Jake was delivered by the shuttle from Dulles International Airport under cover of dark like a parcel. He staggered to the front door for Anne to let him in. She gave him a hug. He smelled foul. He walked straight to the bathroom, showered and fell into bed, face to the mattress, as uncommunicative as a zombie. He was scarcely able to talk in the morning over breakfast either. Anne knew better than to press him. Jake had worked out that he could not really say anything. Not to anyone. It was another Monday. He had to report at the Embassy. He would need to work out what to say there.
Nicole chattered about how much of her life he had missed. She had made two new friends at school. Anne said only that she wanted him home early after work that evening. She had booked a nice restaurant and they were going out to dinner for their wedding anniversary. Nicole cheered. She loved the idea of her parents being romantic. A candle-lit dinner with champagne and all the fineries. Jake was glad to be reminded, glad that Anne had taken the initiative. She would soothe him and heal him by reminding him of things like their wedding at the seaside in Adelaide all those years ago, their vows, that sacrament, the years of marriage. She could surely tell how wrecked and tormented he was. They were still together after all.
His route to work took him down into the subway at Crystal City and up into the daylight at Dupont Circle where the fluffy clouds overhead were swollen with grey-white summer moisture. From there to the Embassy the air was humid and sweet with the scent of cut grass. He needed the space, this space or that space, having lost all sense of which world he was in, above or below. His body responded to the charms of the physical environment, its seeming peace and safety, its dreamy unreality, its transience. Magnolias were in flower in great bowls of perfume that would last only a day. His heart pumped as his motor system powered him along. At the same time he was screaming in agony, wanting darkness and obliteration. The truth of Elisa’s death, her slain body prepared for eternity, left him to struggle with no escape.
He reached 1601 Mass Ave where the security guards greeted him. He said hello to those colleagues who welcomed him back and spoke equally warmly to those who hadn’t noticed he had been away. He got to his office, closed the door, turned on the computer and sat there – breathing.
Reports of the attack on Sister Mina’s community had come in, some of which mentioned the killing of Elisabeta Gomes Santos, a long-time leader in the independence movement.
Jimmy’s complaints to Canberra about communications dropping out for that key period were also there.
Jake decided to add one of his own, accusing them, whoever they were, of endangering the life of fellow Australians on duty. He didn’t mention himself because he had not been there officially. His was supposed to be a private visit. But the dead woman – Elisa – she was targeted, wasn’t she?
There was a letter for him from Paula at DI in Canberra, the section head with whom he saw eye to eye. A personal letter was the only way to get a message to someone in a post without everyone else being able to see it. Paula had faxed it as well because time was of the essence. The fax had come after he left, spat out from the machine outside the door of his office. Someone had picked it up and put it in his in-tray where it sat with the original unopened letter that had come by bag. Tania? She was discreet, but she would have read it.
The letter warned of a witch hunt in Canberra to uncover how top-secret intelligence on East Timor was reaching the Americans, inconveniently against the orders of the security group in cabinet. It was Jake’s job as Defence liaison to exchange information with the Americans. A specific interdiction of that exchange flew in the face of Australia’s treaty obligations. Diplomats had to do what they were instructed to do. But the operational rules were less clear when it came to seconded Defence personnel. There was some wriggle room. Paula didn’t tell Jake to stop. She told him to go slowly, to be careful, implying that he was being watched.
The warning came too late. Case must already have received the cache of documents Jake mailed him and put it to work. Now there was more. The whole picture. It was super important. It couldn’t wait. Jake began typing a report in which he told how the communications had been blocked in a way that gave the militias cover. It suggested that there was potentially a double agent involved. Some unnamed people in the highest echelons of Australian public life working hand in glove with the Indonesians to oppose what the United Nations hoped to achieve for the people of East Timor, what the people of East Timor themselves were fighting for, what the Americans wanted now too.
The summons from the Ambassador came after lunch. He was pink and shiny in the face, matching the satin ribbing on his pink shirt. He was relaxed from his meal and leaned back in his chair with a slack fixed grin and asked how Jake was. He wanted to know everything Jake had done on his trip, everything he saw.
