Vengeance (12 page)

When he left the meeting hall he had avoided going back to the kitchen, instead finding a restroom. He had ducked inside and left the door open a crack. A few seconds later footsteps had sounded outside and Goezlin had walked past.

If his cover was blown, then he would have to make his escape, and as quickly as possible. But he was on the verge of something momentous. This latest Angel mission could change the course of the war. He would leave only if there was no other choice.

He had waited until Goezlin was well past before exiting the restroom and returning the way he had come, taking a roundabout route to the gallery.

It took a few minutes for the female to make her way inside. A cautious approach, ensuring she was not being watched and that no one would connect her to the person who just entered.

She had moved a little past him, close enough for them to talk quietly, but far enough that they did not appear to be standing together.

“I am your contact,” she said. “I am Kozi.”

That was almost certainly not her birth name, Chisnall thought. Yozi and Kozi. They would have changed their names when they became “paired”.

Chisnall turned his gaze to a different painting, although in truth he barely saw it. His mind was fully occupied with what Kozi had said.

“I have been here many months,” Chisnall said. “I have been waiting for a contact since that time. Why now?”

“Until now your job was to lie low. To become accepted. To gain the trust of those around you,” Kozi said. “You always knew the time would come when we would call on you. This crisis meeting has provided us with a rare opportunity and so now we have a specific task for you to perform.”

Now
, Chisnall thought. On the day of the most vital Angel mission ever. Now they call on him.

The timing could not have been worse.

Chisnall almost asked Kozi how he knew he could trust her, but the question was unnecessary. Just by her presence here, he could trust her. If not, then he would be in a PGZ prison cell by now. Besides, she was a bobblehead. All of the Peacemakers he had met so far had been bobbleheads.

“What is this task?” Chisnall asked.

“We will get to that,” Kozi said. She moved off, walking casually, admiring works as she walked. Chisnall waited before following her. She had moved to a different section of the gallery.

The section was labelled as
Indigenous Art
. In it were paintings that he knew well. The Mona Lisa; Starry Night; The Scream. These were works by the great art masters through human history. Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Munch. The Bzadians had assembled them here from all around the world. Works from the indigenous peoples of Earth. Humans.

Kozi stopped in front of the Mona Lisa. Chisnall turned to face the other direction, finding a series of paintings of Native Americans. It struck him, looking at the artworks, that it was a depiction of a lost time, a way of life that was gone forever. The way human civilisation would be gone forever if the Bzadians won the war.

Chisnall examined the paintings, saying nothing, waiting for Kozi to speak.

“Do you think it a coincidence that the wife of your enemy is now your contact?” she asked.

“A little,” Chisnall said.

“It is no coincidence,” Kozi said. “I asked for this role. I wanted to meet you face to face, the man who killed my pairling. I wanted to find out the truth of what happened.”

“You hold me responsible for his death, yet you hold no grudge?” Chisnall asked.

“You were both soldiers,” Kozi said. “I had, and still have, great sadness, but no anger. At least not towards you. To those who started and who prolong this war, yes. But we will get to that in good time. Tell me about Yozi. For many months I held out the hope that he had been captured by human forces after Wivenhoe, that this was why his body was never found. I no longer believe that to be true, but still, I must know.”

Chisnall thought of the mighty snakehead of water that smashed into the dam where Yozi was standing. There wouldn’t have been anything to find. His body would have been pulverised.

He began to speak, slowly, deliberately, at times with his eyes shut, discussing for the first time ever the events of that day.

He told Kozi about Yozi diving into the lake at the base of the dam to disarm the bomb. He told her of the other bombs that sent an enormous wall of water smashing into the dam, powerful enough to burst through the massive steel gates and concrete walls of the dam.

“It may surprise you to know that Yozi wanted the war to end, as I do,” Kozi said. “Although he would never let that interfere with his duty.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Chisnall said. The words sounded trite and meaningless.

“You had the chance to kill him earlier,” Yozi said. “In the deserts at Uluru. But you did not. Yozi could not understand why you did not do your duty that day.”

“It did not feel right,” Chisnall said.

“And your feelings were more important than your duty?” Kozi said. “Perhaps this was why Yozi respected you.”

There was silence and she walked on to another painting. Chisnall did not move.

“We believe there is a way to end this war,” Kozi said. “Quickly and with little further loss of life on either side. It will not be easy, and it will involve some difficult decisions. The question is, whether you are prepared to do what it takes.”

“I have been asked that question before,” Chisnall said. “To stop this war, I believe I would do almost anything.”

“I hoped you would say that,” Kozi said. “Now we must find out if it is true. I have left a package for you near the front entrance, in a corner beneath a painting of Uluru. There are instructions in the package. There is also a phone. If you need to talk to me again, press the talk button. It will connect directly to me.”

Chisnall studied the paintings for a little longer.

When he turned, she was gone.

