Please god, someone, anyone. Please get me out of this.
Dana glanced into the derelict houses on either side, considering a dive inside. But the windows were boarded and the doors padlocked.
She broke out of shadows into the hot sun on the driveway and walked around the back of the car. Her brain raced as she crouched down and tapped on the passenger window. She could try giving them a warning, but Barry would kill her if he overheard.
As the passenger window whirred down, Dana briefly sighted the two agents, both looking her way. The woman was thin, wearing a lot of make-up. The man – more like a boy really – was in his early twenties, geeky with a spindly little neck.
You’re about to die.
‘Listen …’ Dana said, then she paused for a fraction of a second, unable to decide whether to go into the spiel about her boyfriend or try saving their lives at the probable cost of her own.
But there was no time for a second word. Barry had timed his run well and already had the silenced pistol nosing through the gap in the driver’s side window. He fired into the woman’s chest at point blank range. The young man was startled and got a fraction of a second’s glance at Barry before his heart exploded.
There was less blood than you’d expect and the muffled sound reminded Dana of two cushions banging into one another during a pillow fight. Barry moved the muzzle upwards and Dana scrambled back from the car, shying away from the head shots she knew Barry would administer to finish the job.
As the bullets pulsed inside the car, Dana felt the most powerful emotional explosion of her life.
I just watched two people die.
She thought she was going to throw up. Then everything started spinning. Raw panic: light-headed, barely knowing where she was, with purple and green flashes exploding in front of her eyes.
‘Shift it,’ Barry said, as he tugged her arm. The voice sounded like it was coming down a telephone line.
He yanked Dana forward and grabbed the handle of a silver car door. She hadn’t even noticed Nina pulling up a few seconds before.
‘Come on, hurry up.’
Dana trembled as the car door slammed and Nina hit the gas. She looked back at the red Holden, hoping – praying – that it hadn’t happened.
When she looked forwards, Barry was grinning at her between the front seats.
‘Sorry I got rough with you there, sweetheart, but we had to lose those dudes. You held up well.’
Dana gawped as she tried to recover. ‘Is this a different car to the one we were in earlier?’
‘Sure is,’ Barry grinned. ‘Had it parked in a garage a few houses up these past couple of weeks. Nobody should come looking for us in this one.’
Dana had clamped her hands under her arms to stop them shaking. It was too awful: the team watching the house was dead and the car with the tracking device was still parked inside the garage, waiting to get burned up in the fire. But Dana knew she had to put this behind her and get hold of herself. Two innocent people had died. She had to make sure they were the only ones.
35. LIES
Lauren had been right: they were only slightly lost. It took Rat less than three minutes to reach the vanilla scented corridors leading towards Joel Regan’s home.
‘So your dad’s a spy?’ Rat said as they walked, clearly far from convinced.
‘Not a spy exactly,’ James stuttered, struggling to make his explanation plausible without revealing the existence of CHERUB. ‘Our dad knows a couple of dudes who work for Australian intelligence. When our mum went nuts and joined the Survivors, he asked them to help us escape. They agreed to help him, on condition that we nosed around Susie’s office before we left.’
‘Right,’ Rat said, suspiciously. ‘How have they been communicating with you?’
‘We’ve got hidden radios,’ Lauren said.
‘And why exactly is the Australian secret service interested in Susie Regan?’
James shrugged, deliberately sounding irritated by all the questions in the hope that it would discourage Rat from asking more. ‘I don’t know and I don’t really care; as long as we can get out of here and go back to living with our dad.’
Mercifully, Rat had to shut up because they’d reached the curved ramp leading up to the residence.
‘The butler will stop us if we go up there,’ Rat whispered. ‘But I know a back way. You two wouldn’t have got jack without my help.’
‘OK,’ James said. ‘Stop rubbing it in, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to come with us.’
Rat led them through a door that was only distinguishable from the surrounding marble by a recessed catch. The three kids found themselves in a musty cloakroom, the long rails on either side of them lined with empty wooden hangers.
