by Jack Heath
Then she wondered why there were no sirens.
If emergency services were coming to get her, they would have their sirens on. In fact, they would probably be heading for the crash site, not for her.
So who was coming?
She held a hand over her eyes, shielding them from the sun. TWO BLACK VANS were on the horizon, breaking the speed limit as they hurtled up the highway towards her. Not police.
They could be random motorists. But was that likely, all the way out here?
Or—and this was what really worried her—they might be the owners of the bright light.
The ones who had crashed the plane.
TAKING FIRE
'Doug!' Jarli cried.
'I'm OK,' Doug said. He hadn't been hit by the gunshot—he had just thrown himself to the ground.
'Quiet, both of you!' the pilot hissed.
There was another shot. The bullet hit a nearby tree with a thwack, showering the ground with bark.
'Someone's shooting at us!' Jarli said, still reeling from the shock.
'Quiet!' the pilot snapped.
Now that Jarli was lying next to the woman, he could see that her pilot's uniform was ripped. A bruise had swollen her eye almost shut. She didn't look like someone who had crashed a plane on purpose.
'They know where we are now,' she whispered. 'We have to move.'
'Who are they?'
'I think they're the guys who crashed my plane. There are at least two of them, maybe more. Listen.'
Jarli did. The wind moaned. Frogs croaked. There were no voices and no more gunshots.
After a long pause Doug said, 'Maybe they're gone.'
'Shhh,' the pilot said. 'They're not gone. They're waiting for us to make a move.'
Doug looked around. 'Where are they?'
'I don't know.'
Jarli was so scared that his teeth were chattering. He tried to work out where the gunshots had come from. But they had been so sudden, and the thick bushland had muffled and distorted the sound of the weapons firing.
'On the count of three, we run,' the pilot said. 'Uphill. We don't want them to have the higher ground. Got it?'
Doug nodded. His face was white.
'One,' the pilot whispered. 'Two—'
'Wait!' Jarli hissed. 'Stop.'
'What?'
Jarli felt around the dirt until he found a rock. He scooped it up. 'We can distract them.'
The pilot quickly saw what he meant. 'I can't throw it,' she said. 'I think my collarbone is broken.'
'I'll do it,' Jarli said. Very, very slowly, he rose into a crouch. Looking through the trees, he still couldn't see the shooter. It was impossible not to imagine someone training their sights on him right now. His heart was going at a million miles an hour. He wondered if he would feel the bullet, or if he would be dead before he knew what happened.
He took a deep breath and flung the rock as hard as he could. The swing jarred his shoulder. The rock struck a distant tree trunk way downhill and then crashed into the shrubbery around it, spilling echoes through the bush.
Almost immediately, Jarli heard boots crashing through the undergrowth somewhere to his left. The bad guys had heard the distraction. Now they were sprinting towards the spot where the rock had landed.
Jarli dropped to the ground.
'Go, go!' the pilot hissed.
They crawled through the undergrowth as quickly and quietly as geckos, occasionally pausing to listen. Even with one arm hanging limp, the pilot moved fast. Jarli struggled to keep up, his jaw clenched, his muscles tense. Every movement he made felt too loud. At least it was easier to crawl uphill than it would have been to crawl down, headfirst.
He couldn't hear the boots anymore. He wondered when the shooters would realise they had been tricked.
'There!' a voice yelled.
A bullet whizzed out of the darkness and thunked into a tree just above Jarli's head.
'Run!' Jarli yelled.
The others scrambled to their feet as another gunshot rang out. Jarli raced after them, arms swinging, feet thumping the dirt. The second shot seemed to come from a different angle. The bad guys had split up. Now they were moving in from different directions to trap the pilot and the two kids.
'Look!' Doug pointed urgently to a spot of deep darkness higher up the hillside. It looked like the entrance to a cave.
But it was at least thirty metres away, and there was no cover. The bad guys would have a clear shot.
'They won't find us in there,' Doug said.
The pilot took cover next to Doug, half-hidden behind a rock about the size of a suitcase. 'It's too far,' she whispered. 'We won't make it!'
