by Paula Weston
Angie jerks to a stop. ‘Cops? Feds?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Angie breaks free and gets between her and the road. The van keeps coming, slow and purposeful.
‘Let me see.’
The van is almost level with them. There’s nobody else around except Mrs T, sitting forward on her camping chair, cards laid aside. Jules grips Angie’s forearm, braced for…she doesn’t know what.
Ryan’s in the passenger seat, eyes hidden behind aviator sunnies. Glare on the windscreen hides the driver. Jules braces for her mother to react—to swear, thump the van, anything to rattle these guys as they pass.
But the drivers side window comes down and Angie falters.
‘Angela Margaret.’
The bearded driver nods at her as he rolls past.
Jules’ mum is still standing there speechless when he guns the engine and speeds away.
7
‘Can you turn that off while I’m here?’
Federal agent Nadira Khan sits across the kitchen table from Jules, a mug of green tea untouched in front of her. The investigator taps her pen against a notepad, distracted. Jules wraps her fingers around her own cup, wishing she’d had time for a shower before Khan arrived but the agent turned up barely minutes after they came inside.
On the TV, the Pax Fed building is still burning—the ‘Pax Attack’, as it’s been dubbed.
…among those likely to be questioned is Angela De Marchi, renowned activist and long-time critic of Paxton Federation. De Marchi blames the global giant for the death in Pakistan of her husband, war veteran Lieutenant Michael De Marchi. Lieutenant De Marchi was among those killed when insurgents bombed a desalination plant co-funded by Paxton Federation at the Karachi Port. Angela De Marchi inexplicably withdrew from the public eye two years ago and sources within Paxton Federation have long suspected she has continued to work covertly with the Agitators. Peta Paxton, co-vice chair of Paxton Federation board and daughter of magnate Tom, has so far refused to comment on that speculation, or to link the attack with the Priority Agricultural Practices Bill drafted by her brother Bradford, due to be debated in the Senate in coming weeks.
Jules’ eyes flick to the screen—to shaky footage of her running into the Pax Fed building, hiding her face—and then to her mother at the sink. Angie sets the kettle back on its base, offers Khan a tight smile. ‘Jules has a right to know what they’re saying about us. She needs to see for herself that there’s no evidence to support this witch hunt.’
The agent twists around to face Angie, shoulder holster whispering against her starched shirt. She’s wearing a fitted jacket despite the warmth, shirtsleeves buttoned to her wrists as usual, and her long black hair trapped in a sleek bun. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
‘Oh come on, Khan. Do you think I’d let Jules anywhere near that building if I knew someone was going to drive a truck into it?’ Angie wrings out a teabag with her fingers and dumps it in the sink. ‘I haven’t been in contact with anyone from the Agitators in two years, as you well know.’
‘Perhaps you’re better at subterfuge these days.’
‘Better than your surveillance capabilities?’ A bitter laugh.
Jules finds the chip in her cup handle, rubs her thumb back and forwards over the rough edge. This antagonism between her mother and Agent Khan is nothing new: it shouldn’t make her feel this anxious.
Angie measures the agent. ‘Is Jules a suspect?’
‘We can’t rule anyone out.’
‘Drop the crap, Khan. Do you believe Jules or I had anything to do with that attack?’
Khan holds Angie’s gaze but a small sigh escapes her. Kohl-rimmed eyes soften for a moment. ‘I’d like to think you’re smarter than that.’
Jules allows herself a flicker of hope that the last two years haven’t been for nothing after all.
‘Then shouldn’t you be more worried about those guys?’ Her mother gestures to blurry footage of two masked figures sprinting across a rooftop littered with plastic chairs. They’re using the same escape route as Ryan and even in low res it’s obvious they’re armed with rifles. The coverage cuts back to the Pax Fed headquarters, its first three storeys crumbling as if a bite’s been taken out of it. Burning papers flutter to a road strewn with rubble. Jules looks away so she doesn’t have to see the bodies covered in blue tarps.
‘The Agitators have lifted their game,’ Khan says.
