Wildfire

Chapter Eighteen

While Ben flew, Kelly pored over the map. She had taken a reading off the GPS — the global positioning system — and was lining it up with the grid reference on the map. Her big paw-bandages traced the grid lines.

While trying to get rid of the spider, neither of them had noticed the plane’s bearing. They had gone way off course.

When she found the reference, she wasn’t exactly pleased. ‘We are literally in the middle of nowhere,’ she said. ‘This place is just empty. It just says “Great Victoria Desert” on the map and there’s nothing else at all. No roads, no water features, nothing.’

Ben had done a bit of orienteering. ‘What about lining up on contour lines?’

Kelly waved a white fist in the direction of the window. ‘Do you see any hills? There are no hills so there are no contour lines. We are in the middle of a big empty space.’

‘Could be why they call it the outback,’ said Ben. ‘But we don’t need the map, do we? We’ve got the GPS.’

‘The GPS could go wrong or it could run out of battery power. You should always use a map too. I really don’t like it when I can’t see where I am on paper.’

Ben got the feeling that the real reason she was fretting so much was that she was worried about her father.

‘I’m trying to find the Ghan track,’ said Kelly after a while.

‘But the police stopped the Ghan. They weren’t on board.’

‘My dad wouldn’t make a mistake,’ said Kelly. ‘The kidnappers must have taken them off the train before the police searched it.’

‘If they were ever on it in the first place.’

Kelly sat in silence for a few moments. ‘They had to be,’ she said at last. ‘Otherwise they’d still be back in Adelaide. And the doctor at Coober Pedy told me that Adelaide’s on fire.’

‘What do you mean, Adelaide’s on fire?’

‘The whole town,’ said Kelly. ‘They think it spread down from the vineyards.’

‘The vineyards?’ repeated Ben. ‘But that was hours ago! It can’t still be burning. Why didn’t you tell me before? What if my mum’s still there?’

Kelly glared at him. ‘Listen, don’t start getting snippy with me. All I know is that it’s a big emergency. And there’s nobody there because the army is evacuating the place. Just chill.’

Ben seethed. He had just as much right to worry about his mum as she had to worry about her father. But he decided to keep his feelings to himself. Another argument wouldn’t help them.

‘We need to follow the track back to Adelaide,’ he said. ‘Maybe if they were taken off we’ll see some sign.’

‘They’re a couple of tiny needles in one mother of a big haystack …’ mused Kelly, looking down.

Certainly the terrain below was bleak — mile upon mile of featureless red earth like the surface of Mars. At least it should be straightforward to fly over, with no thermals from hills and valleys. All the same, Ben would have been glad to see a hill. All this Martian flatness was a bit unsettling. Nothing changed. It was as if they were hanging stationary in mid air.

Kelly looked at the instruments and tutted. ‘You’re taking us in the wrong direction. Turn in a big circle.’

Ben eased the stick over.

Kelly gave a weary sigh and looked down at the map again. ‘We’re never going to get back to Adelaide if you let us drift off course like this.’

Ben wasn’t finding turning as easy as he’d expected. The rudder didn’t want to work — yet the microlight was normally so responsive. Now it was like trying to steer a supermarket trolley.

‘Kelly,’ he said, ‘try your left rudder.’

He felt her press the pedal. That did nothing either.

‘It’s the wind,’ she said. ‘We’re in a really strong gale. More throttle!’

Ben increased the throttle. The engine noise grew higher and faster and he expected the airspeed indicator to climb quite quickly, but it hardly moved. ‘Nose down?’ he asked Kelly.

She nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

Ben eased the nose down, hoping a shallow dive would give them extra speed. The red dusty landscape filled his windscreen. Normally, if you were flying in a strong wind you could see its effects, but because there were no trees everything looked eerily still. The only sign was the red horizon blurring into the cobalt sky, as though it was being brushed vigorously.

Ben’s manoeuvre worked and the craft picked up a little speed. But as soon as he eased off the throttle or let the nose level out, they slowed right down, almost to stall speed.

‘That is some strong wind,’ said Kelly. ‘We are going to burn up a lot of fuel—’

Her words ended in a scream that made Ben jump in his seat.

