Gunshot Road (27 page)

Who'd taken the photo?

The answer, not just to that question, but to the whole maddening conundrum, hit me like an explosion.

Worse: it hit me at exactly the same time as an explosion—the crashing echo and thump of metal on rock, roaring out from the hill where I'd left Danny and the car.

I looked up, silent sirens screaming in my head.

Danny.

It was him they'd been after all along, and I'd left him alone back there.

Into the abyss

I TOOK OFF AT
full tilt, ignoring the heat, absorbing it almost, feeling it burn inside me like a rocket's blast, giving strength to my legs. I raced up the ridge, saw from a hundred yards away that the Hilux was gone. It wasn't hard to follow: the scars in the sand, the broken grass.

The tracks ploughed down the slope to the beetling precipice of the Gunshot Mine. I spotted a broken pole, dragged wire, the remnants of a fence: the car had smashed through, gone straight over the edge.

I sprinted towards the mine, stopped short on the lip of the abyss. Eighty feet below: a shattered wreck, wheels spinning in the air. Red dust drifting.

I reeled away, despairing: how could anybody have survived that?

Oh Christ—what sort of an idiot had I been, leaving him alone?

Then I noticed a skinny black foot poking through a patch of long grass to the left. He must have abandoned ship as the vehicle rolled forward.

I rushed to his side. He was lying on his back, his thin body motionless in its blood-stained guernsey. A brutal wound on the side of his head: a fractured skull? His mouth was open, his eyes were closed.

Most poignant of all, for some reason, the grevillea blossom, still in his hand.

‘Danny!' No response. No breath, no pulse that I could find. ‘Oh Danny, Jesus, what have they done?'

I ripped into a frantic mouth-to-mouth, my mind racked by a terrible image of what his last moments must have been like, the terror of seeing his wildest nightmares—his Windringers, the yungkunu—rise up from the earth and strike him down.

Bastards! The silent scream rang through my skull. This is what they do: they scarify country, they shred its people and its dreams to satisfy their own appetites. To feed their avarice. They've been doing it for a hundred years, and it's just like Jet said: they change their faces and colours, they rearrange the disguise. But underneath they're all the same, and they never change.

So distracted and distraught was I that I didn't hear the motor's purr, the big wheels pushing through the gravel until they were almost on top of me. Two doors opened, two sets of boots came crunching forward.

They'd been waiting. I raised my head, half-knowing what I would see: a metal-blue Range Rover and two men I'd met before. Both armed.

One was white-faced, athletic, wearing black jeans and T-shirt, carrying a bolt-action .308 like he was born with it in his hands. What the hell was his name? Flint. The last time I saw him he didn't look so cocky. Lying on the side of the highway, his accomplice crushed beneath a wrecked car.

The second man wasn't quite so comfortable with his weapon, as fine a piece of technology as it was. Like his car, the finest money could buy. I already knew he didn't like to get dirt—or blood—under his fingernails. But he was infinitely more dangerous: he was the organiser, the risk assessor. The one who thought on his feet and gave the orders.

I'd only met him once, for a few minutes, but in that time he'd seen a boy break down in church, assessed him as a threat, got close enough to identify him—and set in train a plan to have him eliminated.

There'd been one or two hiccups along the way, to be sure: it was hard to get decent help out here. So Kevin Brock had obviously decided it was time to roll up the sleeves and make sure the job was done properly.

What line of work had he said he was in? Strategic management. Not a word of a lie there; and now I was getting a better idea of the strategies he was managing.

Too late, I understood that they involved all manner of things. Life and death, illusions, dreams, deceits—and a mine that was no longer really a mine at all, but a radioactive waste dump. I'd even heard one of the security team mention his name when we were at Green Saturn:

Brock's down—wants to be notified of anything unusual.

I remembered Jojo saying that he'd left Doc in the care of some men from the Green Saturn mine. The old feller must have let something slip. Signed his own death warrant.

A nod from Brock. The pale-faced Flint sharpened his gaze and raised the .308.

