Life Goes On | Book 3 | While The Lights Are On [Surviving The Evacuation]

by Tayell, Frank

  “We should bring Zach here,” Elaina said, looking up at the two permanent exhibits dominating the high-ceilinged hall. “He’d love having a ride on that.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Clyde said with wistful longing, taking a step towards the old car and pink caravan, though his way was blocked by a large trolley, stacked with paintings, and jammed between four large wooden crates. “A 1955 FJ Holden. Two-point-two litre engine, three-speed transmission, whitewall tyres, red upholstery, and weighs a whisper over a ton. But the caravan’s the real beaut. A home away from home. The epitome of the post-war Australian dream.”

  “I was talking about the dinosaur skeleton,” Elaina said with a snort of laughter.

  “Oh, the muttaburrasaurus?” Clyde said, with clear disinterest. “About twice the length of the Holden, and eight times the weight. But those are just bones, while the car is a gem.”

  “Tell you what, mate,” Tess said, “when we’ve a bit of time, we’ll clear some floor space and see if she can drive. We’re so short of living space, you can sleep in the caravan.” She pointed at the corridor unnaturally narrowed by long rows of transparent boxes whose interiors glittered. “Stack those paintings next to the dino, and use that cart to bring in the evidence. The meeting rooms down that corridor are where we’re storing evidence. Food gets stored in the cafe, so give me those bags, and I’ll drop them off there.”

  “Looks like jewels in those crates,” Elaina said, pointing to an open box half-buried beneath an upturned bronze elephant.

  “Don’t tell Toppley,” Clyde said as he dragged a three-metre-long seascape from the two-metre-long cart.

  “Do you really believe that story she told about the diamond mine, the casino, and the jet-ski?” Elaina asked.

  Clyde’s reply was lost beneath the squeak of the wheels.

  Tess picked up a bag, and picked a path between the dumped loot and to the cafe.

  The salvaged artefacts had spread through the wall-less entrance of the open-plan cafe, with more crates and boxes stacked on the chairs and tables, and even against the ceiling-height windows. Through the occasional gaps, she could see the dark expanse of the lake. Beyond were lights, though. Parliament House? Possibly. It would have been a fantastic view once.

  “And it will be again,” she said, with a determination she couldn’t quite believe.

  Making her way between the serving counters, she entered the well-lit kitchen. Cluttered and musty, it still had the faint hint of cooking. Was that cumin and garam masala?

  She lowered the bag to the floor as she sniffed again, then angled towards the bin on which a pair of early-working flies were sleepily perched. The bin was half full of wrappers and a few empty cans. The microwave timer was blinking on one. Inside was a bowl, covered in cling-wrap, the contents still hot.

  Her hand on her holster, she slowly turned around, seeing the kitchen with different eyes. The bowl didn’t belong to the guards outside, not if it was still hot. The cooking-programme had been paused before it had chimed. If the guards knew someone else was inside, they would have said. Almost certainly. A thief would have taken the food away, leaving only a lurker, a fugitive, someone hiding.

  Looking for clues as to the diner’s identity, looking for places they might hide, she made her way back to the kitchen door. Drawing her gun, but keeping it low, she pushed the door open, letting instinct take over, her eyes roaming the junk-room cafe. A fire door was only partially concealed by a stack of plastic boxes. It offered an obvious way outside, but would the lurker have fled? Or would they have hidden, assuming that these newcomers would dump their treasure and leave? Her eyes fell on the exhibits in the main atrium beyond. There was one obvious place to hide.

  Slowly, gun low, she made her way out of the cafe, but paused behind a trolley full of century-old portraits, covered in nearly as much dust. Shoulder height, they offered concealment, if not cover, and a clear view of the caravan.

  “Come out!” she called. “You’re caught.”

  Silence stretched, but it was less complete than before. A squeak from a leather seat, a gentle spang from the suspension as weight inside moved, a clunk from the hinges as someone tested the door. It opened, though only an inch.

  “Hands up, come out slow,” Tess called, taking a step away from the paintings. Even as she saw the gun barrel emerge, Tess dived.