‘Arghh! Get it off me!’ She looked down at her flying suit and scrubbed at her legs with her bandage-mittened hands. ‘Get it off!’ She jerked her leg like Ben had when he was trying to get rid of the spider.

Ben pointed the nose down into another shallow dive. The plane would keep that course on its own for a few seconds while he tried to help Kelly. She was wriggling frantically, jerking both legs up and down. But as far as Ben could see, there was nothing on her.

‘Kelly, I can’t see it — what is it? Another spider?’ She rubbed her hands furiously along her legs, as if trying to brush something away. ‘Get it off! Get it off me!’ She was becoming hysterical.

Ben still couldn’t see anything. He looked up and down her legs and in the foot well, expecting another set of spidery legs or some other creepy crawly. He remembered the leaflet he’d read in the hotel, which listed a whole army of deadly nasties. What else had got in with that spider? Had it bitten her?

Kelly shuddered. The movement went through her whole body. ‘They’re all over me,’ she said in a high, panicky voice. She was battering at her flying suit with her mittened hands, heedless of the pain. Her feet thundered on the pedals and the microlight shook from side to side.

Ben leaned over. He couldn’t see anything — either on her or in the foot well — although it was difficult to know for sure because she would not keep still.

Kelly looked at him with wild eyes. ‘Do something! They’re crawling all over me!’ She shook violently again, but this time, mercifully, with her feet away from the pedals. Her blonde hair came free of her baseball cap.

Ben made a decision. He couldn’t continue flying with her in that state. He would have to find somewhere to land.

He looked out of the window and got a surprise. They must have gone quite a distance because instead of featureless red terrain he saw a cluster of isolated buildings and a huge white dome.

He’d aim for that. It was his best hope of getting help.

Beside him, Kelly shuddered and batted the air. Maybe she was having some kind of fit. Or maybe something had bitten her and she was reacting to poison.

‘Kelly,’ said Ben, ‘I’m going to land. Talk me through it.’

Kelly was trying to scratch herself but the bandages stopped her. ‘Just get us down!’ she managed to say.

Ben felt a trickle of cold sweat down the back of his neck. She wasn’t going to be any help. He would have to take the plane down on his own.

He tried to remember what they’d done before. He had to find a long, straight stretch of clear ground to use as a runway — well, that shouldn’t be a problem. He brought the plane down to 500 feet and studied the layout. A high steel mesh fence enclosed an area of several acres. As well as several long single-storey sheds there was a large white dome. The ground between the buildings was striped with vehicle tracks. He wondered if it might be some kind of power station. But why out here in the desert, a thousand kilometres from civilization?

At one end was a clear stretch of land with no buildings on it, only a fence. There were no rocks strewn across it either — that was a bonus. It seemed tailor-made for landing a plane. There was also a bright orange windsock fluttering gently against a flagpole. Well, you couldn’t get more handy than that. Except … he couldn’t remember. Was he meant to land into the wind or against it?

And now he thought about it, where had that strong wind disappeared to? The microlight was steering easily again. The orange windsock down below was hardly stirring.

Kelly gave another scream and squirmed in the seat. She put her wrist up to her mouth and tried to tear at the bandages with her teeth. Ben put his hand out and pushed her hand away, stopping her.

She rewarded him with a snarl. ‘I need to scratch!’

He had to let go of her wrist. He needed both hands on the controls. Especially as he was now at 300 feet. ‘Fine,’ he snapped back. ‘Don’t blame me if the burns go septic then.’

Kelly bit the bandage and pulled.

Outside the window, the features on the ground were getting bigger. Before, Kelly had made him fly circles over his intended landing site to check it out. There was no time for that now.

The plane started to wobble as it encountered air currents stirred up from the ground. Ben worked the pedals and stick to keep it level. I can do this, he thought. Easy peasy.

He looked at his airspeed. Still 70 knots — cruising speed. They needed to be going slower. He’d forgotten about that. He pushed the throttle right down.

The revs needle dropped and above his head the engine fell suddenly silent. He’d closed it down too far. The plane had stalled!

