‘What kind of weapons are you seeing?’
‘Automatic rifles mostly,’ James said. ‘AK-47s, M16 carbines. There’s heavier stuff being set up inside the turrets: twenty-millimetre cannons and rocket-propelled grenades.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘We’re in a classroom on the first floor of the adult education centre. Rat took us here because it’s deserted: it’s been mothballed since they stopped letting guests inside the Ark.’
‘OK,’ Chloe said. ‘Can you find somewhere with better cover, like an underground bunker or something?’
‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘Rat says there’s a bunch of tunnels right under here. But we won’t be able to see what’s going on once we’re down there.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Chloe said. ‘We’ve got total communication breakdown. The Special Forces commander won’t listen to me and the ASIS officers up there haven’t been briefed on the CHERUB mission. In the end I lost my rag and ended up swearing at them.’
‘That’s not like you,’ James said.
‘Sheer bloody frustration,’ Chloe groaned. ‘Just get yourselves undercover. Keep calm, keep safe and don’t try anything stupid.’
‘Would I?’ James said, making a weak stab at humour, even though he felt more like throwing up from nerves. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as there’s something to tell you.’
Chloe took the radio away from her ear. For a moment she thought she’d left the volume on and was listening to static, then she realised it was the distant pulsing of helicopter blades. She looked at the digital clock in the dashboard: 19:57.
*
The beach was illuminated with flood lamps, powered from a diesel generator. Barry made a gentle landing on sand levelled by the outgoing tide. As Dana unbuckled her seat-belt, a man dressed in deck shoes and loud shorts came jogging towards the small aircraft. She’d not met Mike Evans before, so she had no idea it was him.
As they clambered from the aircraft on to the dark beach and walked the stiffness out of their legs, Mike shook Barry’s hand and spoke with a Texan accent.
‘Hey Barry, y’all set?’
‘So far so good,’ Barry nodded. ‘What’s been going on up here?’
‘Your boat’s all set to run. Weather’s good, the sea couldn’t be any calmer, so you can drive her flat out if needs be. But watch the fuel gauges ’cos you’re squirting eight litres a minute into the turbines when she goes above fifty knots and you won’t make it back to Oz at that rate.’
‘What about the radar?’ Nina added.
‘Not a dickey bird,’ Mike said. ‘The systems on that boat are state of the art. There’s nothing unexpected on the screen, either in the sea or up in the air. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure nobody followed you out of Darwin.’
Mike turned his head towards the girls before continuing. ‘And why haven’t you introduced me to these two beautiful young ladies?’
Barry smiled. ‘This is Eve and Dana, and I’m extremely proud to have them on our team tonight.’
Mike grinned and shook both their hands.
‘Are you coming on the boat with us?’ Dana asked, not happy at the prospect of having another crewmate to take out.
‘I’m sure your company would be a delight, but I’m gonna see you off in the boat. Then I’m gonna pack up the landing lights and fly the plane out of here.’
‘That’s a pity,’ Dana lied, creeped out by the way Mike was flirting with her.
Mike led everyone on a trek across the beach. They walked for a couple of minutes, when they reached a wooden jetty with a large powerboat moored off the end.
It was dark, so they were less than twenty metres away from the boat when Dana got a proper look. It was extremely cool in a menacing kind of way: twin black hulls with chromed deck fittings. The whole shape was streamlined for high speed and a dinghy – identical to the one they’d trained in that morning – was lashed to a ramp at the end of the rear deck.
Eve and Dana straddled over the deck rail and climbed aboard. As Barry ran up a flight of steps to the bridge, Mike began unwinding the ropes tethering the boat to the jetty.
‘Free to go,’ Mike shouted, standing to attention and saluting the three females. ‘Good luck out there.’
The catamaran lurched as the turbine inside each hull gulped down the water it would propel out of the stern in a high-speed jet. As Dana headed into the mess room beneath the bridge, Barry cranked up the power and two blasts of spray erupted five metres into the air behind the boat.
