Henri cranes his neck to look out the right side of the windscreen. ‘
Merde
.’
‘
Merde?’
Rhonda realises that doesn’t sound like something he’d say if he
expected
to see a yellow Loach off the starboard wing. So the good news is that Judd isn’t working for Henri. The bad news is that Rhonda’s just told the Frenchman where he is.
**
The Loach slows so abruptly that Spike slides forward and bonks his head against the front seat. He aims a sharp bark at his master, who doesn’t reply because a euphoric Judd’s already speaking: ‘I saw her! Through the window!’
‘Good. Now make the call.’
‘Doin’ it.’ Judd presses the sat phone’s TALK button.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
The familiar sound cuts across the soundscape.
Corey and Judd’s eyes flick to their respective side-view mirrors. Rotor blades flash in the moonlight as a black chopper rears up and spits white fire.
‘Hold on!’ Corey yanks the controls and the Loach breaks left. Judd and Spike brace themselves as the chopper spirals towards the desert floor a thousand metres below.
Bullets pepper the Loach. One makes it inside, ricochets around the cabin.
‘Christ.’
‘Watch it.’
The bullet slams into the instrument panel. Sparks spray and acrid black smoke instantly fills the air. An alarm sounds as the Loach shudders, loses altitude.
The yellow chopper plummets towards the desert. Corey wrestles the controls, tries to arrest its fall. It doesn’t work. The ground races up to meet them. Judd closes his eyes and braces for impact.
The Loach stops dead. Judd opens his eyes. The chopper hovers a metre off the ground and Corey has it under control. He grins his crooked grin. ‘No problem.’
Flames leap from the instrument panel and he loses control. The Loach tilts and thumps into the dust. In a flash they’re out of the cabin. Corey unlatches the fire extinguisher from under his seat and douses the flames with two short blasts.
Judd scans the night sky. Over the whine of the Loach’s slowing turbine he can make out a sound.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
The black chopper, coming their way.
**
Claude works the Tiger’s controls, surveys the desert below, searches for the Loach. It took a hit and fell out of the sky like a grand piano but now he can’t see where it landed.
He flicks on his helmet’s thermal imaging system and studies the green-grey image of the desert 300 metres below. ‘See anything?’
The question is addressed to Cobbin, who sits behind him and operates the weapons system. Cobbin’s voice buzzes in his headset: ‘Got it. Nine o’clock.’
Claude looks left, sees it. Two men and a dog sprint away from the Loach. He wonders what in hell a dog is doing there. ‘Sooner we deal with it the sooner we can get back.’
‘On it.’ Cobbin triggers the Tiger’s GIAT 30-millimetre chin-mounted cannon and bullets slice across the desert towards the men and the dog. They disappear behind a haze of dust - then Claude picks them up as they tumble down an incline and hit the bottom of a ravine, the dog barking all the way.
One of the men looks up, eyes shining in the infra-red spectrum. Claude can see he has something in his hand, which he points at the Tiger. ‘What’s that?’
Before Cobbin can answer there are three flashes. The Tiger shudders and Claude’s eyes flick to the rotor blades above him as they splinter and disintegrate.
A shard shatters the Tiger’s windscreen and slams into his chest. Stunned, Claude stares at the chunk of fibre-plastic that protrudes from his sternum. It’s the shape of a shark fin.
He realises he never tasted shark fin soup.
**
‘What did you do?’ Judd says it in a low, amazed tone.
When they reached the bottom of the ravine Corey looked up and saw the black chopper swing towards them. Instinctively he drew the pistol he’d liberated from Petra and fired three shots.
Corey expected the Tiger to immediately open fire and finish them off. Firing Petra’s gun was just a symbolic gesture of defiance before certain death. The nine millimetre rounds would inflict little damage on a state-of-the-art attack chopper.
