The aircraft judders, begins to taxi. Disser honks: ‘Buckle up, sir.’ Severson fits the straps over his shoulders, fastens the harness across his midsection, breathes as elegantly as he can and whispers to himself again: ‘I can do this.’
The Greyhound’s turboprops run up and the aircraft jolts forward. Severson’s collar feels even tighter than before, the hot prickly sweat returns to the back of his neck and, as an added bonus, his stomach turns over. He closes his eyes, grasps the side of his seat and squeezes. It’s soft and comforting and much too soft —
He looks down. He’s squeezing Disser’s thigh. He looks up, takes in the marine’s mortified expression, and instantly removes his hand.
The Greyhound thunders down the runway and lifts into the sky.
18
The glint just up and disappeared on Corey. One second it was there the next it was gone. He scans the horizon as the Loach skims across the empty red desert, 30 metres off the ground. ‘See anything?’
Spike stares out the open doorway, silent. Corey can’t blame him for being annoyed. They have a tonne of work to do and they’re wasting the morning on this wild goose chase. He decides to take it as far as the Curve then head back.
Just ahead is the large, jagged red-rock formation nicknamed ‘Dead Men’s Curve’. It is, unsurprisingly, curved, the ‘Dead Men’ portion of its name courtesy of a couple of nineteenth-century explorers who brought along a large wooden dining table and six chairs but forgot to pack enough water. Corey eases the Loach over the Curve then pulls it into a steep turn to head back.
He sees the glint. It’s not gold. Or diamonds. On the other side of the Curve hovers a black chopper, sunlight reflecting off its windscreen. It’s not just any old chopper either, it’s a serious piece of military tech. A warbird.
‘What the hell is that?’
Spike sees it and barks.
‘I think you’re right.’ Corey angles the Loach behind the Curve. Out of sight, they fly back the way they came.
Corey glances at the side-view mirror bolted to the Loach’s door frame. There’s no sign of the black chopper. ‘We’re good. They didn’t see us —’
Sunlight glints off the stealthy angles of the black chopper’s fuselage as it gracefully descends in front of the Loach, 200 metres away.
‘Damn.’
It’s another stand-off, though Corey preferred the one with the steer.
Spike stretches a paw towards the tape deck.
‘Don’t think Barry can help us with this one, mate.’
Corey flicks the comms switch, tries to sound as cheerful as possible as he speaks into his headset’s microphone: ‘G’day! How you going? Hope everything’s okay, saw you out here, thought you might be lost —’
The black chopper’s cannons blaze. Bullets scorch towards the Loach.
‘— but it seems you’re fine.’ Corey yanks the Loach into a steep turn and the bullets slide past. ‘Hold on!’
The black chopper follows with another burst of fire from its cannons. Bullets thump into the Loach’s fuselage.
‘Buckle up!’ Spike immediately wriggles into the passenger seat’s harness.
Corey glances in the side-view mirror. The black chopper fills it. He pulls on the controls and the Loach goes up. And up. It’s nearly vertical. Then actually vertical. Then more than vertical.
All the rubbish that was on the floor hits the roof. They’re upside down, pulling a loop. Spike hangs inside his seatbelt harness.
The Loach flies over the top — and the black chopper follows.
All the rubbish that was on the roof hits the floor. Corey reaches under his seat, draws out a flare gun as the Loach levels out.
‘Hold on!’ Corey rotates the Loach 180 degrees, aims the flare gun out the open doorway and pulls the trigger.
Red exhaust follows the flare as it snakes across the sky, slams into the black chopper’s left air duct. Its engine coughs and it spirals to the ground, lands hard, kicks up a wave of dust.
The dog barks.
Corey grins his crooked grin. ‘I can’t believe it either!’ He taps his temple. ‘I’m always thinking!’
The Loach’s turbine coughs. Corey glances in his side-view mirror and loses the grin. White smoke pours from the Loach’s rear hatch and the turbine sounds like rocks in a blender.
The black chopper rises off the desert. Corey sees it, dismayed. ‘Who are these people?’ He turns, scans the horizon. Dead Men’s Curve is close. He points the spluttering Loach toward it.
Spike barks.
Corey’s eyes flick to the side-view mirror. A missile blasts away from the black chopper’s underwing arsenal. ‘Oh, come on!’
It closes fast. Corey wills the chopper towards the Curve: ‘You can do it, sweetheart.’
The Loach chunters over the rock formation, disappears behind it. An instant later the missile follows.
The explosion shakes the desert. An orange fireball tumbles into the aqua sky.
The black chopper thunders over Dead Men’s Curve, cuts through the cloud of smoke and dust. Below lies a mound of smoking rubble the size of three city buses. The black chopper hovers above it, surveys the destruction.
Spike growls.
‘Shhh!’ Corey holds Spike’s snout closed as he listens to the thump of the black chopper’s rotor blades. They sit in the Loach’s cockpit, in a large cavern within Dead Men’s Curve. Its wide rock roof blocks any view from above.
The sound of the black chopper recedes. Corey releases the dog’s snout, points to the mouth of the cavern. ‘Keep a lookout.’
Spike hops out of the cockpit and trots to the cavern mouth. Corey slides out, moves to the Loach’s side hatch and unhappily surveys a fuselage pockmarked with bullet holes and scorch marks. ‘Man, I just painted this.’
Using its homemade twist lock, he opens the hatch’s door, which is loose on its hinges. ‘Gotta fix that.’ He peers into the engine compartment, locates a hydraulic line. There’s a hole in it the size of a thumbnail. ‘Bugger.’
He turns to the dog, unhappy. ‘This is gonna take a while to fix —’
Spike barks.
‘What? Why?’
Corey runs to him, follows the direction of his paw.
The black chopper has landed on clear ground about a hundred metres away. Two men step out of it, both holding assault rifles.
Corey studies the men unhappily. ‘Who are these people?’
They move briskly towards Dead Man’s Curve, then see Corey and Spike and start to run.
‘God!’ Corey points at the Loach’s cockpit. ‘In. Now.’
Spike bounds back into the Loach as Corey sprints to the open hatch and finds the hole in the hydraulic line. He studies it for an unhappy moment then pulls the chewing gum out of his mouth and wraps it around the hole with a hopeful expression. He shuts the hatch and climbs back into the cockpit.
Spike barks.
‘Yes I used gum! There wasn’t time for anything else. I’ve got a plan, don’t worry.’
Corey grabs the rope attached to the winch, pulls it into the cockpit and groans in frustration. The hook and carabiner at the rope’s end have been shot off. He searches for another hook on the cabin floor. There’re a few. He finds the biggest, threads the rope through the eye in the end of its shank and whispers as he ties a knot: ‘The weasel pops out of the hole and runs around the tree and jumps into — into —’ He stops, has no idea what the weasel jumps into.
Spike barks.
Corey examines the half-tied knot. ‘The hole? What hole? There’s no hole.’ Corey wraps the rope around and around and around the shank then tucks it under itself.