by Peter Cotton
‘It doesn’t matter what you think, Detective. My great-great-grandmother suffered radiation poisoning at Maralinga in 1954. She was pregnant with my great-grandmother at the time. The cancer that killed the two of them also killed my grandma and my mum. Now I’m the age they all were when they died, and I’ve got it, too.’
‘What? The same cancer?’
‘Yes. Bronchogenic carcinoma. Lung cancer.’
‘So, this is payback?’
‘Of course it’s bloody payback, you stupid cunt. Have you been listening to me, or what? I’m going to blow this fucking place sky-high!’
He turned to the first screen, tapped a key, and the camera rotated to take in a dozen stationary vehicles lined up on the naval-base side of the cutting. The biggest of them was a low-loader with three distinctive boxes on its trailer. An identical empty box had been next to the exposed warhead during the ‘unveiling’ at Creswell.
‘So, if you’re going to blow the place up,’ I said, ‘why are me and the priest still here? I mean, I’m happy you haven’t killed us, but aren’t we just a complication at this stage?’
‘You’re still alive because of what you represent,’ said Calder. ‘Him, the church. You, the state. Two lots who’ve fucked us over for centuries. When you turned up, straight after your mate, there, it seemed preordained. Like you’d been sent to witness the moment.’
As he spoke, something caught my eye on the laptop monitoring the laneway. A shadowy figure in a hoodie moved towards the camera. I quickly turned back to Calder, but he’d followed my gaze.
When the man in the alley was directly under the CCTV camera, he put his head back, and his hood fell away to expose a rare smile on a familiar face. It was Bynder.
24
Calder shepherded Bynder into the room. When Bynder saw us, he stopped dead. Calder mustn’t have told him. Bynder gave me an almost imperceptible nod, as if acknowledging our time together in the water.
‘What are they doing here?’ he said.
‘Stumbled in a while ago,’ said Calder, barely giving us a glance. ‘More loose ends, but forget about them. You made it! And you’re okay, by the looks of you!’
‘Couldn’t kill me with a stick,’ said Bynder, taking Calder’s chair. ‘Though the Indons certainly tried. Bastards gave me a big whack, then blew the shit out of the boat we were on and left us in the drink. I tell yer, I’m lucky to be alive the way I was bleeding. Either the biters had already eaten, or someone was looking after me.’
‘So how’d you get out of there? Out of the water?’
‘I know the bay,’ said Bynder. ‘— how the currents run, where the shallows are.’
‘It’s a bloody miracle. Just amazing. Now, forget about Nasutian and those cunts. We’re done with them, anyway. Let’s have a drink. Beer or wine? I’ve got a nice drop in the fridge.’
‘I’m okay, thanks. So, what’re you doin’ here, Caldo? You look set to go. You weren’t gonna blow it, were you? Not now. Not with my family in the firing line — Daisy and Jade.’
‘I was thinking about it,’ said Calder, taking a step away from Bynder. ‘And let me say, I was sorry to hear about Jade, but she and Daisy’ll be fine as long as they stay inside the hospital. And of course, they’ll be evacuated eventually. The thing is, we agreed to blow this when we’d get the best result, and right now, we can kill hundreds of sailors and destroy lots of hardware. Plus the warheads, of course. Have a look. Your head’ll spin!’
‘Hold on a sec,’ said Bynder, rotating in the chair to face me. ‘What’s the story with Jade. How is she?’
‘Jade’s dying,’ I said. ‘At least, she was an hour ago when they sent me to get Father Radcliffe, here. She’s been touch-and-go for a while, but they thought she’d make it. Well, it doesn’t look like it now. Daisy wanted Father to administer the last rites.’
‘Oh, fuck,’ said Bynder, turning his eyes on the priest. ‘And just look at him.’
He pulled a water bottle from his shoulder bag and stepped over to Radcliffe and sprayed him with the liquid.
‘Wakey-wakey, Father,’ he said, giving the priest a backhander to the face and a follow-up slap.
