Perdu placed the tablet in the back seat holder. She adjusted the volume and leant back into the seat, rubbing her hands to get the chill out of her. Being close to the fire would have been better. Her men sat in the front seat, staring at a tablet in the centre console.
Perdu watched as the level of smoke leaving the barn increased. She watched as one of the men got to his feet, but there was no sign of the girl. Her death didn’t bother Perdu, but some other things did. Was the bunker fireproof? If it was, they were going to survive. And did she say anything incriminating? It would have been recorded, so unless the heat damaged the recording device she needed to get it. She could use her role as a pharmaceutical investigator to sort that out.
The tall man looked woozy, and was obviously confused about where he was. His nose twitched a few times as he must have picked up the smell of smoke. He started rubbing his neck and paused as he pulled something from his neck. He stared at it—a dart. Perdu knew that he would now be wondering what chemical had been injected into his body.
“C12, this is Eagle Fly, over.”
Perdu turned the volume up some more to listen.
The man shook his head a few times. Was he hoping the pieces would fall back into the right spots? He would be fine, once his training kicked in.
“This is . . . C12 . . . go ahead, over.”
“We lost contact with you guys. Something blocked our transmission. Are you two okay? Over.”
The tall man stood and held onto the side of the house while he regained his balance. His partner was now doing the same.
“We were both hit by some kind of tranquiliser dart.” The man shook his head again and stared down at the dart in his hand. “I have no memory of any prior events. It must have an amnesia-inducing drug or something like that. Remembering things is a challenge. What are we meant to be doing here? Over.”
“We’re on our way. Over.”
“Roger, out.”
Good. The drug worked. The men had no idea what they were here for.
24 – Seeking direction
LUCAS COMPARED THE GREAT EXPANSE he now found himself in to the small plot he had been taken from.
A large granite boulder sat amongst the eucalyptus trees. It was a good hiding spot and old pieces of rusted tin roofing, timber beams, plastic milk crates and pieces of rope showed it had been used before as a cubby house or bush fort. Young kids on an adventure.
Nature had called Isabella. She returned from her short excursion and went and sat down next to Lucas. There was a sandy spot sprinkled with pebbles behind the large boulder. It concealed them well. Isabella tried to convince herself that it had been darts, not bullets she had witnessed. She gave herself a shake at the thought of Mrs Perdu—to think she had once thought she was nice.
Lucas was looking to the sky. “That tin roofing may come in handy, as those rain clouds were hanging around.”
“You’re a real boy scout, Lucas.”
“Maybe, but boy scouts would not drag a briefcase while exploring a cave.”
“Well, let’s open it and see why you dragged it with you.”
<°)))><
A smaller boulder served as a desktop. Lucas brushed litter off the boulder, placed the briefcase down, and opened it. Isabella had a peek over his shoulder. There were a few blank plastic sheets, and the wallet-type thing Gramps had used to take their photo. She watched Lucas pull out the top plastic sheet. Words started to appear.
She noticed the frown and slight movement of his head. “Have you seen this type of sheet before, Lucas?”
“Nope.”
“The ink is brought to life by drawing power from the electrical current flowing through your body. As soon as your fingers touch the sheet, words will appear.” She watched his eyebrows raise as words appeared. “If there are links in the document all you have to do is touch the link and it opens up if there’s a connection. You can also password protect the documents as well. Is it password protected?”
“Doesn’t look like it . . . words are appearing.”
“That’s good, because it would have been fun trying to guess the password. I imagine Gramps would set some good ones. Anyway, what does it say?” Isabella sat down on one of the milk crates.
Lucas took the wallet-like device out of the briefcase. “It tells us about this. It’s what zapped us. We just need to enter a GPS location and it will take us there. But it can only be unlocked by a thumb print. It’s aware of ours, as your granddad took our thumb prints from the cups we used. He’s definitely advanced the technology, and he had all of this planned. For some reason.”
“How do you know about the technology, Lucas?” She wasn’t quite sure of the relationship Lucas had with Gramps. Not that she’d had much time to explore the relationship.
“I worked with your granddad—I knew him as either the Professor or Starkey—on a project. I’m sure you remember the vanishings and people being brought back to life?”
“I do. About five years ago. I was just learning to drive, and Mum had taken me out for a lesson. She had me drive to church. It took us forever to get a parking spot—Mum said I nearly burned out the clutch. Church attendance doubled for a while, then settled back to normal after a month or so. Mum told me people were panicking but returned to their normal routine when they knew the world wasn’t going to end.” She looked to the ground.
“Yep, that’s the stuff.” Lucas picked up a loose pebble on the boulder and threw it towards the bushes. “You granddad was behind the technology, and I was on the project team. That’s why I ended up in prison. A few people died because of the technology, and I went off the rails thanks to a leaning towards drugs. But prison has been good to me. I’ve sorted myself out. No more drugs. But I’m going to be in a spot of bother with what’s happened now.”
“How come Gramps didn’t end up in prison?” The thin plastic of the milk crate was digging into her backside.
“They couldn’t find him. We all thought he’d left the country.”
“And how come you’re out of prison? Was your time up?”
“Err . . . no. Your granddad did a transfer on me.”
“What? Why?” Isabella readjusted her seating and reached over and pulled a leaf from a young gum tree.
“That’s what I’m still trying to work out.” Lucas retuned his gaze to the sheet. “He wants us to transfer to this GPS location.” He pointed to the sheet. “Are you okay about that?”
She crunched up the gum leaf and smelled it. She loved the sweet, reenergising smell of eucalyptus.
