The Delta Chain (29 page)

Westmeyer winced. That was what
sickened him: the sordid details he knew very well that Jackson
Donnelly would enjoy.

Melanie drove back to her
office. She couldn
’
t believe how well
this was going. Eddie Cochrane would be thrilled. The Brisbane
Chronicle bosses would be impressed. She was certain now she would
get the Brisbane job.
Certain.

Donnelly was a problem. He was
onto her. It would be a worthy challenge for her wit and her charm
to manipulate the others in spite of his opposition.

Strangely, it did not occur to
her to suspect she was being followed.

Daniel swam with the current,
gasping for breath, allowing the pull of the river to propel his
escape. His mind was surprisingly sharp given he was in the midst
of a physical and emotional ordeal.

How had the Keepers found
him? How could they already have been here in Northern Rocks,
waiting? Even Daniel hadn
’
t known this
was where he
’
d be headed
–
not until the news broadcast the day before
yesterday.

And then it struck him:
the news broadcast, with the photo of the girl
he
’
d recognised. She, too, had been part
of the Com. The Keepers had seen the same news program
–
and they
’
d guessed,
correctly, that if Daniel also saw it then he
would
’
ve headed for the town…

His heart sank. To have
come so far... His only hope was to outdistance them with the
river
’
s help. Adrenaline kicked
in.

He swam harder and faster…

The road
didn
’
t follow the path of the river. It
twisted back on itself, switchback style, into the woods. At Warren
Ethers
’
command, the Keepers split into
two groups, each on opposite sides of the river. A police siren was
heard in the distance.

Ethers led one group, Scanlon
the other, and the two leaders kept in touch by cell phone. They
scanned the water as they moved.

After a while, Ethers
stopped and aimed his binoculars back toward the bridge. He could
see figures, pointing out over the water. He could just make out
what appeared to be a police uniform.
‘
Damn.
’

‘Cops?
’
asked one of the others.

‘Yes.
’

‘We can
’
t afford to have them asking questions-
’

Ethers cut him off
angrily.
‘
I know that.
’

‘
I
’
m calling off the
search,
’
he announced to the
group.
‘
We
’
ll
regroup later and set up watch points. For now we circle back into
the town and blend in.
’

Later, Ethers made a call and
waited for the First Keeper to answer.

It was not the news the
First Keeper wanted to hear. His anger was crystal clear over the
line.
‘
Make damn certain no one is
apprehended. It
’
s essential to remain
invisible. And Ethers, once the coast is clear again, get back down
to the river. The boy
’
s on foot, he has
no contacts, he shouldn
’
t be hard to
find.
’

After the call, the First
Keeper paced the oak panelled room that served as his inner
sanctum. He went to the large double-window and looked out on the
lush grounds and the wooded landscape that surrounded the estate.
He reflected on the last time he
’
d had a
runaway, a number of years before, and the unpleasant task of
finding and then silencing that particular youth.

It pained him such action
had been necessary. In his mind, it stood as a symbol of
failure
–
failure of the security that
was in place at The Com; and more importantly, failure of his
methods in moulding and leading this remarkable extended family. He
felt his blood pressure rising and he paced the room like a caged
animal. He thought of Warren Ethers
’
comment at that earlier time
–
that with so many young souls involved, you had to expect
the occasional rebel. He supposed it was true and he consoled
himself with that thought.

He sat on the lounge that
was placed against the far wall and he took deep breaths. On the
wall opposite him was the photographic mural he
’
d lovingly crafted over the years
–
photos he had taken; news pictures he
’
d obtained; maps and paintings, all depicting the Mekong
Delta . Vietnam. So long ago. Such a powerful, life changing,
spiritual experience.

Just as young Daniel was a
fugitive now from this place, and from the Keepers, so the First
Keeper had been a fugitive, back then, from the world, from
himself, from his own inner confusion. He closed his eyes and saw
those muddy banks, the current of the wide rivers, the reeds, the
villagers, and the soldiers. He saw himself and William wandering
like lost souls through that steamy, insect ridden battlefield.

Was it mere coincidence,
or a spiritual intervention he didn
’
t yet
understand, that led Daniel to the drowning victim, in the same
town as Westmeyer
’
s Institute.

The First Keeper
couldn
’
t escape the creeping dread that
something was unravelling. Perhaps he should never have agreed to
help his old friend? At the same time, how could he refuse when he
was given so much assistance by Westmeyer, and the men from
Nexus.

Now the time had come to
warn William of this problem, and to call in help. He needed
back-up for Ethers. He picked up the phone and punched in the
numbers for Westmeyer
’
s direct
line.

‘William,
’
he said quietly when the call was
answered,
‘
we have a situation…
’
As he spoke, his eyes focused on the mural and
his memories flowed freely.

In his office, Westmeyer
listened with growing concern. His gaze wandered to the photograph
on his desk and his thoughts, also, were drawn back across the
years…

The familiar roar of the
choppers, whump! whump! whump!, blades cutting the air, filling his
head with the sound. He was certain there must have been a fleet of
them, streaking over the camp in the Sun La Province.

Twenty-one-year-old William
Westmeyer leapt up from the straw mattress and went to the doorway
of the mud hut. It was early evening, the sun so low on the horizon
that the light was no more than a spectral thing.

