Dragons at the Party (40 page)

The heat and exhaustion were affecting him; and he could smell smoke, like acrid dust in his nostrils. He looked up, but the trees above him weren’t burning. There were short gusts of breeze and the leaves turned in the early morning sunlight, silver-green like water flung into the air. He reached out and touched the trunk of a tree that grew out of the rocks behind him; its thin grey bark peeled away like strips
of
sun-burned skin. He could hear no birds, see no animals: they had all fled, fearful of the fire on the opposite ridge. He looked across there, saw the flames and smoke there and imagined he could feel the heat.

But what he felt most was loneliness. He didn’t recognize it at first; it was so long since he had felt lonely. Now all at once he wished there was someone beside him he knew: Juan, his best friend at university, who had persuaded him to join the Tupamaros; Gabriella, the girl he had worked with in the Red Brigade in Milan and with whom he had almost fallen in love; anyone at all from the old days. Even his mother: he looked down the slope and thought he saw her come out from behind a tree. He raised the Sako, but he couldn’t shoot her: she wasn’t to blame for what she had been or what he had become. He began to weep.

Then he heard the faint crackle above him. He looked up, his mind and his eyes suddenly clearing. The tree-tops were bursting into flame. First, there were wisps of smoke amongst the silver-green leaves; then the leaves turned to bright red as if blossoms had suddenly burst. All at once, as if someone had run a giant match along the tops of the trees, the whole top of the ridge burst into flames. Fire took hold of the forest and thick smoke, as if the top of the ridge were a volcano crater, belched into the morning sky.

The crackling roar was suddenly deafening. The air down here on the slope all at once dried out, became a searing pain in the lungs. Seville, terrified, stood up and the one shot from the SWOS man down by Malone hit him in the chest. He shuddered and dropped the Sako and the hand-gun. Then he looked up again, saw the burning limb fall off the tree and drop towards him and he screamed. He began to run, stumble, fall down the slope, sliding off rocks, crashing into trees, but feeling nothing as he tried to flee the worst death of all. The countryside itself was going to kill him.

Malone saw the crown fire break out and was about to turn and race down the slope when he saw Seville plunging towards him. He waited; he didn’t know why. He didn’t attempt to raise his gun; he just opened his arms and Seville ran straight into them. Malone thudded back against a tree, but managed to remain on his feet. Seville’s face was close against his own. He stared into it, into the eyes that were
already
beginning to empty; there was a flash of recognition, but that was all. Nothing of defiance or surrender: Seville died wondering, as most of us will.

Malone picked him up and carried him, twice falling and losing his grip on the dead man, down to the creek where the SWOS men and Clements were yelling at him to hurry.

He fell the last few yards and two of the SWOS men grabbed Seville.

“The bastard’s dead!” one of them yelled.

“Bring him!” Malone croaked and let Clements help him down the creek towards the deep pool under the overhanging rock where the other SWOS men were already in the water.

The fire came racing down the slope; the very air beneath it seemed to burn. Tree trunks burst into flame as if they had been soaked in kerosene; burning branches fell from on high like flaming spears. There was the terrible roaring crackle and the men in the creek felt the skin on their faces and necks begin to tighten as if about to split. Malone, his lungs on fire, his eyes feeling as if they might boil in their sockets, fell into the pool beside Clements.

“Duck!” yelled the sergeant in charge of the SWOS and everyone fell under the bank and dived as deeply as they could, two men dragging Seville’s body down with them. The fire leapt the creek, killing the air above it; the surface of the water sizzled for a moment, then was still again. The air, hot but breathable, rushed back to fill the vacuum.

Malone, still with a little air in his lungs, half-swam, half-crawled along the bottom of the pool, heading downstream. It was about twenty yards long and ended in a tiny waterfall that dropped about four feet over some smooth rocks. He came up gasping, his lungs on the point of bursting, and slid head first over the slippery rocks and down into another pool. He stood there, aware of the blackened earth on either side of him and the small fires burning in the underbrush, feeling the burning beat and smelling the smoke and scorched air, but knowing that, for the moment, they had survived.