He pulled the priest’s head back and sprayed him again, and Radcliffe spluttered and choked. Bynder shoved the bottle back into his bag and took a box cutter from his back pocket. He bent over and cut Radcliffe’s ties and ripped the tape from his mouth. Then he grasped the front of the priest’s cassock, pulled him to his feet, and manhandled him across the floor until he had him up against the wall.
‘Come on, Father!’ said Bynder, slapping Radcliffe again. ‘People need you! Daisy and Jade need you. So, we’re getting out of here. You and me, Father. We’re taking a ride!’
‘I’ve thought it through,’ said Calder, muted, as if speaking to himself. ‘We’ve got to blow it now.’
‘I told you,’ said Bynder, anger building in his voice, ‘we’re not risking Daisy and Jade, so forget this one. We’ll hit the next lot that goes out. Or the one after that. It’s only a couple of days. Just be patient, okay? You can manage that, can’t you? Being patient?’
‘Sure,’ said Calder, sounding almost convincing. ‘I can be patient.’
‘Good. Now, I’ve got to get this guy to Creswell.’
‘It’s a mystery how we haven’t been sprung yet,’ said Calder, staring into a corner of the room. ‘With me clearing off from the hospital like that. They could come at any time, of course. And the longer we wait, our chances …’
The priest let out a growl, which drew everyone’s eyes to him. Bynder still had him pinned to the wall, and the rough treatment had transformed Radcliffe from a compliant, almost comatose prisoner, into a man who’d clearly had enough. He scowled at Bynder, and I thought he was going to hit him. The big crucifix swung back and forth on his rosary. I got an idea.
‘Father! Will you bless me?’ I said.
Radcliffe looked surprised as he turned to me. But his face gradually reverted to its gentle set, helped by the fact that Bynder had let go of him.
‘I’ll die here, today,’ I said. ‘We both know that. So I seek salvation in Jesus through our Holy Mother the Church. Will you give me a final blessing, Father? I need your blessing! I’m afraid of … I’m just afraid.’
I held his gaze for a moment, then glanced at the crucifix and back to his face.
The priest nodded slowly. He turned to Bynder, and the two of them glared at each other like boxers at a weigh-in.
‘I will bless Darren,’ said Radcliffe, fiercely enunciating each word. ‘Then we can go.’
Bynder growled and shoved the priest in my direction. Radcliffe steadied himself, then he got down on one knee in front of me, and with his back to Bynder and Calder, he made the sign of the cross. He pulled his rosary beads from the cord around his waist and kissed the giant crucifix that housed the blade he called The Blessing. He laid the doubled-up beads across my hands, thus covering the ties that secured my wrists to the arms of the chair. From the even weight of the beads on each wrist, I could tell that he’d somehow removed The Blessing from its sheath.
He stood up, leant over me, applied his right thumb to my forehead, and marked a cross. He did the same on my lips and on my throat. He put his arms around me, and his loose cassock enveloped me as he gave me a hug.
‘In extremis, a priest confers a blessing,’ he said, and all the pressure on my right wrist was suddenly gone. He’d sliced through the underside of the ties. ‘I bless you, my son, and wish you luck.’
He tucked The Blessing under the palm of my freed hand, his eyes radiating love and reassurance. We exchanged a look, locked in the moment. Then Bynder pulled him off me and pushed him towards the door.
‘I can’t let you go,’ said Calder, raising his pistol.
‘What?’ said Bynder, turning to face him.
A shot rang out, By
nder’s head exploded, and he flew backwards and hit the floor with a thud. Radcliffe and I let out a yell. Calder studied Bynder’s body for a moment, then turned his gun on the priest. Radcliffe put his hands together in front of him, and Calder pulled the trigger. Another perfect head shot. The priest slid down the wall through his own brain-splatter, his legs crumpled, and he pitched forward onto his knees. He held that position for a second, and then he fell face-first onto the floor next to Bynder.
Calder swivelled in his chair till he had me in his sights. I was as good as dead. I held his gaze, and breathing rapidly, I pictured Jean and grieved for the life we might’ve had together. Then, strangely, Calder seemed to relent. He turned the weapon to the ceiling, like a man observing safety rules, and slipped it into his holster.