  Bullets shredded the portraits, slammed into the floor, ricocheted off the trolley’s frame. The gun firing at her was a fully automatic, and with a silencer.

  Tess ducked behind a stack of plastic boxes full of small objects wrapped in tissue paper. Spotting better cover, she chose her words with care.

  “It’s over!” she called, diving forward in a roll which caused her spine to protest, her hip to scream as she landed on every bruise she’d acquired during the last few days. But as the next burst slammed into the plastic boxes, turning porcelain ornaments into shrapnel, Tess curled behind the giant bronze Buddha, relatively confident she was safe.

  “Good place to hide,” she called out. “Few people come to the museum, and none of them linger long.” Another burst from the submachine gun sprayed the statue, the bullets then dancing off in every direction. “Yep, you’ve got water, light. Food, of course. Privacy, of a sort. And most deliveries are dropped off in daylight. That was your mistake, of course.” Another stream of lead slammed into the bronze, but this time, at least two punctured the outer shell, pinwheeling around inside what Tess suddenly realised was a hollow statue. “Your mistake,” she continued, now scanning for deeper cover, “was forgetting the one person who might deposit evidence at night is a cop.”

  There were other pockets of shelter, but none looked sturdier than where she now sat. Slipping into a half crouch, gun raised, she got ready to fire and run, ducking when she heard a shot. One. Loud. From her right, and followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass as the caravan’s front window shattered.

  “Got you covered, Commish,” Clyde called.

  “You’re surrounded,” Tess said. “Surrender or die, and pick quick.”

  Silence.

  It stretched.

  Finally, a voice replied. A familiar voice. A woman’s voice. “I can’t leave,” Erin Vaughn said.

  Tess nodded to herself in satisfaction at a hunch confirmed. “Major Kelly is dead, Erin. So are her team. We killed them about an hour ago.”

  “She’s dead?” Vaughn asked, a faint hint of hope in her voice.

  Tess was tempted to lie, but there was too great a chance it would backfire, that Vaughn would ask to speak to her husband. “The hostages are dead,” she called.

  “Dead?” Vaughn asked.

  “Yes. Shot. All of them. This morning.”

  “Even the twins?” Vaughn asked.

  “Yes,” Tess said. “They died after Owen’s broadcast yesterday, after he reported news of the attempted coup. Your husband died some time tonight.”

  “I’d have died if I went back to Aaron’s house,” Vaughn said. “I knew that. And I knew they’d kill him soon after. So I couldn’t go back. I thought… I don’t know. I loved Johno. I did. But I loved Ian, too.”

  “You were coerced,” Tess replied. “You had no choice. You couldn’t have saved them. But you can save others. We need information. Who was Kelly? Who was she working for?”

  “Kelly wanted you dead,” Vaughn said. “It’s why I had you sent to the coast.”

  “So you didn’t know about the bombs, the tidal wave?” Tess asked.

  “Know? I didn’t know about any of it,” Vaughn said. “They got Ian first. Months ago. First I knew was when I woke up, naked, in a shack in the middle of the bush. I was leverage. And then… But then…” She trailed off into a sob.

  “You can help us, and help Australia, Erin,” Tess said. “You’ll be locked up in a cell from which there’ll be no escape, no rescue, but no assassination. You’ll be a prisoner, but you’ll be safe.”

  “Ian said that. Ian said I’d be safe,” she s
aid, and Tess could sense she was losing Vaughn.

  “Was it Malcolm Baker?” Tess asked. “How much did he know?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Vaughn said. “You can’t help me, and I can’t help you.”

  “You can save your people,” Tess said.

  “My people are dead!” Vaughn cried in a primal wail as the caravan’s door swung open. Submachine gun raised, she ran out.

  Before Tess could speak, a burst came from her left, and Erin Vaughn crumpled, sprawling on the priceless, worthless artefacts surrounding the caravan.

  “Cease fire!” Tess said, jogging forward, but Vaughn was dead.

  “Sorry, Commish,” Elaina said as she and Clyde came out of cover.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Clyde said. “I acted on instinct there. Saw the gun and fired.”

