But she seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. ‘What’s your altitude?’
Ben winced. ‘Um — I’m just sorting that out. Chill.’
Kelly was not to be appeased so easily. ‘That’s because you were flying looking at the ground. If you keep looking at the ground all the time, do you know what will happen? You’ll end up there. Crashed. Finito. When planes crash, it isn’t funny. You don’t walk away. Do I have to spoon-feed you the entire time?’
‘Look,’ said Ben, ‘I know you’re frustrated because you’d rather be flying yourself, but you’re not helping.’ He dialled Bel’s number — not because he thought the call would get through this time, but because he needed a break from Kelly’s ranting.
But it was answered straight away.
‘Hello? Help! Help!’ The voice was high and anxious, almost screaming.
‘Mum? Is that you?’ Ben was horrified. Bel was so calm and controlled. He’d never known her lose her cool, ever. ‘Mum, where are you? I’ll get you out, where are you?’
‘Billy, is that you?’
The woman had an Australian accent. It wasn’t Bel. Somehow, even with speed-dial, he’d got a wrong number. An error in the computer switching at the exchange, he supposed. It must be overloaded.
Now that the woman had got through to someone, she poured out her troubles. ‘I’m trapped in the flat. There are eight of us here. Rikki from next door. Old Mr Green from the ground floor — he’s having trouble breathing.’ The voice shook. She sounded near to tears. ‘We can’t get through to the fire department … We daren’t go downstairs.’
Kelly looked at Ben, just as appalled as he was. In the background they could hear several voices all talking at once, suggesting more things to say. Kelly and Ben caught snatches of what they were saying. ‘Other buildings on fire … lower floors full of smoke … Near the racecourse …’
The racecourse.
Kelly looked at Ben. ‘They’re in Adelaide. By that racecourse.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ben into the phone. ‘I’m not Billy. I’m Ben and I’m looking for my mum. But tell me where you are and I’ll try to send help.’
‘What? You’re breaking up …’
The rest of her words dissolved in a flurry of static.
The woman’s voice had gone.
‘Try and get her back,’ said Kelly. ‘Tell her we’ll help if we can.’
Ben was pressing redial, but they got the same message as before. ‘Lines are busy. Please try again later.’ He tried 000 to see if he could get help to them, but even that was unavailable.
‘It must have been a fluke,’ said Ben. ‘The chances of getting her again are minimal.’
Kelly was quiet for a moment. ‘I’m glad my dad isn’t in Adelaide. I’d rather he got kidnapped than be trapped like that poor woman. Your mother too.’
Two police helicopters took off from Melbourne and skimmed out into the dusty red desert. They located the railway line that led out of Adelaide and began to follow it. The burning sky lay behind; ahead was the vast desert that formed the interior of the great continent of Australia, the Red Centre.
The Ghan was a big red train with a history, a tourist attraction like the Orient Express in Europe. It followed a 2,979-kilometre route that stretched right across the country from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north, a route originally established when Afghan camel trains trekked the parched outback.
After twenty minutes the lead helicopter spotted the train, sending up a plume of deep red dust like a vapour trail. They matched its speed and radioed the train controller to ask him to stop. As the train braked, they positioned themselves at the front and the back, hovering like hawks so that they had maximum visibility in case anyone left the train.
The train came to a standstill, throwing up clouds of dust like an old-fashioned steam engine and the helicopters came in to land.
Passengers leaned out of the windows, squinting into the sun. They were mystified to see the police boarding their train.
One group of officers searched the carriages. A small squad stayed outside in case the kidnappers jumped off the train. If they did, they would be caught quickly as there was nowhere to hide here in the vast emptiness of the outback.
The officers searched the interior of the train twice, including all the nooks and crannies that only the train staff knew about. But no one answering the description of Bel or the major was on board.
The officers returned to their helicopters and radioed back to control. They had to get back to the burning skies of Adelaide.
Sixty kilometres to the south, unaware that the train had already been searched and their parents were not aboard after all, Ben and Kelly were risking the last of their fuel flying to intercept it.
The fire in Adelaide was spreading. Wanasri and the crew of Engine 33 watched the paramedics load a woman on a stretcher into the back of an ambulance and close the doors. The air was full of damp smoke and it was impossible to see more than a few hundred metres down the road. Wanasri’s ears were ringing with the constant clamour of sirens, shouting, and the hiss of high-pressure water blasting from hoses. Every surface she touched was hot and wet. The streets were slick with water and steaming like a jungle.
Petra pulled open the cab of the truck and climbed into the driving seat. ‘We’re needed down the road. There are some people trapped inside a house.’
Wanasri, Andy and Darren didn’t even bother to get back in the engine. They jogged down the road after Petra.
Wanasri stepped aside as the ambulance slalomed past, its siren wailing. Its fog lights were on so that it could navigate through the black clouds of smoke. It had a long journey ahead. The general hospital in the middle of town, which housed the major burns unit, was being evacuated, so new patients were being taken to an army barracks up the coast, which had set up an emergency medical centre. A small fire truck followed the ambulance, just in case. The crew drove with the windows up to keep out stray sparks. Muffled inside their heavy fireproof jackets, they looked like decontamination workers. The ambulance carried flammable materials like oxygen, which in this heat was like a cargo of nitroglycerine.
As Wanasri jogged along beside Darren and Andy, she kept thinking about the woman in that ambulance. They had rescued her from the fire but she had burns over most of her body. Her bare arms and legs were blistered and charred. Burns normally caused excruciating pain, but she seemed to feel no pain at all. At the time it seemed merciful, but Wanasri and the medics knew it was an ominous sign. When burns victims were quiet like that, it meant their nerve endings had been destroyed. They might lose limbs or die.
The injuries they were seeing today were getting worse as the fire grew further out of control.
Maybe with this next call, thought Wanasri, they would find somebody alive and well, or less severely injured. Maybe that pall of smoke they were heading towards would not contain the ashes of another unlucky victim.
As they got closer, her heart sank. It was a single-storey home. The roof had already collapsed and only part of a wall and a chimney remained. Another crew had put out most of the fire, but small hot spots still smouldered.
Andy and Darren reached the truck and unclipped pike poles — long fibreglass poles with hooks on the end for lifting hot materials. With a heavy heart Wanasri reached for hers. She felt a tap on her shoulder.