‘You can’t seriously suspect they did that?’
Khan gives Angie a strange look. ‘They’re not the group you walked away from, Angela. I doubt you’d recognise them, or their methods.’
…The attack started when a delivery truck smashed through the police blockade in Queen Street and rammed into the Paxton Federation Tower foyer. The first explosion came a minute later. As you can see from footage captured by our crew on the scene, the blast came from the basement. This has led to speculation the truck was a diversion, drawing police into the building and enabling a second attacker to enter the basement car park and tamper with gas lines. During the building evacuation, two heavily armed individuals broke into the tower via the roof, terrorising evacuating staff on the upper floors and destroying mainframe servers.
It’s been the same story on repeat for the past two hours. Eight people are dead—three protesters, two Pax Fed security guards and three cops. Another thirty-eight people are seriously injured, including the sergeant who walked Jules into the building. The sergeant wouldn’t have been near the tower if she’d walked away when he told her to. And he’s been hurt for what? So Bradford Paxton could humiliate her in that boardroom? She feels sick over it.
Jules can’t accept the Agitators are responsible for people dying. In her mum’s days, the group was always about nonviolent, non-criminal resistance. But the school explosion two years ago and its collateral damage made a mockery of that: made it easier for people to believe the group is responsible for the blood and destruction now featuring on every channel.
‘Julianne,’ Khan says, ‘tell me again about these two men and the van.’
Jules turns her cup around twice, takes a slow sip of lukewarm green tea. She wishes Khan knew more—she’s never felt comfortable lying to her, not since the agent’s become a regular in their home—but it’s too late for that. So she repeats the parts of her story she can tell.
‘And you didn’t recognise the guy in the elevator or the older driver?’
‘No.’
‘What about you, Angela? Did you get a good look at either of them?’
Angie shakes her head, keeps her expression neutral.
Jules knows it’s not the truth. Not only because the driver acted like he knew her mother, or even that he used her middle name (only ever uttered in court appearances, and even then under sufferance). It’s how her mother reacted. Or, rather, how she didn’t.
Angie’s phone vibrates and she ignores it. Khan arches neatly manicured brows until Angie huffs and turns the device to her. Jules recognises the name, a reporter who used to hang out at their house when her dad was alive. Now he only calls when there’s a story.
‘You know your journo mates believe you were paid to shut up, right?’
‘Yeah, and you can see what I did with all that hush money.’ Angie gestures to the cramped kitchen. There’s barely enough space to fit the kettle and microwave on the bench, and if Jules pushes her chair back from the table too far, the fridge won’t open. The place is older than Angie and even more brittle. It’s stifling in summer, bone-cold in winter and invaded by mould every time it rains—which is half the year. When they moved in after her dad died the walls were yellowed with age and the floors scarred with cigarette burns. Angie and Jules pulled up the lino and rotting carpet and polished the boards themselves. They bought cheap paint and spent every weekend for a month working their way through the house. The owner agreed the place looked better and tried to put up the rent—until the property manager explained it wouldn’t be worth the aggravat
ion to take on Angela De Marchi.
Jules gets up and rinses her cup in the sink.
‘Julianne, why are your feet black?’ Khan asks. ‘What happened to your shoes?’
‘I took them off to climb the elevator shaft. Ryan carried them.’
Khan’s eyebrows shoot up again. ‘He carried your shoes?’
Jules points to the satchel resting by the front door where she left it. ‘In that.’ She walks over to show the agent.
‘Don’t touch it!’ The agent’s sharpness stops her short. Khan is up from the table, eyes fixed on the bag. ‘This guy—Ryan—tells you he’s at Paxton Federation to keep an eye on you. When everything goes bad he helps you get out and kidnaps you, only to deliver you home. And then he hands you a bag to bring into your house?’
‘With my shoes in it.’ Even as Jules says it, her heart skitters.
‘Outside.’ Agent Khan crosses to the front door, unclipping the mobile from her belt. ‘Now.’
