Divine Madness (19 page)

‘James is over in Elliot’s office.’

‘Is Elliot there?’

‘No, but Ween’s around.’

Lauren smiled. ‘Right, I’ll go and see him.’

‘You’d be better off leaving it,’ Paul said. ‘Ween’s going crazy. You’ll get punished if you stick your nose in.’

Lauren lied to reassure Paul. ‘OK, I’ll leave it for a while and see if they make an announcement. You’re a good guy, Paul. I’m sorry I hurt you.’

‘It didn’t hurt much,’ Paul lied. ‘But I’ll report you if you pull a stunt like that again.’

Lauren thought everything through, as Paul headed off to play basketball on one of the outdoor courts. She would have liked to ask Dana or Abigail for advice, but they were both on washing-up duty and she knew there was no chance of a private conversation in the commune’s chaotic kitchen. Besides, if she got caught she could just say that she overheard someone who’d seen James going into Elliot’s office.

Lauren headed inside the mall and towards the offices at the far end of the ground floor. The corridors were busy and she’d learned that you had to move purposefully around the commune unless you wanted a bunch of over-helpful angels asking what you were up to.

She passed through the open-plan offices where she’d taken her aptitude test a few weeks earlier and found them deserted. The trouble was, she’d never gone past this point and didn’t know what to expect beyond the double doors that led to the senior staff’s private offices.

After poking her head through the door for a cautious glance, Lauren stepped into a reassuringly empty corridor, containing a water cooler and piles of stationery. There was a glass-fronted office on either side of her, with Venetian blinds blocking off the view inside. She crept between a photocopier and a stack of boxed paper and peeked between the slats into the office on her left. She felt a rush of nerves and ducked down when she saw Ween, sitting at her desk having a highly animated telephone conversation.

It took Lauren a couple of seconds to get her composure back. She popped her head above the copier paper and took a longer look. There was no sign of James, so she stepped across the corridor and looked into the other office.

James was on a sofa, with the back of his head touching the glass. Lauren was tempted to rap on the glass and make him jump, but these were hardly the right circumstances. She crept around and stepped into the office. James looked well scrubbed. His hair was wet and he wore nothing but trainers and his favourite pair of ragged denim shorts.

‘What’s going on?’ Lauren whispered, as her brother turned and smiled at her.

James explained briefly, keeping to the essential details. He told Lauren to find Dana and Abigail and tell them everything, but Ween came into the room before she got a chance to leave.

‘
What
 
are you doing here?’ Ween said, so fiercely that her opening word sounded like a whip cracking.

Lauren played the innocent little sister, making herself sound scared and whiney. ‘I was frightened that the devils had got my brother. I came to make sure he was OK.’

Ween huffed, but then her mood changed abruptly. ‘Oh well, I was about to call your mother up here anyway.’

‘What for?’ James asked.

‘Remember the aptitude test you sat the day after you arrived?’

‘Now you mention it, yeah.’

‘Well, I’m pleased to say that your test results were outstanding. Your mark was easily high enough for you to ascend to our elite boarding school inside the Ark. Unfortunately, the Ark is undergoing a lot of rebuilding work and the school isn’t currently accepting new pupils. However, present circumstances dictate that it would be a sensible precaution if you were taken out of this area until the incident with Elliot blows over. I’ve explained the situation to Eleanor Regan and she’s agreed to accept you into the Survivors’ boarding school as a special case.’

James’ mind raced. He was well pleased to get into the boarding school, but the mission plan had been based upon two, or even all three, agents being accepted.

‘Wow,’ James gasped. ‘I’ve heard about the school. It’s like a massive honour, only …’

Ween screwed up her face. ‘Only
 
what
?’

‘I don’t know,’ James shrugged. ‘My dad buggered off, then we moved out here, then we moved to the commune. Now you want me to go off into the outback.’