A single mind

FLINT PAUSED, TOOK A
look around, suspicious; he'd heard something.

So had I.

‘Wait,' snapped Brock.

The source of the noise appeared: another vehicle, rumbling towards us, working its way up to the rim of the mine.

For the first time in my life, the sight of a police Cruiser filled me with joy.

Cockburn had said he had half the force out looking for me. He must have radioed in while he was waiting; either that or he'd arranged to meet one of his men out here. Whatever the reason, I was bloody happy they'd found me.

Flint shifted his body to one side, concealed the weapon.

I tensed, weighing up my options. Brock glanced at me, his voice metal-edged: ‘One word and you die now.'

They stood there silently as the car rolled in towards us.

I studied the vehicle. Damn. Only a single occupant. I'd been hoping there'd be an army of them in there. I weighed up the situation. They'd already killed a cop—one more wouldn't make much difference. On the other hand if they shot this one they wouldn't be able to pass it off as an accident…

The rifle moved, ever so slightly, ready for action.

Brock motioned impatiently at his off-sider: ‘Put it down.'

The flicker of a lapse in Flint's attention was enough. I threw myself up and into his ribs, knocked him off balance, scrambled up the slope, arms waving.

‘Look out!'

The car slammed to a halt and a door flew open. Darren Harley jumped out, his feeble brain struggling to comprehend the scene before him.

‘Back off!' I ran up to him. ‘They've…'

He let fly with a sudden roundhouse blow to the upper body that would have knocked me to the ground if he hadn't caught me mid-air and begun dragging me back down the slope.

‘Harley, you fucking idiot!' I was tangled in boots and arms and torn spinifex. ‘It's not me—it's these pricks! They've already…'

He threw me at their feet. ‘Mr Brock.'

I gaped at him, bewildered at first, my short-lived elation dying in the arse as the final pieces of the puzzle flew together.

An insider: there had to have been one.

It was how they'd seen me coming, how they'd kept a step ahead. Harley had been there that first morning, at the road accident. He'd known I was out west with the Stonehouse mob-that was what had prompted them to bury the evidence at Dingo Springs. They'd known Danny had escaped, guessed our destination.

And one more thing. The knowledge rose in my throat.

I climbed to my knees, stared at the senior constable, cold fury sharpening the blades of my gaze.

‘You fed me to him.'

‘What?'

‘Paisley.'

He glanced at Brock.

No. You didn't, did you, you shithead?

Harley wouldn't have had the brains; he was just one of the small-pond bottom feeders Brock was forced to use to achieve his goal. As was Brent Paisley. Doubtless there were a host of others: bureaucrats major and minor, politicians, business figures in Sydney and China, or wherever the filthy bloody stuff came from.

I turned my gaze onto Brock. He gave me the stone stare, his eyes unblinking behind the spectacles.

It had been him, all along. Brock. He was the one who'd organised the whole thing, from framing Wireless to unleashing Paisley. I'd suspected a single mind at work: there it was, laid bare before me. The good samaritan face held its shape, but something hard and hungry had risen to move across the surface. He glanced at Flint—his profile sharp as a cross-cut saw, his nose bent, his lips taut. A figure from the Apocalypse.

He gave the curtest of nods to Flint. ‘Finish it.'

Make your mark

BROCK TURNED AWAY, LEAVING
the messy end of the business to the hired hands.

Oh Christ, I'd buggered up.

A slew of images raced across my brain. I was facing west, Kantulyu country. In my mind I saw the people who belong to it, who give it meaning. The determined old ladies I'd been travelling with so recently, they at an age when most women have been reduced to gossip and scones: in their slowness they gave me speed. I saw old Windmill, mapping the country with his memory: in his blindness he gave me perfect vision. I saw my poor dead Danny: in his drink and drug-addled bewilderment he gave me clarity.

Stage One
: I called to Brock, ‘You think I did all this without taking precautions?'

‘What?' He turned sharply.

‘I know what you're doing. I've known all along. I've left details—documents.'

