Wildfire

by Chris Ryan

  But now they were falling with only a small chute like a tattered umbrella to slow their descent.

  The mast of a yacht loomed up and Bel pulled her feet out of the way. Ben, reacting slower, took a painful bang to his shins. They came down even lower and passed over a large white cabin cruiser. Their feet scrabbled along the top, leaving grubby marks. They passed over another boat and Ben tried to slow them down, extending his legs to brace his feet on the cabin roof, but his bare soles slipped on it.

  Still they carried on, over another cruiser, getting lower all the time.

  A dinghy crossed their path. The people in it were waving and shouting at them, but there was nothing Ben could do to get out of their way. The passengers threw themselves to opposite ends of the dinghy as the four-footed purple flying creature ran through the middle of their boat.

  The next thing in their path was a striped awning on a yacht. The roofs of the cabins had been solid. This was canvas, like a tent. It bent under their weight; then, with a loud crack, one of the poles supporting the awning gave way. The canvas roof turned into a slide, and Ben and Bel found themselves tumbling towards a large square of sapphire blue.

  The yacht’s swimming pool.

  They hit the water with a splash. Fortunately the water wasn’t deep. Ben managed to stand up and unfasten the waist band. Wet purple fabric clung to their heads like a clammy skin as he and Bel battled to get out of the harness.

  When Ben had fought his way out of the chute, he saw a row of people in swimsuits and sun hats. They were all holding drinks and looking at the new arrivals in astonishment.

  He swam to the side of the pool. A bronzed Australian girl with pink-streaked blonde hair smiled down at him. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  Bel emerged from the other end of the chute. Her face was streaked with soot and her red hair was a tangled mess. She waded to the steps at the end of the pool and climbed out, her hand outstretched to introduce herself.

  ‘Er – sorry about dropping in unannounced. Hi. I’m

  Dr Bel Kelland and this is my son Ben.’

  A man in a peaked cap put his drink down and went to help her. ‘Did you come from the city?’

  Bel nodded. Water made sooty pools around her bare feet.

  One of the women picked up a blue towel, put it around Bel’s shoulders and invited her to sit on a sun lounger.

  Suddenly there was a titanic boom and for a moment everyone looked at each other. It was so loud, it shook the sky overhead. Was it another explosion from the city? It seemed incredible – the sound was louder than a hundred petrol stations blowing up. Then the penny dropped.

  ‘It’s thunder!’ said the girl with the pink-streaked hair.

  The heavens opened and rain came down. It was real summer storm rain, lashing down onto the deck in great, fat, splashy drops. The woman hurried Bel inside, while the girl helped Ben drag the chute and the soaked engine out of the pool.

  He didn’t go in immediately. He stood on the sun deck, marvelling at the feel of rain on his hot skin …

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ben walked down the corridor, a bunch of flowers in one hand, looking for room 319. The private hospital in Melbourne didn’t smell like a hospital, or even look much like one. With its pale yellow walls and pastelcoloured paintings it seemed more like a hotel. At the moment, filled with an overspill of patients from other hospitals, it was like a hotel that had been seriously overbooked.

  He found the room and knocked. He heard the TV being silenced and then a voice called out, ‘Come in.’ The voice was American. It sounded hoarse.

  Ben walked in.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  Kelly was sitting up in bed. The bandages on her hands looked a bit cleaner than the last time Ben had seen her. There was an oxygen mask hanging from a rail above the bed. As usual, she was anything but pleased to see him.

  ‘I brought you some flowers,’ said Ben, ‘but now I

  wish I hadn’t. I’ll give them to the orphan next door.’

  ‘They don’t have an orphan next door,’ croaked Kelly. ‘They have a hunky rock star. Why don’t you go and send him in here and you can go and sit in his room on your own.’

  ‘Why do you get a room to yourself?’ said Ben. ‘Did you tell them you’re a rock star?’