  “No worries,” Tess said, guessing it had been Elaina, not Clyde, who’d fired. “Caravan’s empty. She wasn’t sleeping there. Just hid there when she heard us enter.”

  “Was she alone?” Elaina asked.

  “In every possible meaning of the word,” Tess said, holding up the object she’d picked up from the floor of the caravan. “She ejected the magazine before she ran outside. Just one last suicide for the books.”

  “Was she telling the truth?” Elaina asked. “She was really just another victim?”

  “No, she wasn’t a victim,” Tess said. “She shot at me first. Despite her words, her grief, her instinct was to shoot, not talk. She could have come to me, or to Anna. She could have gone to the AFP months ago, if that’s when this began. But she didn’t. She went along with it. There was no helping her. No saving her. No, despite the questions I want answered, better it ended this way. It’s better than a noose.”

  Epilogue - While the Lights Are On

  Australian National University, Canberra

  “No offence, Tess, but you look worse than me,” Anna Dodson said as Tess collapsed into an armchair opposite the sofa on which Anna reclined, her bandaged leg extended. “You should get some sleep,” she said. “At least one of us should be on their feet.”

  “After this, yes,” Tess said. “I appointed Zach as my official driver. And after this, he’s driving me home.” She gestured through the glass walls at where Zach stood, braced in a rigid at-ease position, shotgun slung, and unloaded.

  “He should be returned to school,” Anna said. “And if I had a say in the matter, I’d be there, too.”

  Parliament House was still off-limits until it had been confirmed no more explosives were hidden within. In the meantime, Oswald Owen had taken up semi-permanent residence at the Telstra Tower. Anna had moved to the university, and a glass-walled teaching room just inside the entrance to the School of Medical Sciences.

  “You wouldn’t prefer somewhere more private?” Tess asked, straightening a little as, outside, a trio of shovel-carrying workers stopped to gawk.

  “It’s important to be seen,” Anna said. “More so now than ever. Oswald wanted to be out and about, talking and meeting people, reassuring them. But he’d get too many awkward questions, which I can always answer by saying I’ll take them to the prime minister. Tomorrow, I’m leaving for a tour of the airfields. Dad’s doing his best, but the need for quarantine zones is creating a bottleneck. There must be a mathematical solution so I asked Flo to find me the answer.”

  “Does that mean her research for a weapon is on hold?”

  “I think,” Anna said slowly, with a glance through the glass walls. “I think we need to re-evaluate what is possible, and within what timeframe, when considering our much depleted resources.”

  “You’re hoping the zombies will be dead by the time we can manufacture one,” Tess said.

  “I’m hoping they’ll all die tomorrow,” Anna said. “But, for now, all our efforts must go into saving as many people as possible. Or almost all our efforts.”

  “Do you want me to come with you to the airfields?”

  “I do. You’d make me feel less outnumbered by my bodyguards.” Anna pointed to the pair of SASR privates standing to attention on the other side of the glass doors. Another pair, also recently returned from the outback, were at the front of the building. “But your investigation is more important than my grip-and-grimace tour. Oh, but I would like you in proper police uniform for the televised session of parliament.”

  “If I can find one,” Tess said.

  “Sorry, Tess, Leo already has. He’s remarkably good at finding things. I think he threatens to send them to Dr Avalon if he doesn’t get his way.”

  “When do the politicians arrive?” Tess asked.

  “New South Wales arrived this morning. We’re expecting the others this afternoon. The politicians we sent to Hobart should be in the air now.”

  “And the parliamentary session is scheduled for this evening?”

  “It’ll start at six, so an hour after shift-change. Oswald wants as many people as possible to watch it.”

  “And that’s at the Telstra Tower?”

  “No, it’ll be up at Parliament House, assuming Captain Hawker is satisfied it’s safe, but we won’t announce the location in advance.”

  “It’s a gamble,” Tess said. “There could be a challenger.”

  “Not on live TV. Not after a coup,” Anna said. “Who’d want to be prime minister now? In two years, it’ll be a different story. But right now, no one wants the responsibility. They’ll reaffirm their oaths, and the nation, or some of it, will watch and listen as O.O. gives a detailed report on everything that’s happened. Or nearly everything.” Anna turned to look out the window, wincing as she stretched the stitches on her injured leg.

