by Steven Lang
‘What sort of thing?’
‘It happens I have some skill in munitions …’
Andy holding back, staying in the darkness, asking the questions. But after a time he rolled a joint, passed it around, and the subject changed. They started in on World War II and the betrayal of the Russian POWs by the Allies, the way they just handed them back to Stalin after the fall of Berlin, after which the Man of Steel had simply sent them to the gulags. All of them. Meanwhile the Nazis were being shipped out to Argentina. From there it was an easy step to the Americans and their secret services. That was when Carl knew he had him. Andy was self-educated, having his own particular historiographical perspective that had developed out of marijuana and acid and stoned raves; you could see his mind working and it wasn’t slow or stupid, just in the wrong gear.
‘So where’s the stuff come from?’ Andy said.
‘There’s a stack of gelignite out my place. For blowing stumps. It’s a bit old, predates me, you’d have to be careful with it, but I reckon we could manage it.’
In the end Andy couldn’t let his little project be taken over by someone else, he had to be there, he had to be the one in charge.
Carl bunched up against the door of the van. Hand on the handle. South America had been on his mind a lot recently. His meeting with Cody there close to the end. Carl had never been any good as a revolutionary. There had been too much of a requirement to see things in black and white. All those months with Evelyn in the flat in Toronto waiting for her husband to pay up had worn him down. They’d wanted to convert the young, beautiful wife of the industrialist to their way of thinking. There had been a complex routine. Always one person in the room with her, always one outside, six people in rolling shifts, three men, three women, in what appeared from the outside to be a student flat. It was supposed to be over in a fortnight but dragged on for six months. Carl had been the one converted. The others hadn’t seemed to share his concern for her. To them she always remained the enemy — rich, educated, well spoken, privileged, the wife of a man who was manufacturing, amongst other things, napalm — no matter how vulnerable she was in their little room. It wasn’t her beauty that got to him either. After not too long in their hands she had been anything but beautiful. She became just another person, all her vanities revealed as the try-hards of a little girl, the constant picking at herself, playing with her hair, touching her face, biting her nails till they bled; the construct falling away, just another person, suffering, begging them on the basis of their common humanity to let her go.
‘You’ve picked the wrong girl,’ she told them. ‘You’ve probably figured that out by now. Alec couldn’t give a shit about me, nor me him.You want me to go back out there and change him? Some hope. He’ll be glad to be rid of me. This is convenient. It’s a suitably dramatic way for him to lose a wife. Think of the sympathy it will engender. So much more pleasing than the mess of a divorce. Catholic, you know. If you kill me he’ll be the darling of the world. He’ll build the biggest bomb you can imagine and drop it on anyone he wants and everyone will love him.’
But to Carl she told the intricate details of a failed society marriage, the union of an older man and a younger woman, knowing, instinctively, Carl’s weakness.And he listened, because that was his nature, but remained strong, if that’s what it was called. He watched her slow destruction and the others’ indifference. If this was the way the world was changed he wanted no part in its new form. Better all humanity disappear.
It was in South America, a year later, that he saw Cody again. Less than two years after they had parted his friend was already much older. Cody had become a soldier, with a soldier’s intensity and concerns. Nor did not he seem especially pleased to see Carl. They had spent a single night in an old pueblo, left alone by the locals on the basis of their shared nationality to drink the local wine, to smoke the hand-rolled cigars. Carl had wanted to talk about Missoula but Cody passed it off.
‘We were so naive,’ he said. ‘I was so busy that year I couldn’t think, juggling all those different groups. But there was a passion, you know, a sense we could win.’
Carl should have left it there.
‘Different groups?’
Cody still couldn’t resist the opportunity to boast. ‘I had a big organisation going there. I left some good friends behind.’
‘Who?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter now, I don’t know if you even knew them.’ He gave some descriptions anyway, no names of course, but ending up with, as a kind of add-on, ‘And you, of course.’
It shouldn’t have hurt, it was self-indulgent to let it. It was old stuff. Even then. But it had always been one of Cody’s attributes, to be able to make Carl feel like a child, a younger brother, too eager for appreciation and affection, getting hurt but always coming back for more.
