by Ian Walkley
She stopped, and took several deep breaths.
Mac nodded slowly, watching her, a trail of tears glistening down her cheek. “I was watching it, too. Something no one will ever forget.” He’d just returned from a pre-dawn jog with his Ranger unit in Seattle when the base was put on full alert.
“Yes.” Tally sniffled and wiped her nose. “I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t believe. Tried to convince myself that they were okay, that something might have delayed them. Then my dad called.”
Mac felt his stomach turn. “Oh God,” he murmured.
Tears were dripping from her chin. “Yeah, so anyway, I’m standing there with this awful ache in my gut. On the phone I can hear this horrible roar—the fire I guess. The whoop, whoop of the fire alarm and...people screaming, and...” She paused to wipe her eyes. “...And Dad’s calmly saying how much he and Mum love me and Ben. That we should remember the good times and have a wonderful life. That I should never blame myself...” She choked on the words. “Oh crap. Sorry...”
He moved to put his arm around her but she shook her head. “I’m okay.”
“Your father was right. It wasn’t your fault,” he said.
“But don’t you see? They’d be alive today if it wasn’t for me.”
“He knew you’d blame yourself. He didn’t want you to.”
They ate in silence for a time. He thought maybe it’d be best to change the subject.
“We may have to do some rock climbing tomorrow. Will you be okay with that? It’d be a good way to get over your fear of heights, you know.”
“Ha!” She sniffled and wiped her nose. “You’ve got to be kidding me. For a million dollars maybe...”
She leaned back to get away from the smoke and overbalanced. He reached out and grabbed her arm.
“Damned smoke.” Tally sat up and turned to face him.
She looked like a ballerina; so fragile, so vulnerable, but possessing an inner strength as powerful and impassioned as any hardened soldier. Not that she’d want him to tell her that. In the flickering flames her lips were turned up slightly in what appeared to be a grateful smile. What was she thinking, he wondered?
“Thanks,” she said.
It was as if they were in another place and time, and Mac felt a sudden urge to kiss her. He leaned across and touched her cheek with his fingers. It wasn’t impossible to imagine the two of them...
Christ, where did that come from? What was he thinking? He quickly took his hand away, turning his face to the fire. It was getting uncomfortably hot.
“Maybe we should walk along the beach? It might be cooler down there.” He tried to defuse the feelings threatening to overwhelm him.
“Okay.” She laughed softly, a little nervously, he thought, and went over to collect her laptop. A thin line of cloud veiled the top half of the full moon as they strolled through the dunes to the beach, where the tide was high and the water was warm. They waded along, allowing the waves to crash around bare ankles and the gritty sand to squeeze in between their toes.
He was tempted to tell her his latest plans, but after the last confrontation with Wisebaum, he needed to be careful what he told her. He had spoken with Jog about kidnapping Khalid. Not only would they demand Sophia and Danni be released, but they would demand a substantial ransom that would help their families rebuild their lives and help them to search for other kids Khalid might have trafficked. Fifty million. They would destroy Khalid and Ziad and their slavery business in the process.
“A beautiful moon,” she said, putting her hand through his arm. “Do you mind? My mother had a French heritage.”
He didn’t mind at all. “So long as you don’t try to take advantage.”
“Touché. You know, after that first dinner in Nice, I didn’t expect us to be working together for long.”
“I think Derek saw through us both.” He chuckled. Her hand brushed against his forearm, tickling the hairs.
“By the way, there was an email from Derek. Khalid’s flown to Paris. That’s where we’re headed after this. Derek’s sent Rosco from Dubai to Paris with the gear, because the Princess Aliya has left port and there’s nothing for him to do.”
Perfect. As soon as he could get a call out, he’d get Jog started on planning Khalid’s kidnapping. He smiled at the thought. “I love Paris.”
“Me too. I holidayed there after college.”
The moon emerged from behind the clouds and he could see the light reflecting off her teeth as she opened her lips to smile.
“Want to head back? We’ve got a long hike in the morning.”
“Already? I...I thought seeing as I told you about my parents that you might tell me about your sister, Cynthia.”
“I…”
He dug his toes into the sand. His throat went suddenly dry. He rarely told anyone about what had happened that day with Cyn. He stayed silent for a while, hoping she would let him off the hook. But Tally just walked beside him, saying nothing. And after a time, he realised that he wanted her to know. For better or worse. When he finally came to that realization, it poured out of him like floodwater over a spillway.
~ * ~
48
It was hard not to laugh at his sister’s innocent antics. She could get away with most anything, especially with her oldest brother. Lee tossed his school bag onto the grass and stood with his hands on his hips, calling to his sister to hurry. She ignored him as usual, her nine-year-old mind captivated with the joys of racing maple leaves down a little stream leading to a run-off drain in Seattle’s Interlaken Park. The place was a vibrant array of colour and texture that seemed to symbolise the change in moving to their father’s hometown after a lifetime spent in their mother’s. Their father had gotten a job at Boeing, as an aircraft technician. Nick, his outgoing younger brother, had settled in best, making lots of new friends at school. He would have been walking home with them today, except he broke his arm and was at the hospital with their mother.