‘Keep your eyes peeled and your mouths shut,’ Rat said, when he reached the door at the back of the room. ‘As well as the butler, there’s usually a couple of cleaning staff and my dad’s nurse on duty.’
‘Who actually lives upstairs?’ James asked.
‘Only Susie and my dad.’
‘Right,’ James said, ‘where are we headed?’
‘You want Susie’s office, so I’m gonna take you right through the basement. We’ll come up the back stairs. When you step off the landing, Susie’s office will be the second door on your left.’
‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ Lauren asked.
‘I’ve had my arse beaten enough times, ta very much. I’ll wait on the landing.’
They crept anxiously through the basement rooms of the Regan residence: a laundry and dry cleaning area, a disused kitchen large enough to cater for parties of hundreds of guests. Finally, they cut down a narrow corridor and passed the doors of the nurse and butler’s cell-like living quarters.
As they went through the last set of doors, they were shocked to see the butler’s black trousers and mirror finished shoes poking out from under the stairwell. Rat looked aghast as James put his hand in front of the butler’s mouth to check on his breathing.
‘I can’t see any obvious injuries,’ James said. ‘But I seriously doubt he collapsed under here. Someone must have dragged him.’
Lauren nodded. ‘Drugged by the looks of it.’
‘How long do you think he’ll be out for?’ Rat asked.
‘Depends what they’ve given him,’ Lauren shrugged. ‘Might be less than an hour, might be a day or more if they used a heavy-duty tranquiliser like Ketamine or something.’
James looked at his sister. ‘Do you think we should carry on?’
‘Well …’ Lauren said, before stopping to think for a second. ‘It could be dangerous, but something’s going on up there. I reckon we ought to at least try and find out. It could be critical to the mission.’
‘What mission?’ Rat asked.
Lauren realised she’d slipped up. ‘I mean our escape,’ she said weakly.
‘How does it affect that?’ Rat asked. ‘Why don’t we just clear out and tell these spy dudes that we couldn’t get into Susie’s office? They’re hardly gonna send us back, are they?’
‘We promised our dad,’ James said.
‘I shouldn’t really complain,’ Rat said, half grinning. ‘I’ve spent my whole life moaning that nothing exciting ever happens around here.’
As James put his foot on the bottom step, Rat had a brainwave. He leaned forwards and grabbed a bunch of keys out of the butler’s jacket. They headed up four flights of stairs. The first two were bare concrete, the third and fourth covered in deep carpet. Rat opened a maple door and peeked through into a broad corridor.
‘Looks good,’ he whispered.
‘Are you coming with us now?’ James asked.
‘Gotta admit I’m curious,’ Rat said.
The three kids walked briskly. James knocked when he reached the second door.
‘If somebody answers, leg it,’ he whispered.
There was no reply and the door wasn’t locked. It was a large office, gaudily furnished with a marble-topped desk and chairs finis
hed in purple leather. While Lauren kept lookout in the doorway, James walked around the desk and checked out the computer.
‘Crap,’ he gasped, as he saw the computer had the side panel ripped away and a bunch of loose leads dangling across the carpet.
‘What’s up?’ Rat asked.
‘They’ve taken the hard disk out. It’s like they knew we were coming, or something.’
‘Can’t we make it work without that bit?’ Rat asked naively.
James shook his head. ‘All the information inside a computer is stored on the hard disk, it’s the only bit that matters.’
Lauren took her head out of the corridor. ‘Do you think Susie has links inside ASIS? Maybe someone’s tipped her off about the raid.’
‘What raid?’ Rat asked.
James deliberately ignored him. ‘Well, I packed up the lab this morning. Maybe Susie’s shipping out with Brian Evans.’
Rat was starting to look angry. ‘How the hell do you know about Brian Evans?’
‘What do you mean?’ James asked.
‘No way,’ Rat said bitterly. ‘You guys are holding out on me. How can you expect me to trust you when you’re feeding me lies? Why should I tell you anything?’
