‘If I believe Jack’s dead,’ I say. ‘What’s the first thing I do?’
Alex snorts. ‘It’s not all about you.’
‘It is,’ I say. ‘I’m the one—’
—he wrote a love letter to . . . is what I don’t say.
‘I’m the one,’ I start again, ‘who stabbed him. I’m the one whose brother is right here in a coma.’
My voice wavers and my heart aches as I look at Evan.
‘More than any of you, I want to believe Jack’s dead. And if I do, then what’s the first thing I do?’
‘Let Evan wake up,’ Oscar says.
I nod. ‘Exactly. Then Jack knows where we are. Tajik, you are right about one thing: what we’ve seen is good news. This trick he’s trying to pull means he doesn’t know where we are. Jack’s doing everything he can to turn us against each other and get us to drop our defences. We have to keep Evan under and stick together until we’re sure it’s really safe.’
Nathan and Oscar nod. What I’ve said seems to sink in for Tajik.
Marv regards me and Evan. ‘Until he’s safe, you mean.’
Alex stares at me hatefully. ‘Right! You and your brother! Actually all of you! You’re all so selfish. I don’t care what the rest of you do but I’m getting outta here right the f—’
Oscar’s fist flies and Alex’s head snaps back with a crack. Fat tears spring from his eyes as his hand shoots to his bloody lips.
‘You’re not risking all of us,’ Oscar seethes, coiled to punch him again.
Marv steps in between them, a wall of determined muscle.
‘Stop this!’ he says. ‘Maybe Alex is right about—’
Arguments erupt again.
Looking away in frustration, I freeze at shadows that are moving outside Richmond Air Force Base’s distant hangars.
‘Get down,’ I hiss as I drop between seats.
At least no one argues with that.
‘Oh, man,’ says Oscar.
We crowd around as he pans the phone’s camera along the runway, past big silver cargo planes and to the open door of a large hangar. He zooms on a little tractor towing a black helicopter onto the tarmac. More doors swing open and another chopper comes into view. Then another. These aren’t news or emergency aircraft. They’re gunships. Men in flight suits mill around while a platoon of gun-toting Minions climb aboard the choppers. The camera lens finds another, larger hangar, from which a gigantic helicopter is being towed, a bulbous green monster with massive rotor blades at either end. Revving reaches us from motorbikes and a second later armed Minion riders and their pillion passengers stream along the runway to a gate at the far perimeter fence. Once through, they head east on Hawkesbury Road, weaving between cars. If Jack is dead then who’s coordinating all of this? I want to ask Alex to explain how this fits but I’m as morbidly hypnotised by the display of resources as everyone else. I’ve also got a cold stone in my stomach. All of this is for us. Or, at least, for me.
No one speaks as a chopper whirs to life, builds up power and springs into the air. Open doors bristling with guns and Minions, the black bird angles across the runway and circles up and over Richmond before landing west of the town. Then it takes off and flies farther away before ducking behind trees and rising back into the air. The second and third birds take off and head north and east to copy the same land-ascend pattern.
Nathan takes the phone, returns to the map.
‘Here, here, here,’ he says, jabbing at bridges that cross the Hawkesbury. ‘That’s where they’re landing.’
One after the other, the three black helicopters return to base and start loading up more men.
‘What’re they doing?’ Marv says.
‘My guess,’ Oscar says, ‘is they’re setting guys down wher– ever they think we might pass.’
‘We?’ Alex says timidly. ‘But they’re not after us anymore. They said they weren’t.’
No one bothers to reply. The helicopters spin back into the air and strike out for more distant points.
I try to think like Jack. If I was him I’d set up a net like this. Have my troops hide and wait and watch. Jack’s hedging against me seeing through his false-death ruse. Anticipating that I’ll try to get Evan outside his radius. Imagining what he’ll do if he finds us makes me feel sick. I don’t reckon he’ll care if Evan and Nathan and the others are killed in action. But me? My gut says he wants me alive so he can break me. There’s no way I’ll let that happen. I reach in my pocket to make sure I’ve got the Swiss Army knife for me and Evan when I run out of bullets.