38. APOCALYPSE
The emergency siren inside the Ark began to whine as soon as the helicopters were heard. A minute later it cut to a crackly Tannoy announcement from Eleanor Regan.
‘Angels in the southern turrets have sighted helicopters. My father’s death has emboldened the devils and encouraged them to attack. They will soon be upon us. Stand firm, defend your positions and remember that our strength comes from God.’
Rat gave Lauren and James a wry grin. ‘I bet those brave words came from about four levels below ground.’
The three kids had their faces at a window in the adult education block. The sky was black, but you could tell the helicopters were close from the vibrating glass.
‘Can we make it down to the tunnels in time?’ James asked.
‘Depends how long we’ve got,’ Rat shrugged. ‘We’ll have to head out of this building and run about thirty metres, then down a flight of steps.’
Lauren spoke awkwardly, because she still had a wad of bloody tissue jammed into her mouth to stop her lip bleeding. ‘I don’t fancy it.’
‘Me neither,’ James said. ‘The last thing we want is to get caught out in the open. We’re better off staying put.’
All three kids ducked instinctively as a helicopter skimmed the roof. Two more came into view, looming over the courtyard at the rear of the Holy Church, their positions exposed by the powerful lights illuminating the spires.
One of the helicopters switched its searchlight on, flooding the paved area beneath it with light. It was a big beast, military green, with a dozen commandos standing in open doorways, ready to spring out when it touched down.
As the chopper moved within ten metres of the ground, an orange streak roared out of the church and hit it from point blank range. The blast knocked three men out of the open doorway, as a blaze erupted inside the cockpit.
‘Back up,’ James yelled.
He knew the window would shatter if the helicopter exploded, so he wrapped an arm over his face and dived under the nearest desk. Lauren and Rat did the same, but nothing happened. James braved a glance. The flames were out and clouds of fire-extinguishing powder billowed out of the helicopter’s doorways.
Apparently the helicopter had been saved by its fire protection system, but the pilot was flying blind and had no option but to pull up. That left three bodies on the ground below. Two were engulfed in flames and didn’t seem to be moving, but the third rolled frantically in the dirt trying to extinguish his burning uniform.
The other three helicopters were now in plain sight, trying to land in the courtyard but coming under heavy fire. Another streak – James guessed it was a rocket-propelled grenade – ripped from inside the church. It deflected off the side of a descending helicopter, before spiralling up in a wild trajectory and exploding close to the perimeter wall.
The next shot was a direct hit on the tail rotor of the helicopter closest to touchdown. It twisted violently, its blades centimetres shy of a fatal collision with the side of the church.
As the pilot battled to control his ship without a tail rotor, the other two helicopters pulled up and backed away from the compound, apparently under orders to withdraw. Unfortunately, this left the chopper with the damaged tail as the only target in the sky. Two more rockets slammed home as it tried to pull up, one from the church and one from inside a turret.
This last was a direct hit on the fuel tank. James buried his face against the classroom floor and felt a w
ave of heat as the sky lit up in orange. A deafening slam was followed by a shockwave that blew out hundreds of panes of glass across the Ark.
Deadly shards sprayed the room around James, as the sudden change of air pressure made his ears pop. If he hadn’t been shielded under the table, he would have been sliced to pieces.
Although his eyes stung from the smoke and fuel vapour, he forced them open and looked around desperately for his sister. ‘Lauren?’
‘We’re OK,’ Lauren yelled back, though James could hardly hear over the ringing in his ears. ‘You?’
‘Yeah … I think.’
James stood up carefully, avoiding the broken glass. He dashed over to join Rat and Lauren, who’d huddled together in fright.
‘I think they’ve pulled back, for now,’ James said.
Lauren rubbed her eye. ‘That poor man burning on the ground,’ she said, sniffing and looking completely stunned. ‘There must have been loads more in the one that blew up.’
James grabbed his radio and shouted, ‘Chloe?’