‘James,’ Ween said reassuringly, ‘your family isn’t Lauren, Dana and Abigail any more. You have a family of angels, ten thousand strong.’

‘I know.’ James shrugged sullenly, looking down at the carpet. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to go, I just think I’d be scared going all that way on my own.’

Lauren realised what James was trying to do and butted in. ‘Did I pass the test?’ she asked enthusiastically. ‘I’d
 
love
 
to go to the Ark and I could keep James company.’

Ween looked stressed out. She clearly didn’t relish the prospect of having to call Eleanor Regan and ask her to accept another pupil, but on the other hand she desperately wanted to hush up the whole thing with Elliot. James being hundreds of kilometres away in the middle of the outback greatly reduced the chances of him opening his mouth to someone he shouldn’t.

Ween looked at James and spoke firmly. ‘If I call the Ark and try getting them to accept Lauren too, will you both definitely agree to go?’

‘What about Dana too?’ Lauren asked.

‘
No
,’ Ween said, with surprising firmness. ‘There’s no prospect of Dana going. She’s been chosen for another path within our movement.’

James and Lauren exchanged a quick glance, hardly able to avoid grinning at each other.

‘Well, I guess I’ll go with Lauren,’ James said. ‘As long as it’s OK with our mum.’

Abigail acted like you’d expect from a mother facing the prospect of her children being sent to boarding school seven hundred kilometres away. Of course, she eventually let Ween talk her into allowing James and Lauren to leave.

The Survivors owned a small aircraft that spent its life shuttling provisions, mail and people between a private airfield twenty kilometres outside of Brisbane and the Ark. The evening flight was due out at 10 p.m. Ween pulled rank and bumped two other passengers so that James and Lauren could skip town.

All the two kids owned now were the clothes they stood up in and a few personal items like toothbrushes and deodorants. This lack of money and possessions was deliberate, because it left Survivor families dependent on their commune for everything and made it extremely difficult for them to leave the cult and resume a normal life.

Abigail volunteered to drive out to the airport. Dana abandoned her precious Survivors timetable to come along and say goodbye. She rode in the back of the Mercedes wagon beside James, while Lauren was up front with a map spread over her legs.

Although Abigail hadn’t officially donated the car to the Survivors, she’d allowed members to use it for errands over the previous month. The interior was now grubby, the smell of baby puke lurked in the air and there were even a couple of punctures in the leather upholstery.

James looked back at the commune as they pulled out of the parking lot, knowing he wouldn’t be back. Everywhere else he’d been on a mission – even prison – there’d been something or someone that he’d miss. But none of the Survivors he’d met gave him that feeling. They were all dedicated to cult life and so obsessed with devils and the Ark that he didn’t care for any of them. It had been impossible to make an emotional connection with a bunch of people who only smiled when they were supposed to.

Dana looked miserable at the way things had panned out.

‘You OK?’ James asked.

‘What do you think?’ Dana asked bitterly. ‘I
 
never
 
get any of the breaks on my missions. I’m gonna retire in a grey shirt.’

Abigail spoke. ‘That’s the wrong attitude, Dana. We’re all part of a team.’

Dana bit her head off. ‘Spare me the patronising crap, Abigail.’

Lauren looked back over her shoulder. ‘Me and James
 
did
 
ask, but Ween acted really strict. She said they’ve chosen a different path for you, or something.’

‘Whatever,’ Dana said miserably. ‘I expect they’ve got me marked down for an epic career in dishwashing.’

‘You never know,’ James said. ‘It might be something good.’

‘Can you just stop going on about it,
 
please
?’

James turned away and looked out of the window at the setting sun.

Once they’d driven about five kilometres towards the airfield, Abigail pulled up at a Hungry Jack’s burger joint. She called John Jones from a payphone. After getting an update, John asked to speak with James.

‘You nervous?’ John asked.

‘A bit,’ James admitted. ‘They’re a bunch of loonies and we’re gonna be totally isolated up there.’