He opened the throttle a little more, his heart in his mouth. Fortunately the engine restarted, its beat steady and true.

He was lined up on his runway now. The ground was a lot closer. He could see pebbles like the grain in an old photo when you enlarged it.

Suddenly the plane lurched. The altimeter dropped to 20 feet. Then it swung the other way to 2000. The airspeed needle beat from side to side like a windscreen wiper. The GPS screen went blank, then flashed up a message in block capitals: ERROR.

‘That doesn’t happen in Microsoft Flight Simulator,’ thought Ben.

He tapped the dials, then looked at Kelly, hoping for help. She was unravelling her right bandage, twitching her shoulders up and down to try to scratch them on the inside of her jumpsuit.

His instruments were going haywire. Now how would he get down safely?

Outside, the ground was very close. The vehicle tracks had become distinct tyre marks and were getting further and further apart. He tried to guess how far he had to go but his unpractised eye hadn’t a clue. He’d just have to guess.

He put the throttle right down and eased the nose up.

It suddenly occurred to him that if the instruments were out, the controls might not work either.

The front wheel bumped on the ground, then the back wheels followed it with a thump. Not the right way to get down, but at least they were on the ground. The only problem now was stopping.

The engine stalled again. He’d landed closer to the end fence than he intended and was freewheeling towards it at high speed.

He squeezed on the brakes hard. The nose slewed round and his view of the fence disappeared in a cloud of red dust.

He only hoped the brakes would pull them up before they slammed into the fence.

Something prodded his chest so hard it made him jump in his seat. It was like the kick of an electric shock. He took his left hand off the throttle and brushed it away, but the sensation seemed to jump to his leg. He jerked his leg and the plane swung around as his foot caught the pedal. Something ran up his spine — something that felt like it had a lot of legs. He forgot about the brake and the pedals, let go of the stick and tried to undo his seat belt so that he could get this creature off him. Another one ran across his shoulder. Then they started coming up his thighs and arms. He tried to get them off, his hands flailing against the roof of the cockpit and the window.

Gradually the awful crawling sensation stopped. He realized the plane had stopped too. Kelly had her bandaged hands around the brake like pincers. Cautiously she let go and sat up slowly. One bandage was trailing from her right hand. Outside the windscreen the dust was settling. They had stopped just metres from the steel mesh fence. At a speed similar to fifty miles an hour it would have sliced them like cheese in a grater.

Kelly let out a long breath. ‘You felt it too?’

She seemed to be normal again.

Ben was still getting his breath back. ‘Yeah. What was it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kelly. ‘I thought it was insects or something at first. But it was more like an electric shock.’

Ben nodded. ‘Maybe there’s some exposed wiring.’

Kelly put her arm up to wipe the sweat away from her forehead and looked at the trailing bandage in surprise. She held it out to Ben. ‘I don’t think I should have done this.’

She hadn’t actually managed to get much of it off. While Ben tied it up around her wrist she looked over the back of the seat. ‘I wonder where we are … Uh-oh.’ She went tense.

Ben turned in the seat and looked behind them. The dust was blowing up again. Was it a dust storm?

Then they saw a big bright light looming out of the sky like a spotlight, and heard the noise. The entire sky was roaring. The light was getting lower and closer. What was it?

Next they made out the high whine of jet engines.

A big shadow like an arrowhead began to take shape in the swirling dust.

‘That’s a plane,’ said Kelly. ‘A very big plane. And we’re on the end of its runway.’

Ben turned the ignition key. The engine coughed and spluttered but wouldn’t turn over.

Kelly waved her paw at him. ‘There must be dust in the filter. Quick, get out!’

Ben snapped the door catch up and jumped out of the microlight. He ran round to Kelly’s side, noticing as he did so that the plane was looming bigger in the sky, its engine noise deafening. He released the catch on her door and she tumbled out and started running. They sprinted along the fence, away from the approaching monster.

The light was under the plane’s belly. It illuminated a vast grey fuselage and a big row of wheels. The back wheels touched down and Ben felt the impact reverberate through his bones. The nose came down, obscuring the light on the belly of the craft. A wave of sand blasted towards him and Kelly. They shrank back against the fence, shielding their eyes with their hands. The engines screamed in their ears as the pilot put the brakes on.