‘Where are you?’ she asked, audibly shocked. ‘Did I see what I think I just saw?’
‘We didn’t have time to get underground, we’re still in the education building, and yes you did see a chopper go down.’
‘I told them,’ Chloe screamed. ‘I bloody told them. Are you guys OK?’
‘Lauren’s shaken up, but we’re all in one piece.’
‘The other three choppers are touching down in the desert near me,’ Chloe said. ‘I’ve got nursing qualifications. They’re bound to have injuries up there and I’m sure I can help out.’
*
The high-speed catamaran had been built as a rich man’s plaything, or at least Dana couldn’t imagine any woman splurging millions on such an absurd toy. Yet, in another way, she couldn’t help admiring it, from its immaculately chromed toilet basin to the soft leather sofas and the compact kitchen with more gadgets and flashing lights than a space shuttle.
Most impressive was the sense of isolation. They might have been skimming towards Indonesia at a hundred kph, with two jet turbines hurling a wall of water ten metres into the air behind them, but when you closed the triple-glazed door leading on to the rear deck, the only sense of motion was an occasional violent jolt when they punched through a big wave.
It was 8:40 now and Dana was certain that ASIS had no idea where she was. That left her with three and a bit hours to overpower her crewmates and take control of the boat.
She made every step count: glancing in kitchen drawers, opening up cupboards in search of weapons, carefully studying the internal layout of the boat to see which doors led where and working out the best places to isolate people so that she could take her companions out one at a time. She didn’t think Eve and Nina would present major problems, as long as she retained the element of surprise. Barry was in a different league: he was huge, strong; he’d clearly been through advanced military training and had proved himself capable of killing with the pistol he kept tucked in his shorts.
‘Are you with us down there?’ Nina asked.
Dana had been thinking and was startled by the remark. She looked up from her leather seat and faked a yawn. ‘Sorry … Just a bit tired.’
Nina nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s been a long day. You girls can go into one of the cabins and get some rest once we’ve had our briefing.’
‘I could use that,’ Dana said. ‘Are you doing it now?’
‘Might as well get it over with,’ Nina nodded.
Dana got up and took five paces towards a circular table in the galley. Eve was already sitting there and Dana joined her as Nina unzipped a backpack and pulled out a rolled-up diagram.
‘Hold the corners,’ Nina said, as she unfurled it.
The drawing was to scale and showed only basic outlines. There was a jagged coast, with the shapes of giant LNG cylinders and the gas liquefaction terminal behind them. A long jetty led out into the sea and there were the outlines of two identically shaped supertanker hulls at the end.
‘This is pretty self explanatory,’ Nina said. ‘The positioning and timing of the explosions is critical to the success of the operation. We’ll take the dinghy in to about two hundred metres shy of the tankers. For the sake of quiet, we’ll cut the engines and row the last stretch, ending up here, hidden beneath the jetty with a tanker docked on either side of us.
‘You’ll deal with one tanker each. You’ll position two magnetic charges in the bow area of each boat, two metres below water level and spaced eighteen metres apart. The devices are designed to puncture the outer hull and inject explosive gas into the watertight space between the tankers’ twin hulls a few seconds before detonation. The explosion should be enough to rip the front end off both ships and fracture the outer casing of the pressurised LNG cylinders on board.
‘Once the devices are fitted to the tankers, we’ll attach two much larger explosives to the jetty itself. The first will be by the refuelling gantry that leads out to each boat. The other will be positioned at the opposite end, close to shore. Our aim is to have the devices put in place within fifteen minutes. All six will be timed to explode simultaneously, approximately fifteen minutes after we’ve cleared the area.
‘The terminal is designed so that LNG can be safely vented in the event of a minor accident. However, if our calculations are correct, simultaneous explosions between the front of the boats and along the length of the jetty should completely overwhelm the capability of the terminal’s failsafe systems. The explosion should destroy not only the jetty and the two tankers, but also gas storage facilities on dry land and a significant section of the liquefaction plant itself.
