by Des Hunt
Zac gave a brief nod, although he wasn’t all that happy about it. But at least it was a start. He would make sure they talked about it again later. In the meantime he could only hope that Jess was right about nobody finding this place. Because shutting her in would mean that if the hunters did come, she’d have no chance of escape.
Chapter Fourteen
Zac felt strangely liberated when they passed through the main gate to Terawhiti and out onto South Makara Road on the first part of their trip to Zealandia. It felt almost like a return to civilization after weeks in the wild. In fact, it had been just over a week, and South Makara wasn’t exactly the centre of civilization. But at least the road was sealed and there were more houses.
South Makara Road led to the village of Makara where Jess lived and went to school. There were no shops or businesses. The biggest buildings were a hall and two churches.
A right turn would take them to Karori where Zealandia was; a left, to Makara Beach. Jess turned left, because she’d told her mum they’d call in before they went to the wildlife sanctuary. This took them past the school — the smallest Zac had ever seen.
‘You call that a school?’ he said.
Jess turned and glared at him. ‘Yes! What’s wrong with it?’
‘It’s so tiny.’
‘Which makes it all the better,’ said Jess. ‘Much better than a big city school.’
‘How many kids?’ asked Zac.
‘There were twenty last term. Twenty-one, when you start.’
He pulled a face. ‘I won’t be coming here. Dad is going to teach me at the homestead.’
Jess’s jaw dropped. ‘He can’t do that,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to come here. I was looking forward to it.’
‘Dad’s scared it will blow his hiding place if I go to school.’
A smile crossed Jess’s face. ‘Then we’re going to have to work on him, aren’t we?’
The McGonagalls’ place was near the end of a line of houses tucked under a hill opposite the Makara Stream. Jess led the way inside. Jenny and Will McGonagall were seated at the table having morning tea — scones with dishes of strawberry jam and whipped cream.
‘What have you been up to?’ said Jenny, pushing the plates of scones and cream across to Zac. ‘I thought you’d be back almost straight away.’
‘There were a lot of cars parked by the Waiariki Stream,’ said Jess. ‘I went down and took their number plates.’ She handed a piece of paper to her father.
Zac looked up from covering a scone with cream. What was she doing? Was she going to tell them about Tasha after all?
Will studied the list. ‘Four of them! That’s more than we’ve had in a while. I wonder what the attraction is?’
‘A big cat,’ said Jess. ‘The internet is full of stuff about a leopard being seen on the farm.’
Jenny’s eyes went wide. ‘A leopard!’
‘Yeah. A white one.’
Zac stuffed the scone into his mouth, hoping his surprise wasn’t showing.
‘It’ll be that dog that was on Anastasia,’ said Will. ‘I bet it’s a Dalmatian. You see one of those in bushes you might mistake it for a big cat.’
‘But a leopard?’ said Jenny. ‘That’s stretching things a bit.’
‘Pig hunters see all sorts of things,’ said Will. ‘They’ve got vivid imaginations.’ He played with the note for a while. ‘I’d better give this to Jim. He can find out who they are and warn them off.’
‘There’s likely to be more,’ said Jess.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ replied Will. ‘But I don’t know what we can do about it except react when they come.’
‘Aren’t there meant to be security guards stopping people going to the wreck?’ asked Jenny.
‘They won’t be there now,’ said Will. ‘Lance told me last night that the contract finished with the salvage.’ He turned to Zac. ‘Lance Murphy runs Makara Security. He had the contract to secure the wreckage. He lives along the road at Makara Beach.’
Zac nodded, thinking that Lance or his team hadn’t done much of a job. He’d never seen them and they hadn’t kept the pig hunters out. Nor had the security stopped the Neanderthals from doing whatever they wanted.
‘Were the Neanderthals working for him?’ he asked.
Will thought for a moment. ‘I never asked him about them. Are they still hanging around?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jess. ‘They’re looking for the leopard too.’
Jenny looked at her husband. ‘Give Lance a call. See if he knows anything about this.’