'We can't stay here,' Doug insisted.
The boots crashed through the scrub, moving closer and closer to them.
'Freeze!' someone yelled.
Jarli covered his head with his arms. This was the end.
Then he recognised the voice. It was Constable Frink.
'It's the cops!' one of the bad guys hissed. Their footsteps changed direction.
'Stop! Pólice!' another voice said. It sounded like Constable Blanco.
'I don't see them,' Frink said. 'Split up. You go that way.'
'Over here!' the pilot yelled.
Doug shushed her. 'No police!'
'What? Why?'
Jarli hesitated. Doug thought Viper was monitoring police communications because, before the crash, only the police had known who Doug and his parents really were. If Jarli got the attention of Blanco and Frink, he could warn them that Viper was spying on them. But two men with guns were hiding somewhere in the darkness. Was it too risky to call out?
Now it was too late. The yelling and footsteps were getting further and further away.
'Who are you?' the pilot asked. 'What are you doing here?'
'Let's get out of sight,' Doug said. 'Before they come back.'
THE FEAR SCALE
When they got to the cave, Priya Lekis told Jarli and Doug the whole story—the mysterious passenger who bought every seat and then didn't show up, the sudden blackout in the cockpit, the last-minute parachute jump which had saved her life.
Jarli shivered. The cave was as cold, dark and damp as the underpass had been, and it was cramped with the three of them huddled inside. Jarli didn't like enclosed spaces. The last time Viper came after him, Jarli had survived by hiding in one of the old mining tunnels beneath Kelton. Sometimes he had nightmares about it—crouching in the dark, too scared to go any deeper into the tunnel, but unable to climb out because of the fire raging above.
Now it seemed like they were back to square one. If the pilot wasn't part of Viper's plan, she couldn't help them unmask him.
Then Priya mentioned the weird light down in Kelton drawing the plane towards it.
'Magnetic laser,' Jarli whispered.
Priya looked puzzled. 'What?'
Doug's eyes widened. 'You think that's how Viper crashed the plane? With the device he bought from Magnotech?'
Jarli thought of the guys at the crash site with their metal detectors, and the strange object he had seen them pick up. The thing which had looked a bit like a data projector.
Could that have been the magnetic device? Viper must have used it to yank the plane right down onto Doug's house. Then he sent his two goons to recover it from the wreckage.
'Who or what is Viper?' Priya asked.
'A criminal,' Doug said. 'About a year ago he purchased an experimental magnetic laser. And today, your plane crashed into . . . into the house of one of his enemies. A witness who was providing evidence against him. We know about Viper because he almost killed Jarli once before.'
Jarli clenched his fists, fighting back visions of the car crash. The morgue. The fire.
Priya looked from Jarli to Doug and back again.
'You're not having me on?' she asked.
Jarli swallowed. 'It's all true.'
'And you can trust him,' Doug added. 'He's the guy who invented the Truth app.'
Priya blinked. 'Huh. Really? I have that on my phone—well, the premium version.'
Jarli sighed.
'But my phone got fried,' the pilot continued.
'At the same time as the plane went dark?' Doug asked.
'Right. At the time I thought it might have been an electrical storm.'
'Is it even possible to make a magnet strong enough to knock out a plane and bring it down on a specific spot?' Jarli asked.
'If it is,' Priya said slowly, 'every terrorist group in the world would want one. Probably every military force, too. No government likes having its airspace invaded.'
'Viper could name his price,' Doug said. 'Now that he's proven that the device works. All this news coverage is like free advertising.'
Jarli tried to imagine a world in which any plane could be shot out of the sky at any time by a magnetic beam from below. No-one would fly anywhere, he thought. On the fear scale, plane crashes are right up there with shark attacks. But train and ferry companies would make a lot of money. Maybe Viper owned one.
'It can't be a coincidence that one person bought every seat on the plane,' Doug said slowly.
'You think Viper was trying to kill the passenger?' Jarli asked. 'Not just your . . . the witness?'
