Blood Is a Stranger (33 page)

Cardinal swallowed and braced himself. Chan slid his chair close to him.

‘Were you working for the CIA?' Chan said.

Cardinal's mouth and throat were burning. He couldn't answer.

‘Did Blundell order you to kill me?'

Cardinal tried to speak, but began to choke on his blood. Chan cursed. He gripped Cardinal's hair.

‘Just nod your head!'

Cardinal gripped the chair's arms and stared at Chan defiantly. Chan made a chopping motion. A commando flicked the switch. The shock whipped through Cardinal's arms and stabbed his heart. His chest heaved and his wrists seared. Cold sweat broke out over his face.

Get it over with, you animal! Cardinal wanted to say, but could only think it. The switch was thrown again. Cardinal's body convulsed and his legs kicked out. His chair jumped and fell sideways. Four commandos struggled to right it.

Chan leaned forward from the chair. ‘Blundell urged you to do it?'

Cardinal's eyes met Chan's. Cardinal lashed out with his foot and caught Chan hard on the shin. He clutched at his leg. Cardinal coughed and spat blood into the face of his tormentor. A commando lashed out at Cardinal and sent the chair flying backwards. The cord was wrenched from the wall, and the room was plunged into darkness. Cardinal again struggled to regain consciousness. Chan and the commandant were arguing fiercely. The chair was put upright, and torches were shone in Cardinal's eyes. He felt himself being untied. He tried to stand but he could not control his limbs.

I'm paralysed, he thought. His head spun, and the dancing torch reflections on the floorboards fused into black.

Only the stark cries of crows broke the early morning silence. Perdonny stood reading the names of the marble memorial commemorating the deaths of Allied forces -mainly Australians and Indians - on the island during the second world war. Like all the older members of the town he remembered the day when most of these allied fighters had been beheaded by the Japanese.

Perdonny knew he was being watched. He could see the Bakin car out of the corner of his eye. He wandered further into the memorial grounds. A taxi pulled into the gravel-pathed entrance. Webb got out. The car pulled over to the roadside and waited.

Webb approached Perdonny. ‘Did you see that car?'

‘They stayed outside my house last night,' Perdonny said. ‘I'm allowed to move about, but they're under strict orders not to let me out of their sight.'

They began to wander across the cemetery.

‘Cardinal has been taken to Bum,' Perdonny said. ‘What the hell happened at the airport?'

‘I told him to come around the island,' Webb said with a rueful sigh, ‘but they cornered him. I watched him bundled into a chopper.'

Perdonny acknowledged a toothless old gardener who bowed, all smiles. He was honoured to have the great man in his garden.

‘How do you know he was taken to Bum?' Webb asked. ‘Several of my people saw his capture,' Perdonny said. ‘The chopper flew west. There is only one destination in that direction.' He glanced at the road. ‘We know the prison had some strange visitors during the night.' Webb looked surprised.

‘You must have seen the military plane arrive,' Perdonny
said.

‘I was woken up by it,' Webb said, scratching his head, ‘and a chopper took off again soon afterwards. So?'

‘Chan was on board.'

Webb's forehead stretched. ‘Shit! Do you know what happened?'

‘Not yet. But if Cardinal is alive, we must try to get him out.'

‘You're crazy! No one has ever escaped Bum.'

Perdonny stopped at a gravestone and read the inscription: ‘Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for another.'

‘Listen, pal,' Webb said. ‘I'm not laying down my life for some crazy Yank killer on a revenge kick! Not for you or Canberra or any bloody one!'

‘You wouldn't have to do anything except fly us in and out,' he said.

‘There's no damned landing strip on Buru. Only a helipad in the prison.'

They wandered on, Perdonny stopping now and again to read other inscriptions.

‘Besides,' Webb said, eyeing Perdonny, ‘how the hell would you get away from that tail on you everywhere?'

They began to stroll to the road.

‘If you got involved,' Webb said under his breath, ‘your cover would be blown. You would have to escape.'

‘I'm aware of that.'

‘What about your wife and family?' Webb persisted. ‘Would you be prepared to desert them?'

‘I think I have already been exposed, don't you?'

Webb's face clouded. He bit his lip and looked at the Bakin car.

‘You can count me out of any adventures on Bum,' he said. ‘As far as those apes are concerned I'm in the clear. I just work for the company. I want it to stay that way.'

Perdonny looked up at Webb's ice-green eyes. ‘Time's running out, Spider, for all of us.'

In his concussed state, Cardinal had been trying to focus on a blur. It could have been hours or even days. Realisation seeped through the confusion, and his befuddled brain drew satisfaction from the discovery that it was a sneaker. He stared at it for another indeterminate period and found himself marvelling at the invention of every part, from the thread in the lace to the roll of the rubberised heel.

My soul mate, he thought to himself as he uncoiled from a foetal position on the floor. His brain told his body to sit up, but it took a long time to obey.