“Come on, Red!” she screamed, her bright eyes captivated as the yellow leaf flashed past the red one, which was doing circles in a backwater. Red was Cyn’s favourite colour. Her long ponytail bounced freely as she trampolined her skinny legs, bouncing up and down trying to dislodge the red leaf.
“Watch out, Cyn. The bank’s going to crumble.”
Lee knew that he’d be the one in trouble if she fell in the drain and got her clothes muddy. But she just laughed and jumped around some more, dangerously close to the edge. “You’ll save me if I fall in, Lee. I know you will.”
The red leaf flipped out of the backwater back into the race, hurtling over rocks and dead branches to make up ground on Yellow.
“Yay!” Cynthia hurried after the colourful little white-water rafters.
He glanced up at the threatening sky. They didn’t have raincoats with them. Still getting used to the Seattle weather after the move from Boston.
Cyn reached down to retrieve victorious Red, almost losing her footing in the process. She held the leaf above her head. “Red wins again! She’s the World Champion racing leaf!”
“Okay, come on. We need to get home before it starts raining.”
“I’m taking her home. Mum said I could keep her in a special book. She’ll never be beaten.”
“A leaf’s not a her, Cyn.”
“She can be, too! Not a he.”
He frowned. She needed to learn. “It’s an it.”
“You’re just jealous because a girl won. You’ve got that stormy look on your face.” She ran off down the hill towards the narrow road that snaked through the park, kicking piles of dead leaves as she went. The park was deserted, and Lee guessed that the weather was probably to blame. He scrambled back up the slope to retrieve his bag, yelling at Cyn to wait. As he reached the road, a Chevy van sloshed past through puddles, splashing him with muddy water. Now he’d be in trouble.
“Cyn! Wait!” he yelled, his voice muffled by the trees that arched across the road.
Then: “Lee!” It was a fri
ghtened shout. He knew immediately something was wrong.
Then she screamed.
He would never forget that sound. Dropping his bag, he sprinted up around the bend. Where was she? The van had stopped up ahead, its side door was open. Maybe Cynthia was ahead of the van and he couldn’t see her? But something inside him was tearing at his gut. A stocky man with shiny black hair was climbing into the back of the van. It was black with no side windows. A Washington plate he told the police later, and although he remembered the number, the van was found empty and burnt out in a dry creekbed in northern Oregon.
The stocky man poked his head out and spoke some words in another language to someone up front. The van started up. Stalled.
“Cyn!” he yelled. He ran.
This time a muffled scream, cut off midstream.
The rain began to sheet down.
He figured he was about thirty metres away when the stocky man slid open the door and pointed a pistol at him. Fired. Missed. Many times since he’d wished that the shot hadn’t missed. Maybe the guy was a crap shot. Or maybe it was because he was trying to hold Cynthia, who was struggling to get out. Later, under hypnosis, he recalled seeing a second child, motionless in the van. Another twelve-year-old girl was reported missing that same day.
The driver shouted something at the shooter, who shifted aim, now pointing the pistol at Cyn’s head. “Stop! Stay back or I kill the girl!” he yelled.
The driver was trying to start the van. Don’t start, don’t start! Lee couldn’t shift his gaze from his sister’s tiny face, an ugly pistol shoved against her temple, pleading at him with her eyes. He would never forget that look.
He had failed her. He stopped, his heart pounding, head spinning, gut wanting to explode. It was like his feet were bedded in concrete. Even if he could have moved, he had no idea how he might save Cyn.
The van’s motor turned over and the stocky man laughed. “Hey, kid, you piss your pants. Don’t worry; we take good care of your girl. Now, vete! And don’t tell the cops or she dead.” He rammed the door shut and the van drove away.
~ * ~
49
With the dawn had come a fresh humidity of evaporating dew, the pungent smell of the rainforest, biting insects, the tinnitus of screeching cicadas. And the discomfort of her own sweat. Tally adjusted the straps again. “My neck’s itching like crazy.” She was tired, partly from hiking for six hours, the first three in darkness, and partly because she hadn’t slept a wink after they’d gone back to camp.
Lying awake beside Mac, she’d almost resented his steady breathing. Was she feeling guilty because he now trusted her, and probably shouldn’t? Or because she really wanted to hold him, but knew that her manipulation would feel even more unconscionable if she did. In truth, she was beginning to like what she saw in Mac. She liked his principles. His single-minded determination to do right. His loyalty to his friends. Even his rough streak. And so she had lain awake trying to convince herself that what they were doing was for the greater good. That he would understand, one day when it was all over.