'Maybe the passenger found out that Viper was going to attack the plane, and that was why he didn't get on board,' Doug said. 'Priya, do you remember his name?'
'Well, the ground crew paged him a bunch of times: This is an urgent page for Mr . . .' Priya closed her eyes. 'Steven Fussell. That was it.'
'It's a clue,' Jarli said. 'Something the police could use.'
'Except we can't tell them,' Doug said.
'You're seriously not going to the police?' Priya looked incredulous. 'You're kids. You can't investigate this yourselves. We have to contact the authorities.'
'The person whose house got destroyed,' Doug said, 'was in witness protection. Only the police knew where she was, and Viper found out. Did we mention that you're a wanted criminal?'
'I'm what?'
'The cops think you crashed the plane deliberately. If you turn yourself in, do you think you'll have a chance to convince them you're innocent before Viper gets you?'
Priya put her face in her hands. 'This is a nightmare. I just want to go home.'
'Me too,' Doug said. 'But I can't.' He turned to Jarli. 'You can, though. The bad guys don't know who you are yet. If you don't turn up at school tomorrow, or do anything else suspicious—'
Jarli's phone was ringing. 'Hang on.' He checked the screen. Bess was calling.
He answered. 'Hey, Bess. What's going on?'
'I have some bad news and some good news,' Bess said.
'Bad news first,' Jarli said. That was always his policy.
'There are no private investigators in Kelton. And no-one from out of town will come here at a price we can afford.'
'What's the good news?'
'I found a phone number for someone else who I'm sure will help us.'
Jarli was too doubtful to feel relieved. 'Is it someone who has money, connections and investigation experience who isn't with the police but also isn't a criminal? And who won't charge us?'
'Yep. But you're not going to like it.'
'Try me,' Jarli said.
ON CAMERA
SMASH! The door burst off its hinges. The impact nearly collapsed the wall around it too. The house had seen better days.
The battering ram clanged against the concrete porch as police officers swarmed into the house, bulked up by bullet-proof vests and helmets.
Someone inside started swearing. His voice carried through the broken windows.
'Police!' someone else yelled. 'Get on the floor, face down. Do it, now!'
Dana Reynolds was hidden behind an unmarked van on the other side of the street, next to her camera operator and her producer. Reynolds was rehearsing her lines in her head. When Henry Pollick bought this house three years ago, neighbours soon noticed that he wasn't much of a groundskeeper.
'Go, go!' the producer said.
Reynolds moved across the street as fast as she could without ruining her hair. She took a couple of deep breaths as she walked up the cracked path towards the front door. She didn't want to sound puffed.
As soon as the police were out of the way, she stepped onto the porch and turned to face the camera. The spotlight was bright, but she fought the urge to squint. She held the microphone in front of her chin.
'When Henry Pollick bought this house three years ago,' she began, 'neighbours soon noticed that he wasn't much of a groundskeeper. Weeds overtook the path. Leaves blocked the gutters. But none of them suspected they were living next door . . . to a criminal.'
She kept her face severe, chin up, one eyebrow slightly raised. She called this expression The Vice Principal.
'Police are searching the building behind me,' she said. 'They hope to find almost two hundred thousand dollars stolen from three banks around Kelton over the past six months. But there are fears that the money may already have been spent.'
Reynolds stepped aside just as the police dragged Pollick out of the house. He was wearing boxer shorts and a tattered black T-shirt which barely covered his skinny arms. His grey hair was matted on one side—he'd been pulled out of bed. His hands were already cuffed behind his back.
As usual, the pólice didn't look happy to see Reynolds and her news crew. But they were smart enough to keep quiet on camera.
Pollick wasn't.
'I've been framed!' he bellowed, showering the producer with spit. 'This is a stitch-up!'
Holding him by his upper arms, two police officers hauled him up the path towards the waiting paddy wagon.
Reynolds waited for the camera to turn back to her. 'Sources have confirmed that charges will be laid tonight,' she continued, 'and the trial will begin within a month. I'm Dana Reynolds, and this is Nationwide.'
