He looked up suddenly. VT was running towards the house carrying something in his arms. ‘It’s Biggles,’ he yelled, ‘I think he’s been shot!’ He took the stairs two at a time, the limp beagle cradled to his chest.
Jack was back from inside the house with a first-aid kit before Martin even realised he had gone. Faith cleared the table and VT gently placed the dog on a thick towel.
‘He was crawling back to the house,’ VT said. ‘I followed a blood trail up the hill and found him.’
Jack cleaned the wound with disinfectant while Faith stroked the dog’s head, talking to him in reassuring tones. Biggles looked up at her and licked her hand.
‘Small-calibre bullet. Went straight through,’ Jack said. ‘This is one lucky puppy. Missed all the vital bits, which is a miracle on a dog this size.’ He carefully examined every inch of the beagle’s body. ‘If I haven’t overlooked something and there’s not too much blood loss, he should make it,’ he said as he began expertly bandaging the wound.
‘You sure it wasn’t shrapnel?’ Martin suggested. ‘Maybe he tripped one of the landmines or booby traps?’
Jack and VT glanced at each other. ‘No way, sport,’ Jack said. ‘Trust me on that.’
‘But even if you and VT know where all the mines are, the dog wouldn’t,’ Martin argued.
‘Martin, I know for a fact it wasn’t a mine or booby trap. Biggles would smell them. But that wouldn’t make a lot of difference with these particular mines anyway, because of where we planted them.’
‘Which is where exactly?’
‘Where they’d do the most damage and give us the best protection possible,’ Jack smiled. He tapped his temple. ‘We planted them in people’s heads.’
twenty-five
Biggles was resting in a basket on the verandah, wagging his tail happily as Faith patted him. ‘He’s looking a lot better,’ she said, ‘and I think all this tail-wagging is a good sign.’
‘Why would anyone want to shoot your dog, Jack?’ Martin asked.
‘Dunno, mate. Like I said earlier, there’s a few people outside the wire who’d like to have a go at me, but plugging Biggles here is a pretty low act.’ He knelt down and scratched the dog under his chin. ‘Sorry, short-arse, when we find out who did it we’ll bite ’em on the ankle, eh?’
The beagle yelped weakly.
‘Anyone want to de-stress with a little target practice?’ Jack asked, standing up.
‘I’m game,’ Faith said. ‘Could be fun to see exactly where our tax dollars have gone.’
‘I’ll stay up here and keep an eye on things,’ VT volunteered.
They went down the stairs to the garage, past the campervan and the other vehicles to a small elevator. Two floors down the doors slid open, silently, smoothly.
‘Government contract,’ Jack said. ‘Best of everything, bugger the expense. Hey, it’s not like it’s their money, right?’
The walls on three sides were lined with metal storage cupboards and rows of Dexion shelving. ‘Showpiece for the visiting head cases,’ Jack explained. ‘We have your guns, we have your ammo, we have your high explosives, both industrial and homemade. Light a cigarette in here and you’ll produce a brand new deep-water harbour for the Barrier Reef bare boats.’
Martin and Faith froze.
‘Lighten up, guys, it’s a joke,’ Jack said with a grin. ‘It would take a lot more than a match to set this lot off. You’d need a pretty solid wallop.’
The fourth wall was stacked high with sandbags, in front of which stood human-size cut-outs under bright lights. Jack opened the doors on a row of steel cupboards.
‘Choose your weapons, ladies and gentlemen. Rifles, pistols, submachine guns. You name it, we’ve got it. A different death for every day of the week.’
He tossed industrial earmuffs to Martin and Faith and took a weapon down for himself. ‘A personal favourite,’ he said, ‘the Swedish K.’ He inserted a magazine and pulled back the cocking lever. ‘The 9mm Karl Gustaf Model 45 submachine gun,’ he said fondly. ‘Thirty-round mag. Very popular with the off-the-books element back in ’Nam.’
‘What’s the K stand for?’ Martin asked.
‘Dunno, mate, must be the K in Karl Gustaf.’
‘It’s Carl with a C,’ Faith said. ‘The K is for Kulsprutepistol, which is Swedish for bullet-spurting pistol.’
Jack’s jaw dropped. ‘Well, fuck me drunk!’ he said.