‘In order to make accurate positioning of the explosives, you’ll each wear a GPS receiver on your wrist. It will be pre-programmed with the exact co-ordinates for the four explosions.’
‘Piece of cake,’ Dana said, doing her Survivor grin.
‘Not if you take that kind of casual attitude it won’t be,’ Nina said sharply. ‘Please listen. We’ll be working in complete darkness with oil company workers a few metres away from us. We’ve got to keep our movements quiet and speech to an absolute minimum.
‘Now that I’ve given you the basic outline of the raid, I’m going to talk you through each step in detail. If you have questions, ask them now, not during the operation.
‘The equipment needed for the raid has already been loaded into the dinghy. It will be launched off the back of this vessel with an electronic winch. Obviously, the engines have to be switched off before we can do this safely …’
Dana stifled a yawn as her brain struggled to absorb the stream of facts.
39. BENEATH
James had underestimated the Survivors’ ability to fend off the TAG units. He’d expected things to get hairy when he’d seen the Survivors’ arsenal, but not in his wildest dreams did he think the commandos would lose a ship and be forced to back off before getting a man on the ground.
With hindsight, he realised that the Survivors would have had little trouble getting hold of grenades, mortars and other heavy weapons. A smuggler could choose from thousands of kilometres of deserted Australian coastline on which to land a boatload of weapons that could be purchased in dozens of war-torn countries around the world.
Twenty minutes after the crash, smoke still poured out of the helicopter’s mangled chassis. The surviving soldier, who’d fallen from the first helicopter and extinguished his flaming clothes, had been peeled off the ground and dragged inside as a hostage.
There was much less smoke around now and the air inside the education block had completely cleared. Lauren and Rat had tipped one of the desks on to its side and pushed it around like a snowplough, sweeping all the broken glass to one side of the room.
James peered through a shattered window. After the explosion there had been people running everywhere, but now the Survivors and their weapons seemed to have retreated into buildings and tunnels.
‘What do you reckon?’ James a
sked. ‘Looks pretty calm out there now, shall we risk a move?’
‘Are you sure we’re not better off here?’ Lauren asked. ‘We’ve got no idea what’s going on in the tunnels.’
James shrugged. ‘I can only see this ending one of two ways: either the Survivors are going to surrender and we all walk merrily out of the front gate – which seems unlikely – or those bad-assed soldiers who just lost twenty of their colleagues are gonna wait until they’ve got reinforcements and some armoured vehicles and then they’re gonna storm this place.
‘Whether that happens tonight, tomorrow or at the end of a long siege, I don’t want to be sitting in a building made from wood and plasterboard.’
Lauren nodded reluctantly. ‘I guess you’re right. But Rat, you know this joint, are you sure there’s not a secret passage or some other way out of here?’
Rat shook his head. ‘This whole place is built for a siege. The turrets are the only way in or out.’
‘So we’re agreed,’ James said. ‘Let’s move.’
James led the way down a short corridor between two classrooms. He cautiously opened the door on to an outdoor landing and studied the shadows below before setting off down the metal steps.
An ammunition cartridge inside the burning helicopter chose that moment to pop and the three kids raced down and hit the ground at the bottom. It sounded exactly like they were being shot at.
‘False alarm, I think,’ James said warily.
‘I hate this,’ Lauren whispered, holding a clammy hand over her heart.
Rat knew the way, so he took the lead on the thirty-metre dash, crunching across a path strewn with broken glass before heading down a flight of metal steps cut into the ground. When they reached the thick metal door at the bottom, Rat rested both hands on the rubber handle and pushed down. The mechanism clanked, but he shoved hard and it wouldn’t move.
‘You want me to try?’ James asked. ‘I’m stronger than you.’
Rat shook his head. ‘You won’t do it. The bolts must have been put on inside.’
Lauren tutted. ‘Isn’t there another way in?’