Corey turns to Doug. ‘Where’s the satellite phone?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Charming.’
Spike barks.
Corey looks at him. ‘I’m not putting the gun in his mouth.’
Another bark.
‘I’m sure there’s nothing like steel clinking against teeth to jog a memory but I’m not doing it. It’s important to maintain certain standards.’
Doug watches the conversation between man and dog with growing concern.
Another bark.
Corey sighs, takes a moment, then draws the pistol from his belt. ‘Fine, but I don’t feel good about it —’
‘Found it!’
Judd pulls a satellite phone and a backpack out of a small cupboard on the far wall. He empties the pack’s contents onto the control desk. There’s not much inside: two bottles of water and a folded map of the Northern Territory. The phone is a chunky Globalstar 1600. Judd flips out its fat antenna and works the keypad. The screen lights up, and so does Judd’s face. ‘Works.’
A sharp beep emanates from the open MacBook Pro. Judd realises it’s important because Doug immediately reacts to it. The astronaut moves to the laptop and swipes a finger across its trackpad. Its blank screen blinks to life, shows a circular black and green radar grid overlaying a topographical map. The sweep refreshes the screen every two seconds. Judd takes it in. ‘The dish is feeding it real-time data.’
A small blip curves across the screen. Every time the sweep passes over it, its position is updated. Judd studies it.
Corey moves beside him. ‘What’s that?’
‘The shuttle. It’s coming down now. It’ll land in fifteen minutes, give or take.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s performing an S-turn, to shed speed before landing.’
Corey takes it in, astonished. ‘That thing is, is —’
‘Moving at 13000 kilometres an hour.’
The blip travels off the edge of the screen. Judd puts an index finger on the point where it left the screen then drags it in a looping journey that proscribes what he believes will be the shuttle’s flight path as it completes Terminal Area Energy Management manoeuvres to slow it down, then curves around the Heading Alignment Cylinder to pass Waypoint One, then Waypoint Two, until it lines up with the runway. His finger stops at a point on the screen. ‘Here. Where is this?’ Judd unfolds the map, spreads it out. ‘On the map.’
Corey studies the screen, then looks at the map, then the screen again, tries his best to identify the topographical representations, then looks back at the map again, jabs a position. ‘Here?’ He doesn’t say it with a lot of conviction. The place has no name, it’s just a rust-red smear on a map full of rust-red smears.
‘There’re no mountains or valleys or anything? It’s flat, right?’
‘As a pancake.’
‘How far away is it? In the chopper.’
Corey looks at him uncertainly. ‘Ten minutes, give or take. Why?’
‘We have to leave
now
.’
‘I knew you were gonna say that.’
‘Come on! We gotta go.’
‘Sorry. No. I only stayed so you’d teach me how to tie the knot.’
‘I have to know where it lands.’
‘You know where. Here.’ Corey presses his finger into the map.
‘Exactly
where it lands.’
‘‘Exactly
where I’m pointing to on the map.’
‘You didn’t sound so sure before.’
‘Well, I am now.’
‘I need visual confirmation.’
‘I’m not going out there, mate. If that’s where they’re gonna land then there’ll be more like these two.’ He nods at Petra and Doug. ‘Forget it. I got more than I bargained for on this job already.’
‘Please, we don’t have much time.’
Corey fastens his eyes on Judd and speaks slowly: ‘Have you not been paying attention? They tried to kill us. No, they went
out of their way
to kill us - over and over. We should be flying
away
from them, not towards them.’
Judd unclips the PloProf from his wrist, holds it out to him. ‘It’s worth five grand US, minimum.’
‘I don’t want your expensive watch, I want to live, and going out there will greatly decrease that possibility. Now just ring your mates, tell them what you know and call it a night. Really, for your own health.’
Judd exhales, anger fused with frustration. ‘I’ll call them when we’re on the way but I need to know exactly where it lands.’
‘Why?’