Oscar looks at me and Nathan. ‘They wouldn’t be scattering to the wind if they had any idea where we are.’ His mouth is set between a grin and grimace. ‘But we’re gonna have a helluva time getting outta here and across the river.’
We spread out between the rows of chairs and look at one another with weary resignation. All except Alex, who’s smiling as he rubs his bruised jaw. I know what he’s thinking: it’s time to surrender. But he’s not going to say so and risk another punch.
‘What do we do?’ Nathan says.
Oscar lets out a long sigh. ‘Even with all those men and machines, we’re still going to be hard to find,’ he says. ‘They could go house to house and shop to shop and farm to farm forever. The area’s just too big. Think about any manhunt: the cops usually find someone after a tip-off or because someone’s spotted by surveillance cameras or uses an ATM or makes a phone call. None of that’s gonna happen.’
An almighty clamour has us peering over the seats to see the huge double-rotored helicopter roar into the sky in a downblast that swirls half the air force base into dust haze. The beast lumbers south.
‘Can I have the phone?’ I ask.
Oscar hands it over and I train the zoom on the huge hangar. I want to see what other weaponry’s being brought out. Battlefield robots? Fighter jets? Nuclear missiles?
Then I see him. Solidifying out of a cloud of grit. Standing in the doorway, patch over one eye, dressed in a black jumpsuit, dragging on a cigarette. I say the magic word—‘photo’—and the phone’s camera clicks obediently.
‘There!’
I thrust the phone at Nathan as I grab my rifle.
‘Shit!’ I hear him say. ‘Look!’
There are ‘Oh shits’ and ‘Jesuses’ as he passes the screen around. I’d love to see the look on Alex’s face but I’m trying to aim my rifle at Jack’s head. My kingdom for a telescopic sight.
With the front sight, I follow the blue drift of cigarette smoke down to the tiny circle of Jack’s face. Flick the safety off. Finger curls around the trigger. Do I have to account for gravity? For wind? My blood surges. I want to see his. Red mist exploding out of his shattered skull. Checkmate that bastard once and for all.
‘You fire and we’re all dead,’ Oscar says softly, leaning in close. ‘That rifle’s effective range is two hundred metres. The distance is at least twice that far. But the sound of the gunshot will carry to Jack in one second.’
Oscar’s tone is casual—he’s leaving this up to me. I can tell that half of him wants me to take the shot.
I squint—and lower the rifle. Off in the distance, Jack flicks his cigarette onto the runway, turns and is swallowed up by the hangar’s shadows.
I bury my head in the crook of my elbow, feel Oscar set my rifle back to ‘Safe’. I want to scream with anger.
Not because I know Jack’s alive—I never really doubted that.
Not because I missed the chance to kill him—I couldn’t have made the shot.
But because Jack has reset the radius to zero.
We’re no closer to escaping. Evan’s no closer to being free.
TWENTY-THREE
‘I have to go,’ Marv says abruptly. ‘Sorry.’
We turn to our friend. He backs away along the row of seats with his assault rifle trained on us.
‘Whoa!’ Alex grins bloodily and jumps up. ‘Right on!’
‘Shut up and sit down.’ Marv growls. Alex dr
ops to a seat.
‘Steady,’ Oscar says. ‘You don’t need to point the gun at us.’
Marv dips his rifle enough that it’s not aimed at anyone specifically.
‘You were right about Jack.’ Marv glances towards the air force base then back at me. ‘But him down there means his radius barely reaches Clearview. If I get Jane and Lottie away, they’ll be free, right?’
I don’t want to encourage him.
‘Right?’ he says louder.
I nod. ‘I think so.’
‘Marv, if you want to go,’ Oscar says, ‘we won’t stop you.’
‘What?’ Alex splutters. ‘He gets to leave but I can’t?’
Oscar ignores him. ‘But, Marv, don’t go now. Get some rest first.’
‘I’ll be right.’ Marv’s eyes are hard in his black-streaked face. With his dreadlocks and bullock body he looks like a warrior rather than a weary middle-aged man who’s just walked through bush all night. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
I don’t want to say what I think but Marv’s life may depend on it. ‘Jack showed you Jane and Lottie because it’s a trap.’