‘Not now, Jake,’ the Ambassador hastened to add. ‘I want you to go away and prepare a summary for me. Think about it for twenty-four hours. Put your thoughts in order.’
He was calm, soft-spoken, unthreatening. A clever man.
‘How bad is it?’ His tone was confidential. ‘I’m interested in who you’ve spoken to, who you’ve shared your assessment with…’
‘It’s pretty much what we’ve been saying,’ Jake equivocated in reply. ‘The Indonesians are doing what they can to control the situation.’
‘The UN observers will be in Dili next week,’ the Ambassador pointed out, leaning forward now. ‘We’ll need our report to set against theirs. We’re calling it civil war. An internal matter. We don’t want to take sides. Tomorrow then.’
Jake walked numbly from the Ambassador’s office, left the Embassy and walked to the Library of Congress where there was a researcher who was interested in East Timor. He had to find out more about the resources at the bottom of the Timor Sea. He was sleepwalking, as if underwater himself, animated purely by the meaning of what he had to do.
The researcher, Dan, led him to a report on geological exploration that had been produced by Australian scientists twenty-five years earlier, when Indonesia first invaded and Australia, alone among like-minded nations, accepted the annexation. The report helped explain why. Australia was comfortable enough back then about the prospect of working with the Indonesians to preserve an advantageous undersea boundary and exploit the natural resources. Oil and gas, or rather, gases. Those other rare gases, in small quantities, that had become increasingly valuable over the years. Dan pulled out other reports on what the US military needed those inert gases for, for national security, for continuing technological supremacy, for dominance in space. Petroco had ended up controlling the harvest of those deposits under the Timor Sea in partnership with the Australians they brought on board. Together they held a secret monopoly worth billions of dollars.
This scenario provided the motivation that had been kept out of sight. Disguised as national interest, there was personal financial gain to shareholders and to company directors on a massive scale. The players in the scheme saw it as a monetary measure of their self-worth, what their lies and their indifference to human life could buy. The earth and the sea were theirs. It was what Australia had always done. The extractive nation. And now there were proxies to blame, the local people themselves who could not sort out their own mess.
The research that Dan produced from the Library of Congress was all on open access. Jake’s hunch came with deep anger. But there was consolation. Elisa would win. Elisa’s people would win. The duplicitous and opportunistic Australian scheme would fail, would be exposed and denounced, bringing shame and a reckoning. He would make sure of that.
—
Anne wore her red wool jersey dress to the anniversary dinner. Jake always loved the way it hugged her body. They had a table for two in a corner of a quaint French restaurant in Georgetown. The old brick footpath outside was uneven and so was the wooden floor inside. They creaked into their seats as the patronne came over with champagne, laying her accent on thick in welcome. There was a sprig of baby’s breath with a single pink rosebud in the little vase on the table.
They clinked glasses. ‘To us!’
They chose local farm greens and country-style chicken paté from the menu. It came with crusty bread and butter. Anne’s auburn hair was brushed up and back, her nimbus, receding ever so slightly. Jake was happy to toast the familiarity of their continuity. He wished he could tell Anne more about his trip to Dili. But there was little he could say even within the confidence of husband and wife – little he could risk her knowing for her sake, and more he would not divulge for personal reasons. There were currents of feeling he could barely acknowledge to himself, actions he might have taken but now never would, things he – they – were saved from – to what end?
Anne saw how tired he was. ‘This is hard on you, Jake, isn’t it?’
‘Our wedding anniversary? How could that be hard? It’s the best reminder I could have of all the good things in life. Of you. Of us. Of Nicole. All that we have.’
She smiled. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘Love.’
The word touched her. ‘The pressure you’re under. I wish you could let me share the burden.’
Jake smiled back, a crumpled smile. ‘You know I can’t.’ He was light-hearted after one glass of fizzing champagne.
‘What happened on your trip?’