The engine whine diminished. When they opened their eyes, the plane had slowed right down to a sedate taxiing speed. The clouds of dust were settling around it.

The plane came towards them and then turned. Ben and Kelly gasped.

It was massive — almost as long as a football field and as high as a six-storey building; big and grey with a rounded nose. The wheeled undercarriage alone was huge — a mass of wheels and struts.

Kelly was transfixed by the plane. ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken,’ she said, ‘that is a Galaxy Starlifter. It can take off and land on a dime. It doesn’t need a runway or air traffic control because it’s got all the weather radar on board. It can fit six entire Greyhound buses in its hold.’ She was back in teacher mode.

‘Delivering buses by plane?’ said Ben. ‘Isn’t that like buying a dog and barking yourself?’

‘I thought you’d be impressed. That’s one of the world’s largest aircraft. It travels as fast as a jet plane. Don’t boys like things like that?’

Ben was definitely impressed — it was just more fun not to show it.

The plane was heading for the open doors of a giant hangar. At the front end, the nose sprang open and folded back over the cockpit. It looked like someone had cut the nose off a shark and hinged it upwards. The dust settled a little more, enough for them to see there was lettering on the plane’s tail: USAF — United States Air Force. Then the doors closed. All that remained of the plane was the red dust blowing over its massive wheel-ruts.

‘There’s your real big bird that disappears,’ mused Ben.

Kelly stood up straight. ‘We’re on home turf,’ she said. ‘These guys are Americans. I think we’d better go and say hello.’

‘It’s your home turf,’ grumbled Ben as he set off behind her. ‘You Americans — you think you own the world.’

In the distance, a figure was standing outside one of the huts. He wore a military-looking uniform of faded blue. He seemed to be on a smoking break. He threw a cigarette butt down onto the ground and stubbed it out with his foot. Then he opened the door and went back inside.

Kelly looked around. The microlight was close to the perimeter fence, in the shadow of the gigantic dome. ‘I think we can leave our little buzzmobile here. It’s not in anybody’s way. Come on.’ She pushed her headset down around her neck like a torque and set off in the direction of the door, bandaged hands swinging purposefully. She looked a peculiar figure: her flying suit grimy with desert dust, open to the navel to reveal her orange T-shirt, headset discarded around her neck, bandaged hands like two white mittens. Ben looked down at his own flying suit. It was none too clean either. He tried to brush the worst of it off as he walked. Somehow he thought it might not make a good impression to look as if he’d just climbed out of a dumper truck.

It took them a good five minutes just to walk past the dome. It was massive: at least 80 feet tall — only half as tall as the Millennium Dome, but then that wasn’t out in the middle of the Australian desert. The surface was covered in a thick white plastic material. It looked like a set for a Star Wars movie.

Ben’s mind was working furiously as he walked along beside Kelly. An American base in the middle of the Australian desert? He felt in his pocket and pulled out the flyer from Oz Protectors:

‘Kelly,’ said Ben, showing her the leaflet, ‘do you remember this? This is the place they’re talking about.’

‘Probably.’ Kelly nodded.

‘It’s the place that’s been making everyone sick in Coober Pedy.’

‘Oh, that’s just anti-American propaganda.’

Ben shrugged. It probably was, but as he tucked the flyer back into his pocket he had a moment of déjà vu: putting the flyer in that same pocket while the café owner in Coober Pedy said, I had this terrible itching. I thought my skin was crawling with insects …

They reached the door where they had seen the figure in the blue uniform. Kelly stood aside for Ben to open it.

He still had misgivings. ‘Should we really be here?’

Kelly glared at him. ‘Why not?’

He looked at that curled lip and the interrogating eyes and couldn’t quite think how to begin.

She didn’t give him long to explain. ‘Oh, don’t be a scaredy-cat. I’ve been on these bases before. My dad’s in the army, remember? It’ll be fine. Come on, let’s go in.’

Inside was a dark corridor and an open door into a lighted room. Kelly led the way.

