The rest of the retrieval pretty well went to plan. We spent an uncomfortable night in our dungeon but got some sleep, and in the morning I opened up the trapdoor and looked up into a clear blue sky. There wasn’t much left of the bach. Most of it had flown west. It was an eerily quiet morning. But for all the detritus on the beach, you might never have known a storm had passed through. Saskia and I stayed on the root-beer diet and waited patiently for the cavalry, which turned up mid-morning. Same ute, same driver, same co-pilot. He’d managed to find hangar space at the airport and thankfully the hangar, and the Commodore 200, had survived unscathed. After all the islanders had been through in recent years, they seemed pretty blasé about Cyclone Saskia. Storm in a teacup.
We loaded up the ute and got out. I never did discover the nature of Saskia’s lodging arrangement on the north-east shore of Espiritu Santo. Whose place was it? Had she rented it? When I asked, she merely shrugged and said that Daddy would sort it out. That was her trouble. She couldn’t really cut the umbilical cord. She might run to the farthest corner of the earth and disappear into a maelstrom, but when she got into trouble, Daddy would sort it out. She was in a bind, and that was why she was so screwed up.
We flew back to Auckland under 20,000 feet to keep the cabin pressure up and I got Saskia to suck on the oxygen cylinders all the way. I was able to talk to Trans-Global on the r/t and we organised for an ambulance to meet us at the airport and make the short transit from the Manukau across the isthmus that is Auckland City, and over the Waitemata to the naval base at Devonport. I scribbled out a referral letter for the paramedics. They could take Saskia on the last leg. She was perfectly stable, and I would say goodbye to her when she left the plane. It crossed my mind to stay the course and go to Devonport with her. After all, I had an evening appointment. But I’d left my stuff in the Travel Lodge at Ihumatao.
So it was. At Auckland, the ambulance had come airside on to the apron and we were able to transfer her with minimum fuss. A customs officer came on board to check our passports and that was that. I thanked the pilots, shook hands, and followed the customs officer into the international terminal, back along the long corridors, duty-free (didn’t buy), and out into the concourse.
‘Whoa! Strangeways! Now just hold fast there, young fella.’
It was Fox, with the usual retinue, looking macho and belligerent in a checked cowboy shirt and a pair of blue jeans. I noticed again in the background the man I’d taken to be Fox’s bodyguard, the tall fair-haired individual with the head shaped like a bullet. He looked European to me. Probably German. He was unobtrusively surveying the concourse meeters and greeters, looking out for potential assassins for all I knew. Fox stepped right into my personal space. The blue eyes were cold and watchful.
‘Where’s my daughter?’
‘She’s in an ambulance down on the apron. She’s fine. You can catch up with her at the Devonport Naval Base. Thanks for the use of your aeroplane. Would you excuse me?’
‘Just hold it there.’ He started jabbing a rigid finger into my chest. It was the index finger of his left hand. I thought, when he gets angry or upset, he forgets to keep his left hand under control. ‘I sent you on a mission. Guess you’ve never been in the military, pal. Guess you’ve never heard of a thing called debrief. Well I’m expecting that debrief, and I’m expecting it now. I want to know, first up, why you took so long. You were told to make a fast turn-around. I wanna know why you hung around, put my daughter’s life at risk, put my pilots in jeopardy, not to mention a ten-million-dollar aircraft.’
‘I suggest you ask your daughter. You can’t miss the naval base. Come off the Devonport ferry and turn left and walk west along the harbour side as far as you can go. You’ll come to a checkpoint. I suggest you try politeness and the navy might let you in.’
I thought he was going to swing a punch at me. I almost wished he would. He was looking me over, trying to figure me out.
‘I don’t think you get the picture. I don’t think you know who you’re talking to. You want trouble with your Medical Council, you got it.’
‘On the contrary Mr Fox, the General Medical Council will back me to the hilt. It’s you who don’t get the picture. What you’re asking is out of the question. There’s an issue of confidentiality. You didn’t send me on a mission. I don’t work for you. I told you. You want information, I suggest you ask Saskia. Goodbye.’
He stepped back out of my personal space and looked me up and down.
‘You’ve crossed a line.’
‘Step aside.’
‘You’re finished, pal.’ Then I thought I saw the punch coming. But his left arm merely flailed out in an involuntary Nazi salute.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a bully. Sometimes I think of making it my life’s work to go out of my way to track them down and torment them.