Max Arena (5 page)

Max nodded and
they both turned back to Joe.

‘Thank you,’
Joe said. ‘I will not begin with what has already transpired such
as the engraving of your face on various natural landscapes, the
unprecedented occurrence of aliens on our streets and of course,
the forced invitation of yourself to fight a series of death duels
to defend the survival of the human race. While extraordinary,
let’s put those things aside for now. Instead, I wish to first
explain how I feel about all of these developments and what I see
as the implications of them.’

Joe paused. Max
and Elsa nodded. The Prime Minister restarted.

‘While it has
been less than twenty-four hours since news broke of the etching of
your face across the world, Max, the global search for you has
intensified into the single biggest and most outrageous man hunt in
history. Every nation with the capability to do so, is scouring the
planet for you. Secret Service and Special Forces elements are
running rampant. Fortunately, we got to you first and so the reason
we had to smash into your apartment in the middle of the night is
because we did not know if you were already being detained by
forces from another country or organisation. If that had been the
case, God knows what would have happened, but we would have fought
tooth and nail to keep you safe. You need to know that there are
several other nations and factions out there with less than
honourable intentions for you. That is also the reason why you have
been surrounded by armed men and women everywhere you have gone
today. I am trying desperately to protect you. Does that make sense
so far?’

Max held his
gaze on the Prime Minister and all he could find in the man’s
expression and most of all in his deep blue eyes was truth.

‘Yes, it does,’
Max said.

‘Good,’ Joe
continued. ‘Now let me go on by offering a plan and then I would
like to pass across to you both to say anything you feel you need
to. Is that okay?’

Both Elsa and
Max nodded.

‘Very well,’
Joe added. ‘It seems we have six months, virtually to the day until
you are expected to enter the arena. New Year’s Eve seems a rather
melodramatic date, but so be it. We probably can’t change the
schedule, so let’s use it in our planning. What I propose is that
you and your family place yourselves under my protection and I will
provide you with whatever means are at my disposal to ensure you
are firstly kept safe and secondly, you receive all the freedom and
tools to train in preparation for what is coming. The details we
can work out in due course, but as part of this offer I will place
two guarantees at your feet. One, you will be safe, absolutely and
completely. That goes for your whole family. You will never need or
want for anything and I will not restrict your freedom
unnecessarily. You will have the best security resources
surrounding you, all day, every day, all the way up to the arena
date and if, dear God, you are successful, Max, my protection will
continue beyond the arena for as long as needed. My second
guarantee is you can leave my protection at any time, freely and
completely. My protection is an offer and you can rebuke it at any
time without repercussion and without giving reason. I will not
have you living in fear or restriction. If you do decide to leave,
you are welcome back at any time, again without reason. So, having
said that, this is why I started with an offer of friendship. I
want you all to feel safe and there is no better place to feel safe
than in the company of those you trust and it is in our friends and
family that we place the greatest trust. I promise I will be
nothing but honest, respectful and as understanding as any person
can be. So, it would be my honour to accommodate you from here on.
Now, I’ll be quiet and you can have time alone to think or ask me
any question you want.’

With that, the
Prime Minister leaned back in his chair. On cue, the door opened
and a man bearing a wide silver platter entered. Walking across to
the coffee table in the midst of the Prime Minister and Max and
Elsa, he placed it down and quietly left. The Prime Minister leaned
forward and gestured to the two bowls of chocolate ice cream. Elsa
nodded.

‘Jason?
Millie?’ Joe called out. ‘Your ice cream is here.’

Squeals came
back as the two kids jumped up and scampered across. Joe handed
them both a bowl and a spoon.

‘Outside on the
patio, please kids?’ Max said. ‘We don’t want to ruin the Prime
Minister’s expensive carpet.’

Elsa stood up
and led both Millie and Jason out through the wide French doors and
onto the broad patio overlooking the gardens. Once outside, Elsa
again noted the liberal security presence surrounding The
Lodge.