  “There’s more bad news?” Tess asked.

  “More of the same bad news,” Anna said. “There seems to be a naval war on the open seas. Russia, China, and the U.S. are attacking each other and themselves. Other ships often seem to get in the way. It seems that a first-strike order was issued before the outbreak, but to every side. As to which nation did strike first, I’m not clear. Some ships obeyed the orders. Some didn’t. Now they’re all trying to sink one another.”

  “An order from before the outbreak?” Tess asked. “That tallies with what I’ve learned from investigating the murders.”

  “We received a report from New Zealand,” Anna said. “I recognise the names of the people who signed it. They’re the same as last week. If they had a coup, it was much more efficient than ours. But they reported learning of a mushroom cloud over Sao Paulo yesterday.”

  “It happened yesterday, or that’s when they heard about it?” Tess asked.

  “It happened yesterday morning. It’s possible another was seen yesterday evening in Kochi, that’s on the western coast of India. It seems, whatever the cause of this war, not everyone has yet realised we’ve all lost.”

  “If you’re the commander of a nuclear sub, and you’ve fired one missile, why not fire the rest?” Tess said. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “We lost our navy at Guam,” Anna said. “There are a few vessels at sea, but we don’t know who our enemy is. So, no, Tess, we can do nothing but wait, and hope. There is better news, of a sort, in that there’ve been no more detonations close to Australia.”

  “Just that one blast a hundred kilometres out to sea?” Tess asked.

  “For which we’re still waiting on confirmation,” Anna said.

  “The lights are still on and we’re calling that good news,” Tess said, glancing up at the dim glow from the overhead bulbs, unnecessary on such a bright day, but a welcome comfort.

  “We heard from Vancouver,” Anna said. “Contact has been lost with General Yoon. Mushroom clouds were seen along the Saint Lawrence. The reports are confused, but it sounds as if Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, and Toronto were all hit.”

  “They were deliberately targeting General Yoon?”

  “Leo says no one can deliberately target anyone,” Anna said. “I think that’s wishful thinking. But we have to assume the general and her army a
re gone. Vancouver Island is being evacuated. We are withdrawing from the Northern Hemisphere.”

  “And Japan? They were expecting an evacuation.”

  “Everyone wanted help, but we can’t provide it,” she said, briefly closing her eyes. “Our resources are limited. We have a bottleneck in transporting aviation fuel from the refinery to the airports. Within a week, we’ll have to drastically reduce the number of planes we can operate, and so the number of people we can rescue. But within a week, we’ll have a better idea of what medium-term damage the bombs have caused.”

  “Like a nuclear winter?”

  “Leo says no. Flo says maybe,” Anna said. “If most of the detonations took place at sea, there won’t be much dust catapulted up into the atmosphere. And it is that radiation, and the effect on the fish, on the rainfall, on our crops, which is my greater concern. And then there are zombies. But the lights are still on, and we’re still alive, so tell me what you’ve learned.”

  “I skimmed the recordings the Guinns made,” Tess said. “All I can say, so far, is Lisa Kempton knew something was going to happen, and that the cartel were involved.”

  “Why would a drug cartel want to destroy the planet?” Anna asked. “They would be destroying their customers, too.”

  “Power,” Tess said. “Real power. The power of an empire. This wipes the slate clean, allowing them to establish themselves as a new authority. A new nation. But what I haven’t determined is whether they were behind the outbreak or the nuclear war, or whether they were planning something else which was derailed by these catastrophes. It matters because it’ll indicate what kind of resources they have. What size of an army. They didn’t send many people here, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t got far more elsewhere. However, our key focus has to be locating them while we’re able to put a bomber in the air.”

  “Eliminate them now, yes,” Anna said. “I agree. Do you know where to look?”

  “No. Vaughn had nothing on her in the museum. There were no clues left in Aaron Bryce’s house. I’ve got Elaina and Bianca going through Vaughn’s office. Sophia and Toppley are searching Lignatiev’s. I’d prefer proper investigators, but until we know who to trust, I’ll stick with my team.”