“It’s Ian!” Anna said even as Toppley fired.
A mercenary fell, but the other three ran on, and were lost to sight behind the walkway and the trees ringing the car park.
“He can’t get away!” Anna yelled, already running back towards the sloped driveway that led into the car park.
“He won’t!” Smilovitz yelled, running after her. “He—”
Anna felt something bite into her leg. As she fell, her first thought was zombie, but when she saw the blood, she knew it was only a bullet. Only? The thought raced across her mind as she tumbled backwards, looking back to the tower, to where a camouflaged soldier stood on the terrace next to the walkway, gun raised. He had a perfect shot. But he made just as perfect a target for Clyde and Toppley as they emptied half a magazine into him.
“Please don’t ruin all our efforts by dying,” Smilovitz said, crouching next to her.
“Ian’s getting away!” Anna said.
“No he’s not,” Smilovitz said, a thin smile on his face which only grew wider as a second, massive explosion shook the mountaintop.
“You’re lucky the bullet didn’t break the bone,” Toppley said as she bandaged Anna’s leg in a corridor inside the Telstra Tower.
Anna, adrenaline spent along with all the energy she’d borrowed to get through the last few hours, simply winced. “Dad always says luck is for those who didn’t have timing.”
“Then you have perfect timing, because it didn’t sever the artery, either,” Toppley said. “Dose up on the antibiotics, and you’ll be fine.”
“But can she stand?” O.O. asked, walking along the corridor.
“Stand? No,” Anna said. “I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“You’ll only have to manage it for ten minutes,” O.O. said. “Or you could sit down for the broadcast. Dr Smiley has the cameras ready to roll. There’re a few spare outfits in an office down there. Red pantsuits, which don’t seem appropriate, but are more prime ministerial than the rags you’re wearing.”
“I bet they were Vaughn’s,” Anna said, only half listening to Oswald. “Has Tess found her?”
“There’s been no more shooting,” O.O. said. “So I’ll say no, or not anywhere near here. But if you can’t walk, we better carry you.”
“No,” Anna said.
“The people need to hear from you,” O.O. said. “They need to know about the coup. They need to know it’s over. A young politician valiantly defeating her foe in defence of her people. It’s the perfect story.”
“For a month ago,” Anna said. “But now they need…” She looked Oswald up and down. “Solidity.”
“Charming.”
“You know what I mean, and you know it’s true,” Anna said. “There’s been an attempted coup. People will want familiarity. They know you, Oswald.”
“They don’t like me.”
“But they don’t distrust you,” Anna said. “Not all of them.”
“Whoever they see on their screens, whoever they hear on the radio, that’s the prime minister,” O.O. said.
“I know,” Anna said. “And that’s why, this time, it should be you. I can tie the bandage off, thank you. Take him to the studio. Get him on the air.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Toppley said with deliberate courtesy that was gone when she addressed Oswald Owen. “You, that way. Go.”
Anna watched Toppley take Oswald Owen’s arm and lead him back to the studio. Alone in the long corridor, she closed her eyes.
The music playing on the distant speakers cut out, but the silence only lasted a second, replaced by Oswald Owen’s strident voice. She couldn’t hear the words, but they didn’t matter. They never did.
Anna leaned back, feeling sleep approaching, but only until she heard limping footsteps approach. She’d reached for the shotgun even before she opened her eyes, turned her head, and saw Tess Qwong.
“You’re limping,” Anna said.
“That’s something you can look forward to,” Tess said, slumping into a chair next to Anna’s outstretched leg. “You’ll need to get that properly looked at.”
“I know,” Anna said. “Did you find Vaughn?”
“No. Are you sure that was Lignatiev you saw running to the helicopter?”
“Absolutely,” Anna said. “I thought Leo would pull out some wires, disable the helicopter. I didn’t know he’d rig a bomb on the door.”
“He’s a strange bloke,” Tess said. “Looks as harmless as a spider, but remember rule one, because he’s just as deadly. He said it was revenge for his students.”
“How many mercenaries got away, do you think?”