But the sky above the camp
was clear. No choppers. They had passed by several miles to the
west. William
’
s imagination had amplified
the thunder of the engines.

The camp itself was a
masterpiece of camouflage. The huts were woven into the mosaic of
the jungle in such a way that the village was mostly invisible from
the air. In the past year they
’
d only had
to move the community once
–
an
extraordinary achievement in a Vietnamese jungle crowded with
locals, and with the Allied Forces, and with those damn
‘
copters crawling like bugs through the
air.

He often wondered why
he
’
d allowed Joseph Vender to suck him
into going AWOL and living in the wilderness like this. In the
early days he
’
d felt
Vender
’
s infectious passions and strange
beliefs igniting something similar in him; or maybe
he
’
d just gone troppo, like so many
others.

Mostly it was because of
Hoang Thi Mai. Certainly she was the reason he
’
d stayed as long as he had. The simplicity of these
people
’
s lives had spoken to him, and the
rivers and forests had a beauty that touched the soul, but life
with such a woman as Mai had at times been like some ethereal kind
of paradise. Time had stood still…

She was due back, with the
other women, from the river where they
’
d
been washing clothes. William wiped the sweat from his brow. There
was no breeze this evening and he wished for one. The humidity was
thick.

He decided to walk down to
the river. His friend Nguyen Le Nam gave a casual wave as William
passed his hut on his way through the village.
He
’
d just reached the edge of the pathway
when he heard frantic, raised voices, shouting in Vietnamese, and
he watched with rising panic as men appeared from the forest,
running and yelling.

Then came the first round of
gunfire, staccato bursts that smashed the serenity of the
night.

William hurled himself to the
ground, rolling into the thick underbrush, his heart pounding. Mai!
Where was she?

He never really knew how it was
he escaped, bullets ricocheting all around him, the roar of flames
engulfing the huts.

He crawled across the
jungle floor until he was close to the river. He saw some of the
village men standing motionless, a gargled, crying noise coming
from them. He heard the harsh shouts of the Vietcong
soldiers
– ‘
Charlie
’
the Allied forces called them
–
and he saw they had their rifles trained on the villagers.
What the hell was going on?

He inched forward, unseen.

It took him a moment to
take in the scene. The women had been herded into a line by the
river
’
s edge, rifles thrust into their
faces.

Groups of soldiers were dragging
them into the water. Two and three at a time, they were being
forced down and held under the water as their stricken, helpless
men folk looked on.

The women thrashed about as the
leering soldiers held them firmly. The bodies of previous victims
bobbed lifeless to the surface and floated around them.

One of the village men shrieked
with fury and broke from the group, rushing madly forward. A hail
of bullets cut his body in half.

William felt the bile rise
to his throat, suffocating him. He stifled a cough and gulped in
air, thin sprays of vomit weeping from the sides of his mouth as he
swallowed hard and swallowed again. William
’
s eyes fell on the man that appeared to be the
soldiers
’
leader, a squat, pug faced man
with savage eyes. He barked orders, laughing, his face twisted with
a manic glee. The man was a psychopath, one of the monsters
who
’
d found his own lawless killing
ground in the jungles of
‘
Nam.

William
couldn
’
t tell if Mai was one of the women
in the line or one of the floating corpses. What could he do? If he
broke cover, they would cut him to pieces in a hail of
bullets.

He gritted his teeth and stifled
the primal scream he felt bursting inside.

One small ray of hope touched
him. Mai and some of the girls had grown up by the coast, where
they dived and swam deep in the rivers and the ocean, catching fish
in their bare hands. They were able to hold their breath for long
periods, in the same way the Japanese pearl divers had done in
earlier centuries.

It was her only hope…

When the Vietcong had finished
their “fun” with the women, they turned their attention to the
village men and gunned them down. Ashen faced and dry retching,
William listened to the ruthless laughter of the Vietcong as they
moved on.

Finally, it was safe for him to
stagger to the river. He waded in, grappling with the bodies in the
slow moving tide, turning up their faces and looking for Mai. He
was only able to perform such a grotesque search because his mind
and body were numb.

His fear was palpable though, a
silent shriek inside him, as he turned each body in
anticipation.

The first face he focused on was
not Mai.

Nor the second. Nor the third.
But he knew the faces of these women, knew their mothers and their
fathers and their boyfriends and their husbands and their
children.

The fourth body was not Mai.

Nor the fifth. There were many
more, but William found a glimmer of hope deep within. Maybe some
of the girls had escaped into the forest.

Maybe Mai was still out there
somewhere. Running. Hiding.

The sixth face he came to was
not Mai.

The seventh body he turned
over was the girl he loved. He didn
’
t
care how loud or how long he screamed, nothing mattered, nothing
made sense.

He
wouldn
’
t have cared if the soldiers
returned, right then and there, and blasted him to
eternity.

‘This act of industrial
sabotage at the Institute, appears to be totally unrelated to our
investigation,
’
O
’
Malley told the Task Force detectives,
‘
but it
’
s timing provides us with
our Trojan Horse. Northern Rocks police will offer to send in Adam,
as the local detective, to work alongside
Westmeyer
’
s people to catch the
saboteur.
’