Annabelle Gilbert felt like one of the little ducks that go back and forth in a shooting gallery. There was potentially a WMD on its way and yet here she was, waiting for it to arrive. What the hell am I doing in this place? She lay in the unfamiliar bed struggling in vain for the release of sleep, and just succeeded in pulling out the sheets and making things even more uncomfortable as she tossed and turned. The heat had a lot to do with her inability to get comfortable. Something had happened to the hotel’s air-con and the mercury had begun to rise immediately thereafter. The blokes had been unable to fix it quickly and the hotel maintenance staff had long since gone south, so the technicians gave up trying, lest they do permanent damage to the system. The windows in all the rooms had been taped up and covered with plastic sheeting. A small, noisy fan pushed close, fetid air around the room, clicking noisily as it swept from left to right. ‘Five star, my arse,’ she said quietly.
Annabelle took her mind back to the previous day – the airport, the NBC suit, the chaos and then utter stillness of Darwin itself. At the briefing downstairs in the dining room, the army had actually been pretty decent about things. The restrictions had been waived on reporting the scenes at the airport, for example. The army had taken on board Weaver’s point about personal video cameras. They’d basically been given the run of the place, except for the military establishments, which was fair enough. Lance Corporal B. Face – whose real name was Victor Kidde, though his friends called him Billy – and the armed escort had been their constant companions for the day. But the attached security was a waste of time and manpower because Darwin was a ghost town. The place was truly creepy. A city with absolutely no people in it was a depressing, spooky place. There were no cars, no sounds, no movement at all. It was just like one of those mock towns built in the fifties by the American army to destroy with its A-bombs. Woolworths had been utterly cleaned out, stripped bare. The windows were broken and the shelves had mostly been ripped down. Anything in the way of food had been taken, clothes, even the mannequins had walked, although some of these had been torn apart and were lying broken in the road, arms outstretched like people calling for help. Annabelle shook her head. Her imagination was working overtime. Sleep was going to be impossible.
Against the rules, her NBC suit hung in the shower recess. It wasn’t against the rules to put it in the shower. Taking it off was the issue. She could see it hanging there, with the hood and gasmask looking like something ghastly and alive, and only vaguely human. She was supposed to be wearing it to bed but, fuck that, thought Annabelle. She was sweating enough as it was and wasn’t looking forward to putting it on in the morning. It’d be like climbing into a wet rubber glove.
Congratulations, she said to herself as she got up and paced the room in the dark – you wanted to kick your career on to the next level, and instead you’ve given yourself a major kick in the guts. A bigger pay packet and a capricious boss out for revenge because she wouldn’t come across now replaced the man she loved. And she was no longer the anchor. Sure, she might recover that position but she had a fair idea what she’d have to surrender to secure it. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. She’d once been in control, but now she’d lost it. Completely. And what about Tom? She’d moved to another city. Without even telling him. What signal had that sent? She had completely fucking blown it.
But it wasn’t all her fault, was it? Hadn’t he been just plain stubborn? Hadn’t he always placed the regiment above her? The more she thought along these lines, the more indignant she became, the mood pendulum swinging to the other extreme. Was it fair of him to expect her to wait at home while he dodged bullets in some unknown hellhole? No, it wasn’t. What if they had kids? The selfish bastard! Before Annabelle became too indignant, the competing voice in her head reminded her that he hadn’t asked her to give up anything, that the person making all the demands had been her. And what did she expect? That Tom would just chuck in his career and follow her to Sydney because she was…Annabelle Gilbert, anchorwoman? She knew she didn’t want a lap-dog. Tom had strength, he was his own person. She had always loved that about him, so what had changed? Why had the appearance of a ring on her finger so radically altered her outlook? Tom would make adjustments to his life as they were needed, wouldn’t he? Maybe it was just ego – her ego – that had been the wedge driving them apart. Admit it. When it comes right down to it, girlfriend, you just don’t want to marry a soldier, even if that soldier is Tom. Before she’d met him, Annabelle had always seen herself ending up partnered to a professional, someone like a lawyer or a doctor, whose life dovetailed neatly with her own aspirations. Maybe you’re doing Tom a favour. Time will just amplify our differences, our disappointments. Finally, Annabelle gave up the struggle and fell into the arms of a fitful sleep, but an instant later, the alarm clock beside her bed buzzed telling her that it was time to wake up. She lay in bed, trying very hard to think about absolutely nothing, but failed. They had to file after breakfast and she still hadn’t written the piece. ‘Dammit,’ she said to the darkness. She got up, switched on the sidetable light, and sat down on the bed with her laptop.