‘There was violence. There was an attack. People were killed. You know the silver medallion I brought back? The woman who gave it to me, whose great-auntie handed it down.’
‘The antique shilling,’ said Anne. ‘You left it with Nicole.’
‘She was killed. The woman who gave it to me. She was part of the independence movement. Shot in cold blood. It’s senseless.’
He didn’t know what level of emotion he conveyed. He was hyperventilating. The blood rushed to his head.
‘I could do nothing to stop it,’ he confessed.
Anne hesitated, gauging what to say. She picked up her glass and sipped, detaching herself from her husband’s aroused state. ‘You’re not responsible, Jake. You can’t hold yourself responsible.’
‘But we are. We’re all responsible. And it goes barely mentioned.’
‘What I see,’ said Anne, ‘is that you believe there is possible good that can come out of a bad situation in East Timor and that you are working in every way for that. It’s a job. But you are not ultimately responsible.’
‘Then who is? It’s what I am.’
She laughed a little. ‘You’re still the country boy who knows right from wrong.’
There was a pause as the patronne returned to clear the table of their starters. Anne waited. Then Jake said, ‘I don’t know what to do with it anymore.’
‘It’s destroying you,’ she observed.
They sat back to reflect and the main courses came. The weight of the conversation prepared the way for a shift, a plea.
Anne spoke passionately. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to you at work. You’re struggling. I know that. You’re anxious, you’re worn out, you’re on your own. I see all that. You want to be a hero. But I beg you, Jake, before anything happens, think of Nicole and me. We’re your family. There’s just the three of us. We matter. That’s all I ask. Whatever you’re going through. Think of us.’
That was when he took her hand. He hung his head, silent. Anne’s expression was pained, intense, accusatory. He felt ashamed.
‘We need a holiday,’ he offered. It provoked mirth.
‘How about the Grand Canyon?’ Anne suggested. Was it a joke?
‘The Grand Canyon,’ he agreed.
It was enough to allow him to gorge on the rich food, to stumble out into the street supported by his wife, and to plunge into the sleep of oblivion when they got home.
But before that – Anne was in her flannel nightie, Jake in his fleecy pyjamas – they reached for each other under the covers. Their hands probed beneath the nightwear and found skin, warm and soft. Stroking slowly, gently, for the arousal they knew was there, of old, by routine, out of deep habit. Her breasts, her rounded thighs. They moved into each other, moaning, exclaiming as if in distress, moving together steadily to a wonderful rough climax that joined them as one.
—
Jake was in his office early the next day, determined to update his report. He could only set down what he knew, concrete and succinct. When it was done he would send it to Case, his American friend who had a sense of honour. Was it wrong to trust to that? Case’s honour was high-minded, idealistic. It embodied the old-fashioned virtues, using might for right, helping the weak, aspiring nobly, and the new form of those virtues – human rights, respect, moral courage, the dignity of all. Did Jake see Case as his brother, his reflection? He had his own sense of honour which was humble rather than lofty, ingrained, stringy, tough. It came from the farm, the striving for decency in an inglorious colonising setting and the daily struggle for survival. Honesty, truth. Like the limestone that gave form and substance to the land. Trees whose roots travelled horizontally for water because the rock was impenetrable. Birds that nested in cliff caves then soared out to sea and across deserts to other hemispheres. He thought of that when he remembered the farm, the heaving mallee, the rusty plough, the broken wire, the crumbling stone – the place he came from. His own kind of idealism. It was right to trust.
He thought, too, of the shore on which he and Elisa had walked, where the Voyager wreck was beached.
Kara rang mid-morning. Jake was surprised to hear her chirpy voice when he picked up and was comforted by her Kiwi tones.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Just checking up on you, Jake, to see that you’re all right.’
He thanked her. What was she getting at?
‘I hear they’re after you. That’s what we’re hearing. Someone’s been talking to our friends. Telling it how it is. Some people don’t like that.’
‘I’m just back,’ Jake said.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘It’s terrible,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘Something has to be done.’