He studied me. ‘If you want to spend your last moments on earth spinning bullshit…'

‘Water reports, Doc's research. I know you're storing radioactive waste in the Green Saturn mine, I know it escaped into the aquifer. The earthquakes, I presume—when was that?—three, four years ago? Come on, Brock, I'm not one of your dumb-fuck local hacks. I figured it out weeks ago. I've made sure other people know.'

Only the sliver-eyes moved. ‘Who?'

A snort of contempt. ‘You think I'm stupid enough to tell you? Suffice to say they're smart and hard, and they'll nail your balls to the wall if anything happens to me.' Brock didn't move. I shrugged. ‘Doesn't have to go this way, Kev. I'm pissed off that you're poisoning the country, but not so pissed off that I want to die for it. I'm willing to make a deal.'

Brock showed the closest thing to an emotion he'd shown thus far, though whether the emotion was frustration or amusement was hard to tell: ‘Oh? Nice!' He glanced at his crew. ‘She's willing to make a deal.'

‘What's she saying?' Flint. Edgy as an architect's glasses. His tongue flickered, his trigger finger twitched.

‘What she's saying is that Harvey fucked up. Yet again; and frankly Craig, I'm beginning to wonder about you and your crew of so-called “professionals”.'

‘Been a shot-firer all his life, Harvs. What he doesn't know about explosives isn't worth knowing.'

‘Well I suspect it's blown up in his face.'

Flint stared in the direction of the collapsed battery, cast a look of cold malevolence in my direction. ‘It's this one. She's not
…
normal.'

A look of exasperation spread across Brock's face. ‘For the unexpected contingency, you have a fallback position; you take extra precautions. I said you should have stayed with Harvey. He clearly didn't have a clue, bumbling round the desert with the file on him. Now you'll have to go back and pick up the pieces. In the meantime, cut the crap and get this…'

Stage Two
: ‘What's with the church then?'

Brock paused, off balance. ‘What?'

‘Sunday morning among the holy rollers. I could understand it if you were buttering up the big boys, but I saw you in there first. You were fair dinkum. And I don't get that—how can someone sit there saying their prayers and then go out and do this?'

Brock stiffened, took off his glasses. The eyes were small and hard, as piercing as lasers. He spoke precisely.

‘If you want to make a mark in this world, Ms Tempest, you need to focus your energies.'

Make your mark? Christ, was it as simple as that? How much of the grief in my life—in all our bloody lives—was caused by these cases of arrested development trying to make their mark? Pissing out their turf like a pack of besuited dingoes.

Stage Three
: ‘For god's sake,' I begged. ‘You can't…Please don't do this.'

I could sense their reactions. Harley: surprised, suspicious, but lumbering. No immediate threat, gun still in its holster, clipped. Flint: relieved that a messy operation was about to get a lot cleaner. Brock, the twitch of a lip: he was almost disappointed—he'd expected more of me. His eyes quivered with something I recognised in my gut: he wouldn't want to kill me himself, but he was going to get a kick out of watching somebody else do it.

Collectively, I felt them ease off on the throttle.

‘Please…' I grabbed Brock's feet.

He gave me the disdainful kick I'd been waiting for.

I rolled with the blow, came up with a fistful of dirt in one hand, Cockburn's Glock in the other.

‘Watch it!' screamed Flint. ‘She's got…'

Brock was in front: I threw the dirt into his face and put a bullet into his chest. Had the fleeting satisfaction of seeing the shock rip his features apart as he stared down and saw his dreams collapse, his own life begin to spurt from his body.

I whipped the gun at Flint, but he moved more fluently than me: clubbed me with the rifle and spun to deliver a kick in the ribs that lifted me off the ground. Ripped the pistol from my hand, put the other boot into my face for good measure, the heel this time.

Smashed me into oblivion.

Fire's own

THE HARSH SOUND OF
a cockatoo screaming.

Was I conscious? Hard to tell. I was lying on my side, head split, body battered. Just about ready to give it up—existence, the world—as a cruel joke. A mockery made of us all by a malicious god with a razor-blade mind.