James gritted his teeth. ‘Please Rat; I swear you can trust us, but I haven’t got time to explain every little detail.’
‘Why can’t you just tell me the truth?’
‘Fine,’ James said, exasperated. ‘Me and Lauren are undercover agents. We’ve been sent in to uncover links between the Survivors and a terrorist group called Help Earth. We wanted to get the data off Susie’s computer before we left because in less than ninety minutes a bunch of commandos are gonna drop out of helicopters and storm the Ark.’
Rat considered this information for a moment.
‘That really is the truth isn’t it?’ he said, breaking into a wry grin. ‘That’s why neither of you got brainwashed, that’s why you’re both so smart, that’s why you’re both good at fighting and you know about computers and stuff. Oh man, this is totally amazing.’
Lauren was horrified that they’d blown their cover, but fairly confident that they’d get away with it: the mission was almost over, they hadn’t gone into any specifics about CHERUB and nobody would believe Rat if he opened his mouth.
‘OK,’ James said. ‘I told you, now tell us about the Evans brothers.’
‘I don’t know about brothers,’ Rat said. ‘But one afternoon I came up to Susie’s office with the letters to sign and she’s lying over her desk snogging this Brian dude. She totally freaked out. Started screaming her head off and threatened to have me killed if I breathed a word.’
‘I bet that’s it,’ James said, ‘she’s running away with Brian. When I drove in with Ernie half an hour ago there was another jet on the runway. They’ve drugged the butler and ripped the hard drives from their computers to cover their tracks.’
Rat nodded. ‘That would explain why she didn’t want me coming over with the signature book today as well. But I don’t see the need for secrecy unless they’re up to something else. I mean, Susie’s not under lock and key. She flies down to Sydney for shopping trips all the time.’
‘What else do you think it could be?’ Lauren asked.
Rat shrugged. ‘I haven’t got a clue.’
‘Has either of you heard the jet taking off?’ James asked.
‘Nope,’ Lauren said, as Rat shook his head.
‘I’ll radio Chloe and warn her that Susie is leaving,’ James said.
‘Aaagghh!’ Lauren gasped, quickly closing the door. ‘Susie and Brian – they just came into the corridor. They’ve got massive suitcases and they’re waddling this way.’
*
Nina drove the silver car briskly, but not so fast that they attracted attention. Dana kept replaying the shooting in her mind, trying to think of something she might have done differently to bring the situation under control. Although the shooting had shaken her up, she’d finally straightened out her head enough to string together a few coherent thoughts.
They’d set off from the outskirts of Darwin and within minutes they were on a stretch of open road, touching a hundred and twenty kph. They pulled through a metal gate and on to a dirt track leading to a disused stable block. Dana realised they weren’t anywhere near the coast and got seriously worried when they passed behind the stables, revealing a dirt airstrip and a twin prop aeroplane.
Eve asked the obvious question. ‘What is this? I thought we were getting on a boat.’
Dana wasn’t sure she’d have the stomach for Barry’s answer. He looked between the front seats as Nina pulled on the handbrake and yanked the ignition key.
‘We’ll be getting on a boat, but it’s moored off the Wessel Islands, six hundred kilometres from here.’
Dana couldn’t understand. John had said the only other LNG facility in Australia was over three thousand kilometres away. A boat would take days to travel that kind of distance. She looked around as she got out of the car, hoping for some sign that another ASIS unit had picked up the trail and tracked them. But all she could hear was birdsong and flies, and her view towards the highway was blocked by the abandoned stables.
Barry headed across to the small aircraft, with Dana, Eve and Nina following. He pulled a weatherproof canopy from around each engine, while Nina took the blocks out from under the wheels.
‘So,’ Dana enquired, sounding as unruffled as her spinning head would let her. ‘Is the journey going to take very long?’
‘We’ll be in the air about a hundred minutes,’ Barry said. ‘We’re meeting up with a high-speed boat. If the weather stays fine we should be able to make it across the Arafura Sea in four to four and a half hours.’