Slowly all his senses rolled into play. There was the nauseating smell of blood and vomit - his own. He touched his dry, burning mouth and tender nose. He heard voices. He was back in that confounded cell, and there were people somewhere outside. Perhaps they had been observing him through the hatch. He didn't know, didn't care. He would play dead on the floor. It wouldn't be difficult, he thought. The voices faded. Cardinal lay quietly for another hour or so, forcing his memory to explain what had happened.

‘Chan,' he whispered to himself, ‘was he real?'

He forced himself on to the bed but could not stand up. He wanted so desperately to look out into the light and see that chopper, but he could not straighten up. Cardinal lay on the bed flexing and massaging his muscles. He made a pathetic attempt to exercise, but after half a minute fell gasping for breath. He heart beat so fast he thought it would burst through his battered ribcage.

I'm too weak to even cry, he thought.

The latch on the bottom of the door pushed open and a bowl of food slithered across the floor. Cardinal watched it collide, as if in slow motion, with the vomit-stained sneaker. He fell off the bed in an effort to stop it spilling. He clawed at the contents, which seemed to be the same
tasteless muck he had had before. It revolted him, but he was determined to keep something down.

He had just scooped up the last lump when he heard keys in the door. It was pushed open. A guard nodded and grunted at him, signalling that he wanted him to put on clothes. Cardinal blinked at his jeans lying crumpled in one corner. He crawled over to them and noticed they were streaked with blood. He gripped them and heaved them on. The guard stood impassively as Cardinal struggled with a shirt and then the sneakers. Another guard appeared and the two men hoisted him to his feet and half-walked and half-dragged him down from the cell into the compound. Cardinal looked for the chopper. There was no sign of it. He began to have doubts that an angel of death had visited him after all. The guards left Cardinal in the middle of the compound near a group of prisoners. He rested on his elbows. It was still well before noon. The sun's rays were warm but not hot. Three prisoners shuffled over to him and offered him water, which he took gladly. It revived him and in the following minutes he looked around the buildings for some sign to help his splintered memory.

Workers were washing out the commandant's office. He studied the faces of the guards outside the door and recognised one of them who was staring at him. A white-coated woman appeared from a hut next to the administration office and walked over to Cardinal. She was joined by the commandant who stood over Cardinal and spoke about him in Indonesian.

‘You are lucky to be alive, Mr Cardinal,' the commandant said. ‘He wanted to kill you last night. Even after you collapsed.'

‘What stopped him?' Cardinal rasped.

‘I did. I had not been told to let him commit murder in my prison.'

‘When will I be set free?'

‘I don't know,' the commandant said. ‘Chan wants to
make sure you are executed. I have put a call through to the appropriate minister for a ruling.' He turned and walked back to his office.

Rough hands lifted Cardinal to his feet, and he was helped into the jungle by the prisoners. The guards straggled some distance behind them.

‘Where are we going?' Cardinal asked like a beleaguered drunk.

‘We work,' one prisoner said with a sympathetic smile.

A day's toil for the residents of Buru was about to begin.

The explosion shook the foundations of Burra's home just after three am. He bounced out of bed, pulled on some clothes and loaded his shotgun. Elaine chased him to the door and tried to restrain him.

‘Phone Topfist and tell him to get the others!' Burra said, shrugging her away. He jumped in the ute and headed for the mine. Half-way there his lights picked up an over-turned van in a ditch by the roadside. He realised it belonged to his son.

Burra pulled over and dashed to the vehicle. Silas and another Aborigine were sitting near it looking dazed.

‘We're all right,' Silas said. He held his head while his father examined the cuts on them. ‘We challenged a van, bigger than ours, at the Crossing. It just kept on going. We chased it. They fired shots, we lost control and went arse over tit!'

They were all startled by another series of explosions.

Burra cursed and ran to his ute.

‘Dad!' Silas called. ‘Take it easy!'

Burra skidded back on to the road and pushed the ute until its panels began to rattle in protest.

He reached the checkpoint to the mine and was surprised to see the barrier open. He slowed down, expecting to see guards appear. But the hut and surrounding area were ominously still. Wary of an ambush, Burra stopped
the vehicle well short of the barrier, switched off the lights and eased out, clutching his shot-gun. He came within ten metres of the guards' hut. Its door swung lazily in a light breeze. It was empty. Burra took a few steps closer and then froze. Three bodies had been dragged into the bush and camouflaged. He pulled away branches and examined the bodies. Two had been garrotted and one knifed in the spine.

Burra could hear a vehicle speeding in his direction. It was driven by Topfist. Burra flagged him down and was about to show him the bodies, when their attention was diverted by a roar of plane engines from the mine area. They spotted the consistent flash of a plane's lights as it climbed above the escarpment and was soon lost among the stars.

‘Was that Richardson's Hercules?' Burra asked. He hopped into the front of Topfist's Ford.