Marv flinches, clears his throat. ‘Maybe, but I’m their only chance.’ He looks at Evan. ‘You can’t tell me you’d do anything different.’
He’s right. I can’t.
‘At least wait until it’s dark,’ Nathan chips in. ‘They’re everywhere out there.’
Marv edges onto the concrete steps. ‘I’ll make it.’
Nathan runs his hands through his hair. ‘What if they catch you?’
‘They won’t,’ Marv says. ‘I’ll kill myself first.’
The way he says it stabs me in the heart. I wonder if that’s what he wants. He might realise his family’s a lost cause. This may be his way of going down guns blazing without risking us. People used to suicide by cop. This feels like that. I choke back a cry. I don’t want Marv to go. Don’t want him to die. But I also don’t want to make this harder for him. I’d want people to let me go.
‘When you get to Clearview,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘That little girl? Michelle?’
Marv brightens like I’ve asked him to pick up milk from the corner store. ‘Sure. I can take her with us.’
My throat feels like it’s closing and my eyes burn with the effort of holding tears in. Marv really does think he can make it. That he can rescue them. I guess realistically he has as much chance as I do of saving Evan.
‘Godspeed,’ says Oscar.
I watch Marv duck low along the concrete aisle and disappear down the grandstand’s steps. His absence makes the air feel heavier somehow.
Oscar edges past Alex, who is sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees, and crouches near us. On his phone Tajik flicks from the photo of Jack to the map image that shows us where we are. Inside the oval racetrack across the road from the huge rectangle of the air base.
‘This is my fault,’ Oscar says. ‘I should’ve guessed he’d come here. If I was him it’s what I’d do.’
Zooming out on the map shows us our options. To get outside Jack’s radius we can push west into the most remote part of the Blue Mountains, head back south and hope we can get around the bulk of his force, go east through cluttered suburbia towards fires or continue on our present course to the vastness of the northern bush.
‘I reckon we keep north,’ Nathan says. Nods all around. ‘But if Jack’s got the bridges covered, we’re not going to get across that river without a boat. And if I was him I’d be watching boats, or even planting them so we—’
‘The horses.’
We look at Tajik’s eager face. ‘They do not make much noise. They do not need petrol. They do not need roads. They can see at night and they can swim and they will make carrying your brother easier.’
‘Can you ride?’ asks Oscar.
Tajik grins. ‘Of course. I am Afghani. Can you?’
Oscar smiles. ‘Learned as a kid on the farm. Anyone else?’
‘Not me,’ Nathan says.
Alex looks up from his sulk and shakes his head.
I think of the times Stephanie tried to stay cheerful as she took my sullen ass to the stables. Feel a wave of shame that I never appreciated the effort she made. ‘I had lessons when I was ten,’ I say.
‘Three yes and three no, including your brother,’ says Tajik. ‘We can do this.’
Oscar grins. ‘I think we’ve got ourselves a plan.’
Tajik says the horses we heard whinnying in the racecourse stables are likely to be weak with hunger or crazed with fear. He says we should backtrack to the Ride On Adventures paddocks and round up animals who’re well fed and less stressed.
We plan in low urgent tones. Wait here till dark. Keep down in the shadows. Keep constant watch on the entry road. If anyone comes, slink down the stairs, try to get away without being spotted. We discuss the likely outcome if Marv’s been caught and made to talk. They’ll come quietly from behind. The first we’ll know of it is when they come up the stairs. With nowhere to go, we’ll fight and we’ll die.
Alex snorts. For once he’s not being an asshole but is stretched out between seats and snoring.
‘Best idea he’s had,’ Oscar says. ‘We need to get some sleep. Danby, why don’t you and Nathan rest for a few hours? Tajik, you up to keeping watch with me?’
Nathan and I carry Evan into a separate row of seats. I stake out space, set my little brother down with his head on my chest as a pillow. I hope he can feel my presence and that Jack can’t. I hold Evan in one arm and cradle my rifle in the other.
Although it’s hard concrete beneath me, I’m grateful to be still and quiet and close to my brother.