Will swivelled around and grabbed the cordless phone. A moment later he was talking to Lance. After the preliminaries, he asked if Lance knew anything about two ugly Russians driving a monster pick-up.
The answer was long, with Will replying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ a few times, before taking a pen and notepad from the windowsill and writing something down. Soon afterwards, the conversation ended.
‘They weren’t working for Lance,’ said Will. ‘He met them a few times and they claimed to be employed by Mikhail Popanov’s New Zealand lawyer. Somebody called Alexei. They said they were searching through the rubbish, looking for commercially sensitive documents to remove before the salvage crew came in. This Alexei was the same guy who employed Lance, so naturally he accepted what they said.’
Jenny pointed to the notepad. ‘Is that the lawyer’s number?’
Will nodded. ‘I’m going to phone him now.’
This call was not so easy. First Will had to get past a switchboard operator who, from the sound of it, had instructions to protect the boss from unwanted calls. Will was left on hold for several minutes before a voice answered, loud enough for Zac to hear: ‘Alexei Berezovsky! What do you want?’
Will identified himself and stated why he was calling.
This must have calmed Alexei a little. When he spoke again his voice was quieter — too low for Zac to make out the words.
‘Hold on,’ said Will. ‘I’ll put this on speakerphone.’ He pressed a button on the phone before placing it in the middle of the table. He turned to Zac. ‘Alexei wants to know what they look like. You got a closer look than anyone.’
‘Um,’ began Zac. ‘They are both short but heavy. One is bald or shaves his head. The other—’
Alexei interrupted, ‘Any distinguishing marks?’
‘Ah, yeah. Ivan has a scar alongside his mouth.’
A gasp came from the phone, then a tense voice asked, ‘And the other?’
‘Um. Yuri has funny ears. They’re all lumpy.’
‘Cauliflower ears,’ added Will.
There was silence from the phone. It lasted long enough for Will to ask if anyone was still there.
‘I know these men,’ said Alexei, eventually. ‘Ivan and Vassaly Tarasov. They are brothers, and they do not work for me. Nor are they working for Mikhail. They are, in fact, his enemies.’
‘Then who are they working for?’
‘Themselves! Or their bosses. They are mobsters. Bratva is what we call them.’
For a time, all they could hear was heavy breathing.
‘Vassaly — the one you call Yuri — once worked on Anastasia. His employment was terminated after he stole some money. He then tried to blackmail Mikhail with documents he had photocopied. That didn’t work. Maybe he has been searching around Anastasia trying to find something more.’
Jess leaned forward. ‘Could that be an animal?’
After a few seconds of silence, Alexei said, ‘Why do you ask?’
She turned to Zac, raising her eyebrow in a question. After a moment Zac nodded.
‘We found a food bowl with the name “Tasha” on it.’
Again there was a long silence before Alexei answered. ‘Anything else?’
‘I saw an animal bed,’ said Zac.
‘And I found a Roldee with bite marks,’ added Jess. ‘All of those things must have come off Anastasia.’
Alexei sighed. ‘Yes! There was a pet on Anastasia. Unfortunately,
she went overboard and drowned when the boat struck rocks. Mikhail was very upset.’
‘Ivan and Yuri think she’s still alive,’ said Jess.
‘She is not!’ said Alexei.
‘Some pig hunters are saying she is,’ said Zac. ‘They claim to have seen an albino leopard.’
‘This is nonsense!’ said Alexei, his voice so loud it moved the phone. ‘Tasha was not a leopard, she was a Dalmatian. And she is now dead. The crew saw her drown. It was all very distressing and if you start spreading lies about this, I will take legal action to stop you. Do you understand?’
Before anyone could answer, there was a click from the phone. After that, nothing.
Will lifted the handset, pressed a button and replaced it on the cradle. Only then did he speak. ‘That man is lying,’ he said.
‘Absolutely!’ said Jenny. ‘Yelling and talking about legal action. It’s all bluff. He’s hiding something.’