I'd had enough. This revolving nightmare they called life had just got too much for me. The flip side looked like bliss from where I lay. Tempting to just relax, ease off, float away.

Almost of their own accord—certainly against my better judgment—the eyes prised themselves open. A dark blue blur appeared on the other side of my bloodied lashes.

Oh Christ. Danny, his limbs motionless. They'd dumped me beside his body.

Somewhere behind me, male voices, one of them cursing roundly. ‘Clean up! What do you mean “clean up” for fuck's sake?'

Harley, close to panic.

‘Just that.' Flint, the efficient NCO. In command now. ‘Take Brock back with us.'

‘
Back
with us? What, we gunna strap him to the roof rack? What if…'

‘Find out what happened to Des—he was supposed to knock this one.' Flint's voice rang with sufficient malevolent energy to silence dissent. ‘Get out of here. Been a fuck-up go to whoa, this. Drop the fuck-up on Demsky's lap.'

‘And these two?' Louder: he'd turned to face Danny and me.

‘Dump em with the car. Nothing to pin any of it on us. Should be able to get out of it with our…'

‘What's that?' Harley, puzzled.

‘What?'

‘On the horizon.'

‘Jesus Darren, this isn't a fucking sightseeing…'

A long pause.

‘What the…what
is
that?'

‘Some sort of—
fire
ball? Bushfire over that way?'

‘But look at the way it's floating. And where's the smoke?'

‘There's another one. They're…moving. Are they?'

‘Hard to…Debris, maybe. Tumbleweed burning maybe.'

‘Tumbleweed? Look at the
size
of it. And it is moving—getting closer. You ever see the Min Min lights?'

‘They're at night, dickhead.'

My body felt like it was weighed down with anvils, but I dragged myself onto an elbow, struggled to counter the deep draughts of pain I drew with every breath. Turned over.

Harley and Flint were standing near the open cut, gazing at the eastern horizon, spellbound.

I followed their gaze, saw nothing unusual. Blue sky, the risen sun, the purple folds of the distant Ricketswood Ranges. No movement: if anything, the air was preternaturally still.

‘Getting brighter,' said Harley.

‘Some trick of the light? Sun reflecting off something?'

Harley shielded his eyes. ‘Whatever it is, it's spinning like a wheel.'

‘Come on, let's get out of here.'

But neither of them moved.

I wondered if I was still dreaming. Were these two hallucinating in the heat? Was I?

And then I did see something—but not where they were looking.

Harley's Cruiser, up on the rise behind us, wobbled. A barely discernible movement, a shudder of rubber on stone.

I focused on it, unsure of what I'd seen. It shook once more, ever so gently. A creak that might have been a handbrake. Somebody in the car? Not that I could see, but the windscreen was a swirling, impenetrable reflection of the morning sky. Was that a wisp of smoke out the back of it?

The Cruiser moved again; no doubt about it this time. It rocked on its frame, and then slipped forward. Began to roll down the slope, silent at first but gathering speed as it descended. In seconds it was bouncing over the rocky ground like a rubber ball.

I looked at Harley and Flint: were they deaf? They were still standing there, staring out into the eastern sky, mesmerised.

Mesmerised. Maybe…

The rushing vehicle almost seemed to be burning. Then it
was
burning, smoke pluming from its base and bonnet, lightning flashing from its wheels and windows. The two men were aware of nothing until the fuel went up and the vehicle flew at them like a firebomb. Flint spun round, saw it coming, tried—years, aeons too late—to get out of the way.

The car tore into them both, engulfed them, carried on in its unstoppable fury until it plunged over the edge and into the open cut.

The explosion rocked the earth, sent a plume of smoke spiralling skywards.

One of the men had survived. Kind of: a horrible object wearing what might have been a uniform writhed on the ground, just short of the open cut. His torment agonising to the eye and ear.

Then another figure appeared at the periphery of my vision. A black man, tall and thin, picking himself out of the dust, padding down the slope. He spared a glance for the twisted thing on the ground, then helped it on its way with a toey kick.

Whichever poor bastard it was—Harley, from the look of him—he disappeared over the edge.