The helo climbed over the ridge then slipped behind it, putting the hill between them and the anger of the general’s encampment. Wilkes pulled the scrap of paper from his top pocket, the lat and long coords scribbled on it in the general’s own hand. He passed the paper to the co-pilot. ‘Better get these off,’ he said, yelling over the noise of the twin jet engines and the whirling blades above.
Federal Agent Tadzic looked down at the three people at her feet and examined her feelings. She was angry and elated at the same time; angry with herself for giving in to the desire for revenge, but she had to admit that removing Trip from the gene pool was the most satisfying moment of her fifteen-year career as a federal agent.
Flores, Indonesia
Duat rolled out of bed and vomited into the bucket on the floor. He hadn’t been able to keep anything down, but then neither had anyone else in the encampment. His eyes were hot and dry, and his joints ached as if they’d been pinned together with rusty screws. Sleep brought terrors he had never thought possible, full of his own blood and dismemberment and decay.
‘Duat, we have been poisoned.’
Duat looked up from the bucket. Hendra leaned against the door, the skin on his face a pale green colour, his eyes red coals deep within black sockets.
‘Come,’ he said, breathing hard, his reserves of energy severely taxed by the thirty-metre walk from his own hut.
Duat climbed to his feet, swaying, fighting the feeling that he would black out at any moment. He followed Hendra to his quarters, stopping once to vomit a mixture of bile and blood onto the well-worn dirt path. Duat again steadied himself on a post that supported a wide veranda the carpenters had built for Hendra under which to house the group’s extensive communications suite, and plan the development and flight of the Sword of Allah. Cooling fans hummed incessantly within a wide array of high-powered PCs, printers and decoders. Daily meteorological forecasts hung limp in the moist tropical air charting the progress of weather systems across the Indian Ocean, and Timor and Arafura seas. Several television monitors permanently tuned to various news services, their volume controls set to mute, featured presenters mouthing silently on screen. ‘Look,’ said Hendra, pointing to a computer screen. Duat found it difficult to focus on the small writing, translating the English in his head into more intelligible Bahasa, the language of Indonesia. He realised after digesting several lines that his own condition was being described. He scrolled the page to the top of the screen and read aloud, ‘Symptoms of VX poisoning. How?’
‘I don’t know how it has happened. We must search Rahim’s house,’ Hendra said. ‘There is an antidote.’
Duat and Hendra supported each other on the walk to Rahim’s abode. It had been set furthest away for safety reasons. The distance was only a hundred metres but Duat wondered whether he would have the strength to make it.
Rahim and his assistant had been amongst the first to die, at a time when there were still enough people to see to their cremation. Hendra staggered to Rahim’s workbench. The implements of addiction lay here and there and, for a brief moment, Duat envied him his painless death. Hendra pulled the drawers out one by one, looking for something. He then went to the fridge. Its motor thrummed softly — it still worked — but a padlock secured the door closed.
Hendra went back to the benchtop and took the pistol lying there. He checked that it was loaded and off safety and, turning his head away, fired at the lock. The deafening sound of it discharging in the confined space had a physical quality that nearly made Duat pass out. Hendra swung the door open and found what he was looking for, a clear plastic bag containing two hypodermic syringes. Clearly written in red lettering on each was the word ‘Atropine’.
Hendra had no idea where the hypodermic should be administered. The Internet sites he’d trawled had not provided that level of detail. He passed one of the hypodermics to Duat and then drove the needle through the fabric of his pants, deep into his thigh muscle, then pressed down on the plunger. Duat followed his example. Both men collapsed on the floor, exhausted by their exertions.
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
Getting a seat on a plane to Darwin was relatively easy. There weren’t a lot of tourists heading that way. Qantas was being used to ferry support troops north and the television network pulled in favours. Leaving might prove difficult, however, if the scenes at Darwin airport were anything to go by. Half a dozen soldiers dressed in full combat gear, toting submachine guns and assault rifles, escorted Annabelle Gilbert and her crew through arrivals. The reason for the security was obvious, because the airport was crammed with thousands of people shouting and screaming and pushing each other, on the knife edge of a riot that could turn nasty at any moment.
Gilbert and company were rushed to a bus outside the building inside a tortoise of armed soldiers with bayonets fixed. Three light armoured vehicles guarded the bus itself, soldiers behind their machine guns.
‘You must be the television people,’ said a man with major’s pips embroidered in black on his epaulettes at the top of the bus’s steps. He knew the answer to the question, because he didn’t wait for confirmation. ‘Step forward into the bus.’ No ‘please’. All business.
A female soldier in a camouflage chemical warfare suit, the hood and mask flapping around between her shoulderblades, held out a green package and motioned to Annabelle to accept it. On top of the package was a pair of heavy rubberised gloves and boots.
‘One size fits all. Your condition of entry into Darwin is predicated on each of you wearing this suit at all times.’
‘Even in bed?’ asked the producer, Barry Weaver.
‘At all times, sir.’
‘Think of it as a big condom, Baz,’ said the cameraman as he received his suit.
‘And while we’re on the subject of sleeping arrangements, I’m not sure what you’ve planned, but I will tell you what’s happening.’ The major was in the habit of giving the orders, and of having them obeyed.
‘Five/7 Battalion is in control of the city. We have set up a forward command centre at the Novotel on the Esplanade.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Weaver in an aside. ‘It’s five stars.’
‘Put your suits on now,’ said the major.
Outside, the sky was black and low, and raindrops began to hammer on the roof of the bus as if they’d been shot from a gun. Annabelle stepped into the NBC suit and pulled the hood over her head. ‘That’s not going to do much for your hair and make-up,’ said Weaver. ‘But hey, I’m a lights-off guy anyway.’
‘You know, Barry, somehow that doesn’t surprise me.’ Any assertions Saunders had made about this assignment being good for her career had dissolved when Annabelle found out Weaver would be her producer, as ANTV was utilising NQTV resources. Rumour had it that he was given the most dangerous assignments not so much because he was good, but because everyone disliked him and hoped he might meet with an accident.
The confines in the bus were close. The floor was slick with water as soldiers squeezed in and around them, the air thick, sludgy with moisture. Annabelle wanted to be a long way away from Darwin and this assignment. The NBC suit made her sweat and soon she was as drenched as if she was standing outside in the rain. She thought about Tom, wondered where he was and hoped he was all right. Before leaving Sydney, Annabelle had used all her contacts at the squadron to try to find out where he was. As expected, she’d met with the army’s silence. All they’d been prepared to say was that he was ‘on the job’. Her intuition told her that Tom was involved somehow in the current situation with the terrorist VX threat. That frightened her but also gave her a feeling of reassurance. If anyone could ruin the bastards’ party, it was Tom. Annabelle wondered whether she was starting to see things from a different perspective — Tom’s. The world had changed forever and no one was truly safe anymore. Being a civilian was no guarantee of security. Indeed, it probably placed you more squarely in the crosshairs of those prepared to make their point at any cost. This, after all, was war, twenty-first century style.