Clements flopped into the water beside him. “Jesus, Scobie, I thought we were gone then!”

The SWOS sergeant was leading the way downstream. “Another hundred yards and we’ll be okay! The fire’s going the other way!”

The
two men carrying Seville’s body stopped and looked at Malone. “You still want him, Inspector?”

Malone looked at the soaked and bedraggled figure, at the grey strained face with the staring empty eyes and the open mouth: there was no threat of terror there any more. I’d have liked to say goodbye to you, Seville, he thought with out-of-character malice; but the malice died suddenly, like an aberrant thought.
No, all I would have done was ask who was paying you? Was it Madame Timori?
But perhaps Seville had never known. Hit-men often never knew for whom they committed their crimes. History was full of innocent murderers.

“Yes,” he said, “bring him along.” He looked at Clements. “Right?”

“Right.”

III

“It was wonderful, Daddy,” said Claire. “Absolutely wonderful!”

“Yes,” he said. “I saw it on TV.”

“Ah, it wouldn’t have been as good on TV,” said Maureen traitorously. “You should’ve been there.”

“Yes,” said Lisa. “You should have been. Instead of where you were. What happened to your jacket?”

“I lost it.” He felt her hand press his.

“Where were you, Daddy?” said Tom.

“At work. Just at work.”

“Everybody was there,” said Claire. “The Prime Minister, the Premier, the Queen, cricketers, golfers, footballers, yachtsmen, jockeys—Captain Mack pointed them out to me when we sailed past the—what do they call it?”

“The „ficial „closure,” said Tom.

“Yes. Everybody’s heroes, Captain Mack called them.”

“
No police heroes,” said Lisa.

“I saw it all on TV,” said Malone. “Especially the Prime Minister and the Premier. Everybody’s heroes.”

He had not made it after all to the excursion on the tug-boat on the harbour. It had been almost two hours before he, Clements, the SWOS men and the dead Seville had all been lifted out of the valley into which they had retreated from the fire. An emergency rescue helicopter had flown in and, two by two, they had been hoisted up to the top of the valley’s escarpment. He had been the last to go up, swinging up through the hot smoke-tinged air with Seville’s body in the sling beside him. He had looked down on the grey-green forest below him and then along to the huge black scar where the fire had roared through. The fire was still burning along the tops of several ridges, but a slight wind had sprung up and turned it back on itself. With some luck it may have burned itself out by this evening and the firefighters, professionals and volunteers, could rest up and think about whether they had anything to celebrate.

There had been some bitterness amongst the SWOS men that their dead mate, shot by Seville, had been left to burn in the fire while Seville’s body had been carried out. Why? they asked angrily; and Malone had not been able to answer them. It had nothing to do with justice. On the way back to Sydney, with Seville’s corpse following in an ambulance, he pondered the question. Then he recognized a reason, though it may have been only subconscious. He wanted to present Delvina, if only in a photograph, with a view of her employee’s body. It would be some sort of revenge, if not justice.

“Let’s go to the morgue with the body,” he said.

Graham, in the front seat beside the young driver, turned round. “Why?”

“I want his photo in tonight’s papers. And on TV.”

Graham looked blank, then nodded. “Right.”

Malone looked at Clements beside him and grinned resignedly. But Clements, too, looked blank.

There was one press photographer and one TV cameraman waiting for them at the City Morgue. They took their shots and then hurried off. Dead terrorists weren’t as interesting as live
partygoers
falling off yachts into the harbour or Aboriginal demonstrators being heckled by fellow Aussies, including the lately arrived ethnics. “They probably won’t run it,” said the press photographer.

“They’d better,” said Malone, then added recklessly, “There could be a bigger story to follow.”

“Do you think there will be?” said Clements as the photographer hurried away.

“No.”

They went back to Homicide where Zanuch, out of evening dress now and in uniform, all silver buttons and silver braid, looking as if he was brushed up for more climbing, professional and social, was waiting for them. “Good work, Malone, good work. That wraps it up.”

“We go no further?” Malone all at once found he no longer cared.

“No. The PM has got the Americans to agree to a deal. He’s going to announce it this evening.”