‘I told you,’ Martin said.
Faith was nonchalant. ‘I’ve just got one of those memories. I read it somewhere and it stuck.’
‘But what were you reading, Faith, and why? That’s the question on my mind.’ Jack looked at Martin. ‘She’s scary, mate, even if she’s as good in bed as you reckon.’
Faith glared at Martin, who blew her a kiss.
Donning his earmuffs, Jack turned to the targets and lifted his gun. Even with their own earmuffs on, Martin and Faith found the noise deafening. It stopped as quickly as it started. The empty brass casings hit the floor and wisps of acrid smoke were sucked away by ventilators in the ceiling. One of the targets now featured a messy hole in its mid-section.
Jack handed the weapon to Martin. ‘Have a go.’
Martin shook his head and put the gun on a bench. ‘I’ve had more than enough of guns, thanks.’
Faith had wandered away and was exploring one of the storage cupboards.
‘What about you, Faith?’ Jack asked.
She stepped back with a tall wooden bow and a quiver of arrows. ‘No, thanks. This is a bit more my style.’
‘That’s genuine yew,’ Jack said. ‘None of that fibreglass or carbon-fibre-composite bullshit. Your classic English longbow. Robin Hood to Agincourt. Want me to string it for you?’
Faith expertly hooked her left leg around the bow, pulled down from the top and slipped the string in place.
‘Or you can do it,’ Jack said.
Faith tugged at the bowstring several times. ‘The English actually preferred Spanish yew for their bows, you know. Sometimes Italian.’ She fitted an arrow, turned and shot down range, towards a target. The arrow went wide.
Faith looked perplexed. ‘Out of practice, I guess. I was in the state junior archery squad in high school.’ She shot three more arrows. All misses. ‘Dammit, I was better than this when I was twelve!’
She flexed her right shoulder several times, then had a thought. Reaching inside her shirt, she pulled out a soft silicone bag and threw it to Martin. Another pull and the arrow thudded into the groin of the target. ‘Well, wadda you know? That Amazon stuff is true,’ she said.
‘Getting better,’ Martin offered.
‘It goes where I aim it,’ she replied, smiling.
Jack was looking at her dumbfounded.
‘Didn’t he say anything?’ she asked him, indicating Martin.
‘Not a word,’ Jack said.
Faith shrugged. ‘Must be true love, then. That’s the only thing that stops a bloke telling all your secrets to his mates.’ She walked over and gave Martin a kiss.
He put his arm around her waist. ‘Faith is really a truck driver from Geelong named Barry. We’re saving up to get him implants and have his dick cut off.’
‘I’m shocked, Mr Carter.’ Faith put a hand to her forehead, feigning an attack of the vapours. ‘Please cancel my home-loan application.’
Jack tossed his earmuffs onto the bench. ‘You’ve sure changed since you used to bang out the blackboard dusters in Miss Johnston’s English class, Martin. Let’s go upstairs. This is the kind of sobering news that drives a man to drink.’
*
They slept till about four. Martin sat up as Faith came out of the bathroom. She was wearing a light Japanese robe and her hair was slicked back, wet from the shower.
‘I gotta tell you, gay men really know how to set up a guest bathroom,’ she said, kissing him lightly. ‘And I’m glad we passed on lunch.’
‘Me too,’ he grinned. ‘Though I’ve developed quite an appetite now.�
��
Faith ducked as he lunged forward. ‘Hold that thought,’ she laughed and suddenly her robe fell open. Martin stopped and looked at her.
‘God, Faith, you are just plain beautiful.’
‘You really mean it, don’t you?’ she said quietly, retying her robe.
‘I saw this film once,’ Martin said, leaning back on the pillows, ‘where all these Prussian military cadets used to duel with sabres, hoping to get a scar on their faces.’
Faith sat on the end of the bed. ‘Are you leading me towards dressing in a black bustier and storm-trooper jackboots by any chance, Mr Carter?’
Martin smiled. ‘The scar was a badge of honour, a mark of their courage. That’s what your scar is, a mark of courage. You had a duel with cancer and you survived.’
Faith looked into his eyes. ‘I thought you were an interesting person when I first saw you, Martin Carter, but I guess I really had no idea.’ She leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the lips. ‘Now, into that shower, lover boy,’ she said.
