, but do not let that concern you. I will explain everything to them," he replied.
"Oh great," I sighed.
"In the meantime, I will have to ask you to hand over your weapons – it is procedure, that is all."
"You can have the blasted things – I never want to see a gun again," I replied despondently, my eyes still fixed on the ground. I handed him the Austeyr, and then unclipped the pistol and handed it to him too.
"I am sorry, but I have no choice," he said, and placed my pistol against the side of my head and pulled the trigger.
My last thought was of Nanako, my beautiful young wife, who was going to be a widow at the age of eighteen...
..."Ethan! Snap out of it!"
I heard a scream, a wailing, pitiful sound, which I realised after a moment was coming from me. I shook my head and everything came back to me.
Madison had pulled the Bushmaster over to the side of the road and was shaking me by the collar.
I held up a hand. "I'm okay now."
"You sure? You looked like you were in some kind of trance."
"I was, in a way," I admitted while looking down at the phone in my hand with Okada's phone number only partially entered. "I just remembered who shot me."
"What, you mean the person who shot you two years ago?"
"Yes. It was Councillor Okada."
"You cannot be serious."
I quickly explained to her what I had recalled.
"No wonder you had a seizure every time you tried to remember who it was. He was like a father to you, was he not?"
"Yeah," I admitted softly, trying to get my head around what could have possibly motivated him to shoot me after asking me to infiltrate the Rangers. I mean, I did what he asked me to do. I found out what illicit activities the Rangers were up to, so why did he try to kill me when I told him what they were?
"Oh shoot," Madison said.
"What?"
"You know you left your wife in his hands?"
"Oh no! Madison..."
"I am on it!" she said, grabbing the gear stick.
"No, wait, I have an idea." I lifted the phone and typed in Okada's number again.
The phone rang a long time, so long I thought it was going to ring out, but he answered just before it did. "Ethan – is that you?"
"Yes, Sir. Just ringing to let you know we got to Newhome just in time. The Rangers are all dead, including Colonel Yamada."
"Job well done, Ethan. Where are you now?" he asked casually.
"Just starting back now, Sir."
"Great, I will let Nanako know. Oh, and I will send a squad of Militia to meet you outside Lilydale and escort you safely back here."
"Thank you, Sir, I appreciate it." I cut the connection.
"You know that has to be a trap, right?" Madison asked.
"I'm counting on it. In fact, I reckon I know exactly who'll be setting the trap."
* * *
Ken was exactly where I thought he'd be, lying on his belly in a copse of trees overlooking the Maroondah Highway as it exited Lilydale just before it hit the Warburton Highway. Also, as expected, he was armed with a Javelin missile launcher loaded with an anti-tank guided missile that would've taken out the Bushmaster with one shot.
But while Madison and the Bushmaster were hiding around a bend further down the road, I'd come in on foot and crept up behind Ken. I was currently squatting behind him, with my pistol in my hand, hanging loosely over my knee.
"Trying to kill me with an anti-tank missile? Not particularly sporting, is it?" I asked after I'd been there for a while.
Ken just about injured himself as he leapt into the air and twisted around to come down on his rear. "What the...how did...where..." he stammered as he reached for a pistol stuffed down the back of his jeans.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you. Unless you want me to put a bullet in your head, that is," I remarked casually.
"No! Please, look, I...I was just following orders, okay?"
"Lame excuse, Ken."
"What...what are you gonna do to me?"
"Well, that all depends on you."
"On me?"
"Yeah. You see, if you don't want me to put that bullet in your head, you're gonna have to make a little phone call for me."
"Okay," he said, nodding frantically.
"Right, this is what you're
gonna do. Ring Okada and tell him you blew the Bushmaster sky high and can confirm I'm dead."
"But..."
I pointed the gun and pulled back the hammer.
"Okay, okay already, I'm on it." He picked up his phone and speed dialled the councillor.
"Yes?" the councillor asked impatiently as soon as he picked up.
"Job's done, Sir," Ken reported.
"And the body?" Okada demanded.
"I disposed of it just as you instructed me to, Sir."
"Good work, Ken. Now come back home before anyone starts wondering where you are."
"Sir," Ken said, and broke the connection. "Now what?" he asked, eyeing my gun nervously.
"Now we go for a little drive, just the three of us," I said as I grabbed his phone so I could call Madison and tell her it was safe to join me.
* * *
We dumped the Bushmaster in a wood not far from Hamamachi lands and then continued into Hamamachi in Ken's 4WD. Madison sat on the floor in the front passenger compartment and I sat on the floor between the front and back seats. I didn't want anyone eyeballing us on the way in.
A phone call from Ken confirmed that Okada was still in the hospital visiting Nanako, so we went straight there. Madison and I hid our pistols in our belts, and then pulled out our shirts so they hung down and covered the weapons. That done, I marched into the hospital with Madison and a very nervous Ken following behind.
Ken wasn't the only one nervous. I was absolutely packing it. Firstly, because I was desperate to get to Nanako and protect her from Okada. And secondly, because I knew my heart would shatter the moment I saw her since I'd be leaving her soon.
The hospital confirmed that Nanako was still in the same bed, so I headed over there as casually as I could. When I reached the room, I motioned for Madison and Ken to remain outside, and then, with my heart racing, stepped lightly into the room.
Nanako was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, her expression deadpan, as though a part of her had died. Her mother sat beside her on this side of the bed, and Okada was on the other side near the window.
Forager - the Complete Trilogy (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Trilogy) Page 70