I had the handle of The Blessing sandwiched between the palm of my hand and the arm of the chair. The rosary beads still hung precariously across the ties that the priest had cut, obscuring them and holding them in place. I wasn’t sure if Radcliffe had managed to sever all the ties, but I didn’t dare flex my wrist for fear that some would fall onto the floor and give the game away.
‘I couldn’t let the priest go,’ said Calder, his eyes misty, his voice soft. ‘Kenny had lost it if he thought that was a good idea. Imagine it. Radcliffe blabbing his head off, and your mob smashing their way in here. Unbelievable. But it hurt me doing that. Because he was a good mate, Kenny Bynder. And you know what? When this is all over, most people’ll blame him, being the frontman as he was. But when they look into it, they’ll see that it was my plan and my money that made it happen. But that doesn’t matter now, does it? Because he’s dead, and soon we will be, too.’
Calder turned to the middle screen. The low-loader carrying three warheads was about a third of the way across the causeway, sandwiched between a couple of armoured personnel carriers. The other screen showed a second low-loader with another three warheads. It moved through the cutting behind a line of semitrailers.
‘It’s almost time,’ said Calder, and he lifted his hand and let it hang above the keyboard. ‘Now or a bit later. It doesn’t matter. Everything’s within range. I always thought I’d make a speech or pay tribute to someone when this moment arrived, but I’ve got nothing to say, really.’
His eyelids flickered. His hand began to tremor. White spittle had gathered at the corners of his mouth. I thought about pushing off hard with my feet and trying to lunge at him with The Blessing, but I dismissed the idea. With my ankles secured to the legs of the chair, I wouldn’t even get close to him, and I wasn’t into suicidal gestures.
‘I’m thankful for this opportunity,’ said Calder. ‘And I’m relieved it’s all gone so well. This is the time to blow it, and Detective, I’m glad you were here to share this moment with me.’
Calder slowly lowered his trembling hand and depressed a key on the centre keyboard, and the screens showing the causeway and the cutting instantly turned to static, and then went black.
25
Dave Calder had done his worst. With a single keystroke he’d killed too many people to think about, spread poisonous pollution over one of Australia’s most beautiful places, and wiped out a good part of one of the world’s most advanced weapons systems. And in doing so, he’d transformed himself from a common killer into a much more dangerous species of criminal: a wilful mass murderer.
He slumped back into his chair and stared into space, savouring his achievement. The magnitude of what I’d just witnessed was so unreal I felt numb. I thought about the lives he’d ended and the general panic that would follow.
Seconds passed, and Calder began to get fidgety. I quickly realised why. Despite his prediction, we hadn’t heard a bang. After a few more seconds, he swung his chair back to the keyboard, typed something in, and brought up pictures of a line of medium-sized trucks moving towards the cutting. Was it old CCTV footage or live? He hit another few keys, and the screen showed a shot of various military vehicles driving out of the top gates at the naval base. Could it be true? Had he failed?
‘What’s happened?’ I said.
‘Shut up, or you die now,’ he said, spitting out the words, his eyes locked on the screen.
He typed furiously, and the machine responded with a ping. He groaned and typed again, and was answered by another ping. He growled and typed again. Yet another ping.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ I said.
He looked at me with such malevolence I though he was going to kill me there and then, but he slowly lapsed into a strange sort of calm, like he’d thought better of it.
‘That fucking Kenny got busy after he escaped the sharks,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Changed the control codes. Doctored the cameras to make me think there’d been a blast. But without a bang, I was always going to know it hadn’t gone up. I mean, on a day like this — low clouds and all — you were always going to hear it from here. Anyway, doesn’t matter. I can undo his fiddling, and he would’ve known that too, so it’s weird.’
He tapped out lines of code that snaked across the screen, and as he typed, I thought about my next move, which might well be my last. My free hand was wrapped around a knife, but I was tied to a chair, so Calder was out of reach of the weapon. What to do about that, then? I only had one option, really. I had to get him to come to me.