‘What’s the panic?’ he asked.
‘I was watching Jack gathering chillies from the bathroom window. I think those mud crabs have a date with destiny and I for one do not intend to miss it.’
He was just about to step under the shower when he heard her voice through the bathroom doorway.
‘You know, Martin, if you ever want to try that thing with the black bustier and the jackboots …’ And then the hair drier started up.
*
When Martin joined them in the kitchen, Jack and VT were busy chopping and pounding herbs and spices on the large bench. Faith was sitting on the verandah with Biggles, who was wandering about a little unsteadily.
‘I offered your services as sous-chef, Martin,’ she called. ‘Confessed my dreadful secret that I don’t cook. The boys’ll have to start giving you lessons so we don’t starve to death.’
‘Sounds fair enough,’ Martin said. ‘What can I do?’
VT held up a lethal-looking chopper. ‘The secret to all Asian cooking, Martin, is preparation.’
‘And the secret of Australian cooking is lubrication,’ Jack shouted. ‘I hope you were paying attention when I made those Bloody Marys this morning, ’cos the bar is thataway, sport.’
As he was opening a can of tomato juice, Martin noticed the framed photograph on the wall above the bar. Fuzzy and somewhat faded, the shot was of a group of bare-chested men in camouflage trousers and combat boots holding pistols and M16s. They looked dirty and exhausted, their eyes ringed by dark circles.
‘Who are these guys?’ he called out.
Jack leaned around the bench top. ‘One of the teams I worked with for a while.’
Martin peered closely at the picture. ‘Which one are you?’
Jack laughed. ‘I know, tell me about it. We’d just spent a month doing tunnels. We were all so rooted our own mothers wouldn’t have recognised us. Third from the left.’
Martin studied the picture. He recognised Jack now, but there was also something familiar about the man on the right of the group.
‘We’re dying of thirst here, Martin!’ Jack yelled.
Martin loaded the pitcher and glasses onto a tray and headed to the kitchen for some ice. Faith was sitting up at the counter, watching Jack and VT at work.
Jack grinned at Martin. ‘Just explaining to your sheila how we’re going to get all our ingredients ready and then relax and have a drink before we start the serious cooking.’ Turning to Faith, he held out three large brown hen’s eggs. ‘VT’s got his hands full and we need these beaten. Want to have a go at cracking them into the bowl? Bit of shell won’t matter, I can fish it out.’
‘I’ll give it a whirl,’ Faith said. She picked up an egg, held her hand over the bowl and looked at Jack. There was a slight crunch and the yolk and white fell neatly into the bowl. She tossed the empty shell across the kitchen into a bin.
‘Well, bugger me,’ Jack said. ‘Short-order Sal.’
Faith broke the remaining eggs into the bowl the same way. ‘I said that I don’t cook, not that I can’t cook.’
Jack shook his head and VT started laughing. ‘When Jack tries one-handed we get egg all over the kitchen,’ he said. ‘You’d better give him lessons.’
‘Drinks,’ Martin announced, and they moved out to the verandah.
twenty-six
‘The legend of the landmines and booby traps was VT’s brilliant idea,’ Jack said, sipping his bloody Mary.
‘Just my inscrutable Oriental mind at work,’ VT smiled.
Jack took his hand and held it. ‘It added to the image we were promoting,’ he said. ‘Best of all, it worked. Before we spread the rumour, we were overrun by fortune hunters looking for the golden gooney bird. We had dickheads with metal detectors from elbow to breakfast.’
Faith sat up straight. ‘What the hell’s the golden gooney bird?’
‘Stuff of dreams, me darlin’,’ he said, crunching on a celery stick. ‘When the Japanese army took Manila in ’42 the Philippines gold reserves were missing from the treasury. Tons of gold. Lots of stories went around about what had happened. Everything from it getting dumped in Manila Bay to being smuggled out in American submarines or buried somewhere on Corregidor.’
‘Buried treasure. Missing millions,’ Faith said with a shiver. ‘I love these kind of stories. But why would you have treasure hunters sniffing around your Hills Hoist? We’re a long way from Manila.’