‘I know,’ Kara said again. ‘I’m with you, Jake. We’re mates, like we’re all supposed to be. I just wanted to check that you’re all right. I hear they’re sending someone to talk to you. Take care now. If there’s trouble, let me know. That’s all. Kia ora.’ Kara hung up as abruptly as she’d begun. It was unsettling. He was grateful but unnerved. The storm was brewing.
Jake finished his report and put the copy for Case in the mail. He kept a copy for himself sealed in an envelope in his briefcase. He had decided not to tell the Ambassador anything when they had their meeting, which the Ambassador’s secretary had rescheduled to the end of the day. Jake would stick to what the Ambassador wanted to hear, the agreed line. He drafted a set of talking points to that effect. He would not supply any other ammunition.
At five p.m. Jake went up to the Ambassador’s office. The secretary had gone for the day and the door was slightly ajar. Jake knocked and was told to enter. Come in, Jake. The Ambassador gestured to the seat Jake should take, then closed the door and resumed his place behind his desk. He glittered with a saurian grin. Sharp pearly whites. Eyes bright. Hair a little disarrayed in boyish camouflage.
There was a glass of water on the low table by Jake’s chair. A light shone on the equestrian painting on the wall, catching the rider’s jodhpurs and spurs.
‘Now, man, what do you have to tell me about the situation in East Timor?’ the Ambassador began.
Jake held up the piece of paper. ‘I’m working on the report. I’m happy for you to have these dot points.’
‘That’s the assessment for public consumption. What’s your personal view? We have reason to believe you have a different view which you’re willing to share with others.’
Neither of them blinked.
‘Top secret Australian intelligence has been passed to the Americans. Do you know anything about that, Jake?’
‘Why are you asking me, Ambassador?’
‘Canberra wants to know.’
Jake stayed silent.
The Ambassador smiled and rearranged himself. ‘Look, Jake, I’m sorry about your girlfriend. The local woman. That must be hard for you. It’s a brutal business. Please accept my condolences.’
‘How dare you?’ Jake was losing his composure.
‘You know more about it all than I do. But there are suspicions coming from Canberra about where the Americans are getting their information from.’
It occurred to Jake that Case might have dobbed him in as a source in order to take his concerns higher and get action, out of his sense of honour. Had he been outmanoeuvred by his colleagues back in Australia, scapegoated, named as a whistleblower? It could have been anyone. Was this a set-up? Or speculation? Pure fiction?
‘Are you accusing me?’ Jake asked.
The Ambassador was unflustered. ‘I’m counselling you. This is a Defence matter. Defence are ready to send in their toughest investigator. Maybe you know the man. Kooka. We don’t want that to happen. He’s not a very pleasant fellow and if my staff see him round here they’ll be worried. He’s banned from the building as far as I’m concerned. It would be better if we can handle this between ourselves.’
It was so bland, so matter-of-fact and yet so rehearsed. So sinuous it was hard to follow.
‘This trip to Dili to see your girlfriend, Jake? You were exposed. Did you understand the risk you were taking?’
‘The communications line went down just at the right time,’ Jake said in retaliation. ‘How did that happen? It must have been orchestrated.’
‘You let yourself get carried away, Jake. It can happen to anyone.’
Jake reached for the glass of water, gulped some and spluttered. He needed advice. If this was an accusation, the procedure was all wrong. He looked around for help.
The horse in the painting on the wall was a bay. That’s when David St George popped into his head. His old friend. The best lawyer he knew. Jake remembered David as the lost boy on the cadet camp, the shaven-headed person who looked like a reffo, who could not put up his tent to save himself. Jake had looked after him then. Now he wanted David with him here behind the closed door of a room in a government building in a foreign country where he was being handled by a man who, he suspected, had a large personal stake in the matter.
The Ambassador could guess at the allegations Jake’s report would contain – about the Foreign Minister, the Department Secretary and himself conspiring together for private gain. He needed to discredit his officer and shut him up.
Jake’s report was already on its way into the hands of others and could not be retracted.