The room was some kind of laboratory. Ben was reminded of pictures he’d seen of mission control in Houston during the Moon landings. Except that the whole place seemed to be manned by just two people. They were surrounded by so much electronic equipment that it took him a few seconds to spot them. Each man had three computer monitors. Along the walls were metal racks holding more banks of equipment covered with flashing lights. Some of the equipment had a home-made look. The knobs and lights were different sizes, as if they had been fitted at different times. The numbers and lettering on the labels didn’t match. It looked like a prototype machine that someone was constantly building and refining; like something out of Ben’s dad’s workshop in the back garden. Except that everything here was emblazoned with the insignia of the US army.

Both scientists wore the muted blue uniform. They seemed wrapped up in their work and didn’t take much notice of the newcomers. Ben’s dad was like that when he was concentrating.

‘The frequency’s stabilized,’ said one of the men. A label on his shirt said his name was Grishkevich. He was looking at one of the screens. On it was a satellite picture like the ones on weather programmes. Grishkevich pressed a cursor key. The map view moved down a few centimetres. He looked at it carefully and then at another map picture on another screen, comparing them.

The other scientist, whose name tag said Hijkoop, looked over his shoulder at his screens.

‘It doesn’t seem to have made any difference,’ said Grishkevich. ‘The wind’s died down to five knots but it could kick up again any minute.’

‘Hi,’ said Kelly.

Grishkevich continued to ignore her but Hijkoop looked up. ‘Ah, you got here at last. Are you guys new? I haven’t seen you before.’

Grishkevich spoke too, but he kept his eyes glued to the screen. ‘Sorry — you must have had a rough ride on the way in. We’re having a lot of trouble with it today.’ He continued to move the picture with his cursor.

‘They’ll have breezed in with no trouble,’ said Hijkoop. ‘That crate is big enough to cope with a bit of bad weather. You guys must get much worse in Alaska.’

Ben realized the scientists thought they’d come in on the Galaxy Starlifter. Of course, with their flying suits and the headsets around their necks, it was a reasonable assumption to make. Although they obviously couldn’t have looked at Kelly properly because she looked more like a teenage tourist than a military scientist. And people always assumed that Ben was older than thirteen, though he was sure he didn’t look old enough to be in the army just yet.

Hijkoop chuckled. ‘Alaskan winter to Australian summer. I bet that’s a shock. Did you bring us some ice? We haven’t managed to make snow yet but we’re working on it.’

Grishkevich stood up. He brushed imaginary dust off his trousers. ‘OK, show us what you’ve got for us. I hope it’s not Alaska’s cast-offs.’

Ben was wondering if they could sneak out quietly before they got into trouble, but Kelly was determined to put them right. ‘We didn’t fly here from Alaska. We’ve just come from Adelaide.’

Hijkoop and Grishkevich stopped what they were doing and looked at Ben and Kelly properly for the first time.

Ben saw their expressions change. Hijkoop reached behind his monitor screens and pulled out the plugs. The satellite weather pictures vanished.

Kelly drew herself up to her full height. ‘I’m a United States citizen and I need help. My father is an army officer and he’s been kidnapped in Adelaide.’

Grishkevich snatched up some files and clutched them to his chest protectively. He glared at Ben and Kelly. His entire manner had suddenly changed and he looked very angry. ‘How did you get in here?’

‘We got lost,’ said Ben. ‘There was some bad weather. We got blown off course.’

Hijkoop was on the phone. ‘Security, we need help. We’ve got intruders.’ He put the phone down and looked at Ben and Kelly. ‘That story isn’t going to wash. You don’t just wander into a high security base like this. Who are you really? How did you get in?’

‘We’ll have you in court for trespass,’ said Grishkevich. ‘They’ll lock you up and throw away the key. How many of you are here?’

‘It’s just us,’ said Ben.

Kelly looked offended. ‘I’ll have you know that my father—’

Suddenly an alarm wailed through the building.

Ben pulled at Kelly’s arm and quickly dragged her out of the room.

In the corridor, she pulled out of his grasp, looking outraged. ‘I can explain to them.’