Weaver and the cameraman met Annabelle in the hotel lobby, its windows and doors taped and sealed with plastic sheeting like those in the rooms. Army types rushed through on unknown errands. The level of anxiety had reduced a little from the previous day so Annabelle guessed that nothing noteworthy had happened overnight. Weaver confirmed that. He’d been up for an hour and looked fresh, for once. ‘All the hookers have left town,’ he said unashamedly. ‘So I went to bed early. What was I going to do, knock on Vicky Virgin’s door?’
Annabelle shrugged. She was in no mood for banter.
Weaver handed her an aluminium foil tray. ‘Breakfast,’ he said, ‘courtesy of the army. I’ve had mine, and if I was you I’d save myself for lunch.’
Annabelle took a peek inside and smelled the contents, and decided to take the producer’s advice.
‘Yeah, I think our union would have something to say about that,’ he said when he saw the look on her face. ‘The army has decided the city is secure so they’re moving most of the men onto the highway and the airport to help the police. That means we’ve lost our armed shadow, but Billy the Kid is going to stay with us.’ On cue, the large boy in a chemical suit with the hood and mask hanging down his back walked through the door.
Greetings were exchanged and Weaver said, ‘Are you familiar with a cartoon character called Baby Huey?’
‘No,’ said Billy the Kid, looking puzzled.
Annabelle wasn’t either and so had no idea what Weaver found so amusing.
‘Okay, let’s go to work,’ Weaver said. ‘Annabelle? Have you written anything for me to look over?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, handing him a couple of sheets of printout.
‘That’s good,’ he said as he read. ‘Some nice touches. We’d better hurry if we want to do this.’ He fluttered the paper in his hand.
Twenty minutes later, Annabelle Gilbert was framed in the camera lens so that the gun of the USS Peary was in the near background, the emerald waters of Port Darwin beyond. The network wanted the piece live. No second chances to get it right. Annabelle finished the rehearsal as the grey bow of an American frigate, the last remaining ship of the USS Constellation’s battle group that had begun leaving the port several days before, came into view.
Weaver gave her the countdown and, on a silent ‘one’, Annabelle Gilbert went live into the homes of millions.
‘It’s a beautiful tropical morning in Darwin, just like it was almost sixty-two years ago to the day when, at five minutes past ten in the morning, one hundred and eightyeight aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy brought the Second World War to this spot, dropping more bombs on Port Darwin than they did on Pearl Harbor, sinking nine ships and killing more than one hundred and seventy people. The gun behind me is all that remains of the USS Peary, a destroyer sunk on that fateful morning killing ninety-one seamen.
‘Back then, Australia was taken by surprise, but not today as we await the arrival of a different kind of war in our skies, a war in some ways even more brutal than that global conflict of the last century.
‘A spokesman for the Australian Army confirmed the estimate late yesterday that more than ten thousand people remain in the city, refusing to evacuate. Many are local Aborigines. Few of those remaining have the protection provided by one of these, a nuclear biological chemical or NBC suit, supplies of which are scarce.’
The picture changed as the cameraman swung his camera around to show Weaver and Billy the Kid, both of whom were wearing the full NBC suit with the hood and gasmask over their heads. Annabelle also wore hers, but the hood and gasmask hung behind her back.
‘Ever since the threat of the VX-laden drone became known, the local television station has been running programs on how to turn a house into a chemical shelter, sealing the doors with plastic sheeting and tape. As expected, most hardware and department stores have run out of these materials, as well as plastic garbage bags and stocks of bleach, said to be an effective VX neutralising agent.
‘The early riots and looting touched off by the news of the impending terrorist strike have stopped, largely due to a significant army presence on the streets here…’
Two RAAF F/A-18 fighters suddenly ripped through the air overhead, cutting a low arc over the city, heading out towards the sea. As the thunder from their turbines rolling around the harbour receded, Annabelle went on with her report, departing from the script to make the flypast appear part of the show.
‘And as you might expect, the RAAF has every available plane in the sky searching for the terrorists’ drone, hoping to shoot it down before it arrives.’
Weaver appreciated the adlib with a thumbs up.
‘So now Darwin waits, holding its breath, while the ghosts of that fateful day in nineteen forty-two judge our present. For this is a conflict Australia will fight on its own, as this departing US warship symbolises, on its way to defend Indonesia’s shores against the shared threat.