‘There are consequences, Jake,’ said the Ambassador. ‘What did you think you were doing? You had a good reputation. Now that’s all gone. Depending on what you do next.’ He rose self-importantly from his chair, smoothing the polished wood of his desk with his smooth hands. ‘I’ve had the Minister on the phone. Your friend. He’s not very pleased.’ He bent to the lowest drawer of the wide oak desk and pulled out a package wrapped in bunched cellophane with red ribbon tied in a bow on top. A bottle of vintage whisky in a silver box. ‘He asked me to give you this,’ he said, pushing it across to the edge of the desk. ‘Take it. It’s for you.’
Jake sat immobilised in his chair. He was scared. He knew that they could persecute him until the end of his days and harrass his wife and daughter as they had killed Elisa. They would use Elisa to damage him in his family’s eyes and to damage his family too. Untruthful. Traitor. Faithless. They would stop at nothing.
The Ambassador rolled his shoulders back to achieve his full height. He was pleased at how grown-up he could be, how real, how set his jaw was in the face of the inevitable. For the good of the team, the class, the squad, the club.
‘We betray ourselves when we betray our country,’ he intoned grandiloquently.
The skin tightened on the back of Jake’s neck. So that’s how it’s done, he thought. He wondered if it was not too late just to walk away.
‘We all have our dreams, Jake,’ the Ambassador concluded, wrinkling into a smile. ‘Some are sweeter than others. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have something to attend to.’ Again he indicated the package on the desk. There was a card attached, signed with a flourish. Thank you for your service. Henry Hunt. He didn’t want it left there.
—
When he got home Jake went straight to the garage and put the unopened parcel in the back of the car under the seat along with the envelope containing his copy of the report that damned them all.
They had a family evening that night, watching a movie on television. Toy Story, Nicole’s choice.
After Nicole went to bed Jake told Anne he was going out for a walk. ‘Is everything okay?’ she asked. He was in trouble but still he wouldn’t talk to her about it.
‘Yes, fine,’ he said. ‘I need to stretch my legs.’
If he did what they wanted he would be part of the system by which they operated. The old school tie. Their contempt was evident in their confidence that he would play the game, like the lackey, the retainer, the fool they thought he was. It was as if Henry Hunt had used him to wipe his arse and was now disposing of the soiled tissue.
Yet that way out saved Anne and Nicole. From public humiliation, from financial ruin. Would it? It was an ultimatum.
He walked along the street to the subway station and found the public phone he used to avoid being traced. People were out, alone or in groups, enjoying the summer night. It was the middle of the working day in Australia. He called David St George’s chambers in Sydney hoping to catch him. He had questions he needed answers to. They hadn’t been in touch since he left for DC and contact was overdue. Unless Anne had sent David a postcard.
David’s secretary, Hoa, gave Jake a time to call back when David would be on his lunchbreak. He did the perimeter of the Crystal City mall while he waited. The moon that was near full when he last saw it on the beach with Elisa was a pear-shaped time-marker in the sky. He completed his loop and was back in the subway station standing in line with his AT&T card, impatient for the phone to be free. He was nervous. As soon as he heard David’s voice, his own voice cracked. He needed help, he said. It was a legal matter.
David let Jake talk. He was surprised to hear from his old friend. Curious. Canny.
‘They want me out of the way,’ Jake said. ‘They’ve put the gun in my hand. Is that lawful?’
David laughed. ‘Can you go to the police?
‘They are the police!’ Jake laughed in return. ‘They’re threatening to send an enforcer to heavy me. I wish you could be here for that.’
‘Just don’t say anything,’ David warned. ‘They don’t have the authority.’
Jake wanted to know if suicide voided life insurance, superannuation, workplace entitlements. He tried to make the question hypothetical so as not to worry David. His friend saw through that and was concerned.
‘It depends.’ He gave the lawyer’s response.
‘On what?’ Jake needed to know.
‘Circumstances.’
‘Coercion?’
‘Coercion can be a crime,’ David said, ‘potentially at least. If it’s work-related there could be a case for compensation. Forced suicide.’