‘Just sit here,
kids where mummy and daddy can see you okay?’ she asked.

Both children
plonked themselves down and started to hoe into their desserts.
Elsa cast another glance around at all the armed soldiers and
guards and while none of them directly returned her look, she had
no doubt they were all cognisant of her and the kids.

Inside, Joe had
poured himself a cup of tea and was about to pour Elsa one when she
came back and sat down. ‘Milk or sugar?’ he asked her.

‘One sugar,
please?’ she replied.

Meanwhile Max
took up two roast beef sandwiches and promptly ate them both with
minimum fuss.

Joe noted Max’s
relish and said, ‘I apologise if my staff onboard the jet didn’t
offer you anything to eat?’

‘Don’t worry
about Max,’ Elsa cut in. ‘They did give us something on the plane,
but Max is always hungry, so he always eats like that. Costs a
fortune to feed him.’

The Prime
Minister smiled and nodded. Leaning back, he stirred his tea in
front of him. ‘So, do you have any questions?’

‘Yes, I do,’
Elsa replied after taking a sip of her tea.

Max reached
forward and took two more sandwiches from the plate. Joe’s gaze
flicked to him and then back to Elsa as he silently held his cup up
to his face, looking over the rim.

‘Firstly, thank
you for coming to get us last night and even though it did seem a
bit heavy handed at the time, I can now see why you had to do it
that way. It makes sense that there might be...others looking for
us that aren’t so friendly.’

Joe nodded.

‘Secondly,
thanks for the offer of protection and I know I appreciate it, but
here’s my question.
If
we accept your offer, would you
object to us living at home through all this? We need to make sure
the disruption on the kids is as small as possible.’

Joe considered
an answer and then said, ‘I promised I would be nothing but honest
and so, while my answer is yes, you can reside at home if that’s
what you really want, but quite frankly, I cannot encourage you
strongly enough to not do that.’

Elsa paused.
‘Why not?’

‘There are two
reasons, Elsa. The first is your safety. Again, while it has only
been a matter of hours since your plight became public, we are
already seeing a sharp rise in lawlessness across the country.
Criminal activity has jumped. The potential for the end of the
world will do that. People are frightened and reacting with
violence. I don’t want you out in that world. You’re already the
centre of attention. If the public knew you were at home, they
would mob you, swarm your house and try to break in. Despite my
security, your freedom would be greatly restricted and Heaven
forbid, you may even be injured. Also, if any of these other rogue
nations and factions scouring for you were to become aware of your
location, they would try to kidnap you with lethal force and while
my security would defend you against them, it would be dangerous
for you and your family to be in any situation like that. The
second reason for my discouraging you to go home is logistics. My
team can protect you better if you are in a secret location that is
fully self-contained. I propose a private estate that will not only
be comfortable, but completely secure. It can be close to Brisbane
if you’d prefer to stay local or it can be anywhere in Australia. I
know that neither of you have any immediate family, but if you have
friends that you want to stay close to, we can accommodate that.
You can all live as normal a life as possible with tailored
schooling for the children, provision of all your necessities and
Max will have access to all the training facilities he requires,
right on site without any need to go into the public forum. You
would be free to come and go as you please with transport at hand.
I know it wouldn’t be home and I would not treat you as a prisoner
in any way, but I do think it is the best way to provide your
protection.’

Elsa stayed
silent and then sipped her tea. ‘I have another question,’ she
finally said. ‘Will you tell anyone that you’ve found us and you’re
sheltering us? By that I mean other nations or even the Australian
public?’

‘That’s a good
question,’ Joe replied, ‘and the only way I can answer that is I
won’t announce your location without your permission, but I think
regardless of what
we
may want, information concerning your
location will probably be gained by external parties within the
next few days anyway. I can only keep you secret for so long.’

‘What do you
mean?’ Elsa asked.

