Draw the Brisbane Line (11 page)

He put the bag of snacks and drinks in the foot-well while Papetti stowed the gun in a rack behind her seat.  It was unlike anything Dave had ever seen, a large beige stock but with a pistol-grip and a short barrel.  It looked like the evil offspring of a rifle and a handgun.

‘This is Harold,’ Papetti said.  ‘I like him because he’s compact.’

Dave rubbed his eyes.  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

Papetti aimed a thumb at the seat.  ‘Harold.  Bang-bang.’

‘You named your gun?’

‘I name all my guns.  Don’t tell me you never did the same thing with your racquets.’

‘No.  That would be crazy.’

‘But the balls?’

‘Oh the balls, sure.  Of course.  I’m not made of stone.  So what is Harold exactly?’

‘Harold is a DTR SRS-A1 covert sniper rifle.  He turned two last week.’

Dave was less concerned that Papetti was keeping track of her weapon’s birthday than he was about the words
covert
and
sniper
.  A cold clammy certainty swelled in his belly that he had made a terrible call by going along with Pia Papetti.  ‘Why were you aiming a fucking sniper rifle at me?’

‘I wasn’t aiming it
at
you, silly.  Jesus, the dramatics.  I was observing you, through the scope.  Making sure you were safe. AKA, doing my job.’

‘So it wasn’t loaded then?’

‘
Of course
it was loaded.  Harold is sad when he’s empty.’

‘I kept waiting for a red dot to spring up on the forehead of the old guy I was talking to.’

‘I’m not using laser sights.  And he didn’t appear to be a threat.’

‘Who
did
?  A threat to what?’

‘A threat to you, you fucking idiot.  You think travelling in a US Army vehicle won’t attract some negative attention?’

‘Well, no.  The US are our allies.’

She laughed.  ‘You wait, Holden, just wait until we get a bit further north.  You’ll see how much we’re loved.’

‘You might want to take a break from targeting civilians then.’

‘You might want to take a break from talking to so many of them then.  Jesus, are you always so fucking accommodating?  Does everyone have to like you?’

He would have said yes, that’s exactly what has to happen, but before he could speak she fired up the Humvee with a deep rumble and they rolled onto the highway, dodging petrol can carriers for about a hundred metres before the road opened up.  He leaned his head close to the open window, letting the warm wind dry the sweat from his face.  He handed Papetti a can of Coke from the plastic bag and opened a bottle of water for himself.

‘Just how much artillery have you got sashed back there?’ he said, nodding to the rear of the vehicle.

‘Enough,’ she said.  ‘I’ll tell you this: we really don’t want to have an accident in this thing.’

‘Comforting.’

He fished his phone from his pocket and hit redial on Jenny’s number.  It rang out, again, just like it had the other hundred times, ringing and ringing and ringing until it clicked over to what must now be a very, very full voice-mail.

He ended the call.  Then he tried again.

And again.

And again.

For God’s sake Jenny, where are you?

Trudi Indigo
@TrudiBlue9

Fighting on the highway in the heavy traffic.  Someone has a gun near Noosa #brucehwy #staysafeQLD

The fire crackled and popped behind Epoch as he made his way on foot back to town.  The sun was now well clear of the trees, and it heated the already warm air whether it needed it or not.  It was just another example of nature following the path before it.  The sun heated things. Fires burned trees and scrub. Wealth was gained and wealth was taken. 

A king brown snake slid out of the bush and froze about five metres ahead of him, half on the road and half in the grass.  It was a big one, longer than he was tall, and it regarded him as if to say, your move, buddy.  Epoch wondered whether it was trying to get away from the fire, or if it had just emerged to catch some sun.  He remembered reading that they usually came out at dusk, so maybe the fire had broken its pattern.

Or maybe it was hungry.

Epoch gave it a wide berth with his breath held and continued along the narrow road.  It made no move for him.  Sweat trickled down his spine and soaked into the t-shirt, which was starting to smell like a pub’s Sunday morning dishrag.  He could have cooled down if he took off his jacket, but he preferred to keep it on.

He knew he was getting close to the centre of things when the sirens and alarms started to join in agitated discord.  He wished he could get there quicker, but he could only walk so fast.  In this heat, with what he was wearing, any attempt to run would soon drop him into a dehydrated faint.  He was sad to lose the car, but it purpose was now bigger than mere transport.  What Epoch really needed was a motorbike, something narrow enough to weave through traffic.  He had a long way to go if he wanted to hit the fat targets on his list, and the traffic between here and there was already thick and slow.

