Blood Is a Stranger (35 page)

The prisoners arrived at their haven in the jungle and stood around for the first hour like a bunch of stranded airline passengers. When the guards arrived, they split the fifty prisoners into groups and marked out work areas on the edge
o{
the jungle, which was all the instruction they
would be given for the day.

The guards relaxed in the shadiest spot they could find with hardly a glance at their charges, who toiled in the relentless heat. It seemed to intensify with the increasing hum of cicadas. Cardinal found it less a trial than being cooped up in the fetid cell. At least he did not feel claustrophobic, and he was among other human beings. Among the Buru crowd were poets, writers, communists, generals, actors and judges, all of whom had incurred the political wrath of regimes stretching back to before Sukarno. If they had not been executed, they had been banished to Buru.

Cardinal survived by copying other prisoners, for there was little effort to communicate with him, except in broken English. He soon saw that survival revolved around conserving water rations. There was a fine balance between desire and dehydration.

A kilometre from the prison settlement landing, Perdonny took the Zodiac close to the shore and told Webb to wade in through the shallows.

‘Stay close to the shoreline,' Perdonny told him, ‘and wait about fifty metres in from the landing.'

‘What if I can't find the track?' Webb complained, ‘and what about at least giving me the bloody Magnum?'

‘Later,' Perdonny said, ‘if we get Cardinal.'

‘You bastard!' Webb hissed. ‘If I can't find the track, I'm waiting right here till you come back, if you bloody come back!'

Webb disappeared into the thick jungle of vines. The Ambonese let Charlie take the wheel and hid his weapons under the stores they were delivering. The boat roared up to a broken-down pier. A guard lying on the ground reached for his rifle. He had been used to the Chinese arriving in a clapped-out junk with an engine that made an unthreatening, sluggish noise, when it was working.

‘You're early this week,' he commented. Charlie moored the boat and began unloading the supplies. Perdonny helped and kept his back to the guard as much as possible.

‘Bit fancy isn't it?' the guard said. ‘How could you afford to get that, old man?'

‘The army let me borrow it,' Charlie said and went on unloading. ‘There are extra provisions this week.'

‘Bit generous for them.' The guard began watching Perdonny.

‘He gave them lots of Coke,' he said with an iron grin.

‘Any for me?' the guard asked.

‘Sure,' Charlie said, lifting the lid of a crate, ‘but it will be warm.'

The guard snatched a can from him and zipped it open. The liquid frothed out, and he guzzled it down as he returned to his spot under a tree.

Perdonny and Charlie struggled with some of the supplies a little way into the jungle. When well out of sight of the guard, Perdonny dropped the crate he was carrying.

‘Make your deliveries, Charlie,' he said, ‘and then bring the boat back to the point where you dropped off the Australian. Clear?'

Charlie hesitated.

‘You won't let me down?' Perdonny said.

‘No, Mr Robert. I help you,' Charlie replied.

‘Don't be afraid,' Perdonny said. ‘All you have to say later is that I held you at gunpoint.'

Charlie began to deliver the crates.

Perdonny swung around. Webb was close behind him. ‘I don't blame the old bastard,' Webb said. ‘This is crazy!'

‘You can still wait here,' Perdonny said. ‘I can manage alone.'

‘I can't be sure,' Webb said, ‘and if you do bugger it up, I'm stuffed too.' He looked savage. ‘I'll have to help you!' he said.

Cardinal sat alone under a tree. The sun blazed so fiercely that all work had been suspended for an hour. It was half-past three, and almost all the guards and prisoners were dozing or asleep.

He took a sip of water and sucked on an orange, making it last as long as possible. Cardinal flexed his legs and, although he still felt weak, was pleased that he had managed to walk the distance from the prison without aid for the first time.

He was stung by a stone that hit him in the shoulder. He swung around and noticed movement in the jungle thirty metres behind him. Cardinal glanced at the guards and a dozen prisoners close by. None stirred. The air was dominated by the steady drone of insects. A light breeze rustled trees. Cardinal crawled around so that he was facing the jungle.

He saw Webb standing on the trail to the prison. Cardinal's heart skipped a beat. He saw Perdonny, a rifle in one hand. They beckoned to him. Cardinal willed his battered body to move. He lay prone and slid on his stomach until he was out of sight of everyone. Then he got to his feet and, for a few fearful moments, felt vulnerable to a bullet in the back as he walked to the trail.

Perdonny and Webb helped him hobble down the track. They were forced to cut through the jungle to avoid other sentry patrols on the trails to the prison and landing. Perdonny had to use a knife several times to hack a path for them. It took twice as long, but no one seemed to have followed them. Charlie was waiting with the Zodiac. They all climbed in. Perdonny took the wheel and handed the rifle to Webb.

‘Use it if we're followed,' he said. Webb glared, and the tension between them was apparent to Cardinal. He and Charlie were told to lie flat as the boat picked up speed.

They had been going an hour when Webb tapped Cardinal on the shoulder, and he lifted his head to see a large crocodile on the bank. It moved like a race horse until it plunged into the river.

‘He better not come too close to this rubber duckie,' Webb said. ‘Don't fancy underwater ballet.' Cardinal smiled.

They thumped along with the outboard at full throttle. A retort echoed behind them, and the water less than ten metres away rippled as a bullet drowned. Perdonny took the Zodiac closer to shore.