‘Well,
my
security located you in about five hours, but it’s fair
to say we had a head start with local knowledge. Other parties
would naturally take longer, but probably not much. Any party with
a half decent intelligence capability will by now have learned you
are Australians, your home address and by now also where you were
on holidays. In fact, I expect your home is currently being
monitored by multiple parties and it would not surprise me if there
are already eyes on this building right now because if anyone has
tracked you to your holiday apartment, they will likely have
followed the trail all the way here. To give at least the Americans
the credit they deserve, they probably have a spy satellite
overhead right now, so even if we wanted to keep your location
secret, it is virtually impossible to do so for very long. However,
the public are a different matter. We could hide you from them for
some time longer, but the same outcome is inevitable. Information
leaks, either intentionally or by accident. It just happens, but
this is where I ask what
you
would like to do? Would
you
prefer to remain hidden for as long as possible or
instead announce yourselves to the world?’

‘You’re more of
an expert on these sorts of things, so what do you think?’ Elsa
asked.

‘I don’t know
yet. It’s too early to judge the best course of action. We need to
wait and see what the public reaction is to all this. Apart from
the immediate spike in general unrest, denial might take hold yet
and the whole matter might wash over or alternatively, public
unrest might continue to escalate. Either way, I still don’t know
what the best course of action is, but there are two things I would
suggest. First, we secret you as quickly as possible into a secure
estate, while I navigate the diplomatic waters with our fellow
nations and secondly, we keep you under wraps for as long as
possible until I understand exactly what our security situation is.
Does that make sense?’

Elsa nodded.
‘Max, what do you think?’ she asked.

Max, who had
been looking out the windows at the passing security guards, broke
his silence.

‘That all
sounds fine to me,’ he said, turning back to the Prime Minister,
‘but I’d like to know why you haven’t asked me anything about
myself? Don’t you want to know who I am and why these aliens want a
piece of me before they kill us all?’

The Prime
Minister looked across at Max over the top of his cup of tea. After
a long pause he turned and put his cup down on the side table next
to his chair.

‘I
do
want to know, Max,’ Joe said, fixing his gaze directly on him. ‘I
want to know
all
those things, but it can wait for now.
Those questions will come, soon. I already sense that you have
little desire to divulge anything and that’s fine, but soon you
will need to start sharing some fundamentals, mainly so I know how
to help you. However, right now mine and your most important
priority is to be safe and I’m confident that is the case right
now, but today will be a long day. I expect a long list of
international leaders and dignitaries to be calling me. Like I
said, your whereabouts will stay secret for only so long. I just
hope everyone behaves themselves and no one gets hurt. Fingers
crossed.’

Max held the
Prime Minister’s steady gaze for a few moments longer and
reaffirmed the same sense of honesty he had gleaned from the man so
far.

‘Okay,’ Max
said. ‘That’s fine with me too and while we’re being honest as new
friends, let me share the first thing about us. We don’t have what
you would call
true
friends. We pretty much keep to
ourselves because we have each other and that’s all we’ve ever
needed until now. So, we don’t let people into our lives very
easily and to start doing that now will be difficult, but I have to
say, Joe, I‘m a pretty good judge of character and you strike me as
a decent, trust worthy bloke. I think we
could
be friends,
but we’re a long way from that yet.’

Joe nodded. ‘I
appreciate that, Max. Thank you.’

‘And thank you
from us too,’ Elsa said, clasping her husband’s hand. ‘We’re coming
to terms with all of this just like you, but now having met you and
you’ve explained why you’ve, you know, surrounded us with guns,
thanks for protecting us. We realise now that we could be in a much
worse place if you hadn’t found us so quickly.’

‘Anything I
have is your’s and your family’s’ Elsa. Like I said earlier, my
security will defend you with their lives if needed. The man who
led you into this room, Peter, will be team lead for your own
personal security detail and I can assure you, there is no finer
person alive than he to keep you safe. Peter has until now been my
own team lead, but I bequeath him to you from here onwards. Trust
him like your own blood. He will not let you down and neither will
I. You are now my responsibility.’