Calder hit a button, and the CCTV images of the cutting and the causeway filled the screens once more. The first low-loader with the warheads was now halfway across the causeway, and its twin was about to exit the cutting.
‘Here we go again,’ said Calder. ‘Ready to rip.’
‘You know why Bynder changed the codes, don’t you?’ I said. ‘He was protecting his family from you. And he was right to do that, wasn’t he? Because you wouldn’t give a shit if those women lived or died. And nothing you’re doing here will help your people. It’s just a self-indulgent revenge trip and the work of a crazy old cunt!’
‘When this was done, I was going to shoot you,’ said Calder, leaning towards me, his pistol pointed at my head. ‘That’d be the humane thing to do. But if you don’t shut up, I’ll blow this lot, then cut you into little pieces and feed you to the cats out in the alley. Now, shut your fucking mouth!’
‘You’re pathetic. A sick, hate-filled loser fuck is what you are. A hate-filled loser fuck of a fuck. No wonder Bynder changed the codes. Who’d want them in the hands of an evil shit like you?’
‘I know what you’re doing. Trying to provoke me into shooting you, the merciful way. Well, it won’t work. But I will cut your tongue out if you keep talking.’
‘Why? Because you can’t stand the truth? You pathetic, murdering piece of shit! Urrrgh! And ugly!’
I exposed my teeth with a sneer and growled as I leant in towards Calder. He holstered his pistol, swung round to the desk, and pulled a bowie knife from the top drawer. As he rolled towards me, he had the big blade pointed at the ceiling, like he was holding an ice-cream cone. His maddened eyes were full of murder. His mouth was frozen into a snarl. Our knees bumped, he swung the blade at my face, and I threw my head back to avoid being slashed.
‘Here, pussy, pussy, pussy,’ he said. ‘Dinnertime.’
I slid my hand back along The Blessing and grasped its handle, and the rosary beads fell to the floor, taking most of the severed ties with them.
Calder glanced down at the beads, and in that moment, I swung The Blessing up at his knife hand. The blade penetrated the underside of his wrist, and he let out a terrible scream. I pushed the blade into him as deep as I could get it, impaling his wrist and forcing his hand up as high as I could reach, which wasn’t that high given that my legs and left arm were still attached to the chair. Calder dropped his knife, and despite having his arm stretched up in this horrible way, he remained seated as he stared up at The Blessing, which now protruded through to the upper side of his wrist.
‘You fucking cunt!’ he yelled, his voice shaking.
He pushed off with his feet, trying to roll his chair away from me, but I held tight to the blade, and he screamed again as the movement widened his wound. He tried to stand up, but I heaved the knife back over my right shoulder, and he came with it and fell on top of me, which almost tipped my chair over.
I tried to headbutt him, but I couldn’t make good contact. He flailed at my face with his left hand. The assault didn’t register. He went for his pistol, but he couldn’t reach the holster on his right hip.
I whipped The Blessing out of his wrist, and his right arm fell down across my shoulder, blood gushing from the wound. I turned the blade and plunged it into the side of his neck. He tried to grab my knife hand, but the blood spurting from his wrist and between his fingers made it too slippery to grip. He gurgled, and I withdrew the blade and plunged it in again, just below his ear. He tried to raise himself up off me, and, seeing my chance, I pulled the knife out of his neck and thrust it into his chest.
Calder finally pushed himself off me and stood up, though I held tight to the handle of the blade embedded in his chest. He eyed me for a second, teetering and confused. Then, the blade slid out of him as he sank back heavily into his chair, which rolled backwards and slammed into the desk.
He was drawing shallow breaths as he reached down with his blood-drenched right hand, drew his pistol and raised it slowly towards me. The weapon was level with my groin when he froze, his eyes widened, and blood oozed from his mouth and ran down his chin. A groan rattled somewhere deep inside him, and he slumped forward and fell into a heap on the floor.
I leant down and used The Blessing to slash the ties on my left hand and on my legs. Then I slid to the floor and grabbed the pistol out of his hand. I checked his pulse, but found none, so I stood up — too quickly as it turned out — and struggled for a moment to steady myself.