‘Well, one version of the story had a heavily overloaded Yank gooney bird island-hopping to Australia just one step ahead of the Japs,’ Jack explained.
‘What’s a gooney bird then, apart from a plane, obviously?’ Martin asked.
Faith answered. ‘American nickname for the C-47 twin-engined military transport, which is a DC-3 in civilian terms, or Dakota to our military. Paratroop transport and glider tug in Europe. Used a lot for parachute supply drops in New Guinea. The diggers on the Kokoda Track called them biscuit bombers.’
‘Spot on,’ Jack said. ‘Anyway, according to legend, one morning this overloaded crate staggered into Port Moresby on one engine. Full of bullet holes and with a dead co-pilot. A ring of military police with tommy guns and fixed bayonets kept everyone well back, apart from the mechanics and refuellers. They patched it up, shanghaied a local bush pilot for the second seat, and it took off late in the afternoon, heading down to Brisbane. It never made it. There were a couple of reports of a plane stooging around this area that night, but nothing was ever confirmed. The plane and whatever it was carrying disappeared without trace.’
‘True story?’ Faith asked.
‘Who knows? No-one ever found anything out there. But with fifty million US in untraceable gold possibly lying about, a whole lot of people wanted to do some looking. So we decided it was either spread the story of our garden full of landmines and booby traps, or open up a Devonshire tearoom.’
Several magpie geese took off noisily from a clump of bushes further down the hill. Biggles sat up in his box. VT stood and stretched casually.
‘I’m not sure you have enough coriander, Jack,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and get some more.’
Jack followed him inside, and through the door Martin saw VT pull on a black windcheater and balaclava. He strapped a webbing belt with pistol holster and knife sheath around his waist. The two men kissed briefly and VT disappeared down the stairs.
‘Mossies might start biting now that the breeze has dropped,’ Jack said when he returned. He lit several citronella candles, then turned out the lights. ‘More romantic this way.’
After several minutes, Faith said, ‘I can’t see a torch out there, Jack.’
‘Night-vision goggles,’ Jack explained. ‘Less disturbing to the nocturnal wildlife.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes, looking out over the hillside.
‘Jack,’ Faith said at last, ‘give me the scoop on the family Starkovsky. That’s if you don’t mind my asking. Martin told me about the China connection, whic
h I found a bit intriguing.’
‘No probs.’ Jack settled back. ‘It’s actually a good story to tell in the dark. My dad was born in Harbin, in Manchuria, in 1918. His old man was an engineer in the Harbin locomotive workshops, where they used to assemble American steam engines for the Chinese Eastern Railway.’ His eyes were fixed on a point in the jungle below. ‘The railway was actually a Russian enterprise,’ he went on, ‘with a licence to cross Manchuria down to the coast at Dairen, near Port Arthur. Harbin was the hub for the railway, and pretty much a Russian town. The population exploded after the 1917 revolution, when the town filled up with people pissing off from the communists. Then the Japs annexed Manchuria in ’31, and politics and life generally got pretty unpleasant after that. My grandparents decided to move back to Russia in ’36 because of all the unrest, and disappeared into the Gulags. Stalin was never all that hot on outsiders and immigrants coming back to the fold. Not a trusting bloke.’
Jack glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, my dad was eighteen then and didn’t have memories of any other home, so he decided to skip Russia and head for the international settlement in Shanghai. He was young and fit and he worked for a bit in an all-Russian riot squad they had in the French concession. Pay was pretty scabby, but then he got hired by a Polish-Jewish businessman as a live-in bodyguard. The old bloke was a widower and he took a shine to my dad. He also had a good-looking granddaughter who my dad thought was a bit of all right. Dad liked the old man too, so he stayed on and looked after them both, through World War II and the Japanese occupation. They weren’t interned like the Pommy and Yank civilians, but it was still pretty grim.
‘After the war, the old man discovered that every single one of his relatives had died in the camps in Europe. Dad reckoned the news killed him. When the communists took over in China and made it pretty plain that foreigners weren’t welcome any more, Dad went to Hong Kong with the daughter.’
Jack stopped and checked his watch again, then stood up and reached for a switch on the verandah railing. ‘Mind your eyes,’ he said, ‘it might get a bit glary.’
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