I stare at grey pigeons on the rafters overhead. Their world hasn’t changed and they coo soothingly. It should lull me. But I don’t know if I can sleep this tired but wired. Not with my mind helplessly picturing Jack’s punctured eyeball and his blood on my hands. Not with my heart skittering every time I imagine Minions stealthily surrounding the grandstand.
But the pigeons are an entertaining distraction. These odd birds do little dances across beams and even hang under them like trapeze artists. Surely that’s not normal. Their behaviour has been affected by what happened to the world. Except now I can’t quite remember what happened.
‘Hi-ho!’ I grin because Lachie’s up there, too, off to one side, a microphone clutched in his claws, commentating in Evan’s voice. ‘That’ll make things difficult. Hi-ho!’
What he’s talking about is the cat prowling across a beam towards the birds. The pigeons clump together upside down, a defensive fluttering stalactite. But the cat doesn’t attack. Instead it crawls into the mass of birds, its DNA melding with theirs, the swelling beast running from grey to golden and feathery to furry, growing muscular wings and sprouting a slithery tail, gripping the rafter with thick talons, amber eyes burning bright at me from its big lion’s head. Huge jaws snarl open. The Griffin drops. Lachie screeches.
I gasp awake.
‘Danby, you okay?’
The voice is far off but familiar. Not Dad. Not time for school. Not that world. Not anymore. Never again.
Nathan peers down at me. Everything slams back.
‘Are they coming?’ I ask breathlessly.
He shakes his head. ‘All quiet on the whatever front this is.’
Pigeons coo overhead. No Lachie. Poor little bugger. I ease myself from under Evan and I drag myself into a sitting position.
Around me, Alex sleeps on, Tajik is bedding down and Oscar has stretched out across seats with a baseball cap over his eyes.
‘It’s our turn to take watch,’ Nathan says. ‘How do you feel?’
I grin and blink at him. ‘Could use a coffee. You?’
He points at sleeping Alex. ‘I’d literally trade his life for a double espresso.’
I rotate my neck, stretch the kinks out as best I can without standing and making myself more visible to anyone out there. ‘We should’ve brought some energy drinks.’
Nathan gets cross-legged and rests his rifle between seats to aim at the racecourse. ‘Go find a convenience store. I’ll cover you.’
I laugh and direct my attention and weapon at the air base. It seems farther away, soft focus in the smoke haze. The three black helicopters are grounded smudges outside hangars, guarded by stick figure Minions.
‘What time is it?’ I ask.
Nathan checks Tajik’s phone. ‘It’s two.’
Five hours sleep. Five hours until dark.
‘What’s been happening?’ I ask.
‘There were a few more black chopper runs after you went to sleep,’ Oscar says from behind us. ‘They brought in a refuelling truck. Since then, nada. Wanna cut the chatter so I can get some shut-eye?’
Nathan and I swap smiles like reprimanded children. The sleep I’ve had feels like it’s barely dented my exhaustion. But those coffees and energy drinks ain’t gonna happen. The next best thing is to keep my mind busy. So I come up with a mental checklist and cycle through it to keep myself awake.
First, I check our surroundings for signs we’re about to be discovered. The racecourse gates are still closed. Nothing moves on the main road out the front of the complex. Everything’s quiet inside the air base. I grin when I think that the mindless Minion army might be having a nanna nap to power up their megalomaniacal master. Above the air base, to the north, the sky is getting dark and dense. I wonder whether it’s smoke from some new inferno awaiting us on the other side of the river. Rounded booms echo across the landscape every so often. The sounds remind me of bowling balls rattling onto the return ramp and I think it’s thunder rolling in the heavens rather than explosions rocking the earth. A storm is gathering.
Next I check Evan. Steady breathing, static eyelids, little tears on his cheeks: I hate myself for being glad he’s like this. When we make it somewhere safe, when this is all far behind us, I swear I’ll fulfill every whispered promise I’ve made to him. The beach, a theme park, fairy floss, Snots ’N’ Bots: the rest of my life will be about doting on my little brother to make up for what I’ve had to put him through.
The Last Shot Page 23