He’d find one sooner or later.  First, though, he had a certain real estate agency to visit.

‘OK Google,’ he said to his glass.  ‘Navigate to Heads High Real Estate.’

His path rolled out before him in an electric blue overlay.  He still had some walking to do.

When Al said he knew some back roads, he should have thrown air quotes around "roads".  The LandCruiser kicked out clouds of brown chalky dust as it galloped over vague suggestions of trails and what might have been dried-up creek beds.  They followed tracks which were little more than ruts in the grass, farmers’ roads worn through paddocks by decades of heavy tread.  Every now and again Tait would have to get out to open a gate, and dutifully close it behind them.  They didn’t do much talking on this cross-country trek — every creak and knock and squeak and rattle the car possessed seemed to come to life on the rough track, drowning out all but thought. She could see the terrain ahead bubbling up into large hills and mountain ranges, and she wondered if they could possibly off-road all the way across that.

‘When are we going to connect back up with the highway?’ she said.

‘What?’ Al shouted.

‘When are we going to get back onto the highway?’ she shouted back.

‘The Bruce Highway? We’re not.  It’s a complete logjam, backed up all the way down to Brisbane and beyond.  Crazy Town.  We’re going to have to take the back roads.’

‘You said roads, right? Like with bitumen and white lines?’

He laughed. ‘Yeah, real roads. I’m just taking a shortcut to get to them. I also need to check in on a friend.  We can freshen up and grab a bite there before we hit the blacktop.’

Jenny heard
freshen up
and her bladder rejoiced as best it could, like a sack full of explosives dancing a cautious jig.

‘How far?’ she said.

‘You see that house up ahead, on that small hill? That’s Jim’s place.’

The house he was pointing at was a square timber Queenslander with a wide veranda and a corrugated tin roof the colour of clay. A couple of off-roaders were parked alongside the low white wooden fence which ran around the perimeter, one black and one a faded maroon.

She looked back to smile at Tait and was met with a face full of stress. He had the same look Dave got when she suggested they adopt a baby from the latest fashionably-terrorised hell-hole, to wind him up.

Tait’s deep frown triggered one of her own, and his eyes told her they needed to speak alone.  Or that he was trying really hard to hold in a poo.

They parked behind a big black Range Rover, and not the old battered farmer kind she’d have expected. This was a new model Discovery, more drug dealer than cowboy. The car next to the Rover looked more country-style, a dusty big Pajero complete with bull-bar and snorkel.

Al switched off the engine, and the sudden silence made Jenny think her ears might be blocked. They’d stopped moving, but her arse continued to vibrate and twitch.

‘Looks like Jim has a visitor,’ Al said. ‘You’re in for a treat.’

Al lifted himself out of the driver’s seat, and when the door slammed shut, Jenny said to Tait, ‘What’s up?’

‘Not here,’ he said. ‘He might get suspicious. Wait until we’re alone.’

‘Why would he get suspicious?’

‘Not here,’ Tait said. ‘Later.’

He unburied himself from the bags and pots in the back seat and fell out onto the ground, a few loose pieces bouncing out after him.

She tried to swing her legs out of the open door, and her left hamstring suddenly shortened by a half. She rolled out of the car quickly, trying to straighten the bloody gnarled muscle before it made her cry. Too late. She half-hopped half-hobbled alongside the car, weeping
owie owie owie owie
, before falling to the lumpy ground. Tait was over to her in a second, lifting her ankle to his shoulder and bracing her knee with his hands. He leaned into it, stretching the seized hamstring and forcing it into submission. She felt it let go with a shudder, twitching before blissfully falling slack. He saw her relief and leaned into it a bit further.

‘Did you just say
owie
?’

‘Four times,’ she said. She could feel tears tracking down her face towards her ears. ‘Hollywood habit. I lose role model points whenever I say fuck in public.’

He smiled and rubbed the heel of his hand up and down the back of her thigh, quickly. ‘Come on, I’ll help you up. You need to keep moving before it goes off again.’

‘That was pretty sharp work there, Rosencrantz. You training to be a physio or something?’

‘Nah, I just watch a lot of sport on TV. And I surf enough to know what a hammy cramp looks like.’

He pulled her up and they walked through the gate and towards the front porch of the house. She was forced to limp, but she could feel the limb beginning to return to normal. Al was talking to someone through the fly-screen. He looked back and waved them over before letting himself inside.

