The Worm King (42 page)

Chapter Forty-Four

Ruarangi Special

Ā
miria was about to give the biggest presentation of her life. In the
audience sat Captain Forsyth, Lord Brown, Astrid, Winston, John the Hat, and
most importantly of all her father, and the men from his gang. Behind them on the
long sofa were Sgt Kevin, Tim, Zelda, David and three of the men from Tamworth.

It would be a hard audience. Hard but fair,
she hoped.

The final obstacle to overcome had been the
actual naming of the thing. Captain Forsyth suggested the Modified-Schwartz
Fragmentation Device, or MSFD for short, but to Āmiria’s mind this sounded
way boring.

The device in question rested innocently on
the table in the Yass furniture showroom. A lantern stood on a smaller, but
taller, ornamental table two meters distant, which was a good space between the
device and the light even though the lantern ran off a rechargeable battery. Static
electricity—no one was taking any chances with that much petrol and explosives
slopping around. In addition to the fuel and grenades were empty pots, mixing
bowls, piles of rubber bands and a drinking glass wrapped with tinfoil. The crowd
appeared to be sitting as far back from the confusing array as they could.

If Schwartzy could name his one after
himself, why couldn’t she use her
own
name: her Tūhoe name, for the
one she’d designed? That’s why she’d decided to call her invention the Ruarangi
Special.

Nearly a week had flown by since the big fight
at the depot, and tomorrow was Tuesday. Āmiria had wondered if she should
mention Henry in the presentation because the need to resort to this was mainly
due to him. Henry arrived on a motorbike, delivering a message from Dick Snow
barely 24 hours after the battle. He’d given Astrid a short, typed note which
read: “The Fuel Tanker is property of the Australian Government under Darkness
Requisition clause 44b(xvii). Government representatives Richard Snow and
Robert Munroe will be in Yass this coming Tuesday, at 12pm, to remove said
Tanker and transfer Natasha Hornsby and Krystal Hornsby to Astrid Simpson, whose
duty of care they rest with respect to the Channel Six Ltd judicial waiver of
responsibility.” The note was signed, Richard Snow: Ministry Emergency,
Darkness & Media Relations.

‘I’ve never heard of that department?’ said
Astrid. ‘I know Dick did have something to do with parliament media coverage
occasionally, which isn’t that common for a weatherman, but he knew lots of people
in Canberra and they got him to do the odd H.I spot.’

‘H.I?’ asked Forsyth.

‘Sorry, human interest. They’re just
filler.’

Āmiria had seen one of these on telly a
year ago. Dick Snow was interviewing a gardener who’d worked on the parliament
lawns for about a thousand years, asking him some shit about this or that and
she hadn’t paid much attention.

The Captain asked Astrid what the “waiver of
responsibility” stuff meant and she had no idea, but said she didn’t like the
tone of it at all.

Henry told them he’d been instructed to hand
over the note, and ask where Mr Snow should come on Tuesday when he arrived. Henry
said Mr Snow told him if there were any more questions, just say he (Mr Snow,
that is) had no reason to hold the two girls and wanted to transfer them and he’d
been surprised by everyone’s “unfriendliness”.

They gave Henry a feed and he seemed a nice
enough fūlla. Almost a bit simple. Later she’d asked her father and he
said they probably couldn’t find anyone else who would deliver it. While Henry
ate, her father, the Captain, Lord Brown and Sgt Kevin had a five-minute powwow
in private, then came back and told Henry that Mr Snow should just come here,
to the furniture shop on the main street. After he roared off, heading back to
Canberra, Captain Forsyth reread the message and said he
absolutely
didn’t trust Snow now.

All of a sudden the Ruarangi Special became
a viable alternative.

Āmiria began. ‘My initial plan was to
do it the same way as Captain Forsyth’s friend Mr Schwartz. He—’

‘Aheem!’ said the Captain, raising a hand.

‘Sorry, that’s right. Not friend, he was a . . . ’

He mouthed the words for her.

‘ . . . Business
associate.’ The audience laughed politely. The Hat had told her you should
always kickoff with a joke when you’re trying to win a crowd over. She didn’t
think “business associate” was funny in the least but he’d said she didn’t have
much to go on in the way of funnies, so definitely give it a whirl.

