Kakadu Sunset (3 page)

Kane kept an eye on them as he quickly secured the rotor blade. He gave the tie-down strap a final tug, retrieved the first-aid kit from under the back seat, and ran across to the rocks where Ellie was crouched down in the shade beside a young woman. The guy was cradling her head in his lap and it appeared she was unconscious.

‘What is it?’ He caught a glimpse of blood soaked into the dirt and an all-too-familiar nausea hit him as he put the kit on the ground. He swallowed hard as his gut clenched, and cold sweat prickled his skin as it ran down the back of his neck. He dug into his jeans pocket for a fresh piece of gum.

‘Looks like a compound fracture.’ Ellie’s voice was low as her fingers pressed into the woman’s foot. The blood had soaked into the loose dirt, leaving only a stain of colour behind – as if the ground itself was thirsty.

Kane’s vision suddenly blurred and the scene in front of him tilted for a second. He was in the air again, and red sand hills were the only variation in the expanse of desert below. The dull thuds of improvised explosive devices covered the sound of Ellie’s voice.

They got louder and Kane gagged, touching the rock beside him, grounding himself, remembering where he was.

Kakadu. Northern Territory. Australia
. He repeated the words in his mind like a mantra.
Kakadu. Northern Territory. Australia
.

‘Mummy!’

The shrill cry of the child pulled his eyes away from the patch of blood in the dirt; he’d managed to keep his cool, and his lunch – just.

The kid cried out, one little arm locked around his father’s neck, the other reaching towards the woman on the ground. Even to a small child, it was clear that she was in trouble.

‘Give me a sterile dressing, and then get on the radio and tell Jock to make sure there’s someone still on duty at the medical centre at Jabiru,’ Ellie said. She glanced up at the father. ‘I think it would be better if you moved your little boy away, sir.’

The man looked at her for a moment before he nodded and led the boy across the sand to sit beside the helicopter. Kane stayed where he was.

‘You’re not going to try to move her, are you?’

‘Of course not. The ground crew will take her in.’ Ellie’s voice was terse. ‘We really need to make sure there’s someone at the medical centre when she comes in.’ She glanced down at a large watch on her tanned arm. ‘They usually close at five o’clock and it’s not far off that now. I hope the ground crew aren’t too far away. She’s lost a lot of blood.’

Kane knew that. Even from a standing position, he could see the huge stain on the ground. Shit, even with his eyes closed he could still see it. He was sure he’d see it in his dreams too.

Moving slower than he knew he should, he snapped open the first-aid kit and reached for a dressing. His limbs would not respond to his brain.

‘What else do you need?’ He brushed one hand through his cropped hair, trying to ignore the metallic smell of blood that was rising into the hot air. His stomach flipped and he bit back the nausea. He shoved the dressing at her, his movement rougher than he’d intended.

She looked up at him curiously but Kane held her gaze, forcing his expression to stay impassive and his hands to stay steady. This was not the time to give in to the shit the psychologist had told him about. He swallowed and straightened up.

‘Call in . . . please,’ she repeated but her voice was softer this time. ‘And get that kid up in the chopper until the ground crew arrives. Every croc within a mile will have smelled the blood by now.’

Kane nodded and walked away. Fast.

Maybe he’d made a mistake, taking on this job. He’d been under the impression that these helicopters were for showing tourists the sights. If there was going to be blood, perhaps he should reconsider.
Just my luck to get a medical evacuation in my first week
. He knew better than to rely on luck. It hadn’t followed him anywhere before and it sure looked like things hadn’t changed.

But Kane knew he wouldn’t reconsider the job. The next few months were going to be tough enough. His mother was sick . . . maybe dying. He’d go stir crazy if he didn’t have a job to keep him occupied while she had her treatment.

There was a squawk from the radio, and Kane started talking, working on autopilot as he spoke to the national park base.

He was beginning to get the feeling that this role at Makowa was very different to what he’d expected. After the events of the past year, he’d promised himself he’d stay on the ground. He’d do the best job he could as an engineer, but no one would ever rely on his judgement in the air again. No one would be at risk from
his
decisions. But if they were expecting him to help out in search and rescues . . .

By the time Kane signed off with base, the kid was sitting in the back of the chopper with his father. He could have returned to help work on the woman. He didn’t, though.

