Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

“According to the copter, this road should run parallel to the runway,” Clyde said. “Down there. Halfway, there’s the turning to the western pier. That’s the R.P.”

“They kept boats in the north, south, and the west, plus a plane ready to go on the runway. Mikael said there were fifty people here. If he wasn’t lying, how many are left?”

“Not many,” Clyde said. “So we’ll keep ’em running.”

She drove past houses, a shop, a small hotel. The managed palm-wilderness suddenly gave way to the rigidly cleared runway from which dusty smoke plumed from a crater and poured from a broken plane. The jet lay on its belly with its nose on the road, but other than cloying smoke flowing from its port engine, it appeared intact. So did the pair of people helping each other into the back of a red taxi which had stopped on the road a hundred metres ahead.

“Slow!” Clyde said, rearing out of the window, firing at the car. But Tess had to swerve around the debris the plane had left on the road. Clyde missed his shot.

Tess drove them up onto the kerb, shattering a quartet of terracotta pots, two on either side of a sun-bleached front door. The fleeing plane-passengers were all aboard the taxi, which was reversing at speed. Tess brought the truck back onto the road, beyond the smoking plane, and the taxi was now directly ahead of them. But the enemy was driving backwards, and she was catching up.

The taxi reversed into a courtyard-driveway shared by three two-storey villas, and stopped. The two passengers ran to the steps leading up to the middle of the three houses while the driver jumped out, and sheltered behind the car as he levelled an assault rifle.

“Slow!” Clyde said, firing blind out of the window. He missed. Their enemy didn’t. Bullets shattered the wing mirror, ripping paint from the bodywork, and pierced the windscreen, tearing a hole through the padded roof.

“Brace!” Tess yelled, as spider web cracks frosted the windscreen. She ducked low, and ducked lower as another burst from the assault rifle shattered the glass in front. Screaming in key with the engine, she stamped her foot on the accelerator, ramming her truck into the taxi. Momentum slammed her back against the seat, while physics shunted the taxi forward, crushing the shooter sheltering behind.

Clyde threw open his door, falling outside, staggering to his feet, bringing his rifle to bear on the villa’s partially open door. Tess eased outside.

“You okay, Commish?” Clyde asked.

“No worries,” she said, wincing, testing her limbs. Bruised, but not broken.

Shots rang out inside the house. Tess drew her sidearm, and trained it on the curtained windows while Clyde aimed his weapon at the door.

“Going in?” he asked.

“Have to,” she said.

“Who’s there?” someone called from inside, a woman with a U.S. accent.

“Australian Federal Police, acting on a U.N. warrant to find survivors. Your mob shot at us.”

“Australia?” the woman called back. “You’re not with the cartel?”

“No,” Tess called. “Are you?

There was a whispered back-and-forth on the other side of the closed door, of which the only words Tess could clearly discern were: “well, of course they’d say that.” It was a man who’d spoken, again with a U.S. accent.

“We’ve got a warship in the harbour,” Tess called. “If you don’t open the door, we’ll have them drop a shell right on your head.”

“Hang on,” the man said.

“Seriously?” Clyde said. But he lowered his carbine a fraction. “Don’t think they’re hostile, Commish.”

To the left of the door, a net curtain moved. A face appeared, but vanished too quickly for her to see more than a shadow.

“No way,” came a half-hissed comment from inside.

“I’m losing my patience out here,” Tess called.

“What do you want me to do, boss?” Clyde asked.

“Is that Inspector Tess Qwong?” the woman called from inside the villa.

“Who’s there?” Tess said.

The door opened. A woman stepped out. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, though they were holding a bloody machete. More blood covered her jeans and shirt, while exhaustion covered her face. Far paler than when Tess had seen her last. Far older, though it was only two months. But she wouldn’t forget the face of the hermit-woman hiding from her past up by the dingo-fence in the outback.

“Corrie Guinn? How did you end up here?” Tess asked.

Corrie wasn’t alone. The man who stepped out of the shadows was her brother, Pete. The third-degree sunburn from when she’d first met him had faded into a tan, over which was laid a week of sweaty grime, and beneath which were bruises. Like his sister, the signs of a crash diet were visible around his eyes and neck, though his cheeks were covered in a youthfully eccentric beard. Like her, he wore a tourist’s left-behinds: cream slacks that barely reached his ankles, but with material to spare for the waist; a lurid shirt in such a violent purple hue it was nearly a crime; no socks, no shoes. His hands were cuffed, and awkwardly holding a revolver.

“Inspector Qwong!” Pete said. “You can’t believe how good it is to see you. To see anyone.”

“No worries, Pete. Good to see you, too. We’re out here hunting down the sisters. The cartel terrorists.”

“You’ve found them,” Corrie said. “Not the sisters. They’re not here. But these are their people. They caught us in the States, and flew us down here to wait for their bosses.”

“Hands, Pete!” a different woman said. Short, barely topping one-point-six metres tall, with equally short hair, hacked rather than cut. Her figure hard to discern in the baggy tourist-reject shirt and shorts, cinched around her waist with a belt, but in her hand was a key.

“This is Olivia. Livy, this is Tess Qwong. Remember me telling you about her and