She held onto Tait’s elbow as if she needed the support and said, keeping her voice low, ‘So how about now? What’s the problem?’

‘I think Al’s QTA.’

‘You think he’s a cutie, eh? Tait, I never had you pegged as leaning, you know …
that way
.’

‘Ha ha. You know the QTA, right?’

‘I don’t think so. Is it a union or something?’

Tait shook his head. ‘Queensland Territorial Army. Right-wing survivalist paramilitary nut-jobs.’

‘Seriously? We have those?’

‘Are you kidding? Everyone has those. QTA’s been around for donkey’s years. They pop up on the news every now and then, trying to make inroads into politics.’

Politics.  That’s where Jenny had heard of them, from Tom’s ranting.  Every time the two-party crap would get too much for him to tolerate, he’d threaten to
join the bloody QTA
.  He’d also threaten to get pregnant and just start popping out babies for the dole payments.

‘What makes you think Al’s involved?’

‘I might be wrong, but I think
he’s
their number one pollie.’

‘No way.  What makes you think that?’

‘Pretty sure I’ve seen him on the telly.  He’s got that look about him, you know?  Face for it.’

Jenny thought about it and found she agreed.  There wasn’t that much of a difference between acting and politics, it’s one of the reasons she and Tom got along so well.

Jenny looked up and realised they were already through the front gate, and nearly at the door. Jenny could hear voices from inside, another man and a woman.

‘Are you sure?’ she said in a whisper.

‘Yeah, pretty sure.’

‘OK, so let’s say he is in the QTA. Is that such a bad thing?’

‘Yes.  Bad thing.’

‘Why?’

‘Um, because they’re all bat-shit crazy?’

‘I haven’t met a politician who isn’t,’ Jenny muttered.

She looked at the landscape behind them, hills and scrub and dirt for miles. A thick grey column of smoke, a foul middle finger, flipped them off from behind the hills. ‘Can’t he just be Al?’

‘As opposed to what?’ Al said. She turned to see his grey-hatched outline just on the other side of the fly-screen. ‘Skippy the bush kangaroo?’

She let go of Tait’s elbow and put some weight on her heel, testing the hamstring. ‘As opposed to a survivalist loony bird,’ she said.

‘Ha!’ a woman barked from somewhere behind him.

‘Shit,’ Tait hissed.

‘Well,’ Al said as he put a big hand on the screen door and pushed. It squealed and creaked on kinked and rusted wire springs. ‘Looks like we should get all our cards out on the table, eh?’ He took slow measured steps out onto the veranda, holding the door open as another man followed him, a twitchy skeleton in a tartan shirt who looked like he could probably support his own bodyweight with a couple of fingers.

‘You must be Jim,’ she said.

He nodded, lips thin and eyes thinner.

‘Jim,’ Al said, ‘this is Jenny and … Trent, was it?’

‘Tait.’

‘Kinda name is Tait?’ Jim said in a jockey’s baritone. ‘Sounds like a girl’s name.’

Tait didn’t seem to hear him. He certainly didn’t acknowledge the thin attack. He was probably stretching his brain to try and see a way clear of this mess. Even though he’d never met Dave Holden, he probably thought of Jenny more as Dave Holden’s fiancée than as Jenny Lucas. And he couldn’t let Dave Holden down.

‘Christ Jim, if you’re making fun of that name I’d hate to hear what you say about mine.’ A woman with brown- and blonde-streaked hair tightly plaited into pigtails emerged from the house behind Jim. Jim turned away from her challenge, head down.

While Al and Jim could be comfortably slotted in the mid- to late-forties range, this woman could be anywhere from thirty to fifty. The lines and creases on her face could be a by-product of her deep tan, or they could be a reflection of her age. Whatever her vintage, she was in tight shape, and she was dressed in what looked like a stripper’s interpretation of a park ranger outfit.  Her khaki shorts were nearly high enough up her leg to qualify as hot pants, and they were made to look even smaller than they were by the thick black pistol holstered on her hip.

Holy shit
, Jenny thought. 
It’s Lara fucking Croft
.

A second after registering the weapon, Jenny’s brain caught up and whispered into her ear that she knew who this woman was.  Hell, most people in the western world knew who she was.

‘Ho-lee shit,’ Jenny muttered.

Banksia Mackie, renowned wilderness adventurer and television personality, winked and said, ‘Likewise.’