Wilkes walked across the tarmac and through the terminal deep in a jumble of thoughts and emotions. He looked up and suddenly realised he was at the taxi rank.
‘Where to, digger?’ asked the driver as Wilkes opened the door and tossed his kit in the back seat, then sat in the front passenger seat. It was a new taxi — air-conditioned — and it smelled cool and fresh inside with a hint of pine.
Wilkes knew he had to go back to barracks, at least to report in, but first there was something more important to do — tell Annabelle how much he loved her and missed her. ‘You know where NQTV is, mate?’
‘One of my best customers,’ said the driver, accelerating slowly away. ‘So, been protecting Australia lately?’
‘Sure, if you call devising field menus for the combat troops protecting Australia,’ Wilkes said.
‘Oh well, I guess a hungry soldier can’t fight,’ the driver agreed.
‘Ever heard the expression “An army marches on its stomach”? Well, it’s very important getting the diet right. Too many legumes and the boys fart. It’s noisy, smelly, and it’s dangerous, too. No point setting an ambush if the enemy can smell you a mile away,’ Wilkes said, straight-faced.
‘Gee, I never thought of that,’ said the driver. ‘Makes sense, though.’ He fiddled with the radio receiver. ‘Didn’t realise it was all so scientific. What do you want to listen to? Music? News?’
‘Bit of music would be fine, thanks,’ said Wilkes. Cook or sanitation officer were the two occupations he usually drew on to throw off idle conversation about his work. Wilkes felt a bit rude employing the tactic, but anything he could offer would be a lie. At least this one was a little less impolite than telling the man he didn’t want to talk.
Ten minutes later, Wilkes stood outside the TV station, heart pounding. He was sweating. Was this anxiety because of Annabelle, or weather induced? he wondered. Wilkes put his nose inside his fatigues, took a sniff, and detected a vague trace of deodorant. Good enough. He walked into reception and said hello to the woman behind the desk. She was around fifty and a fixture at the station. ‘Hi, Janet,’ he said. ‘Annabelle around?’
‘Hi, Tom. Yeah, just go on in. You know where she lives.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’ Wilkes made his way through the open-plan office. Things were pretty quiet. It was mid afternoon on a Friday and most of the staff were probably off having a late lunch. He rounded the corner and walked up to Annabelle’s door. She was at her desk and Saunders was leaning over her, laughing softly about something.
A sliver of ice ran through Tom’s heart and he struggled to keep the jealousy out of his voice and face. ‘Belle,’ he said. Both Annabelle and Saunders looked up. Saunders stood a little too abruptly for Wilkes’s liking, as if he’d been caught with his dick in the steak and kidney pie.
Annabelle’s smile flashed when she looked up and saw him. ‘Tom!’
Tom walked up to Annabelle, who stood as he approached. They kissed, but something wasn’t right and Tom could feel it instantly — a certain reserve. ‘Can you get out of here?’ he asked.
‘For a little while, I guess. Steve?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ said Saunders, waving her off. ‘You go. We’re finished here for now.’
‘Tom. Let’s get a coffee. We need to talk.’
The cafe a few doors down from the station was a known hangout for NQTV employees. Annabelle avoided it, and led the way around the block. Soon they were sitting in a booth, coffees ordered.
Annabelle’s ‘we need to talk’ line had Tom worried. He was expecting the worst, and he got it. There was no small talk.
‘Tom, you don’t want to take up the network offer in Sydney. Let me finish,’ she said when he opened his mouth to speak. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to say what’s on my mind if you interrupt. I don’t want to go to Sydney, but I don’t want to stay here either, waiting to get a call from your regiment, or a visit, or whatever it is they do when there’s bad news…’
‘Annabelle, I —’
She held up her hand for him to stop. ‘You have no idea what it’s like for me when you go. And when you come back, you won’t/can’t tell me where you’ve been. And you won’t/can’t tell me where you’re going. What sort of a life is that for me? You were in Ramallah to kill that terrorist, weren’t you? We got the feed here. I saw you.’
Tom now didn’t know what to say. There was nothing he could say that could take away Annabelle’s fears. So he didn’t say anything.
As they sat in the moment of silence, Annabelle’s chin quivered and her blue eyes filled with water, like the sea ruffled by a cold wind. She pulled the ring from her finger, and left it on the table as she stood. And this time, there were no goodbyes.
Just like that, the engagement was over. Wilkes sat in the coffee shop, stunned like a flash-bang had gone off too close for comfort. He looked at the engagement ring on the formica table, sitting amongst grains of spilled sugar, not knowing what to think or even whether to move.
Annabelle arrived back at her desk somewhat in shock. What had she done? She’d rehearsed what she was going to say over and over again, and knew it had to be short and to the point so she wouldn’t be tempted to changed her mind. They were heading in different directions. In time, she told herself, Tom would realise that too.
‘You okay, honey?’ asked Saunders popping his head through the door, when he saw her shoulders heaving, head on her forearms.
Camp Echo, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
The two doctors, Lieutenant Colonels Randy Curtis and Juraj Vojnomirovic, watched the prisoner through a closed-circuit television from the comfort of an air-conditioned control room. A vague whiff of detergent and ether hung in the air, lending the impression that this was a hospital. And indeed it was, of a sort. Extraction was its specialty, not of cancers or malignant organs at the hands of competent surgeons, but of something far harder to isolate and remove: information.
The subject under their watchful observation was strapped into a chair, sensors taped to his head and torso. Bags pregnant with clear fluids hung heavily from posts on either side, feeding cannulae inserted into the ropy cephalic veins in his forearms that were bound to armrests with webbing. The palms of his hands were open like that of a supplicant.
‘What do you think, Voj?’ asked Curtis, who wore a white coat over combat greens and clutched a clipboard in one hand while he scanned the subject’s vital signs. He ran a pencil down the left hand column, mentally ticking off the physical implications of each observation.
‘I think we will turn him inside out and see if he stinks,’ said Vojnomirovic with a face utterly immune to the horror to come.
‘Well, they all do that, Voj. The good, the bad and the consummately ugly. What I meant was, do you think he’s ready?’
‘As ready as he’ll ever be,’ said Vojnomirovic, massaging his chin contemplatively. ‘His vitals are good, and he has reacted well to the sensory deprivation program since he arrived. It’s my turn to be the devil, no?’
‘Y’know, Voj, sometimes your enthusiasm scares me. But no, it isn’t your turn.’
‘I will toss you for it.’
Curtis felt in his pocket for change and pulled out a quarter. ‘You call,’ he said as he flicked the coin in the air.
‘And maybe it is time you moved to supply or something. Heads.’
Curtis caught the coin on the flat of the clipboard and presented the result to Vojnomirovic with a flourish. ‘Tails. You lose.’