The filters on the Bzadian combat suit removed the smoke, but not the smell of it. An acrid, bitter smell seemed to permeate Price’s body as if it had got into her bloodstream. They had replaced The Tsar’s helmet. Brogan was worried about the wound, but right now breathing was the bigger of his two problems.

Besides, if the artery in The Tsar’s neck wasn’t sealed, then it wouldn’t matter, Price thought. She didn’t say that out loud.

The rotorbot had not left. In fact, now there were two, or maybe more, the beat of their rotors pulsating the smoke around them.

The Angels had left their hidey-hole in the wall of the forest. They’d had to. But the smoke, although unpleasant, was helping them. It was so thick now that visibility was just a few metres.

They huddled under camo sheets to hide their heat signatures, the only way the rotorbots could find them in these conditions. Wall drove. Barnard lay on the back of the truck with The Tsar, holding her camo sheet over both of them. Monster had offered, but Barnard had insisted.

The Tsar’s camo sheet was spread over the front of the truck to obscure any heat given off by its electrical engine.

The glow of the fire lit the smoke behind them, and from the wide spread, Price was sure that it had already jumped the firebreak. Perhaps the Bzadians had not yet learned about Australian wildfires, she thought. If they had, they would have kept the firebreaks clear. If fire took hold here, and was not kept in check, it could spread all the way to Canberra.

Several times they stopped when the sound of the rotorbots grew louder, waiting nervously until the sound moved away.

They came to a crossroad, where a highway intersected the firebreak. This road was much cleaner than the last one.

“Take it,” Monster said.

“We can’t risk the roads,” Price said. “We’d be too easy to spot.”

“We’d make better time,” Barnard said. “And the smoke is still giving us good cover. I think it’s worth the risk.”

Price wondered if her concern for The Tsar was colouring her thinking.

“Nothing is worth the risk,” Brogan said. “Stick to the firebreak.”

“Take road,” Monster said.

“Why?” Price asked in exasperation.

“Just feeling,” Monster said.

“Monster–” Price began but Barnard cut her off.

“Take the road,” she said. “We’re going too slowly. These wildfires can travel faster than a car in these conditions.”

Price couldn’t argue with that, but she still wasn’t sure if Barnard was offering the right advice for the right reasons. She eventually nodded. Not so much because of Barnard. It might have been silly, but she trusted Monster’s “feelings”.

She just hoped she wouldn’t be proved wrong.

The highway, like the last one, was clearly unused, and covered with leaves, branches and other detritus of the forest that surrounded it. Here and there they had to manoeuvre around large branches, even fallen trees, but it was still faster, much faster, than the rough, undulating earth of the firebreak. It was also noisier, which worried Price more than she told the others. The engine was louder at speed and the knobbly off-road tyres made a constant buzz on the bitumen.

“Any sign of rotorcraft?” Price asked.

“No sign of anything,” Brogan said. Her eyes and ears seemed to be almost as good as The Tsar’s now-defunct scope.

“Great,” Price said.

“I’m not so sure,” Barnard said. “They’ve been buzzing around everywhere, searching for us. Why have they suddenly bugged out?”

“Because they’ve given up,” Wall said.

“Why would they suddenly give up?” Barnard said. “If they’ve gone, it’s for a reason.”

The easterly wind, which had given them such a boost back on the yacht, had increased in strength even further. Strong gusts were buffeting the truck, bringing with them squalls of black smoke and the heat of the bushfires.

“Must go faster,” Monster said, glancing backwards.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Wall said.

“Not fast enough,” Monster said.

Price looked back. A huge flickering glow behind them consumed the sky. The fire was catching up to them, fast. The next strong gust brought a furnace-like blast of heat, and if not for their body armour, they would have been badly burned. The temperature was rising and sweat dripped into Price’s eyes.

“That’s why the rotorbots have disappeared,” she said. “They could see this coming and they’ve got out of harm’s way.”

“They’ll send them back to search for our bodies later,” Wall said.

“Any other happy thoughts, keep them to yourself,” Price said.

Barnard was studying the GPS map on her wrist computer.

“There’s water ahead,” she said. “Not much more than a stream though. Looks like a tributary to a river. It’s very narrow, but it might be enough.”

“Enough for what?” Price asked.

“We get in the water, let the fire burn past us,” Barnard said. “It’s our best chance.”

“How far ahead?” Price asked, watching the rapidly growing glow behind them. The air was filled with burning embers, swirling on the wind currents. It looked like a scene from someone’s version of hell.

“About a klick,” Barnard said.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Wall said.

“Try to cheer up,” Price said. “Things could be worse.”

“How could things possibly get any worse?” Wall asked.

Before the words had left his mouth, the little truck began to slow.

“Faster, Wall,” Price said.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

She turned back to the front and saw the massive tree trunk that completely blocked the highway. The roots of the tree were embedded in the high bank on the right-hand side. The trunk had crushed the guard rail on the left side and the tip of the tree hung out over the edge, where another bank led down to a wide, flat stream.

The swirling smoke in front of them began to glow, then split into two distinct lights. Headlights.

“I think things just got worse,” Brogan said.