The silence on the line was like those infinite expanses of space that frighten us. Jake could picture David in his book-lined chambers, the walls salon-hung with art, a window open to the grimy lane that ran down to Circular Quay. He thought he could hear the cry of scavenging seagulls in the background and commented on it to David who said no, that was the ibis going through the garbage.
‘We shouldn’t be talking like this,’ David said. He asked if Anne was there. He wanted to speak to her. He was ready to jump on a plane if necessary.
‘I’ll call you back tomorrow,’ said Jake abruptly. It had not been a long conversation. Twelve minutes and thirty-six seconds according to AT&T. He ended it because there was too much else he could not tell David.
As he walked back to the house, Jake noticed a figure on the pavement outside, a big man in a long coat apparently waiting for him.
The stranger stepped forward from the shadows and addressed him. ‘I thought it better not to disturb your family, Colonel Treweek. Cookson-Barnes is the name.’ He held a cigarette in his fingers and didn’t offer to shake Jake’s hand. ‘Kooka,’ he said. ‘I hope I don’t alarm you.’
Ah-ha! The Kookaburra. Cookie the Cookie-cutter. The infamous Major Cookson-Barnes, decorated officer gone rogue. A sad sack in an outsize coat, thought Jake, as the man materialised. His rasping speech betrayed the habit of command.
Jake pressed the remote on the keys in his pocket, the garage door opened and the sensor lights went on. He wanted to see this phantom figure better. Kooka followed him down the ramp. He ditched his cigarette into the empty bucket by the door with the mop in it, squinting in the glare as he entered the garage.
‘What do you want?’ Jake asked.
Jake knew about Kooka. Like him, Kooka had started in Army and moved sideways. After distinguished action against the Khmer Rouge with the Australian contingent of the United Nations mission to Cambodia he went on to the Embassy in Phnom Penh as Defence Counsellor. That was the good Australia, building democracy, before Hun Sen stopped playing the game. The Major started dealing in the Khmer cultural treasures that were being looted from temples across Cambodia in those chaotic years. He was selling sculpture and other priceless works of art from his official residence and shipping it out under diplomatic cover. Some of it ended up in the world’s art museums. More disappeared into private collections, probably forever. Kooka got away with it for a long time and the money in his Hong Kong bank account grew to legendary proportions. He was untouchable. When he was investigated at last, he kept his security clearance by doing a deal. He became Defence’s interrogator in cases like his own. He knew where the bodies were buried.
Kooka pulled out another cigarette. Winfield Blue, Jake noticed. The Aussie smoke. A Winnie. He had last seen a packet like that at Alas, when the Defence team dropped in to deny any violence.
‘I thought you might need some help,’ Kooka said, watching for Jake’s reaction with his fixer’s eyes. He lit up and exhaled his disgusting smoke in Jake’s direction. ‘That’s all. You know the drill. I can help you with the means.’ He indicated the quiet house above. A door from the garage led directly into the house. Another door went out to the garden path. ‘We don’t want too much fuss.’
‘Leave us alone,’ Jake said. It felt pathetic.
‘When you’re ready,’ Kooka said. ‘I’ll check in again tomorrow.’
With a mirthless grunt the second cigarette, half-smoked, was flicked into the bucket with the mop and Kooka turned his back. He could have taken the ramp they came in by but instead he tried the internal doors. The door to the garden opened and he took the path to the street –a sold-out soul diminishing down the pavement.
Everything in Jake wanted to fight this monster to the end.
He opened the car door and leaned in to fetch the envelope and the package from under the back seat. He unwrapped the fancy bottle of whisky but left the silver box, the cellophane and the red bow where they were, out of sight with the Minister’s valedictory card.
—
The housekeeper came early the next morning – Maria was her name. Nicole went off to school and Anne headed out to the gym. Jake let the office know he would be late and shut himself in his study to revise and amplify what he had written and already sent to Case. He put everything in, his version of things, everything he knew to the extent humanly possible, from his perspective, that is, including Kooka. He was calm, he was lucid. He felt okay – natural, equable. It was a fine summer’s day and the light streamed in. He felt at ease with the world. Perhaps he was gone already.
