Prohibited Zone (32 page)

‘It's bullshit, you know,' she said when I had finished. ‘Amir is not a terrorist. It just suits a few politicians to brand him one, that's all. But I've got to admit we've got a problem.' She looked out to sea, but there was no answer there. It was gun-metal grey today, choppy and irritable.

‘And that is?'

‘The terrorism story. Kat spent the last half-hour grilling Saira about Amir. They like him more than they like the rape story. But if they run with that then we're no closer to getting the detention centres shut down. In fact, we're probably further from it.'

She looked back towards the house.

‘They won't be in there much longer; I should get back.'

She stayed where she was, though, in her tense half-crouch. Her face was pale and drawn and showing signs of strain. She wore no make-up at all. I wondered if Lucy was right, that I was in love with her. How can you tell? She turned her brilliant green eyes towards me.

‘Where did you go last night? Before Janeway?'

I had to think about it. It seemed a long time ago.

‘Oh, shit, I forgot about that. I'll be back in a sec.' I jumped up, ran across the road to Rolley's car, unlocked it and grabbed the photocopy of the Groskreutz file, which I had stowed under the seat. I returned to the bench and sat back down.

‘I've been accumulating property lately,' I said. ‘I ended up with Janeway's phone and someone else's gun – ' I lifted my shirt to show her the butt of PJ's pistol, which I had tucked back into the waistband of my jeans – ‘and this.' I waved the photocopy at her.

‘West, why are you carrying a gun?'

‘I don't know what else to do with it.'

‘Good reason, you idiot.' She nodded at the photocopy. ‘What's that?'

‘I told you Baz and I found the house where you and I were taken the other night,' I said. ‘This is the file from the real-estate agent. I'm hoping it will tell us who was paying the rent.'

She looked impressed, but wary. ‘You can tell me how you got it later.'

I started flicking through the file. Benstead had been right; the property hadn't seen much action lately. The only lease in the last couple of years had been issued three months ago. I recognised the name of the lessee.

‘That's a bit of a surprise,' I said. I showed it to Kara.

‘Yes, I suppose it is,' she said.

I heard a door open and looked around to see one of the
60 Minutes
cameramen hoisting a box of equipment into the van.

‘Looks like they're done,' said Kara, standing up. ‘Let's talk when they're gone.' She returned to the house but I stayed where I was, looking again at the name on the file and wondering what it meant. Then I took Janeway's phone out of my pocket and played with it for a while. And I started to put together a theory.

Fifteen minutes later I wandered across the road to the house. The two cameramen and the sound recordist were leaning against the low brick fence facing the sea, smoking. Next to one of them was a camera on a tripod.

‘Your girlfriend's getting stuck into Kat,' said the tattooed one, grinning. ‘We don't mind. When Kat comes out we've gotta get back to work.'

The sound recordist, who looked about fifteen and had five earrings through his eyebrow, offered me a cigarette, which I declined.

‘I was just saying to these two jokers,' he said, taking a deep suck on his cigarette as if he was a grown-up. ‘That Arab girl is a honey.' He played some smoke through his nostrils. ‘I don't mind if we let
her
stay in the fucken country.'

The two cameramen chuckled.

‘You don't mind damaged goods, then?' asked one, a middle- aged man with red-rimmed eyes and longer hair than his two mates.

‘What, that she's been raped? Nah, not at all. She's got something, I'm telling ya.'

‘Yeah, the clap, most probably.' More chuckles. ‘Fair bit of prostitution in them detention centres, from what I hear.'

‘And you hear everything, don't you, mate. Real tuned in, you are.'

‘You bet I am.'

‘Nah, it's sex appeal, plain and simple,' persisted the sound recordist. ‘Even if she
is
a fucken Muslim.'

‘She
is
seriously pretty,' conceded the tattooed cameraman. ‘Poor old Kat looked like a dried apricot alongside her. Wonder how they'll deal with that in the editing room.'

‘Maybe they'll just leave out her noddies,' said the other one. ‘Boy, didn't she get the shits when Kat asked her about her “friend”, Amir or whatever his name is. You know, the one who's mates with Osama bin Laden. I wouldn't mind bettin' he was the one who butchered the old mullah.'

‘Reckon you're on the money there,' said the sound recordist.

Kara and Kat were still facing off when I went inside. Saira was sitting nearby, watching impassively, Ray was nowhere to be seen and Susan, the producer, was at the far end of the room speaking on her phone. Kara looked hot, red and annoyed. She made a face at me as I came in.

‘She thinks she's got a terrorism story,' she said, waving her hand ferociously in Kat's direction.

‘I said we've got to explore that,' said Kat, unperturbed. ‘“Terrorist at large”. I'm sorry, but that's news.'

‘I don't believe this,' said Kara.

‘Look, we will try to work in an angle on the detention centre and the rape,' said Kat. ‘Right, Sue?'

Susan had finished her phone call and was scribbling in a notebook. She looked up and nodded. ‘Yes, sure. But I agree with you, Kat. We've got to focus on the escaped terrorist – that's what the viewers want to know about. I've just lined up an interview with the Attorney-General.'

‘I keep telling you, Amir is not a terrorist,' said Kara.

Kat said, ‘Oh, come on! He trained at an al-Qaeda camp, for Christ's sake. He's not walking around out there sniffing wildflowers, that's for sure.'

‘What about all the footage we have from the detention centre?' demanded Kara.