Except one of the bullets hit the linkage that controlled the pitch of one of the chopper’s four fibre-plastic blades. Once that linkage was destroyed its blade twisted and bent and broke away, at four revolutions per second, then was introduced, quite rudely, to the following blade, which shattered too. The same happened to the third and fourth blades, all within the space of half a second. The black chopper then ceased to fly.
With a muted thud it hits the ground nose first, tips onto its side then rolls down an incline, directly towards the Loach, the sole remaining item of value in the portfolio of one Corey E. Purchase.
Corey watches in dismay. Yes, he’d lost his ute and his house earlier, and his life has been in dire jeopardy on numerous occasions today, but all of that pales into insignificance compared to watching the destruction of his beloved chopper.
The wreck rolls straight towards the Loach then clips a rock at the bottom of the hill and
flips
over the chopper, clears it by a metre at most, then comes to an abrupt stop at the top of the ravine, 50 metres away.
Corey exhales, astonished and relieved in equal measure. He turns to Judd who lies on the ground nearby. ‘How lucky was that?’
The wreck bursts into flames, topples into the ravine - and rolls directly towards them.
Judd scrambles to his feet. Corey does the same but his right ankle screams in disapproval. He seems to have twisted it on the way down here.
They all turn and run. There’s only one direction to go and that’s down the narrow V-shaped ravine. The sides are too steep for an escape.
The flaming wreck picks up speed. On each revolution a stream of avgas sprays out of its ruptured fuel tank, catches alight and rains liquid fire in a 20-metre radius around it like some crazy, napalm-spitting catherine-wheel.
Corey lags behind. With each step his twisted ankle shoots a volt of pain up his right leg. Spike turns and barks at him.
‘This is my maximum speed!’ The Australian sees a large sandstone boulder 40 metres away. It might offer some protection if he can get behind it.
If.
The dog gallops ahead of both men. Judd accelerates too, moves 10 metres ahead of Corey, then glances back. The alarmed expression on his face prompts Corey to do the same. He wishes he hadn’t.
The napalm-spitting catherine-wheel is right behind him. He can feel its heat on his face, its sound loud and terrible. He now wishes it had hit the Loach. He tries to lift his pace but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. It like he’s running up and down on the spot.
He turns, sees Judd disappear behind the boulder. Corey aims for it. It’s just 10 metres away, five metres - he dives, lands on Judd, waits for impact.
The boulder shudders. He watches the wreck flip over them, dripping fire. A wave of heat licks his face. He jams his eyes shut, turns from it.
A second later it’s gone. He opens his eyes.
Judd looks at him. ‘You’re on fire!’
‘What!’ Judd pushes Corey to the ground, rolls him back and forth, extinguishes the flames that leap from his jacket.
The Australian drags the jacket off, flings it away, then studies the smoking heap of material gloomily. ‘And I just got it.’ He looks to Judd. ‘Thanks, Mandy.’
‘No problem. And don’t call me that.’
‘I’m just gonna lie down for a sec.’ Corey slumps to the ground, exhausted.
‘Good idea.’ Judd does the same, then glances at the flaming remains of the black chopper, which lies 50 metres down the ravine. ‘I never want to do that again.’ Corey points at him in weary agreement.
Without city lights to dull its power the star field above burns vivid and bright. They both stare at it, the scent of avgas thick but oddly agreeable. A moment passes.
‘Is this what the view’s like? From space?’
Judd nods. ‘Yeah, but up there, there’s just - more.’
‘I’d love to see it.’
‘This is pretty good.’
Corey takes it in with a nod.
‘You’re a hell of a pilot, by the way.’
Corey’s chuffed. ‘Really? Thanks.’ A moment passes. ‘Are you takin’ the piss?’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means, are you being sarcastic?’
‘Not at all. The way you throw that chopper around, it’s something else.’ He takes a moment then looks at the Australian. ‘How do you do it?’
Corey shrugs, surprised by the question. ‘Dunno. I just believe I can and trust the machine won’t break.’