At four a.m., they’d eaten fast, hidden the satphone and her computer, and started off through thick grassland and scrub towards the forbidden zone of Khalid’s land, making good progress despite slowing after sunrise to take photos for their cover story and on one occasion to hide from a passing Army patrol. Mac wanted to find a good observation point above the maintenance compound before sunset.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer and gave in to the itch. “Sorry, Mac. I need to rest a minute.” She caught him smiling when she called him Mac, and guessed that this was a good sign.
“I wouldn’t stand there. There’s a fire ant nest behind you. Look how fast they swarm.”
“Holy shit!” She jumped back and watched them from a safe distance as he lifted her pack off.
“You’ve got leeches stuck on your neck.”
“What! Get them off! Quickly!” She pulled a face as her body shuddered.
“Hold still.” Mac lit a match, blew it out then held it against the slugs. He checked the rest of her and brushed several more leeches off her pack. Tally checked Mac, but for some reason, there were none on him.
“God, they’re huge. Looks like they each drank about a pint,” she said, wiping the blood off with her sleeve.
“Obviously you must have sweeter blood.”
They continued past a waterfall and found a position from where they could observe the maintenance compound four hundred metres below. Mac lay down with his binoculars and scanned the ridgeline, almost a thousand metres above sea level. He swapped the memory card in his camera and zoomed in for some close-ups. He showed her the photos. There was a pole disguised as a palm tree, with three cameras, several antennae and a satellite dish on top. “That’s the comms tower,” he said. “There’s a security camera on top.”
She ducked down further. “Do you think they can see us?”
“Not here. And if we stay out of the camera’s line of sight, we should be okay. But they might have infrared, which could be a problem at night. That security camera’s going to make it difficult to sneak into the resort grounds without being spotted.”
“Mmm. I’d need to get close enough to pick up their wireless network, if they have one. This crater ridge is a barrier.” She turned her binoculars towards the maintenance compound and counted twenty-one cabins in the western section and four larger buildings in the eastern section. The dhow they’d seen unloading the previous day was gone. A variety of vehicles were parked nearby, and a small motorboat had been pulled up on the beach. A gravel track outside the compound ended at a gate with a sign displaying a lightning bolt; the fence was electrified. A light tower at each comer of the compound had a camera. “It’s like a concentration camp.”
Mac’s jaw seemed to set. “Not for much longer.”
As they watched, two guards with weapons slung over their shoulders strolled out of the larger building. One of them waited while the other disappeared inside the building by the jetty and soon after emerged to continue the rounds. They checked the locks on the external gate and walked through the unlocked gate to the accommodation section. It started to shower, and the men hurried back to the control building.
“They don’t seem to have many guards,” Tally said, pulling the hood of her waterproof jacket over her wet hair. “The accommodation wing looks empty.”
“Maybe Khalid doesn’t want the facility to stand out on satellite photos. Easier to disguise a place if there are only a few armed guards.”
“How do you guys stand this? Lying around for hours looking through binoculars in the rain and heat.”
“Or cold and wind.” Mac looked at her and stifled a laugh. “I guess it’s the thrill of anticipation.”
He was being deliberately suggestive, she decided. Then she considered how she must look to him: wet, tussled and dirty hair, mud on her face and arms. “Well, what did you expect? Mary Poppins?”
“Actually,” he said with a grin, “I think I got Lara Croft.”
~ * ~
50
“I need to go for a little walk,” she said, after Mac shook her awake from her nap. It had stopped raining. Her quick-dry Columbia pants were soaked, and clung uncomfortably to her legs. She took a pair of dry ones and clean panties from her pack.
He handed her a plastic bag. “Put it in this. We’ll carry it out.”
“Look, there are some things... There’s no way I am shitting into a plastic bag and carrying it around with me. Pass the toilet paper.”
“Toilet paper? Who are you kidding? Use the fern leaves over by the waterfall.”
She shot him a contemptuous look, snatched the bag and scrambled down the slippery slope out of sight. A few minutes later she was struggling halfway back up, holding the bag as far away as physically possible, when she lost her footing. The bag went flying and she tumbled back down the slope. A tree root caught her boot, pulling her up sharply near the base of the falls.
&nbs
p; “Ow!” She lay back and closed her eyes as tears welled. She was tired, cranky, and miserable, and now on top of that, her ankle throbbed like hell.
Mac was sliding down. She wiped away the tears. “Crap. It’s my ankle. I’ve always been a klutz. Sorry.” She had to raise her voice above the noise of the cascading water.
Mac carefully extracted her foot from the boot and pulled off the sock. He gently felt around the ankle. She winced at the sharp pain. Already it had started to swell.
“Good news. Nothing broken. Bad news: you won’t be jogging for a couple of days.” He picked her up with seeming ease and carried her to the base of the falls. “Put your foot in the cold water. It’ll stop the swelling.”