8
The agent makes them wait down the street by the corner, out the front of Mrs T’s place. Grey clouds crouch overhead, pensive. A gust of warm wind stirs leaves in the gutter.
Jules should have grabbed her thongs from the front deck because the bitumen hurts the soles of her feet. Worse, it’s shifting beneath her like a commuter train—except it’s not the road that’s moving. She grips with her toes, tries to anchor herself.
There’s nothing in the satchel but her designer heels, there can’t be. She wraps her arms around herself and stares hard at their house, willing it to stay intact. The gutter sags over the entrance and the timber cladding is flaking from too many years of sun and storms. The water-stained blinds in her room are pulled up and her window’s wedged open to let in the breeze. The place is beaten and tired and it’s seen better days but it’s home.
‘It’s just a house,’ Angie says. She’s standing close enough that Jules can imagine her touch.
‘Mum, everything we own is inside.’
‘It’s only stuff.’
‘It’s Dad’s stuff.’ His tattered novels, his vintage T-shirts, the superhero comics he bought for her…‘Oh God,’ she whispers, leaning forward to absorb the grief. ‘I’m so sorry. All I was worried about was those stupid shoes—’
‘Stop it.’ Angie says. ‘I didn’t think twice about bringing that bag inside and I should have.’ A sideways glance. ‘Are you okay?’
Jules knows she’s not talking about her emotional state. ‘It’s not back yet. I’m fine.’
The charge that was building again in the van is gone; she released it in the yard about thirty seconds before Khan knocked on the front door. All Jules feels now is the faint undercurrent—and dread swirling low in her stomach.
Khan is speaking into a two-way radio, one arm resting on the open drivers side door of the unmarked sedan. Her flexi-phone is on the car roof, useless. Whatever’s going on in the city, it’s prompted authorities to take all digital communication offline, even the networks that are meant to be secure.
There’s action on Mrs T’s deck. She’s shuffling to the railing, listing from side to side as her arthritic ankles warm up. Silver hair is pulled back, and her floral dress ripples in the breeze. ‘You girls got trouble?’ she calls out.
‘Not sure yet,’ Angie says.
Mrs T catches Jules’ eye. ‘The boys aren’t far away if you need them.’
Jules nods, but she’s not sure how the four Tamatoa lads are going to help if her house explodes. Still, the brothers were handy in the days after the school fire. It was the boys—not the cops—who pushed the news vans back to the next street. Literally. She remembers the spotlights, the cameras, the frantic activity any time she cracked the blinds to see outside. The thought of going through all that again…
Jules crosses to the far side of the street and sits in the gutter. She tucks the grimy skirt under her legs, hooks her arms around her knees and watches her mum stare down their house, daring it to defy her. Angie’s agitated, shifting her weight from foot to foot, wiping her palms on her trackpants.
Jules bites the inside of her lip until she tastes blood. Did she take a bomb into their home?
She pictures the satchel slouched against the hallway wall where she dumped it half an hour ago. Harmless-looking. Was there anything about the way Ryan handled it, any hint it was dangerous? She remembers it hanging from his shoulder as he scaled the elevator shaft and bouncing against his hip as they ran through the building.
She remembers that moment in the lift.
‘Mum.’
Angie glances over her shoulder, her body angled towards the house.
‘Ryan emptied that satchel. I saw him shake it out. He let me put the shoes in myself. Would he do that if it had explosives hidden in there?’
Khan is half-listening from the car, radio in hand. ‘Maybe he didn’t know.’
Jules thinks about Ryan, how he moved and spoke. If he knew what he was carrying, he was either incredibly cool under pressure or incredibly careless.
Angie’s eyes are fixed on the weatherboard. ‘How long until your squad gets here?’ she asks Khan.
‘Not long.’
‘Five minutes? Ten? An hour?’
The agent’s lips tighten. ‘They’ll be here.’
‘They’re all caught up in the city, Khan. Tactical response, bomb squad. Everyone. Nobody’s racing out here, not for us.’
Angie crosses back to their side of the street, dragging hair from her eyes. ‘If someone really wanted to hurt us, wouldn’t they have detonated it by now?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On who those guys are. What level of tech they can access.’