‘How did you go with that girl?’ Cody said. ‘The blonde one. What was her name? A tight shiny creature. You were desperately in love with her if I remember. I left you two to walk into Canada. I often wondered what became of you.’
He never saw Cody again. In November that year there was the debacle in Santiago. That event, much more bloody and less successful than the one with Evelyn, in theory more painful to be part of, had hardly touched him at all. There had been nothing personal about it. Afterwards they had all been required to disappear in their own ways and Carl took it as a chance to be completely gone. Not that such a thing would ever be simple, he knew too much about too many people to ever be forgotten, no matter how small part he’d ever played. It took him another five years to reach Australia.
Somewhere in the seventies he came across Evelyn di Lorenzo’s book about her experiences, In The Belly of the Fanatic.There was a quote in big type on the back page: ‘It was my love for Alec which sustained me. My love for him and his love for me. I would sit in that bare room and concentrate on him and a kind of peace would flow through me … the money was never an issue for Alec, he just wanted me back.’
Everything, it seemed, was a lie.
The car was the problem. The terrier in his mind had found the crack which would allow it into the marrow of his fear. Andy had been too easily persuaded about the van. It wasn’t that Andy didn’t care. He wanted them to go that night, he had his own agenda. Carl’s fingers tightened on the chrome handle.
He could always run.
twenty-six
Stevo’s idea was to make a party out of the thing. Get some blokes together, go out there, sink a few beers, then, when the greenies showed up, do ’em over in such a ways as they’d never touch another fucking machine, but not so bad they couldn’t tell their friends. That was his idea. He’s that sort of bloke. No reason it couldn’t have been a bit of fun.
Jim comes up beside him in the pub Thursday night while he’s at the bar.A face like a wild man, hair all around it, straight out of fucking Hippiedom.
Here, he thinks, what’s this? He’s never had much time for the bastard, never said more’n two words to him.
‘You got a minute, Stevo?’ he says, and you can see he’s all worked up about something. Nothing unusual there, he’s always nervous this bloke; when he starts to speak you think he’s about to stutter or burst into tears or something.
‘Sure mate,’ he says, ‘but it’ll cost you,’ then he laughs, to show he’s joking, but the cunt doesn’t notice. He’s not even looking at him straight, only in the mirror behind the bar, pretending it isn’t happening.
Makes a fellow curious.
‘Pretend you’re taking a leak,’ Jim says. ‘I’ll meet you out the back, in the car park. Don’t tell anyone.’
So he takes the beers over to the table and then goes off to the gents and slips out the back. Jim’s waiting for him and they go to his car, which wouldn’t you know is a fucking Kombi.
‘What’s all this about?’ he says. ‘I don’t want to buy any fucking maridgeawana.’
‘It’s not about dope,’ Jim says.
So they get in and the bloke sa
ys he knows who done the machines out in the dumps last week.
So he asks who. As you would.
He can’t say names, he says. He says he doesn’t even know ’em. They’re from up Sydney. But he’s heard tell they’re planning to do some more. They figure no one will expect that. Jim says he’ll tell Stevo what he knows, but only if he swears not to tell where he heard it.They’d kill him if they found out. He asks him to swear, and he asks him on what and Jim says on whatever he thinks is sacred. Now there’s a fucking laugh. They’re sitting in his Kombi in a car park behind the Australasia and this cunt is asking him what he thinks is sacred. Not a fucking lot. You couldn’t swear on a can of beer could you? So he swears. But first he asks him how come he’s telling him and he says these Sydney cunts are greenies who want to make out it’s the hippies doing it. The hippies even put them up out their way for a couple of weeks. It’s about Coolantippy. They come down here to stir things up. The Forestry’s allocated coupes out Coolantippy way and there’s been this shit fight about it in the papers and all. The greenies want to make it national park. Bastards would lock everything up if they could. Used to be you could go fishing up the beach north of Tanja. They made that a national park. His family’s been going there for generations, his father’s fucking father, then these cunts come along and block the road off. There’s not a bastard up and down the coast doesn’t hate their guts. He asks Jim how come he knows about it? That’s none of Stevo’s business, he says, and won’t be pushed on it. Fair enough, he thinks. The story is they’re planning to do in another couple of dozers on the weekend, does Stevo know who to talk to?