‘But is he hiding a leopard?’ asked Will.
Jenny turned to Jess. ‘Have you seen anything like a leopard?’
‘No!’ replied Jess, quickly.
‘What about you, Zac?’
Zac couldn’t meet her gaze. All he could manage was a little shake of his head as he lowered his eyes to study the pattern on the tablecloth.
Chapter Fifteen
Why did you lie to your parents?’ asked Zac.
‘I didn’t!’ said Jess. ‘I’ve never seen a leopard around Terawhiti.’
They pedalled in silence for a while.
‘Anyway,’ continued Jess, ‘if I lied, so did you.’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You shook your head. That means no.’
‘I was shaking my head at your answer.’
‘Yeah? Whatever!’
‘So why didn’t you tell them about Tasha?’ asked Zac.
‘I want to keep her just for us for a while,’ replied Jess, softly. ‘She’s so lovely, I want to have her all to ourselves.’
‘We’ll have to tell someone soon.’
‘Yeah, I know. But not yet. We’ll keep her until the end of the holidays.’
‘That’s another week,’ said Zac. ‘She could be dead by then.’
‘Then we’ll just have to make sure we protect her, won’t we?’
After that they started climbing Makara Hill and were breathing too hard for conversation. Cars and trucks whizzed around corners, leaving scarcely enough room for bikes. A couple blasted their horns. One woman waved her fist in a way that suggested she thought cyclists shouldn’t be on the road at all. Jess gave a friendly wave back, which just annoyed the woman further.
Halfway up, Jess pulled across the road into a passing area. She pointed to a track leading into the gorse. ‘That’s part of Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park. We can go that way or along the road. Which do you want?’
‘What’s the track like?’
‘There’re heaps of them. One’s even called Zac’s Track.’
Zac smiled. ‘I bet that’s the best of them.’
‘Nah, it’s one of the worst,’ replied Jess. ‘Anyway, it goes the wrong way. The Vertigo Track will be the best. It’s the shortest.’
‘Vertigo?’ asked Zac.’
Jess gave an evil smile. ‘It’s the feeling you get if you’re scared of heights.’
‘So it’s steep?’
‘Yeah, but we’ll be going downhill. You’ll be right.’
Zac wasn’t convinced. He’d seen the way Jess had ridden when chased by the Neanderthals. He imagined she’d ride just as recklessly going down a steep hill.
‘Let’s stick to—’
The rest was lost as a vehicle roared up the hill and pulled alongside them. It was the Neanderthals with Yuri behind the wheel. Neither looked very happy with life.
The passenger door flew open as Ivan scrambled down from the cab.
Instantly, Zac had a change of mind.
‘We’ll take the track!’ he yelled, standing on the pedals.
Unfortunately, the rear wheel was sitting on gravel and skidded sideways, slowing his takeoff. Ivan was already on the ground before Zac gained enough traction to move forward. He had to duck under a swinging arm as the Russian lunged at him.
Jess had already disappeared. Behind Zac, Ivan was yelling in a mix of English and Russian swearwords. The motor roared but Zac didn’t look back. The track was too narrow for the Neanderthals’ monster. For the time being he was safe.
Jess was waiting for him at a branch in the track. ‘What kept you?’ she asked.
‘Ivan grabbed hold of me and I had to smash him down,’ said Zac. ‘Next Yuri attacked, so I needed to sort him out. Then I tied them up and disabled the pick-up.’ He paused to glare at her. ‘It would have been a whole lot easier if you’d stayed around instead of flying down the hill like a scared chicken.’
Jess tilted her head and smiled. ‘I knew you could handle those two. Now we’ve got to find out if you can handle the Vertigo Track.’
Before he had a chance to react she was off, down the narrow dirt path.
At first the going was a reasonably easy clay track lined with grasses, but that soon changed as the grade got steeper and the grass became trees. By then Jess was well out of sight, although Zac could still hear her whoops of delight.