“Can’t say right now,” Tess said. “But we’ll find out. Eight mercenaries are dead and at least two escaped, but we’ve got three as prisoners, and a barrelful of technicians and producers to interview. Blaze is quizzing them now, making sure they are TV people, not mercs in disguise.”
“He’s really a children’s entertainer?”
“He is.”
“You’ve got to tell me everything that happened to you. When we have time.”
“When we have time,” Tess said. “Something about all of this is wrong, Anna. I don’t think Vaughn was even here.”
“We’ve two sides of an equation, but it’s not balanced,” Anna said, wincing as she straightened her leg. “Lignatiev arranged for all the career soldiers to be deployed from Canberra. The police, too. And I think we know now why Vaughn insisted you and Dad hand-deliver those warrants. They arranged for a lot of politicians to go to Hobart, and killed off those they couldn’t otherwise persuade to leave. But… but it doesn’t make sense, does it? If I were… I mean, not that I would, but—”
“But this isn’t how you’d run a coup,” Tess said, articulating Anna’s thought. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“They must have staged the last prime minister’s suicide. Having Wilson commit suicide would have been a staggering coincidence, but… no, why didn’t Ian take the prime ministerial job himself? He could have kept the Defence Ministry as well. If he was in charge, who could have told him no?”
“Unless he wasn’t in charge,” Tess said. “I’ll find Vaughn. She’ll give us the answers. And you need to get medical treatment. Oswald Owen is one steak dinner away from a coronary, and after today, he’s our de facto prime minister, so if he asks for steak, who would dare refuse? You know it could have been you?”
“As prime minister? No. As long as the right decisions are made, it doesn’t matter who has the title. Oswald Owen is the right person for today. Tomorrow, we’ll see. But today the lights are still on, so let’s be thankful for that.”
Part 3
While the Lights Are On
Canberra
13th March & 14th March
13th March
Chapter 28 - First Class Policing
Canberra Airport
“I made an initial miscalculation,” Leo Smilovitz said.
“An assumption,” Dr Avalon added. “You made an assumption.”
“Which is a scientific cardinal sin,” Smilovitz said. “When the deputy prime minister, Anna Dodson, approached me, she said three mushroom clouds had been sighted. She wanted to know whether it was one bomb or three. When accessing weather and seismographic data, I assumed those reports were correct and there had been a nuclear strike.”
“And there has been,” Avalon cut in. “More than one. More than lots.”
“Yes,” Smilovitz said. “But by starting with the assumption of one target point, I misread the data. At present, I can confirm over a thousand warheads detonated in the Pacific during a period of one hour, but in between six and twenty different locations, where a location is defined as a rough circle with a diameter of one hundred kilometres. As more data is provided, and with more time to analyse it, I’ll be able to form a more specific conclusion.”
“A conclusion that will only clarify the first strike in the Pacific,” Avalon said.
“Yes, indeed,” Smilovitz said. “The
first wave was clearly fired into the Pacific. The second was manually targeted…”
Tess reached over and turned the radio off.
“I was listening to that,” Mick Dodson said, as near-silence returned to their corner of the airport’s departure lounge. Beyond the wide windows, Canberra airport was a constellation of lights, shining bright in the dark night as planes were inspected, repaired, refuelled, readied for dawn and a resumption of the evacuation flights from the flooded coast. On the tarmac, the last of the passengers from the last flight to arrive before darkness made their way into the hastily expanded quarantine zone.
“You said you’d stolen the copy of the script from Anna’s bedside earlier,” Tess said, turning her gaze away from the window.
“I read the report from Dr Smilovitz,” Mick said. “But I was listening to the broadcast to hear if Dr Avalon would let the radio-presenter say another word. Three words into the introduction and she cut him off, and that was five minutes ago. Ace idea sticking the two Canadians on the radio to tell everyone what’s happened. And it was an even better idea having them do it as a double-act. She’s entertaining, isn’t she?”
“In small doses,” Tess said. “Which is how we’ll get our information for the next few weeks, small doses. Sorry, bad choice of words. But for the immediate future, information will be limited to what news arrives here aboard the planes.”