Judd realises he hasn’t believed he can do anything for a long time, and hasn’t trusted the machine for even longer.
‘I’m sure you’re good too.’
Judd exhales. ‘Don’t know about that.’
‘You’re an astronaut, you’re
officially
good.’
‘Once. Maybe.’
Corey turns, regards him for a moment. ‘You feelin’ a bit sorry for yourself over there?’
Judd’s taken aback. ‘What? No. What do you mean?’
‘Sounds like it, that’s all.’
‘No. I’m not feeling sorry for myself. At all.’
‘Okay, no biggie.’ Corey looks back at the star field. ‘It’s just, you know, not a good look.’
Christ! The Australian’s right. He
is
feeling sorry for himself and it’s
not
a good look. It is, in fact, a terrible one. Then, like a one-two punch, he realises that has to be what killed his relationship with Rhonda. It wasn’t the turning up at Thompkins’ place or being jealous of her success, though neither were winning behaviour, it was the feeling sorry for himself. It’s a revelation, and he can’t imagine how he didn’t see it before. Over the last couple of years he’d seek Rhonda’s reassurance regularly and, he realises now, she
never
gave it to him. Not once. She’d change the subject or feign the sleepy face but never tell him what he wanted to hear. ‘Oh shit.’
‘What?’
‘I think you’re right.’
Corey nods, not surprised. ‘Oh yeah.’
‘Christ.’
‘Well, you know, don’t do it.’
When Corey says it like that it seems so simple - and Judd realises it is. So he decides, then and there, that he will never feel sorry for himself again.
‘Gotta make that call.’ Judd pulls himself up.
Corey gets up too. It’s an arduous process. Judd lends a hand. ‘You okay? You’re moving like my grandfather.’
‘I’m sure he’s a lovely bloke.’
‘He’s been dead for twelve years.’
‘Har-de-har - oh.’ The Australian grimaces as he places weight on his twisted ankle. ‘It only hurts when I walk.’ He turns, shouts into the night: ‘Spike! Come on!’
Judd pats the pockets of his pants. ‘No.’
‘What’s up?’
‘“Fuck!” is what’s up.’
‘I don’t understand —’
‘The phone.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You lost it? How could you lose it?’
‘I had other things on my mind, like running for my life.’ Judd frantically scans the surrounding area, then turns to Corey. ‘Don’t just stand there. Help!’
‘Of course, yes.’
They both search. Corey calls out again: ‘Spike! Now!’
‘It’s gotta be around here.’
‘Where did you lose it?’
‘If I knew that I wouldn’t be looking for it, would I?’
‘Quite right. Well, when did you last have it?’
Judd’s voice rises. ‘Sometime between being shot down and sprinting from the flaming wreck!’
‘Don’t get angry with me, I didn’t drop it.’
‘I’m not getting angry with you. I’m just getting angry
generally.’
Corey calls out again: ‘Spike! Come on now!’
Spike doesn’t come.
‘Where the hell is he?’ The Australian stops, looks over at the smoking remains of the chopper. ‘No.’ He moves towards it.
Judd watches and realises: ‘Oh. You don’t think he’s —’
‘Under there? Where is he, then?’
‘He was miles ahead of that thing.’
‘He would’ve turned around, come back to find me and then it would’ve —’ Corey stops, doesn’t want to say it.
‘He’s probably still running.’
‘No. He never runs off.’ Corey bows his head. ‘And all for that bloody jacket.’ He rubs at the corner of his eyes, which are now wet with tears.
Judd approaches, puts a hand on his shoulder, tries to lighten the moment. ‘Hey, I thought there was no crying for men in Australia?’
‘There are exceptions.’
A bark. They turn.
‘Spike!’ Corey’s face transforms.
‘The phone!’ And so does Judd’s.
The dog is fine and has the satellite phone in his mouth. He drops it and barks. Corey pats him on the head. ‘I was only doing that ‘cause I thought you were dead. Where were you?’