Ben took her arm and hissed in her ear. ‘You can’t. Look.’ He opened the cargo pocket on his trousers a little way, just enough to show her the piece of paper in there. STOP SECRET US EXPERIMENTS. He still had the Oz Protectors flyer.

Kelly stared in disbelief. ‘You dummy. Why didn’t you throw that away before?’

‘Well, I didn’t think we’d be coming here.’

‘If they search you and find that, they’ll throw our asses in jail.’

Behind, they heard people running down the corridor. Voices rang out, barking orders: ‘Use reasonable force. Shoot to wound, not to kill.’

‘Screw that,’ yelled Kelly. ‘Run!’

Snoopy sat in the back of an army truck with a blanket around his shoulders. ‘Look at that, dude,’ he said to Dodge. ‘Awesome!’

They were watching the flames and smoke that spread from one edge of the skyline to the other. The whole of Adelaide was ablaze.

Dodge was coughing. ‘I got a bloody lungful of smoke, Snoop. Should come with a public health warning, eh?’ They laughed.

An army medic came over with water bottles for them both. ‘You’re going to feel weak because of the smoke inhalation,’ he said.

‘No kidding,’ said Dodge. He nodded towards the burning buildings. ‘Do they know how it got started?’

‘Some idiot lit a fire, probably,’ said the medic.

Snoopy tutted. ‘No consideration, some people.’ The medic looked at them with a frown. ‘You need

to keep your fluid intake up. Drink. Other than that, stay still. We’re going to be moving out in a few minutes, as soon as we’ve picked up a few more survivors.’

Dodge squirted some water over his tongue and grimaced. ‘Tell you what, mate,’ he said to the medic. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a cold beer, would you?’

It wasn’t often that the desert base got unwelcome visitors, but it wasn’t completely unknown. Sometimes there would be suspicious noises in locked rooms, and the soldiers on guard duty would be sent to investigate. They had always traced the disturbance to possums or dingoes that had got in from the desert. They’d never had people breaking in before — the base was too remote. But now two youths had been spotted in the main lab and were haring out of the side door into the desert.

Three guards were sent to the lab. As they rounded the corner by the lab entrance they caught sight of the two intruders. A male and a female in flying overalls. As they raced out of the door, the bright afternoon sunlight turned them into silhouettes. They ran like the devil was chasing them, their feet kicking up clouds of red dust. The way people run when they know they’re in trouble.

Sergeant Kowalski and his two men pursued the pair a little way out into the scorching sunshine. They were racing towards the perimeter fence. The three soldiers stopped, steadied their AK-47s and fired a salvo of single rounds towards the perimeter fence. Plumes of dust rose as the bullets bit into the red sand.

The running figures changed direction abruptly like startled fish.

The sergeant spoke into a radio on his lapel. ‘Sergeant Macy, stand by, they’re heading your way. We’re following from behind.’

‘Roger,’ came the reply.

Even though the base did not have intruder alerts very often, they still had protocols in case it happened. Spies and saboteurs could do a lot of damage and had to be apprehended.

Sergeant Kowalski shipped his weapon back onto his shoulder, letting it hang casually on its sling. ‘Take it easy, boys, we don’t need to knock ourselves out. Look at ’em go. They won’t be able to keep that up for long in this heat.’

Ben and Kelly were still running like the wind. Now they were alongside the dome. They were easy to spot — two tiny figures against a gleaming white background. They raced around the dome’s curved perimeter until they were out of sight.

Kowalski spoke into his radio again. ‘Macy, I think we can take our time. Where are they going to go? It’s nothing but desert out there.’

About four hundred metres away, near the other entrance, Sergeant Macy’s men were jogging towards the dome, ready to take up the chase. Like greyhounds on a racetrack, in a moment they would come running out the other side.

None of the soldiers noticed the cloud of dust blowing up on the other side of the dome. They didn’t even take much notice of the noise — a tinny buzz like the engine of a lawnmower or a tiny boat.

But then a machine rose into the air above the dome. It was a spindly collection of struts like a First World War plane. Two figures sat in the tiny cockpit. The plane climbed, cleared the perimeter fence by a whisker and soared away into the blue sky.

The two GIs watched, speechless.

‘Aw, nuts,’ grunted Kowalski.