Judd stares at Corey. ‘Why do you think? I’ve gotta see that she’s okay.’
‘How are you going to see that? How are you going to see anything —’
‘I don’t know. But I have to do something. I can’t just sit here.’ Judd can feel moisture at the corners of his eyes again. Christ. He looks down, studies the green linoleum floor.
‘You crying again?’
‘No.’
Corey bends, looks him in the face. ‘The corners of your eyes are wet! Come on, man, you’re embarrassing the dog. There’s no crying for men in Australia. It’s frowned upon, makes the blokes not crying uncomfortable. If you’re upset, keep it to yourself.’
Judd turns to him, eyes firm. ‘I need you to do this. Please.’
Corey looks at him.
‘Come on, there isn’t much time.’
‘I’m thinking!’ Corey takes a breath, then nods. ‘Okay. Jeez.’ He can’t believe he’s agreeing to it.
‘Thank you.’
The dog barks.
Corey glances at the animal. ‘Yeah, well, last time I checked it was my chopper. Of course, you can always stay here and hang with this pair if you’ve got a problem with it.’ He jabs a thumb at Petra and Doug.
Spike barks.
‘Language, please.’
Judd sweeps the satellite phone, the bottles of water and the map into the backpack. ‘What should we do about them?’
‘Dunno. What do you think?’
‘Fuck ‘em.’
Corey nods at the dog. ‘That’s what he said.’
They both stride towards the door, the dog in tow. Judd turns to Corey. ‘Thanks for this.’ It’s heartfelt.
‘Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t heard my conditions.’
**
26
The Loach trails a ribbon of exhaust heat that makes the stars dance and shimmer in its wake.
Behind the Loach’s controls Corey looks down at his new jacket, which, just moments ago, belonged to one Judson Bell. The sleeves are a bit short and it doesn’t go with his grubby blue T-shirt or dusty jeans, but, as he’s blissfully unencumbered by notions of fashion, he doesn’t care. It is the single nicest article of clothing he’s ever owned.
He flicks a piece of lint off the left lapel then looks to Judd beside him. ‘Okay, this is the plan. We see where it lands then we call your mates and tell them where it is, then we leave and fly far, far away and let them handle it, then we land and you teach me how to tie that knot. Okay?’
Satellite phone in hand, backpack at his feet, map open on his knees, Judd nods, preoccupied, as he surveys the night sky. ‘How far away are we?’
‘This is it.’
Judd glances at his watch, leans out the open door, looks up, searches the black sky. He sees nothing. Frustrated, he looks back at the map and his hands ‘go Rubik’. ‘Did I get it wrong?’
‘It’s okay, we’ll find it.’
Judd’s not so sure. ‘If I screwed up the calculations it could be a hundred miles from here.’
Corey nods at the satellite phone. ‘Well, call your mates anyway, tell ‘em it’s in the Territory. That’s better than nothing —’
A low, fat noise sweeps across the sky.
The sound is very loud, but also soft and rounded, like a wave of white noise. Judd scans the sky for its source.
There, above and to the left, 200 metres away, a dark wedge shape blocks out the stars as it rips across the night sky, displacing air and producing that wave of white noise.
Atlantis.
Corey sees it and grins. ‘Told you we’d find it.’
Judd watches the spacecraft as it pulls away and loses altitude fast. ‘It’s about to land.’
**
Even though Rhonda knows most of the re-entry processes are automated, she’s still impressed. The Frenchman and his Italian sidekick have expertly dragged the shuttle out of orbit, re-entered the atmosphere and flown it through TAEM without any issues.
She looks out the right-side windscreen at the flat blackness and tries to divine where they’re about to land. How many hours ago did they leave the Cape? How many hours have they been aloft? What time would that make it here if it was the middle of the night?
She does the arithmetic and makes a couple of educated guesses. She can’t imagine they’re anywhere in Europe. There’d be too many people around to make it viable. Deepest darkest Russia is a possibility, but why risk it when the weather could be harsh and unpredictable?