‘It’s perhaps not the end of ANZUS, our strategic alliance with the US, but without doubt the treaty has been severely wounded. Those wounds could well become mortal if a small pilotless plane airbursts upwind of this northern capital.’
At this point Annabelle reached behind her and pulled the hood and mask over her head so that her final words were muffled.
‘This is Annabelle Gilbert for ANTV Network News, Darwin.’
Annabelle stood in front of the camera for five seconds in her chemical warfare suit, looking like a camouflaged two-legged insect, and waited for Weaver’s signal.
‘…and cut,’ he said. ‘Now let’s go find a bar and some loose women.’
‘How was that?’ asked Annabelle.
‘All bullshit aside, I think you’re too good to sit behind a desk,’ he said. ‘Saunders did you a favour, whether you realise it or not, kiddo. The funny thing is, Saunders doesn’t realise it.’
‘Thanks, Barry.’
‘No worries,’ said Weaver. ‘So, can we go and have sex now?’
‘Will you settle for something to eat?’ Annabelle was starving. She hadn’t eaten dinner or breakfast and she was starting to feel faint.
‘You know I could hit that for six, don’t you?’
Annabelle smiled. ‘Come on. Everything in this town can’t be khaki.’
Five minutes later, Billy the Kid was back behind the wheel of the army Land Rover, and they were slowly cruising the back streets of Darwin but, of course, everything was shut. It was like the place was in a coma, thought Annabelle. It was alive in one sense but as good as dead in another.
‘The lights are on, but ain’t nobody home,’ commented Weaver, looking at the vacant shops. A lone dog padded along the footpath, tongue lolling in the wet heat.
‘You took the words right out of my brain,’ said Annabelle.
She heard Billy the Kid say, ‘What’s this guy do –’ and she had time to look out the window, but there wasn’t even enough time to be afraid.
The brown steel bucket of a large agricultural earthmoving machine filled the side windows. It slammed into the Land Rover, T-boning it. The force of the impact threw the vehicle’s occupants sideways. Billy the Kid’s head smashed into the b-pillar by his shoulder, knocking him senseless. His blood splattered across Annabelle as his head rolled from side to side. She screamed with the shock of the impact. The Land Rover’s tyres protested as the machine pushed it broadside across the road. The bucket then lifted them up and over the kerb and drove them viciously into the side of a building. The machine’s massive diesel roared. It was as if the thing was determined to push them through the wall they were pinned against. The machine shunted and strained as it jammed them repeatedly against the brickwork. Annabelle yelled at them to stop. The windscreen of the Land Rover suddenly shattered into tiny crystals that fell into the laps of the cameraman and Billy the Kid, both of whom were unconscious. And then, all was quiet for a few seconds.
‘Reach for a radio or your mobiles and you are all dead,’ yelled a man in front of them. He wasn’t joking. He had a large machine gun pointed at them. Bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossed his chest. There were two men with him who were also armed. One had a small rocket launcher and the other carried a can Annabelle assumed was full of petrol. All three were dressed in dirty T-shirts, shorts and thongs, the uniform for males in the Australian far north.
Her vision was blurred from the impact with the earthmover. She shook her head to try to clear it. The palm trees that dotted the footpath and the mall just in front of them had been sawn off at their base. The trees themselves had been dragged away and lay helter-skelter further down the mall. Another large tractor was having a tug of war with an automatic teller machine set into the partly demolished wall of a bank. The ATM was losing. It suddenly came free and half a dozen men gave a cheer.
‘It’s a fucking bank robbery!’ said Weaver groggily.
The earthmover wrestling with the ATM swung it onto the tray of a flatbed truck. The men jumped on and slapped each other on the back as they ripped into tins of beer. They drove off leaving the Land Rover pinned against the wall by the steel bucket.
Billy the Kid came around in time to watch the crooks jump into their truck. ‘So now we know who stole the guns from the museum,’ he said, holding his head in his hands.
The sudden blast of a diesel motor again filled the Land Rover causing Annabelle and Weaver to flinch. An armoured personnel carrier sped past blowing clouds of blue-black smoke, followed by three more Land Rovers, these ones carrying mounted machine guns. They roared down the road in hot pursuit of the bank robbers.
‘Are you people all right?’ A face popped into view, framed by the empty windshield. Annabelle recognised him as the major they’d met at the airport when they first arrived.
‘I thought you buggers said you had the looters under control,’ said Weaver, pissed off, rubbing a very large bump on his head.