“Until we launch a satellite,” Mick said. “Will they mention that tonight?”
“No, that announcement will be kept for tomorrow,” Tess said. “Or the day after. I’d prefer they waited until we actually had the rocket in orbit. How long will it take to assemble, do you reckon?”
“Depends on whether the components really are all here in Australia,” Mick said. “We sent too much, too hastily, to the Marshall Islands. The islands are gone, the equipment is gone, but it’s the loss of the people we’ll miss the most. I reckon it’ll take another week to find people here who really know what they’re doing. Finding the components, and transporting them to Woomera, will be more of a trial than constructing the launch site. Compared to that, launch should be as easy as boiling a billy on a stove. Call it a month, factoring in delays. Six weeks at the outside.”
“You’re guessing, aren’t you?” Tess said.
“Ah, but my ignorance comes from a position of experience,” Mick said. “We’ll get images for a week, that’s what Smilovitz thinks. One week and no more. But that’ll be enough to find the craters.”
“Not at sea,” Tess said. “I don’t think we’ll ever really know how many missiles were fired, and from where. Though I’d settle for learning why the missiles were launched.”
“Learning something is better than ignorance,” Mick said. “Rule eleven.”
“Rule twelve. Today’s rule eleven was that doctors outrank police,” she said, tapping her chopsticks against the side of the bowl. “Why do we only get satellite coverage for a week?”
“Because communication-constellation satellites aren’t designed for sustained manoeuvring in orbit,” Mick said.
“Did Leo tell you that?” Tess asked.
“No, it was Clyde. He said it would have brought the internet to even the most remote places. He’d been following the technology’s development for the charities he worked with.”
“He still insists he was an aid-worker?”
“I think he was,” Mick said.
“But he was a soldier before,” Tess said.
“We’re all soldiers now,” Mick said with a forlorn sigh. “Soldiers and farmers and everything in between. One week and the satellites will be gone again, but we’ll get our pictures of the craters.”
“Or clouds,” Tess said.
“As long as they’re not mushroom-shaped,” Mick said. “Speaking of which…”
“There’s been another one?” Tess asked.
“Vancouver,” Mick said.
“No? Seriously?”
“Plane arrived this afternoon. Landed in Darwin. Ground-chief threw a pilot into an F-35 and sent her straight here. A mushroom cloud was seen to the north of the city.”
“What about… I forget the name of the place. On Vancouver Island. The airfield the Canadians were running things from.”
“Nanaimo. That’s where this plane came from. The EMP knocked out a lot of electronics, but they think they can repair a lot of ships, and some planes. Those that were on the ground.”
“There were planes in the air?” Tess asked. “Of course there were.”
“The Canadians want assistance with an evacuation,” Mick said.
“Of Vancouver Island? But they were sheltering refugees from Vancouver City, from British Columbia, from beyond and across the border.”
“Yep.”
“We wanted to move refugees there from Japan,” Tess said.
“That was before,” Mick said.
“Before?” She rolled the word around her tongue. “Fair dinkum. We’ve a new division of the calendar, but I thought it’d have been the outbreak which marked the ushering in of a new era. Old and new. Before and after. Except it doesn’t feel like we’re in the after yet. What did Anna say about Canada?”
“She sent the pilot back to Darwin, with instructions to relay a message north. We’ll keep the runway in Darwin clear, and the straighter roads empty. Sent word to Papua, too. Tokua Airport isn’t much closer to Canada than Vancouver, but over those distances, every metre matters. The Canadians have no choice but to evacuate, so we better prepare.”
“What else can we do?” Tess said, looking down at her half-finished bowl. “But we were preparing for refugees before. We’ll manage. We’ll find a way.”
“I hadn’t got to the bad part,” Mick said.
Tess paused, chopsticks halfway to her mouth. “What? More news on the pilots’ grapevine?”
“It’s a beer-barrel in this case, and overflowing with a very sour brew,” he said. “Jakarta was hit. Twice. The Golden Triangle was hit first, with a second impact site a few kilometres west of the harbour.”