Maria was vacuuming in the corridor outside the room where he worked. She knocked and asked if she could come in. He told her no, it could wait till tomorrow. She said she would not be coming tomorrow. It was her day off. So he moved away from his desk and let her vacuum the donkey-coloured carpet, sucking the dust from under his feet.
Later, drained of energy by his writing, he went downstairs and stepped out into the gorgeous day. He walked to Rock Creek Park and followed its winding course through bowers of magnolia and dogwood in full glorious flower. He hiked all the way to the gates of Rock Creek Cemetery and entered its green vista, drawn through the orders of graves to the particular monument that people called Grief. She was a hooded figure in bronze that flowed like water, a woman immersed to the point of drowning in the flow of life. He sat on the stone bench opposite, immured by the encircling conifers, and looked into the form’s bowed, shaded face. He bent his neck. It was enough. His head fell to his knees with a dry sob. Noises came from his throat, ugly, helpless.
The wife of Henry Adams the diplomat drank poison from depression and ended her life. Marion Clover Adams. Goddess. The meaning of the celebrated monument was commonplace, her grieving husband later wrote. She found the solution of the knottiness of existence. In his loss, his shame, his guilt, his blindness, his dread, his despair, Jake faced the same great commonplace.
He had Grief to himself that day as he sat on the bench. His watch told him he had to make an appearance at the Embassy. There were things to do in the office. He made his way, feeling the ground beneath his feet, stepping lightly, head in air. He had mulled it over from all angles and knew what to do. He dealt efficiently with his correspondence and other papers, taking what he needed and shredding the rest. He wiped his computer. There was only the voicemail from Kara left unanswered. She reiterated her concern. Kia ora.
He went to a CVS store and got what he needed, the hose and the duct tape, the sleeping pills. He carried the plastic bag with him to Nicole’s school where he was waiting at the gate when she came out. They walked home together, swinging their arms in unison like soldiers marching, laughing as they crossed at the lights. Nicole said she wondered how Piper was getting on without her in the Adelaide Hills. Jake said the pony would be fine and that she would be back there riding her pied beauty again before she knew it.
They had a happy evening together around the table. They all agreed on that as they hugged and kissed goodnight.
Anne went to bed. Jake lay beside her until she fell asleep. Then he got up again and went to his study. He needed to add something, the last piece of his document. When he finished, he printed out a hard copy to slip into the folder on the desk. Then he chose a tumbler with a heavy base from the cupboard, got the top off the bottle of Chivas and poured himself a large slug. This was defiance not compliance, he wrote, hoping he would be understood.
—
I predict the killing of thousands of innocent people and the displacement of many thousands more. None of it should happen. All of it is avoidable. The referendum will produce an overwhelming vote for an independent East Timor. Timor Lorosae. Timor Leste. Everyone will be surprised except the people who knew this was what they wanted all along. The freedom they paid for with their suffering. The TNI will lash out with vengeance. Defeated. Denied. Delenda est. East Timor must be destroyed. Indonesia will be embarrassed. Australia will come to the rescue, a laggard mate. Xanana will be peacemaker, unifier…
Dying for her country, for her family, Elisabeta Gomes Santos will not have died in vain.
From the flames of destruction a new nation will be born, a phoenix, a bawling babe. Viva!
I predict that the disputation will go on. The double-dealing. The maritime boundaries will be push and shove, the ocean floor will be carved up. I predict that Australia, my country, will continue to disrespect East Timor, regarding it as a liability. Shameless and corrupt men will be rewarded. After public life they will join the boards of resource companies, receive rich consultancies. Strenuously shielded to the last detail of their affairs into the next generation. Investigations will take place in secret. Documents will be blacked out, names redacted. Dishonour persists.
I predict justice at the end. That is my act of faith. I predict the finale with confidence – the curtain’s fall on a righteous and transparent peace – even though I cannot see my own next day.