  ‘It’s for security reasons. Half the world seems to think Uncle Sam is responsible for war, famine and the global recession. Given the trouble my dad had with those protestors yesterday, the authorities figured I could use a little extra privacy.’

  ‘You’re lucky you’re not in a jail cell for wasting police time. I hear they sent two helicopters to intercept the Ghan.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it was an honest mistake. And they don’t have time to worry about that with everything else that’s happened—’

  Talking made her cough. She tried to grab a tube dangling down from a water container above the bed, but instead of pulling it towards her, her bandaged hands only succeeded in batting it away. Cursing, she tried to retrieve it.

  Ben let her struggle for a moment, then his better nature took over. He reached over and moved the tube so that she could reach it. She sucked on it, then let it fall from her mouth.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said grudgingly, then started coughing. ‘It’s smoke inhalation. They say it’ll pass in a day or two. How come you’re not suffering with it, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t open my mouth as often as you do, I guess.’ Ben realized he was still holding the flowers, so he dropped them on the table at the end of the bed. They landed with a slap. He nodded at the saline bag hanging beside her bed, and the line leading into her arm. ‘So what’s with the drip?’

  ‘My burns got infected. Something to do with not keeping them clean, running around in the desert all afternoon, then landing in the sea and being hauled out by some guys who’d been gutting fish and hadn’t washed their hands. So now I’m on mega-strong antibiotics. Why are you here?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘We’re staying in the hotel next door. There’s nothing on TV except The Towering Inferno and I didn’t fancy that. I heard you were here and thought I’d see what you were up to.’

  Kelly began to laugh, a dry sound like a seal barking. ‘Yeah, well, I’m not your babysitter any more. Run along now and let me be miserable.’ She tilted her head back and clamped her lips around the water tube again.

  Ben turned towards the door.

  Kelly waved him back. ‘No – don’t go. I either talk to you or I watch endless news reports about the fire. Come and sit down. Where’s your mum?’

  Ben pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed.

  ‘She’s busy. She’s obsessed by finding out all she can about that US base we found.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Why?’

  ‘I told her about the big dome and she thought that sounded odd for a listening station. She made some calls. It turns out it’s some kind of top secret research place. Just like the protestors said.’

  Kelly bristled. She clearly felt that any criticism of Americans was a personal attack on her. ‘Oh yeah? What are we meant to be researching?’

  ‘Weather control.’

  ‘Weather control? I’ve never heard anything so far-fetched!’ She folded her arms defensively, then remembered she had a drip in her arm and looked down in alarm in case she had dislodged it. ‘Stop thinking that because we’re the most powerful nation on the planet we’ve got a god complex.’

  Ben wasn’t surprised that she found it all incredible. He’d had trouble believing it himself. ‘Apparently it’s not so far-fetched. It’s called the High Active Auroral Research Project. They have technology that can make wind and rain and even tornadoes. Do you remember those scientists thought we’d come over in that big plane from Alaska? That’s where the other HAARP research station is based. They’ve been shipping HAARP equipment to Australia.’

  Kelly folded her arms tighter. ‘Baloney. I thought your mother was a scientist, not another of these kooky activists. Give me a b
reak.’ She was starting to get angry.

  ‘My mum got this from respected scientists, not crackpots.’ Ben leaned forward. ‘Listen, in Alaska, a lot of people living near the HAARP station have been getting weird illnesses … and their dogs and cats were dying. Does that sound familiar? That was happening in Coober Pedy.’

  ‘According to a bunch of hairy, sandal-wearing, mud-wallowing bums. People get sick all the time. That doesn’t prove anything.’ Kelly ended up coughing again, a long attack that turned her face red.

  ‘Look, I’m telling you because you might need to get checked out by a doctor. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. This HAARP thing fires a super-charged, high-frequency radio wave into the sky. It’s like detonating a nuclear bomb in the ionosphere. The fall-out can give people migraines, allergies … I just thought you might want to know—’ Ben stopped. Kelly was waving her hand at the mask.

  ‘Oxygen.’