Does he know?
He goes to see Bill Polson. His being one of the machines that got fucked last week. They reckon it’s sugar and the motor’s rooted. Bill not being the sort of bloke you want to get the wrong side of. He’s got a family, a house, a mortgage, the whole catastrophe. He’s a big bloke, can carry a truck tyre under each arm, he’s seen him do it, seen him pick up a forty-four and put it in the back of a ute.
He runs Jim’s story past Bill and Bill goes quiet.
‘I’ll handle this,’ he says.
So now they’re heading out there in the dark, eight blokes in two Toyotas, and he hopes Jim wasn’t bullshitting because otherwise he’s in deep shit. He should have made the bastard come with them, then if it went wrong there’d be some comeback. Too fucking late now. Bill’s got it organised, no alcohol, just a couple of truckloads of blokes with pick handles, not a fucking laugh amongst them. You wouldn’t want to be a greenie, that’s for sure. He managed to get Anthill along and Anthill’s slipped in a hip flask of his friend Jack Daniels, which is just plain sense isn’t it? You can’t be out there in the forest at this time of night without a nip or two.
Besides, in the dark no one can hear you drink.
twenty-seven
Felling had not yet commenced in that particular area and the weight of the trees was heavy around the dump. The machines were there, though, two of them, parked in the centre of a clearing of their own design, standing a little apart, dull yellow in the dark, the churned earth caught in between the tracks and in the grooves of the giant tyres.
McMahon walked around them with a torch. The great slabs of cast steel brooded above him, the handrails and footholds for access to the cabin welded on like afterthoughts. He noted their type and manufacture in a pocketbook, and then, taking up a position as near as he could see to equidistant between them, called the men around. He asked Barnes, the senior federal man, to provide light and then proceeded to draw a map in the dirt with a length of eucalyptus.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said.
He liked to be correct, it was one of his things, and on this occasion it was all the more important because the men referred to came from three different departments, Federal, local and Special Branch, with McMahon being the nominal head of operations. There were understandable tensions. The local man, Sergeant Bragg, was a stout redhead, all freckles and cracked lips, accustomed to keeping the peace in a logging and fishing community. He resented the Federal boys, Barnes, Leuwin and Boyd, and they, kitted out with their boots and automatic weapons and little leather patches on their shoulders, looked down on him. Both groups regarded Masters and himself with customary suspicion. Everyone was keen for something to happen. This was not necessarily a good thing.
‘Gentlemen, this is the field of action. Here’s the road we came down. Barnes, you and Leuwin will take up a position on either side where it enters the clearing. Sergeant Bragg, if you and Boyd would be so good as to take the opposite end of the clearing, here, on the uphill side. Masters and I will bivouac up here on this slope. We’ll maintain radio contact with each other at all times. Use, however, will be confined to emergencies. Until such time as our guests arrive we’ll do a half-hour checkin.
‘Our man will be travelling with two others. Cordale is the older one. It is essential to keep in mind that Cordale, whatever else he might be, is also an experienced soldier. He is not to be underestimated. He may well be armed. It is our intelligence that he will certainly be carrying explosives which he and the other man will be intending to stow aboard one or both of these machines. Our intention is to allow him to at least begin to deploy them before acting. While Cordale is thus occupied our man will move away from his machine and seek cover in the forest. When he is safe he will blow a whistle. This will be the signal for Barnes to let off a flare.
‘It is imperative that we apprehend Cordale and his companion at this time. Should they make a run for it, a warning shot may be fired. If they persist in trying to leave the area you have permission to use whatever force is required to restrain them. Remember, however, that we want, if at all possible, and I will repeat that, if at all possible, to avoid casualties. Position yourselves — this applies primarily to you, Boyd and Bragg — so that if it comes to it there will be no damage through inadvertent crossfire. No accidents please. If by some unforeseen circumstance they do attain cover, Boyd and Masters may give chase. Leuwin and Barnes, you will maintain your positions next to the road and stop any vehicle attempting to depart. Any questions?’