After reassuring the guy that the medical crew were close, he leaned against the bird, watching Ellie as she deftly bandaged the wound. The metal was hot against his back and he could feel the heat of the sand through his boots. Ellie would have done great over there, in the desert.

Shit.
Just forget about it
.

Kane turned away.
Who am I kidding?

*

Ellie and Kane followed the rescue vehicle from the air until it negotiated the last rocky outcrop and turned onto the track that led back to the highway. It wasn’t far from there to Jabiru, and Kane had confirmed that a team was waiting for the patient at the medical centre. The young mother had regained consciousness before they’d taken off, and one of the paramedics in the ground crew had given her a morphine injection. They’d done well but Kane’s reactions had left Ellie wondering. She’d had to ask him
three times
to put the call in to the medical centre. He’d frozen at the sight of the blood.

For a tough guy – and he was strong, she knew that instinctively – his confidence was shadowed by something unspoken. He hadn’t said a word to her since she put the bird in the air. She pushed the worry away; all types passed through the Territory. Most people had baggage, but it had nothing to do with her. There was no point giving into the curiosity.

‘We’ve got about ten minutes left till sunset. Would you like a quick scenic tour?’ She turned to him and he reluctantly met her gaze. ‘It’s by far the best time of day to see the park. If you’re going to fly in Kakadu, it’s much easier to see the flight paths from up here. Get your bearings from the air.’

‘No need. I won’t be flying here again.’

Ellie shrugged as Kane turned away to look out the side of the helicopter. She’d tried, but that was enough. Whatever his problem was, he could get over it himself.

He wasn’t the first male to doubt her skill and he wouldn’t be the last, but she was done with trying to crack this tough nut.
Chauvinist pig
. If he didn’t want to fly, that was Jock’s problem. But he sure wouldn’t last long up here if he wasn’t prepared to give a little. This was just the first of the emergencies for the tourist season.

As she turned the helicopter towards Makowa Lodge, lush green river flats were gradually replaced by scrubby trees on red dirt. The route she always followed took them over the rim of the national park, and then across the fence that divided the old family farm from the park. Today she was curious to see where those trucks had gone this afternoon.

In the paddock below, row after row of dead and shrivelled mango trees formed a geometric pattern. Ellie touched her fingers unconsciously to her lips and whispered, ‘Hey Dad,’ as she always did when she flew over their old home. The ache of unshed tears settled behind her eyes when she looked ahead at the towering cumulonimbus clouds to the north where the South Alligator River drained into Van Diemen’s Gulf.

One afternoon when she was a small child, she and Dad had lain on their backs on the soft grass and looked up at the sky. He’d told her that when he was an old man in heaven he would be lying up in those fluffy clouds looking down on her and her sisters. She’d never forgotten it, and now those towering pillars of white cloud brought her undone whenever she saw them.

He’d never made it past middle age, let alone become an old man.

A flash of movement from the ground caught her eye and Ellie leaned forward, surprised to see a cleared patch on the southern edge of the property. Heavy machinery was working in the paddock where her father had once planted his new hybrid variety of mangoes. Instead of neat rows of trees, a gaping red hole scarred the ground and a couple of huge yellow earthmoving machines were moving back and forward near the river. As well as the three oversized trucks she’d followed, half a dozen work utes were parked along the edge of the road.

‘What the hell?’ Ellie muttered. She took her eyes off the controls for a second and craned over her shoulder, looking back as the farm disappeared from sight. She glanced across at Kane but his head was back against the headrest and his eyes were closed. She dipped the helicopter and turned in a sweeping arc to cross the back of the farm, lower this time. Now what she saw below her filled her with a deep sense of unease. It looked like major earthworks.

What the hell is going on down there?

If something was happening right on the park boundary, surely there would have been something about it in the news. Unless something had happened while she was away.

She’d give Panos a call as soon as she got back to the lodge. And she’d chase up Bill Jarragah as well.

She glanced across at Kane again. His eyes were still shut, and there were tight lines around his mouth. Ellie took a deep breath; suddenly she felt the mother of a headache coming on. She’d worry about what she’d seen later when she had time to think. The township of Jabiru appeared below and she took a wide turn to the north to avoid the telecommunications towers. As she banked towards Makowa Lodge, the Ranger mine spread out below them.