The Hat also helped with timing
measurements: testing how long it took for rubber bands to dissolve in petrol
when stretched around an object of sixty-two millimeters diameter. These
measurements were grueling and repetitive, but she made them so because she
wanted to get them right.
Had
to get them right. The Captain suggested a
detailed logistics rundown might be appropriate early on in the presentation. ‘Bamboozle
them with a few stats. After that they’ll believe anything,’ he’d suggested with
a wink that made her feel like a real soldier.

‘As I was saying, Mr Schwartz’s design you
all know by now, and it’s relatively simple.’ She glanced down at the grenade
on the table but didn’t touch it yet. Her father told her she could only pick
it up once during the presentation, and to do so
extremely
carefully.

‘So we could just do it like the Schwartz
one, put a rubber band around it, pull the ring then whack it in the fuel tank
of the truck. Ten minutes later the rubber dissolves, the lever springs and it
goes off. But the more we looked at it, the more we realized it might be tricky
getting it in at the last minute, especially if Snow is watch—’

‘He’ll be watching all right!’ snorted
Winston. ‘Anyway, are you sure that’d even
fit
into the tank?’ Āmiria
thought this was probably the point to introduce the logistics, so carefully
picked up the grenade and held it out in the palm of her hand.

‘Yes, I am positive it will fit,’ she stated.
‘Super-duper positive. It’s exactly ninety-six millimeters long and fifty-eight
millimeters in diameter. Including this side lever, which as I said springs off
when the ring’s pulled, the diameter is sixty-two millimeters. With three
rubber bands wrapped around it, the diameter expands to sixty-five millimeters.
That’s still easily narrow enough to fit in the fuel tank of the Bedford, which
has a spout width of seventy-two millimeters. We weighed it to be 376 grams,
using the scales which Francesco borrowed from HardWarePlus.’ She bounced the
grenade once in her palm and the audience shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
She put it back on the table, carefully.

‘This means it’s a touch lighter than a dry
rugby ball. In fact, it’s exactly 93% the weight of a rugby ball.’ This last
statistic (although almost completely useless) seemed to induce the most
convincing nods of agreement thus far.

The exterior of the grenade was olive green except
for a mustard yellow band near the top, although she didn’t think color was
terribly important for the purpose of the experiment. Instead, she concluded
the logistics section of the presentation by saying: ‘I made the measurements
many, many times. My Dad watched me the whole time, and so did the Captain. Lots
of you others helped too.’ She acknowledged the audience with a nod. Most gazed
back with a definite lack of enthusiasm.

Even the Hat didn’t look keen. He’d been
just like each of the others when she’d roped him in. Initially, they thought they
were playing with some schoolgirl’s diorama; laughing and making the odd
helpful suggestion, then each seemed to become a lot more serious, focusing and
paying
plenty
more attention when they saw how all the bits fitted
together. ‘So you really intend using this?’ the Hat had asked incredulously,
after an hour of taking measurements on band breakage points with one, two and
three rubber bands, double looped around the glass which had tinfoil wrapped
around it to get to precisely sixty-two millimeters diameter. It was shortly
after this he said she ort to start with a joke. ‘You sure don’t want them
focusing too much on what this thing actually
is.’

Āmiria continued: ‘I had thought for a
while to float it inside the main compartment of the tanker, on a pot lid or
some boat-like container, and when the truck moved, it’d sink into the petrol. Then
kaboom!’ Several in the audience cringed as though they’d a nasty tic. She made
a mental note to hold back on any further kabooms.

‘A problem with that is if he doesn’t turn
up or something, it might be hard to get it out. Or if he decides to look in
the tank, he might see it. Then I thought, why not transfer it to somewhere
else on the truck? Where he’s less likely to look! When we had a good look all
over the truck, we found a storage compartment behind the passenger’s seat. You’ve
got to pull the seat right forwards, so it’s a real pain to get to. That’s
where we’re going to put it. This pot fits in there perfectly, and it’s right
at the back of the cab so it’ll put it only a meter from the main tank.’