“What deal?”

“Timori is never going to recover full consciousness. He’s out of the operating theatre and in intensive care. But it will be at least a month before he wakes up. He’s going to be a virtual vegetable for the rest of his life, be on a life support system. The Mexicans have agreed to take him and his wife—evidently the Americans put some pressure on. They’re going to put them on some island in the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Timori can’t speak? Or recognize anyone?”

“He’ll never speak, they say. He’ll have amnesia, but not about everything or everyone. For instance, he’ll probably always recognize his wife.”

“He’ll enjoy that,” said Clements.

“Yes,” said Zanuch and looked at the rumpled, smoke-begrimed sergeant as if he wasn’t sure whether Clements was making a joke or not. “Well, I’ve got to be off. I’m taking the salute. There’s a march past on the way down to the harbour. Take the day off.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Malone and Clements and only just stopped themselves from saluting.

Malone had gone home, was glad to find that Lisa, angry though she might have been at his once again failing them, had taken the children off to their outing on Eric Mack’s tug-boat. He showered,
standing
under the water for twenty minutes, got into his pyjamas and climbed into bed. He propped himself up with pillows and switched on the television set facing the bed. Conservative in his living, if not his police work, he had objected to their buying a second set, but Lisa had convinced him it was the only way to avoid arguments with the children.

“You’re spoiling them,” he had said.

“I know. It’s because I have to spend so much time alone with them.”

There had been no answer to that and so they had a second TV set in their bedroom. As he looked at the spectacle on the harbour, with the hundreds, maybe thousands of small craft gathered on what had been sparkling blue water but was now a frothing, constantly changing pattern of white wakes, he wished he were actually there. The kids must be out of their minds with delight and excitement and it hurt like a stab wound that he wasn’t there to share it with them. National pride swelled in him: he was proud to belong to what was being celebrated.

Then he saw the big Maritime Services launch pulling into the Kirribilli wharf. Norval and his wife stepped aboard; even in long shot the PM’s smile seemed to take up the whole screen. As the launch swung round and went out into the harbour towards the opposite shore, to the point known as Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair where the enclosure for official guests had been set up, Malone saw the Premier standing on deck. He and Norval were smiling at each other, like old soldier mates reunited after a long separation. Malone waited for them to throw their arms round each other. Bloody hell, he thought, what sort of skulbuggery went on this morning in The Dutchman’s office after the Commissioner and I left? Whatever it was, the voters would never know.

Malone, falling asleep, switched off the set before the tall ships began their stately procession down the harbour and out through the Heads. He was just too tired to say farewell to the country’s second century.

Now Lisa was saying, “I wish you’d been there.”

“So do I,” he said, heart full.

She leaned across and kissed him in front of the children; but they said nothing this time, just
stared
at the two of them. Then she looked at them and smiled. “He’s okay.”

“Right,” said Maureen, and Malone smiled and winced.

IV

Two months later President and Madame Timori flew out of Sydney on a specially chartered aircraft, bound for Mexico. With them went Sun Lee. Russell Hickbed went to the airport to see them off.

So did Malone. He went out to the Boeing 747 and climbed the steps to the front section, where Abdul Timori, under the care of a doctor and two nurses, lay in a bed with a life support system attached. Malone paused by the thin, inert figure and the dull black eyes stared back at him. For a moment he thought there was a spark of recognition in them, but he would never know.

“Does he recognize his wife?”

“We don’t know,” said the doctor. “We can’t be sure. Maybe in time . . .” He shrugged.

Malone went into the next section where Delvina, Sun and Hickbed sat quietly, like mourners waiting for the hearse to move off.

Delvina looked up and a frown crossed her smooth face. “Not you again, Inspector! What do you want now?”

“Nothing,” said Malone. “I’ve just come to say goodbye.”

“Why?” said Hickbed.

“I thought Madame Timori might like to know the case is closed.”

“It was closed when that guy Seville was killed.”

“Not officially.” He looked at Delvina. “If ever the President wakes up, tell him we know who was paying the man who tried to kill him. Goodbye, Delvina. Enjoy Mexico.”