He glanced around the group but without lingering long enough to encourage discussion.
‘No? Right then, let’s do the thing with the watches. I have 2247. We don’t expect any activity until after 2400. Take your positions. Radio check on the hour and half-hour.’
McMahon rubbed out the diagram with the toe of his boot then accompanied Masters to the edge of the clearing. The understorey was thick on the uphill slope. They had to push through it in order to gain the necessary elevation.
‘Could be a problem if we want to get down at all smartly,’ he said to Masters. ‘You better stay close. I’ll go up.’
He climbed until he had what was probably the best possible overall view, looking down through the tall trees to the clearing. The moon was still young but it spread a little light, glinting on the machines.
It was up to Andrew Weiss, also known as Milo Cermic, to provide the guests. McMahon was not altogether happy about that. Cermic had long been aware of his antipathy and saw it as evidence of snobbery on McMahon’s part, but this was far from the reason.There were plenty of working-class people in the service, some of them good men. McMahon disliked Cermic because he distrusted him. He was a man with no allegiance to anyone but himself; clever, but in some way profoundly ignorant at the same time. There had been much hoo-ha in the media during the previous months about members of the intelligence services nurturing political beliefs at odds with the democratic and multicultural nature of the society they were supposed to serve. And while McMahon was of the opinion that the public, by definition, should have as little knowledge as possible of the workings of any intelligence agency, he had thought of Cermic when he read the interoffice memo. Cermic, he was certain, would screw whoever it suited him to achieve what he wanted; he was not a man whose principles were at odds with the government’s, he was a man of no principle whatsoever.
It had never been entirely clear what had happened in Kings Cross a couple of years before, but McMahon thought of it as Cermic’s fault. He blamed him for the months of wasted time. If he could have arranged to have him dismissed he would have done so, but the enquiry had cleared him of any wrongdoing, and anyway, dismissal is rarely simple from government departments. His postings as an operative amongst various groups of new alternatives was as good a compromise as he could manage. It got him out of the way, which is where he had conveniently stayed. Budget cuts would eliminate him eventually.
But if Cermic really could provide this forgotten American terrorist, and some sort of environmental conspiracy, it would benefit them both. Another cock-up, on the other hand, would have the opposite effect, and another cock-up, now that he was settled in the deeps of Coolantippy State Forest, did not seem outside the bounds of possibility. The location was not good, there were too many variables, not enough visibility, radio contact with base impossible. Typical Cermic stuff. He would never have agreed to go along with the arrangement if it hadn’t been that the department wanted to sort it out before the Americans arrived.
At 23.26 there was the sound of a motor.
‘Alert,’ he said quietly, his voice breaking into the silence of the headsets on the five other men.
There was an alarming amount of noise. More than one vehicle was coming down the hill. He watched the headlights follow each other around the curves, flicking in between the trees.
‘We have two vehicles, repeat, two vehicles,’ he said. ‘Await instructions.’
A pair of four-wheel drives entered the clearing. They pulled alongside each other and disgorged a group of men. In the beam of the headlights he could see they were civilians, rugged up against the cold. Carrying lengths of timber. Several wearing woollen berets. One of them went directly to the dozer and played a torch over and under it. McMahon couldn’t see him carrying anything else. The others stayed by the vehicles. The man looking at the machine paid special attention to the padlock on the fuel tank. He climbed up and inspected the cabin. Then he called something back to the group. He jumped back down and went to the snigger. McMahon counted seven men, possibly another in the cab of one of the vehicles. He could see no sign of Cermic, but then it was dark and he had only their torches to go by. Cermic had said there would be only three men and one vehicle. There seemed to be something of a leader who was giving instructions, but he couldn’t hear him over the noise of the motors. The man who had inspected the machines returned to the group. The leader pointed his length of wood to various locations around the clearing, apparently directing men to go to them.