“Jakarta? We were going to evacuate half the population. I don’t want to even think how many millions must be dead. Dying.”
“And that’s still not the worst of it,” Mick said. “The report came from a boat, upturned, floating a few miles out at sea. The mayday was received by a plane a couple of hours after it happened. Tess, the blast was at ten a.m., our time.”
Tess glanced at the clock. Nine p.m. “This morning?” she asked.
“So far, that’s the last detonation we’ve heard of.”
“But it might not be the last ever,” Tess said. “It really might not be the after, not yet.” She returned to her bowl, thinking as she ate. “Any word from General Yoon?”
“Not yet. But I do have some good news.” He reached into his large green bag, emblazoned with an oil-stained white cross, and pulled out a silver-wrapped package. “I’ve got some cake.”
“When did you find time to bake?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t cook it,” he said. “It was for Anna. For our new deputy prime minister.”
“From whom?” she asked.
“Some blokes down in the fuel store. Two are locals. Local to Broken Hill, I mean. One is from Silverton and his wife’s from Mildura. They chose to live there, but I won’t hold it against them. They made the cake for Anna.”
Tess eyed the package suspiciously. “Considering everything that’s happened, do you really trust them?”
“I wouldn’t, except Shannon was there when they handed it over. And she ate a slab before I could stop her. If it’s poisoned, she’d be dead.”
“Is she doing okay?” Tess asked.
“Shannon? Far better now she’s half full of cake,” Mick said. “Molly’s taking it hard. A bit shook up still.”
“No sign of her husband?” Tess asked. “I can’t remember his name.”
“Clarke,” Mick said. “No, no sign of him, or the three kids he went looking for. But the other chil
dren got onto a plane, and we got Brendon out of the hospital. And into the one here. Molly’s spending most of her time with him, but Shannon’s been helping me out with my rounds. She’ll make a good doctor, in time. I put Sophia and Blaze in to help with the quarantine. You don’t need them back, do you?”
“Not tonight,” Tess said. “Tomorrow, maybe. Depends what tonight’s search uncovers. And that’s assuming Anna doesn’t want Blaze at the radio station. How is Sophia’s arm?”
“It’ll be a month before she holds a rifle,” Mick said. “And at least two before she could put up with the recoil. But she’ll recover full use and movement, and she doesn’t need either to be useful to me. That’s not the end of the good news, either. At the coast, the waves weren’t as high as I thought. The water didn’t rise as fast, and didn’t come in nearly as far. The sea is receding.”
“But leaving salt-water ponds, right?” Tess said. “Nothing will grow there until the rains flush out the salt. By then, any equipment we haven’t salvaged will have been rusted or ruined. There,” she added, putting her empty bowl on the table. “I’ve eaten, and it’s been an hour. Can I please go?”
“You could sleep, too,” Mick said. “She won’t escape. Not by air. I’ve got a guard on the planes.”
“But they’re not soldiers,” Tess said. “Those are pressurised passenger planes. Few of the pilots are Australians, but how many locals could pick Erin Vaughn out of a line-up? With refugees arriving, all those new faces, it will get easier for her to hide in a crowd.”
“Then we’re agreed that if you don’t find her tonight, you’ll stop,” Mick said.
“Tonight,” Tess said. “While the lights are still on.”
A new hand-written sign adorned the airport’s first-class lounge. Team Stonefish Strike Squad. Authorised Personnel Only. By Order of the Prime Minister. The crude fish-and-crossbones motif suggested it was Zach’s idea, and it wasn’t a bad one. The airlifts would be on-going as long as the lights were on, and so the airport would be given priority with fuel, water, and food supplies. That made it a more sensible base than the fire-ravaged police station on London Circuit, or the mothballed AFP headquarters. At least for now. Longer term, she’d need forensic labs and surveillance equipment, but that could wait until she had the people to operate them. She’d also need cells, but until she had jailers she could trust, the mercenary-prisoners would remain in the airport’s detention rooms.
Life Goes On | Book 3 | While The Lights Are On [Surviving The Evacuation] Page 28