  Ben stood up, pulled the mask down and put it over her nose. She took some deep, slow breaths, then nodded that she’d had enough. Ben took the mask away and sat down again.

  Kelly leaned forward and pulled her knees up beneath the sheets, hugging them. She looked like she was thinking seriously about what he had said. ‘When we were near the base,’ she said in a small voice, ‘it got very windy and I thought I was covered in crawling insects. And then you got it too.’

  Ben nodded. ‘And the plane instruments went haywire. I said it felt like an electric shock. HAARP can also knock out communications systems. Apparently that’s another reason the military are interested in it. We definitely got hit by fallout from this thing.’

  Kelly shuddered and hugged her knees tighter. ‘Did you see a doctor? What did they say?’

  ‘The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong.’

  Actually, that wasn’t the whole truth. The doctor who examined Ben hadn’t had experience of that type of radiation. Bel was trying to find some experts who did.

  ‘I expect your mum’s got everyone running around in a panic. At least the base is in the middle of Australia, so it can’t be harming that many people.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘That’s not what Mum says. She thinks they chose Australia for a more sinister reason. Alaska has given them control of weather in the northern hemisphere. Australia gives them the South Pole too. It’s like a world domination thing. She’s gone straight to the Australian prime minister about it.’

  ‘It sounds like we stumbled on something pretty big,’ said Kelly thoughtfully.

  ‘Big and sinister. I thought we were chasing red herrings out there in the desert, but we might just have blown the lid on research that could be as dangerous as the hydrogen bomb.’

  Kelly looked down at her knees, deep in thought. ‘Remind me, what’s your mom’s organization called? Fragile Planet, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben.

  ‘I’m thinking maybe I should join. Can you ask her?’

  Ben snorted. ‘If I ever see her. On top of the halfterm break, I only got a few extra days holiday off school so I’ve got to fly back home in a few days. She’s working round the clock again. I might as well have stayed in Britain.’

  Kelly smiled weakly. ‘That’s like my dad. I’d just caught up with him here in Melbourne, and he immediately had to go off somewhere on army business.’

  ‘Does he know we – er – wrecked the microlight?’

  Kelly sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. ‘No way. And I’m not going to tell him we broke into a top secret base either.’ She lay back against the pillow. ‘Hey – at least you have some good stories to tell about your holiday. You’re getting to be something of an expert on disaster zones, what with the flood in London and now this.’

  Ben suddenly started laughing. He laughed so hard that tears ran down his cheeks. It was almost a minute before he could compose himself enough to talk again.

  Kelly was looking at him, mystified. ‘What did I say?’

  Ben sighed. ‘My whole family is one big disaster zone.’

  Epilogue

  Out in the Great Victoria Desert, Grishkevich and Hijkoop had quite a crowd in their lab. Most of the base’s science personnel, and a visitor, had gathered around one of the TV monitors to watch a news broadcast.

  The screen showed two firefighters moving slowly through a blackened building, searching the ground with powerful torches. They moved unsteadily, the wet wreckage sliding and shifting under their feet. Where it had moved, smoke rose in wisps from the deeper layers. The surface was cooling, but underneath it was still hot.

  A journalist gave a commentary: ‘The first fires in Adelaide were reported at eleven this morning. By two o’clock most of the city was on fire. It burned until eight this evening – and experts say if it hadn’t been for a freak thunderstorm it might still be burning now. For many it has been a lucky escape, but the search for casualties goes on …’

  Hijkoop stabbed a button and the screen went blank. He turned round. ‘How about that? Saved because the weather changed. That’s the power of nature for you. And that is why we have to be able to control it.’

  His remark was addressed mainly to their guest. He was a commanding presence – tall, and wearing charcoal-blue dress uniform with gold buttons.

  Major Kurtis spoke: ‘Gentlemen, I am totally in agreement. I am here to tell you that despite anything you may hear to the contrary, the HAARP experiment is very far from over.’

  If you enjoyed this book, you’ll also enjoy the Alpha Force series by Chris Ryan. Turn over to read the beginning of Red Centre, which is also set in Australia!