Then she asked everyone to get up and come stand
nearer the table so they could see right into the pot. She shone a torch in. A
layer of petrol shimmered at the bottom, to about the depth of a cricket ball. The
room reeked of it. Floating in the petrol was an aluminum pie dish, and in that
dish lay an empty glass, on its side, bound up with rubber bands. The glass had
been bolstered by layers of tinfoil, obviously to get it to grenade-size.

When they’d all had a look, she said, ‘Now,
I need a volunteer? Actually, I need two volunteers.’ Āmiria took a stopwatch
from her pocket and held it up. Murray had retrieved the watch from a ransacked
jewellery store several days ago when they first began accumulating tools for
the experiment. ‘I need one person to move the pot a tiny bit, and another
person to time it.’ No one showed any interest. The Hat had predicted she might
struggle to get volunteers when it came to grenades and grenade-related
activities.

‘I’ll do it if it’s absolutely necessary. But
only if you’re super-duper fucken desperate,’ he’d said, reluctantly.

She handed him the watch. ‘Could you time
please?’ He took it grudgingly.

‘Right, I need someone to move this pot a
little bit. Just a tiny shake, as though it’s in a moving truck or whatever. What
about you, David?’ By picking the wimpiest person there, she figured if it were
possible to convince him, everyone else might fall in with it as well. He looked
too scared to even disagree.

‘Right. Thanks. And everyone else, all I
want you to do is remember one thing: nine minutes and twenty seconds. That’s
all. Just nine minutes and twenty.

‘Okay, come over here Dave, there you go, it
won’t bite. Just give it a tiny shake.’ She pointed at the pot. ‘And Hat, as
soon as Dave shakes it, you start timing.’ David reached out and gave the pot a
pathetically small wobble, but it was enough. Half a cup of petrol slopped over
into the pie dish. The audience crowded around closer, now perversely
wanting
to see. Couldn’t take their eyes off it. At eight minutes and ten
seconds the first rubber band snapped, and everyone jumped back except for Āmiria.
‘No, still two to go.’ The second rubber band went at eight minutes and forty
seconds, and the last popped at nine minutes and twenty-one seconds.

After the third one went, she asked if they all
wanted to see it again and everyone said, ‘No!’

When the audience had returned to their
seats, she thought this was probably the time to do the conclusion. Lord Brown told
her the conclusion is the most important part of any presentation. He said it
was imperative to finish with a concise summary of
exactly
what it was a
Ruarangi Special promised.

So Āmiria concluded: ‘I can 100%
guarantee, that exactly nine minutes and twenty-something seconds after the
truck is moved, by any appreciable amount whatsoever, it will blow up.’

Her father, Francesco, Lord Brown, Winston
and the Hat gradually swung around to the plan, or at least a modified version
where she didn’t do the actual arming. Astrid remained in the “no” camp longest,
but even she teetered because she’d helped find a glass the perfect size in a looted
Homewares store. The Captain needed the least convincing. He praised the idea
as having depth, showing maturity beyond her years and being a formidable
example of scorched-earth strategic planning.

She’d hardly slept a wink in nearly forty
hours, working on the device. There’d been a thirty-minute snooze in the middle
but apart from that, it’d been constant testing and retesting and checking. Now,
Āmiria, her father and Peanuts were the only ones left awake. The dog sat
between them with his rump arched up off the sofa in pleasure receiving a satisfying
scratch from two different hands.

The others were scattered around the
showroom sleeping. It occurred to her the room wasn’t a lot different from the
gym in Tamworth except with heaps more furniture. And slightly better food,
although she understood the cache they’d picked up at Peak Hill was nearly exhausted
so they’d be back on the rice soon enough. Old Brownie kept telling them to
ration what they had, saying things like: “When I were a lad, we’d live on
sixpence for two year and still have change at t’end t’buy a mule!” These
titbits made everyone groan but Āmiria thought them funny. As if you’d buy
a mule anyway! If all you had was six pence (and she wasn’t even sure how much a
pence was) then why the fuck would you fork out for something as useless as a stupid
mule!