‘What’s that water?’ Ellie jumped as Kane’s voice intruded on her thoughts. For the first time, he was showing some interest in what was below.

‘That’s one of the tailing dams at Ranger – the uranium mine.’ She turned the bird further to the east and dropped lower. ‘Look at this.’

Kane let out a low whistle as the barren landscape appeared below them. A huge circular hole cut a swathe more than three kilometres wide through the greenery.

‘Ugly, isn’t it? It’s been there since I was a kid.’

‘How come they’re allowed to mine here? I thought Kakadu was a World Heritage site?’

‘It is. There have been so many close calls since it opened, but the authorities won’t shut it down. There’s just too much money involved.’

Kane grunted.

‘And it’s not just uranium. Do you know there are applications to mine for oil and gas on more than a million square kilometres up here in the Territory?’ She’d learned all this from her mother at Em’s place. ‘And seabed mining too.’

‘I don’t know much about it.’ Kane nodded briefly and looked away, obviously losing interest. ‘I’ve been . . . away.’

Seeing Ranger from the air made Ellie all the more determined to find out what was happening at the back of the old farm. One blight on this beautiful landscape was enough.

Once they were safely on the ground beside the hangar, she shut everything down, and Kane eased himself stiffly from the helicopter. As he began the post-flight checks, Ellie noticed that he was favouring his right leg and had a slight limp. He was different to the usual light-hearted jocks who arrived to fly the choppers here.

Military?
Of course. There was a feeling of the services about him. She could imagine him in a uniform. It was just something about him, something that didn’t go with the bare chest, the gum chewing and the casual attitude he was trying so hard to put across.

‘Can you finish up here while I do the paperwork?’ she asked.

‘No problem, babe.’

Ellie strode across the hangar, but paused before she went into the office. ‘Kane? Do me a favour. My name’s Ellie. Nix the “babe”.’

She turned without waiting for his answer but she could feel his gaze on her back as she closed the door.

Thursday
Panos Sordina’s Office, Darwin

‘We’ve got a problem,’ Panos Sordina said into the phone as he swung his chair around and looked out over Darwin Harbour. It was the beginning of the busy winter season and tourists were milling through the park on the foreshore beneath him. He waited a moment for a response, but none came. ‘Hello? Are you there?’

‘I am.’ The voice was icy.

‘I just had a call from the guys on the ground. One of the yellow Makowa Lodge helicopters was snooping over the property this afternoon.’

‘So? Probably some tourists up for a scenic flight.’ Fairweather’s voice was disinterested, but Panos knew better than to underestimate the man at the other end of the phone.

‘The chopper came down low over the drill site. Twice. You know that Peter Porter’s daughter Ellie is a pilot there? And on top of that, my bloody stepson has turned up unannounced.’

‘Why would he go to the property?’

Panos immediately regretted his slip, and rushed on. ‘Kane was an officer in the fucking Army. He’s not stupid. All he’d need to do is take one look at what’s happening down the back and it could all go to shit.’ Panos wiped his shaking hand down the leg of his trousers. The blasted air-conditioner in the building must be playing up again. It was the middle of bloody winter and he was drenched in sweat. ‘We don’t have a licence to be drilling yet.’

‘You didn’t answer my question. Why would your stepson go there? How does he even know the place exists?’

‘His mother is living there.’

Cold silence.

‘My wife. I . . . I had to –’ Panos’ words ran together as he stumbled on. ‘Money is a bit short again. Some bad bets. I had to sell . . . I sold the house in Darwin and I had to move her somewhere.’

‘I’m not happy, Panos. And you know what that means?’

Panos swallowed. He well knew.

Meeting Russell Fairweather at the Darwin races six years ago had seemed like an amazing opportunity; to get out of the gambling hole he’d found himself in – and maybe even get ahead. At first it had been like a ‘get out of gaol free’ card. His debts had suddenly evaporated, and Fairweather’s money and influence had opened doors for him that he had never dreamed about. But getting involved with him had turned into the biggest mistake of his life. If he had known that accepting a ‘loan’ would have brought him to the hell he lived in today, he would have dealt with the men who had threatened him. He had soon learned that Fairweather considered himself beyond the law, if there was money to be made.