Angie points to the dead mobile device on the car roof. ‘We know they’re not using the network.’
‘That doesn’t mean they’re not watching.’
Jules twists around, eyes raking over rust-stained iron roofs and the faded orange work ute parked up by the next corner. Who the hell were they?
‘De Marchi, don’t you dare.’
Angie is headed for their front gate. Khan moves too and Angie breaks into a run.
‘Mum!’ Jules is on her feet and after her mother.
The agent lunges as Jules passes—‘Julianne, no!’—but Jules twists away, breaking Khan’s grip. She rushes through the gate, up the steps and whips open the screen door—
Angie is in the lounge room holding the satchel in both hands. She startles at the slamming door and her eyes go wide when she sees Jules.
‘What are you doing? Get back outside.’
‘Mum, put it down.’ Fear thuds through Jules and the current buzzes in response.
‘You both need to get back out here,’ Khan says, breathless. She’s close, on the front steps maybe. Jules won’t look over her shoulder: she can’t take her eyes from Angie.
‘I mean it, Jules. Go.’
‘No.’
‘Do what you’re told. This isn’t a game.’
‘You think I don’t know that? You’re the one putting yourself at risk. Do you want to die?’
‘Of course I don’t. I want our lives back.’
Angie glowers at her, chest rising and falling, and Jules feels it like a shockwave: the ferocity of her mother’s grief and rage. The rawness of it still.
‘Mum—’
‘I need to do something, don’t you get that?’ Angie’s jaw is tight, her eyes wild. ‘I’m so sick of it, Jules. All the shit that keeps happening to us and not being able to do a thing about it.’
Jules has lived through her mother’s anger. Lived through the melancholic funk that Angie slips into after a bottle of wine. But she’s never seen her like this, so reckless.
‘Getting yourself killed isn’t the answer.’
Angie looks down at the bag in her hands, at her white knuckles and straining tendons. Jules fizzes with the need to act but her feet won’t budge. She doesn’t trust herself to grab the bag and keep control of th
e charge.
‘I’m not telling you again,’ Khan says. ‘Come out here and leave the satchel in there.’
‘Mum…’
Angie turns away from Jules and pops the studs. Jules jerks back and slams her hip into the couch as her mother up-ends the satchel. The Gucci heels tumble to the floorboards, a strip of fabric caught up with them. Angie shakes the bag and something else falls out, hits the floor with a slap: a plastic ID card on a Pax Fed lanyard.
Angie bends towards it.
‘Do not touch that. I will shoot you.’ Khan appears in the doorway, handgun drawn. It looks huge in her small hands but she holds it with practised confidence.
Angie’s fingers hover over the lanyard.
‘Do you want to compromise the only piece of evidence you haven’t put your prints all over?’
Angie straightens. ‘Knock yourself out.’ She’s trying for nonchalance but Jules can see she’s rattled. Khan’s never pulled a gun on her before.
‘One day, Angela…’ The agent holsters the weapon. ‘Give me the bag.’ They eyeball each other as the satchel changes hands. Khan peers inside, pats it down three times before she blows out her breath. ‘It’s clean.’
Jules buckles to the couch and hugs the old yellow cushion against her chest. It’s musty and smells of stale green tea but it’s here. The house is safe.
Khan pulls a ziplock bag from her back pocket and uses it to pick up the ID. The agent holds it so Jules can see it through the plastic. It looks like every other ID she saw at Pax Fed today: barcode, logo and name. This one says Eddie Baker.
‘If that’s a fake, it’s a good job.’ Angie grips the corner of the plastic bag so she can get a better view but Khan pulls it away.
‘I’ll get it dusted for prints, see if we can’t identify at least one of these guys.’
Jules chews on the corner of her thumbnail. Did Ryan give her his real name? Did he mean to?
‘So where are we, then?’ Angie asks Khan. Most of the anger has subsided, but the defiance remains. ‘Is Jules a suspect for the Pax Fed attack or not?’