Zac was not whooping. Every part of his being was concentrating on avoiding roots, branches, trunks, whilst easing down steps on a bike that wasn’t built for the job.
And yet, despite it all, by the time he caught up with Jess, who was leaning against a tree, he found that he, too, was enjoying himself.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked.
‘Okay,’ he said, grinning. ‘I can see why it’s called Vertigo.’
‘Oh, that bit wasn’t steep — wait until you see what’s to come. We may have to walk parts of it. There’s a corkscrew towards the bottom where you go over a bridge and then under it. Some of the bits around there are pretty difficult.’
‘Lead on!’ said Zac.
She pushed away from the tree and took off.
The next fifteen minutes challenged Zac more than anything he could remember. Jess had been right: in places, walking was the best option, and even that was difficult. After the corkscrew, things became easier as they ran down onto a flat stretch that eventually opened onto a suburban street.
They’d made it back to civilization. This time, Karori Valley, which, unlike Makara Valley, was true civilization with mown lawns, rose beds, back-yard trampolines and barking dogs. It could have been any suburban street in New Zealand. And yet, just a moment before it had seemed they were in deep bush miles away from everything.
Zealandia is set in another of Wellington’s valleys. This one had always been free of houses, as it was once the city’s main water supply. The dams are still there, but the water now overflows into the Kaiwharawhara Stream and eventually into the harbour. For a hundred years trees in the valley have grown undisturbed and were already the home of many native animals when it was decided, in 1995, to create a sanctuary there. Since then, many threatened species have been introduced and Zealandia is now home to tuatara, giant weta, native frogs, kiwi and hosts of other birds.
Jess and Zac entered the sanctuary determined to see as many animals as possible. The problem was, Zealandia is not set out as a zoo. There are a few cages containing the smaller animals such as geckos and weta, but most of the bigger ones can roam wherever they like. If they can fly, they can even leave the place and live in the suburbs. Viewing the larger creatures requires keen eyes and ears.
Although birdsong surrounded them, few of the birds were willing to expose themselves long enough for a decent view. That was until Zac and Jess got to the kaka feeding station. There, a dozen or so of the forest parrots put on a show: mock battles, tiggy games and some straight-out bullying — all part of getting a good feed.
They didn’t see any kiwi, which was not surprising as the birds were probably hidden away until night-time. However,
they did see one nocturnal animal, a tuatara basking in the afternoon sun. They assumed it was a live one, even though in the several minutes they watched it, no part of its body moved.
On the way back to the café they caught up with a family group: a mum and dad with their son and daughter. They were talking excitedly about what they had seen. The younger child, the boy, turned to Zac and asked, ‘Did you see the takahe?’
Zac shook his head. ‘No. Where were they?’
‘Down by the water. They’re nasty.’
‘Are they? Did they come close?’ asked Jess.
‘Yeah! Real close. One of them tried to peck me.’
‘What do they look like?’ asked Zac.
‘Like pukekos,’ said the boy. ‘Big, fat, lazy pukekos. Dad says they were once pukekos, but they ate too much. That’s how they got big and fat, and now they can’t fly.’
The boy’s father turned and smiled at them. ‘It’s sort of like that,’ he said. ‘Except it happened over ten million years or so.’
‘Are they quite tame?’ asked Jess.
‘One was,’ said the man. ‘Harry’s right. It came close and made out it was going to attack.’
‘I wasn’t scared, though,’ said Harry. ‘Even when it stared at me with those grumpy eyes. Samantha was scared.’
‘I was not!’ said the girl.
‘Was so!’
The argument continued until they reached a display giving information about Zealandia’s perimeter fence. The parents used it to distract the two kids.
‘See that,’ said the mother. ‘That’s how they made the fence that keeps all the bad animals out.’
‘What bad animals?’ asked Harry.
The mother read out the names. They were all the usual predators that kill native animals: rats, stoats, etc. Each was shown against the fence, indicating how high they could jump. What surprised Zac was the height a possum can jump: 1.5 metres, just 30 centimetres short of a cat.
