Blank, p.10
Blank, page 10
“We’ve likewise detected no signs of life in the town,” Warrington added. “The Army has conducted no reconnaissance flights to Alice Springs in the past two months. Seems someone in Army logistics wrote the place off from day one.”
“That makes no sense at all,” said Luckman. “You’re telling me no-one has bothered to check on the joint defence facility?”
“You know all about the cluster-fuck of chaos we went through in the first weeks after the disasters,” said Shearer. “Everything was devoted to disaster recovery in the major population centres. The status of the intelligence apparatus didn’t figure highly on that list, or at least not until China and the US started pointing missiles at each other. Then within days, the Americans were at DEFCON 2 and demanding we surrender all operational control of Pine Gap.”
“So in a nutshell,” Luckman concluded, “you have no idea what’s happening out there.”
“Come on, it’s not exactly flying behind enemy lines. Just keep your eyes and ears open, that’s all we’re saying.”
“If I do this, there’s someone else I’d want to take. She’s a civilian but she has skills that could prove useful.”
Shearer shook his head. “That’s a complication we don’t need.”
He was right. There was no way to justify taking Mel along, other than his own gut feeling that she’d be useful combined with a certain sinking feeling that came with the idea of leaving her behind on her own in Amberley.
“If you want me, she’s part of the deal. Unless you think you can find yourself another saboteur.”
Shearer stared at him and seemed to go pink in the face. He glanced at Warrington, who shook her head.
Shearer sighed. “Fine, take her with you. But if you fuck this up, I’ll have your head. Hers as well.”
“I’ll get it done,” Luckman assured him.
“We’re trying to prevent a war, son. That means you do whatever it takes to get it done.”
If only his friends at Greenpeace could see him now.
“Won’t they see me coming?”
“I told the US Embassy we were sending out a reconnaissance mission to re-establish contact with the base. I didn’t get any argument,” said Shearer.
“How soon do you want me to leave?”
“As soon as you can get your people on board this plane.”
“Don’t s’pose you’ve cleared this with Brigadier Martin?”
“Jim Martin will do what I tell him to do.”
Twenty
Eddie Bell levelled out the jet as they reached a cruising altitude of 11,400 metres. At a speed of 850 kilometres an hour, flight time to Alice Springs would be about two and a half hours. Luckman unclipped his seat belt and climbed out of the co-pilot’s chair to check on his passenger.
He sank into a leather recliner and swung it around to face her. He knew full well that Shearer had used the luxury jet to bait the hook. It wasn’t what made him bite, but it sure as hell was a nice way to travel.
Mel was perturbed. “What are you so happy about?”
“Almost feels like going on holidays.”
She shook her head at him. “To Alice Springs, as predicted by Seamus’s little spirit friend.”
Luckman shook his head incredulously. “Not sure what to make of that,” he admitted. He reached over to a bag he had stashed on one of the other seats. “I got you something.” He pulled out a compact Canon digital video camera.
She took the camera and began checking it out.
“Whatever we encounter out here, I’d like you to film it. Sound OK to you?”
She shrugged. “What exactly are we doing Luckman?”
“Can’t say too much.”
“You have no idea what we’re going to find, do you?”
“A ghost town is the most likely scenario. Except for the Americans, of course. In my experience, they’re pretty good at self-preservation.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Has it occurred to you the General might be sending you on a wild goose chase to get you out of the way?”
“I’m no big deal to him – why would he bother?” Luckman wondered. “Besides...” He stopped himself from spilling the beans on Shearer’s broader agenda, but realised keeping his mouth shut would not stop her seeing his thoughts like they were printed on his forehead.
She smiled knowingly. “I’m not talking about what he told you. I’m talking about what he didn’t tell you – that with you gone they can deal with the Blanks with no-one around to make their lives more difficult.”
He frowned. “Of all the things Shearer might be up to, that’s the last thing I’m worried about.”
“Look, obviously the man values you. But it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t sacrifice you to get the job done. He’s a General, for God’s sake. They’re paid to make decisions that are paid for with the lives of other men.”
“I trust that man with my life,” he insisted. “You don’t need to worry about the Blanks. He told me a decision hadn’t been made and I believe him.”
“Can I just point out the country is under martial law?”
“We still have a functioning head of government. The generals answer to the PM.”
She didn’t look at all convinced. Hardly surprising – he didn’t believe it himself. Shearer had been cagey about the Prime Minister’s view of the mission.
“Your trust in authority is admirable, Luckman, but I can’t help wondering if it’s naively misplaced. Now isn’t the time to renew your faith in the state religion.”
“Come again?”
“Governments are not benevolent authorities. Anyone who harbours a blind faith in the Government’s intention to do the best thing by its people is doomed to disappointment.”
“Isn’t belief in good governance one of the fundamentals of democracy?”
“Oh sweet Jesus. And you call yourself a greenie? What about the massacres of the Aboriginal people, the American Indians, the Jews, the Palestinians?”
He of all people needed no reminding of Indigenous history.
“Your point being?”