‘I know,’ John said. ‘But remember, if you’re ever in any danger the number one priority is always your safety. Just grab the keys to the first vehicle you can find and head the hell out of there. Chloe and I have already been up there to stake the Ark out. We’ve got the lease on a disused ranch house twenty kilometres away. Chloe and I will need cars to get around, so I expect we’ll set off by road first thing tomorrow. We should be there by the evening.’

‘What about communications?’ James asked.

‘I was just coming to that. The miniature receivers are on a flight up from Melbourne as we speak. The ASIS engineers have done a lot of testing to make sure that they’re robust enough to survive the pounding and moisture of life hidden inside a shoe and the boffins reckon they’ve cracked it.’

‘How will you get them to us?’

‘There’s no way we can get them to you tonight. The Ark itself is sealed off tight, but the kids run around it every morning, like you’ve been doing around the outside of the mall. Try staying behind the pack and keep your eyes and ears open for a signal or hidden package.’

‘What kind of signal?’

‘We haven’t thought it out yet.’

‘That’s not exactly encouraging, John.’

‘I know, James, I’m sorry. Everything about this mission has been done at short notice. One other thing. Don’t attempt to use any of the telephones inside the Ark if you’re talking about the mission. Several of Miriam’s patients told her that Eleanor Regan has the switchboard bugged. There are also rumours that the offices and bedrooms of some senior staff are bugged too, so if you’re talking about the mission, keep your voices down and try to do it outdoors or in public areas.’

‘Gotcha,’ James said. ‘I’ll pass all this info on to Lauren.’

‘Great,’ John said. ‘Good luck.’

James shook his head. ‘Sounds like we’ll need it.’

*

The propeller-driven aircraft carried six passengers. James and Lauren sat in the cramped third row of seats, with aluminium cargo pallets strapped into position behind their heads. It was dark by the time they took off and the two-and-a-half-hour flight passed over seven hundred kilometres of nothing: black desert, with no artificial lights and just the occasional rocky outline illuminated by the half moon.

The sense of distance and isolation combined with the aircraft’s brutal ventilation kept sending chills down James’ back. There were a million things he wanted to say to Lauren, but with four Survivors lined up in front of them they had to keep quiet. The seats were upright and too cramped to attempt sleep, so James had to content himself by flipping through the in-flight reading: a well-thumbed catalogue of tacky Ark souvenirs and DVDs of Joel Regan’s finest speeches with his day-glow white grin on the cover.

As he flipped through the pages, James found his sister’s head on his shoulder, then her hand sliding under the armrest and resting on his bare knee. James put his own hand on top, with his fingers spread between Lauren’s and they stayed that way for ages.

An orange glow lit up the horizon for the last one hundred and fifty kilometres of the flight. It grew ever bigger, until you could make out three gigantic spires, painted gold and basking in yellow light, with one of the world’s largest domes set between them. There were six turrets, one at each corner of the hexagonal perimeter, topped off with a thirty-metre-high cross designed to ward off devils.

James had seen photographs of the Ark, but nothing had prepared him for its outrageous scale. It was part fortress, part Las Vegas glitz, and one hundred per cent the last thing you expected to see in the middle of the Australian outback. James didn’t think much of Joel Regan and the way he’d made his fortune through brainwashing and deceit, but he couldn’t help being impressed by the spectacle.

Lauren whispered in James’ ear as the plane took a sharp turn to line up with the runway. ‘That has got to be the
 
maddest
 
thing I’ve ever seen.’

The small aircraft had taken off from a landing strip edged with grass, but touched down on a runway big enough to handle jumbo jets. There was a two-storey terminal building alongside the control tower, with an illuminated sign above its glass frontage:
Welcome to Joel Regan International Airport
. The airport was built in the 1980s, at a time when Regan had planned on turning the Ark into a money-spinning tourist attraction, with thousands of hotel rooms, golf courses and a Disneyland-style theme park.