She kept looking at the camera until the producer gave her a thumbs-up.
Reynolds let the air out of her lungs and stretched her neck. The beds in the Kelton motel were sub-par, but the network wouldn't pay for a room at the golf resort west of town. She needed sleep. Why couldn't the police catch bank robbers at sensible times of day?
Hopefully they would solve the plane crash mystery soon. Then Reynolds could file her story and go back home to Swancliff.
'Any swear words?' she asked.
'Only while he was still in the house,' the producer said, wiping her glasses. 'We can bleep it. Nothing while you were talking.'
The paddy wagon drove away with Pollick and two police officers inside. Two more officers stayed behind. Reynolds recognised them—there weren't many cops in Kelton. Their names were Blanco and Frink. Both looked sweaty and dishevelled, with dirty shoes. Interesting, Reynolds thought.
As soon as the paddy wagon was gone, the operator lowered his camera. The producer switched her phone back on, and it immediately started ringing. Blanco and Frink approached.
'Dana Reynolds,' Blanco said. 'Shouldn't you be out ruining someone's life?'
'Demonising a local religious group, maybe?' Frink suggested.
'Or giving air time to a crackpot?'
'Blaming cops for the crime rate instead of criminals?'
'Shouldn't you be looking for that criminal who escaped from your jail?' Reynolds shot back. 'Cobra has been at large for months now—care to comment?'
Blanco scowled. 'That's a federal case, now.'
Reynolds turned to Frink. 'You were federal until recently, right? What have you heard from your old colleagues?'
Frink said, 'We don't discuss leads—'
'. . . in an active investigation. Blah, blah.' Reynolds checked her watch. 'Are either of you two clowns going to make an official statement about Pollick, or can I get back to work?'
'Are you going to tell us how you knew about this secret pre-dawn raid?' Blanco asked.
'No comment,' Reynolds said. First law of journalism: protect your sources.<
br />
'Then it's a "no comment" from us, too.'
'Good talk.' Reynolds turned back to her camera operator. 'Get some more footage round the back of the house. Peeling paint, broken roof tiles, whatever you can find.'
With a parting glare, the cops disappeared. The camera operator trudged through the overgrown yard.
'Where's my coffee?' Reynolds demanded.
The producer held out a phone.
Reynolds glared at her. 'That's not coffee.'
'Jarli Durras is on the phone.'
'The Truth-app kid? He's old news.'
'He claims he witnessed the plane crash yesterday afternoon and was the first to run into the wreckage. He's willing to do a face-to-face.'
That did sound like a good story, but if Reynolds remembered correctly, Jarli had always avoided the media. Why was he suddenly happy to be on TV?
'Did he say what he wants in return?'
The producer shook her head. 'Maybe he has a new app to plug.'
Reynolds sighed. Probably. She pulled out her earpiece, took the phone and unmuted it.
'Jarli!' she said, with as much cheer as she could muster this early in the morning. 'Thanks for reaching out. How are you?'
The boy's voice sounded shaky. 'I've been trying to get through to you for hours.'
'Sorry,' Reynolds said. 'Working on a big story. I gather you were at the scene of the accident today? Wow. That must have been terrifying.'
This conversation wasn't being recorded, so Reynolds could turn the charm up to eleven. Everyone got the charm off-camera. Most of them got it on-camera, too—except cops, politicians and alleged criminals.
'Yeah,' Jarli said. 'Is this a secure line?'
She rolled her eyes. Already, her conspiracy-nut alarm was ringing. 'Yes. This is the phone I use for confidential sources. No-one's listening at my end.'
'OK.' Reynolds heard Jarli take a deep breath. 'The plane crash wasn't an accident.'
Reynolds said nothing. This was an old journo's trick—let the interviewee get uncomfortable and fill the silence.
There were no passengers on board,' Jarli continued. 'The plane was hijacked remotely by an electromagnetic device. The hijacker crashed it into that house on purpose, to kill witnesses in a police investigation.'