The Delta Chain (27 page)

‘And Thomas and Simon were out camping,
getting even closer to nature.’

‘Yeah. And just as well, eh, for our sakes,’
Walter said.

The brothers returned two and a half hours
later. Kate jumped up and down when she saw Simon was carrying her
backpack.

She grappled with the straps, like an excited
child opening a birthday present and she slipped the compact unit
from the canvas. Thomas and Simon watched with fascination as Kate
opened the lid and booted up. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
On screen, an icon pinpointed the location of the hunters’ boat on
a digital map.

‘It works,’ Kate screeched as the three men
began to talk excitedly over her.

Despite their ordeal, Kate and Walter felt a
sense of elation and achievement. Walter knew, however, there would
be a delayed reaction to the trauma. It would be essential to force
Kate to seek counselling.

For the moment, though, there was a positive
spirit to share. With Thomas and Simon leading the way, they set
off for the Four Creeks outstation. The way forward was across
grassy plains potted with mudflats and marshes. At one stage they
saw a pack of wild pigs scampering over a rocky outcrop. Flocks of
birds swept by at low altitude.

Kate watched it all with sheer wonder, as
though through the eyes of a new born child. There had only been a
few seconds, that morning, between living and dying. If fate had
played a different hand then she wouldn’t have been here now,
breathing this air, feeling this sun on her skin, or enjoying this
wilderness. She was here, she realised, by the grace of God. The
enormity of that fact was too much to fathom. She felt it both
lifting her with wonder and weighing her with responsibility at the
same time.

It was late in the day when they reached the
outstation. It was a collection of rustic buildings – cottages and
workhouses constructed of mud and timber as well as glass and
sheets of old metal. There were corralled horses. Farmyard animals
strutted about the dusty main street. Kate might have imagined this
as some establishment from a mediaeval time, if it hadn’t been for
the old pick-up trucks and motorcycles scattered about. The
settlement was busy with men, women and children going about their
routines in the final hour before the sinking sun had disappeared.
They stopped now. They watched in silence as Thomas and Simon led
Walter and Kate into the township.

Kate was too tired to eat or to talk with the
locals. A room and a bed were made available and Kate fell quickly
into a deep sleep.

High-pitched screams woke Thomas’ household
in the middle of the night and they rushed into the room. Kate had
never had a nightmare so vivid: this time, the crocodile’s jaws
clamped tight around her leg and she’d felt herself spinning and
drowning as the reptile dived and began its death roll.

Thomas’ wife, a compassionate woman named
Rachel, sat with Kate, mopping her brow with a cool flannel until
Kate slipped back to sleep.

With Ethers and Scanlon leading, the small
band of Keepers abandoned the overturned van. They ran after the
boy.

Daniel was already several dozen metres along
the main Northern Rocks road, to the point where the bridge spanned
the river. Looking back, he assessed the situation. He could keep
on running but his pursuers wouldn’t give up, they’d keep on
coming. If any of the bystanders, or the police, became involved,
he had no doubt Ethers would have a convincing story that Daniel
should be handed back into their supervision. And there could be
other Keepers, throughout the town, waiting to pounce.

No.

Daniel needed to put a great deal of distance
between himself and the Keepers. Quickly.

The traffic island in the middle of the road
had a thick hedge into which Daniel slipped his backpack as he ran.
Free of its constraints, he mounted the bridge’s metal railing.
From across the road he heard a woman shout out “No!’

Daniel dived.

The dive took him well beneath the surface of
the water. At first touch it was like an icy shaft tearing through
him. He broke the surface and began to swim. For the first time he
was thankful for something he’d learned at The Com. All the
children had been taught to swim. Long, powerful strokes were
fuelled by his determination not to be captured.

By the time the men reached the bridge,
minutes later, the boy was a speck on the water. ‘Damn,’ said
Ethers. He turned and stared into the faces of the other men,
realising that none of them had stayed with the overturned vehicle.
‘Idiots. Banting, get back to the van. We don’t want to be charged
because no-one stayed at the scene of an accident.’

‘Why me…?’

‘Go. Make up some feasible story about the
glass distracting you.’

Banting padded off, breathing hard.

‘We need to get a vehicle, a hire car
perhaps, and follow that river line,’ Scanlon suggested.

‘Forget that,’ said Ethers, ‘I suspect we’ve
lost the little bugger for the moment. And I believe you’ll find
the river veers away from the nearest road access. But we’ll find
him. I’ll post Banting to keep watch on the bus terminal. That’s
the only public transport out of here. The rest of us will search
the riverside and the town on foot. The boy’s got nowhere to go.
We’ll find him.’

Janine Hosking had been walking her dog when
she’d seen the boy leap from the bridge. She watched as the four
men came tearing up the hill in obvious pursuit. She sensed
something unnatural and ruthless about them.

What was it all about? Were they plainclothes
police chasing a criminal? But this was just a boy. And there were
four of these men.

Janine pulled out her cell phone. Senior
Constable Ken Morgan took the call. He thanked Janine for her
prompt action but neither confirmed nor denied whether the men
described were police.

He knew they weren’t.

At that same instant, Arthur Kirby took a
call from Michael Pleasant, manager of the Northern Alliance Bank.
‘It certainly wasn’t the fault of the van’s driver he lost
control,’ Pleasant stated after reporting the accident outside the
bank’s premises, ‘but the driver and the others inside took off on
foot as though they’d just robbed the bank.’ He gave a little laugh
at that. ‘Doesn’t make sense.’