  Extract from Alpha Force: Red Centre

  Copyright © Chris Ryan, 2004

  0 099 46424 1

  978 0 099 46424 2

  Fun and Games

  Being up the tree wasn’t the scary part. It was OK if you looked straight ahead at what was in front of your nose. All you saw was the trunk, which was solid, gnarled and rough, with warty areas like the hide of a prehistoric animal. In places Hex could see tiny cracks, where a softer, redder substance showed through the bark. It smelled warm and woody and wet. In fact everywhere was warm and wet. Hex’s clothes were drenched with sweat and when he breathed in, the air was damp like steam.

  The trouble started if you looked anywhere but straight ahead. Not down – Hex knew better than to look down – but on either side. Then he saw thin air and foliage fading into a blue haze in the far distance and his senses started turning somersaults.

  He felt his teeth baring in a fierce grin that was outside his control. It was partly nervousness, partly a sense of the absurdity of his position. Here he was, suspended ten metres up a red cedar tree in the Australian rainforest with his foot on a branch, waiting for the signal to swing on a rope to the next tree. A week earlier Hex hadn’t even realized Australia had thick jungles like this. Now he knew – thanks to an online virtual tour while waiting to board his plane – that the vast continent harboured a great variety of terrains, and many extremes. Here at the very tip of the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland all was lush, wet and tropical. Hex knew that only ten or so kilometres away, the land became arid and the trees shrivelled to scrub and bush.

  Hex focused on the tree he was clinging to, then swivelled his head slowly like an owl, careful not to risk a disorientating glance up or down. His gaze found the next tree, his destination. A bright yellow star-shaped target glittering there, pinned between two branches.

  Together with four friends from far-flung corners of the globe, Hex was part of the group they called Alpha Force. They had tackled many arduous missions together but this had to be one of the strangest – volunteering to try out a series of games for a reality TV show. It’s for charity, Hex reminded himself soberly, forcing the grin off his face before it turned into hysteria. For every star collected, a sponsor would pay money to a chosen charity, and so Alpha Force were here doing a trial run before the real contestants arrived.

  Hex wasn’t entirely in his element. The kind of ga
mes he excelled at involved codes and were firmly grounded in cyberspace: he was an expert hacker and code-breaker. His natural habitat was indoors, at his computer or in the gym. When he wasn’t on a mission with Alpha Force, the only contact he had with the great outdoors was running and cycling across Hampstead Heath. But here he was, hanging up a tree in a steamy rainforest, waiting for the camera crew to finalize their positions and lighting.

  The other members of Alpha Force weren’t having it any easier. As Hex was edging his feet nervously along the branch, his Anglo-Chinese friend Li was hurtling towards the ground twenty metres away at the end of a bungee rope. Unlike Hex, though, Li most definitely was in her element. She was grasping the rope with both hands with her knees bent and her feet out ready for the impact. The moment she touched down on the forest floor, she folded at the waist and knees and then sprang up like a cat, propelling herself towards a box high up in another tree. The move was graceful and smooth, and executed with the pinpoint accuracy of one who has trained as an athlete from an early age. The tight plait of Li’s long black silky hair sailed out behind her like a tail and her slim legs caught a branch with the ease of a trapeze artist. She wrapped her legs around it and steadied herself while she reached into the box for one of the yellow stars. Then, like a monkey, she dropped back down to the ground and lifted off again in one slick movement.

  Paulo would have been happy right then to have joined his friends in the trees. He was on his hands and knees in a Perspex tunnel which was like a green-house in the fierce Australian heat. Brushing sweat out of his eyes with his wrist, Paulo came across one of the yellow stars and grabbed it, eager to finish the game trial and get back out into fresh air – or, at any rate, fresher air; the whole rainforest was like a sauna at this time of day. On Paulo’s list of priorities right at that moment, saving the tiger from extinction ran a distant second to gulping down an ice-cold cola float.