‘Yes, we've gone through all that,' said Susan. ‘We found some great shots of Amir. No one else has got that.'

Kara managed to look even more furious. ‘What about these photos?' she insisted. ‘Women and children, all of them abused in some way.' She picked up a wad of the photos from the breakfast bar and flicked furiously through them, tossing a few in front of Kat. ‘This stuff is dynamite!'

‘Yes, I agree it's a story,' said Kat, trying to placate her now. ‘Any other time it would be big – huge, even. But is there anything bigger than a terrorist on the loose in our backyard? A terrorist attack is imminent and we're going to ignore the fact that a guy who trained with al-Qa'eda is running loose? I don't think so.'

‘Abuse is rife in detention centres and we're going to ignore the fact that a woman was raped by a guard?' mimicked Kara. ‘Yes, I think so!'

‘Now you're being childish,' said Susan.

‘What happens if Amir turns up?' asked Kara. ‘What if he's just been wandering around in the desert all this time? What happens to your story then?'

Kat thought about it for a moment. ‘That could change things. What do you think, Sue?'

Sue closed her clipboard and clipped her pen to her shirt pocket. ‘Yes, that would have an impact. Why?' She looked sharply at Kara. ‘Do you know where he is?'

‘No, of course not,' said Kara.

Kat and Susan had to be content with that, and they left in a hurry soon after. They were both on the phone as the van pulled out of the drive.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,' said Kara. ‘This is turning to shit.' The four of us – Kara, Saira, Ray and I – were sitting at the breakfast bar, eating a hastily prepared lunch. Kara looked at Saira. ‘Do you know where Amir is?'

‘No. I have not heard from him.'

‘Did you expect to?'

‘Yes, I think he would have contacted me if he could, through the community. He said he would come to Adelaide.'

‘He could just be lost.'

‘No, Amir is not lost. He has never been lost. He knows how to survive.'

‘Wherever he is, we've got to find him,' said Kara. ‘Or we've just wasted a lot of time and energy and given
60 Minutes
a ratings spree they don't deserve. What about you, Ray? Do you know where Amir is?'

Ray had been applying himself to the food but looked up now. ‘No. As far as I can gather he has not contacted anyone in the local Afghan community. But I agree with Saira that he knows how to look after himself. My impression in Woomera was that he was a very resourceful man.'

‘Do you want him found?' I asked Saira.

‘Yes, of course. I am worried about him.'

‘Even though he can look after himself?'

‘Yes. Something is wrong.'

‘I think you're right,' I said. ‘I think ASIO has got him. And I've got a plan for getting him back.'

25

H
INDMARSH
,
O
FFICER OF THE
C
OMMONWEALTH
of Australia, didn't answer his phone, so I left a message. An hour later he called back.

‘I've got something you want,' I said. ‘We need to meet.'

I let him choose the place and he suggested a tract of vacant land between Hallett Cove and Marino.

‘Don't fuck me around, West,' he said before he hung up.

‘We're on,' I said to Kara, Saira and Ray.

‘You're not taking Saira with you, are you?' asked Kara.

‘No, not this time.'

I drove first to Noarlunga Shopping Centre, one of those huge concrete plants that pump people full of fat and siphon off their money. I made a small purchase there and escaped, albeit a little siphoned. I drove north along Lonsdale Road, a double-barrelled highway that shadows the coast between Port Noarlunga and Seacliff. The afternoon traffic was light. The day was still turgid, but the cloud was starting to thin out and the temperature was rising.

The land between Hallett Cove and Marino was vacant because it nestled against a huge, sprawling quarry and cement works, a big blue scar hacked into the coastal hills. Once upon a time the quarry had been outside the city, a convenient source of building material. Ironically, the city it helped to build had grown around it. Now it sat like an embarrassing, incurable, open-cut sore between the rich new coastal development of Hallett Cove and the less new but even wealthier suburbs of Marino and Seaview Downs.

Following Hindmarsh's instructions I parked next to an empty white Land Cruiser in a small pull-in off Perry Barr Road on top of a fat spur that ran all the way from O'Halloran's Hill to the sea. To the west, Gulf St Vincent lay flat and grey. To the north I could see the city sprawling across the baked plain as far as the Torrens Island power station. In the foreground was the quarry's processing mill, which crunched rock twenty-four hours a day, chomping its way through the limestone hill. The land all around was brown and barren, grazed to the quick by small flocks of sheep, themselves turned brown by the dust. A handful of ewes were drinking from a water trough near the pull-in.

I jumped the sheep fence and walked a few hundred metres down the brown spur, among stunted wild olives, acacias and an assortment of prickly weeds. Carved into one side of the spur was a small abandoned borrow pit, home now to a single straggly olive tree, scattered bits of garbage, and a small huddle of sheep that quickly de-camped as I walked towards it. The pit was hidden from the road and the glassy houses that lined it by the bulge of the hill. The bottom of the pit would be filled with water in winter but now its clay surface was as dry as fired ceramic. One of the trunks of the olive tree had fallen over, although its branches were still alive. I sat on it and waited, spending the time playing with my phone.

Hindmarsh must have been practising his stealth craft because I didn't hear him until he was a few metres away, walking softly towards me using the olive tree as a screen. I peered at him through the leaves. His shirt and trousers were about the colour of dust and he was wearing a jacket despite the heat. A pair of binoculars was slung around his neck.