There’s just one place that makes sense. Sparsely populated. No man-eating animals roaming about. No militia. No mountains to crash into. No forests to complicate a landing. No harsh weather to speak of. Just a whole lot of flat desert. They’re about to land in Central Australia, she’s sure of it.
She stares out the windscreen and realises that as interesting a piece of information as that is, it doesn’t give her anything useful, won’t help her stop the Frenchman. To do that she needs to come up with a plan and she needs to do it fast.
**
The wave of white noise is now a dull roar.
The shuttle is 150 metres away, above and to the left of the Loach. It’s close enough that Judd can make out the patchwork of soft, heat-resistant tiles attached in an intricate puzzle to its fuselage.
Atlantis
dips and flares, slows dramatically. In a flash the Loach is almost upon it.
‘Not too close.’
‘It’s droppin’ like a bride’s nightie.’
‘It doesn’t have atmospheric engines. It’s just a glider, and not a very good one. It’ll lose speed and altitude fast so we need to drop back. I don’t want them to know we’re here.’
Corey throttles back, lets the spacecraft pull ahead.
Judd scans the horizon. ‘Where are they going?’
As he says it the landscape in front of them illuminates. It’s like a small city has been Copperfielded out of nowhere and dropped, lights ablaze, onto the desert.
Corey nods at it. ‘There?’
Judd looks closer. It’s a runway. A very long one. At regular intervals lights dot both sides of the strip as it disappears into the distance. He can’t help but be impressed. ‘It’s so big.’
‘That’s what she said.’ Corey glances at Judd with his crooked grin, then realises the Yank’s in no mood for levity. ‘Sorry, not the time.’ He turns back to the horizon, studies the runway. ‘They sure went to some trouble.’
‘You ever seen it before?’
‘No way. I was out this way a month ago and there was nothing here. They built it from scratch. Recently.’
Judd looks down at the map, the instrument panel illuminating it, and presses his finger into the position Corey determined back at the dish. ‘Is this where it is?’
‘Spot on. Make the call.’ Judd nods as he flips out the satellite phone’s antenna and works the keypad.
A mechanical whine cuts across the wind roar. They both look over at
Atlantis.
Its landing gear lowers and locks in place. The wind resistance instantly decelerates the spacecraft and it loses altitude.
‘Watch it! Don’t get too close.’
Too late. Before Corey can do anything the Loach is parallel with
Atlantis.
**
Rhonda catches sight of something out the right-side windscreen. She blinks, focuses, sees rotor blades, attached to a yellow Huey OH-6 Loach. She knows the chopper’s shape well. Her dad flew one during both tours of Vietnam and
Magnum P.I.
was his favourite TV show.
It’s close, maybe 40 metres off the starboard wing. She focuses on it. The little chopper must belong to the Frenchmen’s crew, to point the shuttle towards whatever makeshift runway they’ve set up for the landing.
For a moment the Loach sits perfectly within the frame of the shuttle’s windscreen panel. She looks into its cockpit, which has no door, and sees two men inside. The closest one, who isn’t piloting the chopper, is partially illuminated by the moonlight.
She studies the man, takes in his posture, the tilt of his head, the outline of his face, the set of his chin and the way his hands face each other and turn as if working an invisible Rubik’s cube.
It’s Judd.
No, it can’t be. But that gesture. ‘Going Rubik’, she called it. She’d never seen anyone do it except Judd, when he was trying to figure something out. It is Judd - and it’s the third time she’s been flabbergasted this week. But why, and how, is he here? Is he working for the Frenchman? That seems a ridiculous proposition, but then sitting to her right is one Martie Burnett, a good friend for almost a decade, who is currently in the employ of said Frenchman.
Martie follows Rhonda’s gaze out the windscreen and catches sight of the Loach just before it disappears from view. ‘Henri, we have company. Off the starboard wing.’