“The Blanks have been interned like asylum seekers. The Government just wants to lock them up and forget about them.”
“You’re right,” he admitted. Then in a whisper, “I get it. Just remember Eddie doesn’t know what I’m heading out here to do.” He gazed at her thoughtfully. “All this – it’s about natural selection in its most extreme. Survival of the fittest.”
She shook her head. “This is a whole lot closer to devolution. Say what you like about democracy Luckman, but from where I’m sitting governments in crisis always do whatever the hell they like and then simply lie about it to cover their tracks.”
He knew precisely what she was telling him. “Democracy is a long way short of perfect but it damn sure beats the alternative,” he replied. “I’m free to sing my opposition to government policy from the rooftops. In fact, I’ve done precisely that on several occasions. But it’s a hell of a leap from there to fundamentally rejecting government as a functional entity. I know it’s not perfect, but no-one’s fired guns at me in this country for conducting a Greenpeace protest action.”
She smiled disarmingly and put her feet in his lap. “No, they just marginalised you as an extremist. And those sort of labels are hard to ditch. A good idea is far more dangerous than a bullet. Cheaper too. As soon as you start seriously rattling the paradigm, that’s when they move to take you out of play. Governments are more than just the people who get voted into office. The people behind the scenes have the real power.”
“I’m not rattling anyone’s paradigm,” he assured her.
“The first step in manufacturing consent is to silence or discredit your most vocal dissidents. And you, my good man, are a dissident.”
“You’re quoting Noam Chomsky at me like the world’s continuing with business as usual. But everything’s changed, Mel.”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying to you,” she pointed out quietly. “The old rules, whatever they were, no longer apply. It’s no holds barred now.”
“If you’re scared, don’t be. I’ll keep you safe.”
“But who’s keeping you safe, Stone?”
Twenty-One
Luckman spent much of the second half of the journey in the cockpit with Bell where he felt he might be safer from re-education or tricky questions. Bell was having issues of his own. He was scribbling down calculations on a piece of paper and gazing variously between the plane’s compass and the position of the sun in the sky.
“What’s up?” Luckman asked.
“The compass is all over the place. And out here there are no obvious landmarks to guide the way.”
The Earth’s magnetic field had been in a state of flux since the Sunburst hit. The lines of force oscillated wildly from one day to the next, making navigation over large distances extremely difficult. With electricity cut across the board, the usual radar transponders were not functioning. Bell was flying by the seats of his pants.
“The boffins reckoned it would settle down after a few weeks, but if anything it’s getting worse,” he complained.
“I have the utmost faith in you, my friend,” said Luckman.
“If the bloody Americans gave us access to their military satellite I’d be able to use GPS. Bastards. Don’t they trust us?”
Luckman raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t taken Bell into confidence on the General’s plan, knowing he wouldn’t like it. “I’d guess the Americans are trusting no-one at the moment.”
The pilot sighed. “I’ll get us there one way or another.” He tapped the console. “I set the heading indicator before we left, so that gives me a pretty good idea of the direction we’re headed. The HI is gyroscopically controlled – it doesn’t rely on the Earth’s magnetic field. But I’m tracking north because of the crosswind.”
Luckman turned to gaze out the cockpit window and quickly became lost in thought. If someone held a gun to his head he might be forced to admit Mel’s interpretation of events was a worry, although it might still simply be anxious pessimism rather than genuine intuitive deduction. She hadn’t met Shearer face to face so her reading of his intentions was second-hand at best. But then Shearer had as much as told him he was expendable. And Mel was right about one thing – his activist past and previous run-ins with the law would make him a handy scapegoat. There was also the open question of an exit strategy. Shearer didn’t have one of those, meaning he would have to work it out on the fly. Right now, Luckman could only think of one way to make it back to the plane once he had taken out his target – he would have to kill anyone who tried to stop him.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and was jolted into the present by the look of shock and surprise on his pilot’s face.
“They just spoke to me.”
“Who? Amberley?”
“Alice Springs air traffic control. There’s someone down there.”
Luckman reached for his own headset. “That’s not entirely unexpected. It’s probably the US military.”
“I repeat, alpha two seven five do you read? Over.”
“They know we’re here,” said Luckman. “You might as well respond.”
“This is Alpha two seven five,” Bell answered.
“Alpha two seven five, you are cleared to land on runway one-zero, over.”
“One-zero, roger.”
Bell looked at Luckman. “He sound American to you?”
“No,” Luckman admitted. “He’s Australian.”
The Yanks couldn’t fake an Aussie accent to save themselves.
“What are we doing here Captain?”
“I told you. We’re here to re-establish communications with the joint defence facility.”
It was possible the airport ATC was an Australian soldier or an ASIO operative controlling the airspace at the bidding of the US military. It would be safe to assume the Americans were maintaining air security around their precious base. They would need Alice Springs airport to service Pine Gap. There were no domestic flights any more. Airlines had ceased to exist. The Sunburst’s electromagnetic assault crippled commercial airliners and on that day they had plummeted from the sky in their thousands. Military planes such as the General’s jet were shielded for EMP impact as a precaution against nuclear attack.