‘Oh,’ Dana nodded, wishing that she had the vaguest idea where the Arafura Sea or the Wessel Islands were.
Fortunately Eve had a better grasp of local geography. ‘So the LNG terminal is in Indonesia?’
Dana cursed in her head. John and his ASIS colleagues had only considered Australian oil facilities, but parts of Indonesia were just a few hundred kilometres across the sea.
‘It’s not that we wanted to keep you girls in the dark,’ Nina explained, as Barry opened up the door on the side of the aircraft. ‘But everything Help Earth does is on a need-to-know basis.’
‘Smart,’ Dana said, as the reality of this rapidly changing situation began sinking in. Her mission wasn’t going to end with a neat arrest at a Darwin dockside. Even worse, she was out of transmission range, so there was no prospect of radioing John with an update before take-off.
She couldn’t help but grudgingly admire the combination of excellent organisation and ruthlessness shown by Help Earth. They’d consistently shown that they were the most effective terrorist group in the world and it looked like they’d fooled the authorities once again.
Barry was already belting himself into the pilot’s seat. He waved at the others to hurry inside the plane, as one of the engines blasted into life. Dana was the last one to step inside and Barry began taxiing as Nina pulled shut the door.
‘Settle down and get your seat-belts on,’ Barry yelled from the cockpit. ‘These dirt runways ain’t exactly renowned for smooth take-offs.’
36. GURU
‘I doubt Susie and Brian will come in here again,’ James said, thinking hard. ‘They’ve already stripped the computer.’
‘Don’t wet yourselves,’ Rat said, as he walked up to the back wall and grabbed a bookcase. ‘This was my mum’s study in the old days. This leads through to her dressing room.’
The bookcase swung forwards, opening up a low door. James was the tallest and had to duck as they passed through.
‘I love those,’ James grinned. ‘When I’m rich, all my rooms are gonna have hidden door thingies.’
The room they’d stepped into was lined with open wardrobes. There was a mini-bar and a dressing table stacked with designer make-up and perfume. The floor was covered in coat hangers where Susie’s clothes had b
een stripped out in a hurry and smoke lurked in the air.
Lauren peered into a large metal dustbin and saw that it was full of ashes. ‘Looks like they’ve burned what they couldn’t carry with them.’
James shook his head, looking a touch sad. ‘Let’s face it, Susie’s covered her tracks. We’re not gonna find anything useful up here. We might as well leave.’
James sat at the dressing table and pulled off his trainer to get the radio. Rat looked impressed when he saw it.
‘I’d better sneak a look into the corridor and see where Susie and Brian have got to,’ Lauren said.
James nodded. ‘Good idea. If they’re lumbering down the stairs with all that luggage, we’d better hole up here until they’ve gone.’
‘They might even be coming back,’ Rat said. ‘Susie’s a clothes nut. She’s not gonna want to leave too much behind.’
James looked at his radio. ‘So, when do you reckon I should ask Chloe to pick us up?’
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t call her until we’re sure they’ve gone,’ Lauren suggested.
A look of revelation blossomed on Rat’s face. ‘Wait up, while they’re sneaking out the back way, there’s nothing to stop us going out the front. The butler’s unconscious and I’d bet my last buck that Susie has made sure all the other staff are off-duty or got whacked on the head. It’ll mean sneaking out through my dad’s bedroom, but he’s asleep most of the time anyway.’
Lauren smiled. ‘And he’s not in any state to chase after us even if he’s awake.’
‘Makes sense,’ James nodded. ‘So which turret should we leave by?’
‘There’s only two open this late,’ Rat said. ‘There’s a chance we’ll bump into Susie if we use the airport turret, which leaves the one over by the vehicle compound.’
‘It’s a long walk, but there’s hardly any security up there,’ James said. ‘Me and Ernie always drive straight through in the truck and nobody even looks at us.’ Decision made, he pressed the transmit button on his radio. ‘Chloe, can you read me?’