‘Thanks for the call,’ said Kirby. ‘What
about the glass carrier who collapsed?’

‘I phoned for an ambulance first and it’s
just arrived.’

Kirby was straight onto the Fire Department
to attend the scene and before he could despatch one of his own
patrols, Morgan rushed in. ‘Chief, there’s a weird one going down
on the town bridge. Kid leapt into the water with four men chasing
him. Our road patrol’s currently down in Erinsvale, so I’ll have to
dart over there.’

‘Four men? Well, how do you like that?’

‘Sir?’

Kirby filled him in on the call from the bank
manager. ‘Pull Harrison away from his beloved computer room and
take him with you. And once you’ve checked out the bridge, head
over to the accident scene outside the bank. Doesn’t take Einstein
to figure out these two incidents must be linked.’

It was unusual for Jackson
Donnelly to dream. The previous night he
’
d not only dreamt but he
’
d done
so vividly, drawing on his memories of the night Rhonda Lagan had
died. He
’
d been on the coastal road in
the dead of night, the steep, sheer cliff falling away at the point
where the road rounded the land
’
s
end.

He
’
d phoned Rhonda earlier, intriguing her with talk of secret
information she would find of interest. He
’
d been right that she
’
d agree to
meet immediately. Twenty minutes later, his car gained on hers, his
timing perfect so that he
’
d be in the
right place as she travelled past the road
’
s most dangerous spot.

He
’
d pulled his car across the oncoming lane to overtake her.
But then, with his vehicle alongside hers, he
’
d spun the steering wheel sharply, the side of his car
crashing against hers and pushing her toward the cliff edge. The
desired result was achieved much more easily than
he
’
d expected. Rhonda Lagan, caught
totally by surprise, lost control. Her car crashed against the
roadside railing. Attempting to pull back, she swung the wheel too
sharply.

The car spun and then flipped on
its side, smashing through the railing and toppling over the
edge.

Donnelly drove on. No other cars
in sight. No witnesses.

He imagined the shriek of the
young woman as her car plunged through darkness. He felt a sense of
power. He visualised the car smashing into the rocks below, metal
and glass shattering and cast outwards in a cloud of debris. The
crash of the waves on the rocky shoreline.

But
Donnelly
’
s dream was invaded by something
else. The moaning, distorted faces of night creatures. Hundreds of
them. Calling, whispering.

Mocking.

He
’
d woken in a cold sweat, shaken and puzzled. He
wasn
’
t one to have nightmares.

He
’
d certainly never felt fear or remorse over his
actions.

So what was this?

A warning? A premonition of
impending danger?

In fact,
he
’
d experienced nightmares before, years
ago, the one and only time the police had been about to move in on
him. The nightmares had destabilised him. As a result
he
’
d skipped town, avoiding arrest, and
the case against him on that occasion had fallen apart.
Premonition
. Over the years he
’
d felt a
curious but familiar sense of unease that served to warn him of
danger. A strange gift, something the devil himself
might
’
ve granted. It had always kept him
one step ahead of the law.

The gift, if you could
call it that, had served him well from his teenage days of petty
crime on the streets of New York to his days as a major player in
the underworld of the Big Apple. He
’
d
also served in Vietnam and had kept in touch with Logan Asquith,
taking on assignments as Asquith built his secret group within the
Defence Department. It was the reason William Westmeyer had sought
him out, and brought him on board as a member of his inner
clique.

But never before had he dreamt
of hideous, mocking faces.

Donnelly paced his
apartment, convinced this was a premonition of disaster. Melanie
Cail
’
s suspected sabotage of the
Institute
’
s security had brought unwanted
attention. It had put them under a microscope.

The solution, then, was obvious.
Attention had to be diverted away from the Institute by exposing
Melanie Cail. And then she had to be terminated, as had Rhonda
Lagan when her snooping veered so close to the truth.

For half an hour the
members of the Task Force had reviewed the facts to hand.
O
’
Malley conducted the meeting in an easy
manner, but at the same time was brisk and concise in dealing with
the issues. Seated with him at the long, narrow table were senior
detective sergeant Wal Hester, specifically for his experience with
missing persons, and his expertise in forensic techniques;
researcher Megan Shorter; senior detectives Brian Kavanaugh and
Mike Stanley; and Adam.

After the review,
O
’
Malley delivered a summary of the case,
and its implications.
‘
There is strong
circumstantial evidence of a link between the Westmeyer Research
Institute with three drownings off the N.S.W. and Queensland coasts
over the past nine months. And these have an uncanny similarity
with drownings, two years ago, in Florida.
’

O
’
Malley paused here and nodded toward Wal Hester. The senior
detective dimmed the lights and activated a powerpoint presentation
on the wall mounted screen.

The first picture was of a
multi-level, chrome and glass building in a leafy setting.

O
’
Malley resumed his address as Hester lingered.
‘
With Megan
’
s
assistance, Wal has undertaken extensive research of the Institute
and the background of its chief executive. The first point I need
to make is that we
’
ve uncovered a
stronger link between the drownings here and in America.
’
O
’
Malley
’
s gaze settled for a
moment on Adam, then swept over the whole group as he delivered the
next surprising point:
‘
Westmeyer
established his Institute in Washington D.C. in the mid
1980
’
s, a small operation working on
projects for the U.S. Department of Defence. Later on, Defence was
just one of several clients, including pharmaceutical firms and
U.S. universities. In the early
‘
90
’
s the Institute was relocated
to a country area outside Everglades City. By then it had become a
major research establishment.
’