As they went back down, Wilson said, “Crazy day. First, the storage depot goes up in smoke for no reason, and now we find these two in the river.”
They disappeared back down to the river while Wheatley could only look out at the placid ocean. The next few minutes of exchanges from below were about how to get Knoll out of the truck. Wheatley wasn’t sure they had succeeded until he saw them carrying Knoll over the embankment. They laid him next to Wheatley. Knoll was soaking wet but still breathing, his eyes wide with fear about his near-death experience.
“Why can’t either of them talk?” Carter asked.
“I don’t know,” Wilson said. “Concussions, perhaps?”
Wilson dropped to his knees to check them for wounds while Carter tried his phone.
“Still can’t get anyone,” he said after a moment. He turned toward town. “Maybe they . . .” His voice trailed off. “It can’t be.”
“Huh?” Wilson asked without looking up.
“I was so focused on the damaged bridge railing, I didn’t see them.”
“See what?”
“Bodies. They’re everywhere.”
Wilson’s head snapped around, and he leaped to his feet. He gaped for a moment, then yelled to Carter.
“Call Canberra. Tell headquarters we’ve got a major incident here.” Wilson turned back to Wheatley and Knoll. “Don’t worry, fellas. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
Wheatley tried to protest, pushing himself up awkwardly with his arms, but his moans didn’t stop the two panicked airmen from jumping in their Humvee and speeding away.
Exhausted from that small movement, Wheatley lay back down, waiting for them to return. He tried to distract himself from his predicament by watching an odd trimaran ship hurtling past Port Cook before abruptly turning out to sea.
TWENTY-FIVE
NHULUNBUY
Although he was the harbormaster for a small Northern Territory mining town, Burt Gulman took his ship inspection task seriously, part of his plan to get a transfer to a prestigious job at the giant port in Melbourne. The captain of the docked cargo vessel Norego, a fit-looking American named John Cable, was trying to impress Gulman with the technology on the ship’s state-of-t
he-art bridge, but the harbormaster played it like he’d seen it all before.
“The control panel looks functional,” Gulman said as he checked off an item on his clipboard. In fact, it was sleek and high-tech. The only object that seemed out of place was a vintage brass coffeemaker, attached to the back wall, that was giving off a tempting aroma.
“All the latest software,” Cable said proudly. “We can control everything in the ship right here, from navigation to fire suppression to cargo transfer. If I didn’t need to eat, I could probably run the ship myself.”
Cable let out a hearty laugh, but Gulman didn’t join in.
“After we finish here, I’ll need to see the engine room and then the cargo holds.”
“Of course. I’ll be happy to show them off, but you can see them from these monitors, too.”
Cable punched some buttons and pointed at one of the many high-definition display panels. Cameras switched between multiple views of an immaculately clean engine room holding two giant turbines. A single worker could be seen checking one of the instruments.
“That’s our chief engineer, Michael Wong,” Cable said. “Loves vehicles of any kind. He was especially keen on that hovercraft we saw arriving this afternoon. Very unusual to see that here.” He pointed at the giant craft on the tarmac, where it was being loaded with trucks from a nearby warehouse.
“That’s the Marsh Flyer,” Gulman said as he ticked off more items on his checklist. “Alloy Bauxite brought it in to access their production facility.”
“I’ll have to ask the pilot if Mike can take a peek.”
“I doubt it. Bob Parsons is a friendly sort, but he knows who butters his bread. AB is very protective of their proprietary information.”
“Too bad. Mike has been talking about it nonstop.”
“If your engineer wants to chat him up, Bob can usually be found at the Lazy Goanna when he’s off work.”