“So what’s the plan?” Bell asked him.
Good question. “Let’s just get down there and settle in. We’ll take it from there. But I’m gonna need you to stay with the plane for the time being.”
“Sure. You want me to try to refuel?”
“Not unless it’s critical. I have no way of knowing whether the fuel supply here is secure.”
“We should be fine for the trip home.”
“Then no more fuel. With a bit of luck we’ll be leaving inside 24 hours. I don’t want any foul ups.”
Bell heard the note of concern and saw the troubled expression on his face. “What are you worried about?”
“Being caught off guard.”
“Shit happens.”
“Yes, but what kind of shit and how much of it is there?”
“Always plenty of that to go round in my experience,” Bell told him.
“They told me the satellite uplink still functions perfectly. I’m guessing that means the mobile phone tower out there is fine too. You’ll be able to call me if you need to.”
Luckman expected a squad of soldiers to be waiting for them, but they landed without incident. There was no sign of life across the open expanse of the air field. It was eerie. Bell taxied the Challenger to a corner of the tarmac about 100 metres from an exit. Safely parked, the pilot walked them to a gate in the perimeter fence where he punched a code into a security pad. The cyclone gate opened automatically.
Bell pulled out his mobile phone and checked it. “Good as gold – five bars,” he confirmed. “When you want to come back in, ring me and I’ll come and open the gate.”
Still no sign of a welcoming committee. They headed for the drop-off zone outside the main airport terminal. Luckman had never been to Alice Springs before, but he had seen on a map the airport was about 13 kilometres from the town centre. If there was no-one here to offer them a lift they might be forced to walk it.
Twenty-Two
The carpark was empty, but as it turned out, transport would not be a problem. A cab was waiting on a rank at the airport driveway. Luckman glanced at Mel, eyebrow raised, then stuck his head in through the open passenger window.
“You vacant?”
A leathery woman was behind the wheel sucking the marrow out of a cigarette. He saw her eyes widen momentarily as she registered that he was a blackfella, but one who also happened to be wearing an Army uniform.
“Sure love, hop in.”
Luckman opened the back door and ushered Mel into the car.
“Where y’off to?” she asked them.
“Can you recommend a motel? Close to town, not too expensive,” he told her.
“Yep. No worries.” She pulled off the rank and swung the cab north on the main highway.
“I’m surprised taxis are still running in Alice,” Mel noted.
“Petrol gettin' expensive again in the city?”
“Petrol? What petrol?” Luckman muttered.
“What city?” Mel countered quietly.
“Wouldn’t live in the city if ya paid me,” said the cabbie.
“Looks like the Americans are keeping the town well supplied.”
“They keep to themselves. We do the same. I’ll just warn you though – we’re havin’ problems with the TV tower. No reception at the moment.”
“Been hearing much in the way of news?” asked Luckman.
“Dribs and drabs. You’ve had some big blackouts in the city, eh? We’re lucky here. Our power station runs on gas and diesel. Everything here still works. Except the bloody TV.”
“Wow that is lucky,” Luckman agreed breezily. He knew all too well the Alice Springs power station would have one thing in common with every other electricity generator in the world – it relied upon massive transformers to step up capacity to the necessary voltage for transmission down the lines and then to step it back down again for end users. Those transformers would have burnt out here just like they had burnt out everywhere else in the world. If the town had power it was coming from another source.
But he had no idea how the cab driver was filling her petrol tank.
The 10-kilometre ride into the centre of Alice took them through flat and barren countryside. It barely raised a flicker of interest for Luckman until they approached the town proper where the road passed through a gap in the stony mountain range skirting the town. It felt like passing through a gateway, as if somehow the land itself was welcoming him.
“Heavitree Gap. Sacred site for the local Abos,” the cabbie told them.
“I can see why,” Luckman replied.
“You do know ‘Abos’ is an offensive term these days, don’t you?” Mel informed the driver, who pretended not to hear.
“I’ve heard a lot worse,” Luckman admitted quietly.
The Riverview Motel delivered exactly what it promised – a view of the sandpit optimistically named the Todd River. Even in the wet season the rainfall in Alice was generally so low you were lucky to see more than a trickle flowing down the Todd.
Luckman forked out a fistful of dollars for the driver. The currency had ceased to be of any relevance in Brisbane. She accepted it happily.
“I need to head out to Pine Gap a bit later. You free?”
“Nope. Sorry love. Don’t do trips out of town. You’ll need to rent a car for that.” She took off before he could argue the point.
There were no signs of life in the motel’s front office. Mel rang a small bell on the counter.
“Cut it out will ya?” a woman screamed from a room behind the office. She appeared through a side entrance. “Oh. Sorry... I thought it was my grandson playing silly buggers. What can I do for you?”
“We’d like a room,” Mel told her.
“Two rooms,” Luckman corrected. “Actually, you better make that three. We’re expecting a friend.”