‘Over there!' Cardinal said, pointing. A power boat swung around a bend in the river not one hundred metres behind them. Webb propped and fired the rifle three times, sending a flock of parakeets screaming skywards. There was an explosion from the pursuing craft as it swung out of control and sent up a wall of water.

‘That'll slow them up!' Webb yelled.

They were within striking distance of the small pier leading to Charlie's hut. The tailing boat came into sight again. Webb lifted the rifle and, after taking careful aim, fired twice more. It made the power boat slow down.

Perdonny drove the Zodiac on to a beach, causing the engine to scrape against rocks and stall. They leapt ashore. Perdonny and Webb helped Cardinal while Charlie disappeared into his hut. With the plane only a hundred metres away, Cardinal and Perdonny stumbled on while Webb fired at the boat. It pitched and bounced near the abandoned Zodiac. The boat made a hasty, tight turn and retreated down-river another two hundred metres.

Webb dashed for the plane and was turning on the ignition as Perdonny helped Cardinal aboard. Webb had placed the rifle on the seat next to him. Perdonny grabbed it and began re-loading. Webb glared at him. The plane jumped forward.

‘Get us up!' Perdonny ordered. ‘I'll look after this!' He pushed a window flap open, shoved the gun out and fired
into the jungle. No one was yet in sight.

Webb taxied his plane as far as he dared into the undergrowth, and then the Beachcraft began its take off. The soft earth had Webb cursing, but the plane built power over the rough surface. It lifted with a wobble and a lurch that left their stomachs on the ground. It struggled to gain just enough height to clear the hut and trees.

Cardinal saw the flash of rifle fire seconds before cloud swallowed the Beachcraft. Webb yelled with relief as he jockeyed the aircraft above the cloud layer.

‘Say goodbye to Ambon,' Webb said to Perdonny. ‘You may not be seeing it for some time.'

‘Just get us to Darwin,' Perdonny said, giving Cardinal a sideways glance.

‘It's a gamble,' Webb declared after listening on his headphones. ‘Distance against time. Our main problem is Timor. They have military planes there. If someone raises the alarm before we hit Aussie waters, we'll be shark bait!'

Thirty-five minutes later, Webb gave a whoop of delight.

I've got Darwin!' he cried. ‘We can expect an escort!'

‘Ten o'clock!' Perdonny shouted, and showing an unusual amount of animation, pointed to the horizon. Two specks grew into jet fighters with RAAF markings.

‘Shit!' Webb said, pointing.

An Indonesian MIG fighter swooped under them. ‘Christ! It's going to engage them.'

They watched as the MIG climbed towards the Australian fighters. Suddenly it banked and headed for cloud-cover. Through the static of the radio, Webb could hear the leader of the RAAF fighters warning the MIG that it was over Australian waters. They had made it.

The cool bush air was refreshing
as Rhonda eased her car up the steep drive to Bill Hewson's house at Eltham, east of Melbourne. It had been carved out of a thickly-forested hill of eucalypts.

Hewson had avoided seeing her in the usual places, but had finally invited her to his home. He had given her a strange route down dirt tracks, and she wondered if he always asked visitors to go through such a maze. Hewson proudly showed her over the house, which he had designed himself. Apart from the polished pine walls, Rhonda found it a little sterile and pristine, a reflection, she thought, of his clinical mind. A saving grace to her was a superb library of books and classical records.

‘They've all been catalogued,' Hewson said, when Rhonda remarked on the number of volumes he had.

‘Of course,' she said, thinking of her messy study, ‘just like my library.'

Hewson took her outside to a crescent-shaped pool, which formed a half moat around the rear of the house and acted as a firebreak. Bush-fires were always a threat when Melbourne scorched in February.

‘I wish you would drop the project,' he told her. They sat down to champagne by the pool.

‘I thought you had been encouraging me.'

‘I had helped because you wanted it.'

‘Well, I'm asking again now.'

Hewson looked away. He seemed troubled. ‘I wouldn't want anything to happen to you. You're into dangerous territory.'

‘I know I'm not making a fashion documentary. I was tailed in Sydney. Think it was the same van that followed Ken.'

Hewson looked at her. His eye was more unnerving than ever. ‘You may be under constant surveillance.'

‘No one followed me here. I nearly got lost following your bloody dirt tracks.'

Hewson beckoned her to a telescope which he angled towards the city. ‘You can see the main road from here.'

Rhonda put her eye to it. She adjusted the focus and settled on a car waiting by the side of the road.

‘You were followed,' he said.

‘That Jaguar?'

‘Yes. I watched you turn off. It was a few seconds behind. It gave up after another kilometre or so and went back to the main road.'

‘At least they're using a car in keeping with their quarry this time,' she said.

‘You'll have to take another route home.'

‘Who is it?'

‘I really can't tell you.'

Rhonda straightened up. ‘Can't or won't?'

‘I'm advising you to stay away from this.'

Rhonda resumed her seat and the champagne. ‘Can't and won't,' she said. ‘Are you going to help or not?'

Hewson sat down and studied her. ‘Really, you won't get far anyway. The whole ball game has shifted. Our American cousins have informed us they think Richardson's hijacked uranium has been flown to Kampuchea.'

‘Where, in Kampuchea?'

Hewson excused himself and returned with a map of South-East Asia. He placed a finger on the Cardomom Mountains near the Thai border and the Gulf of Thailand.

‘You won't get a film crew in there,' he said. ‘If the Khmer Rouge don't get you, the Vietnamese will. Forget it.'