Choices. Jeff Edwards

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ that I was about to turn into a service station, and as I did so I saw them follow.

      Pulling up next to the nearest bowser I took the nozzle from the cradle and inserted it into my tank, pretending to fill the car. Further across the station I saw the male agent do the same thing to their car, and as their petrol began to flow I hung up my nozzle and climbed back into my car.

      The girl called a warning to her friend but it was too late. I was already pulling out of the service station as he struggled frantically to stop the pump and hang the nozzle back up while his partner ran to the petrol station’s shop to pay for the meagre amount they had managed to take aboard.

      I headed back out onto the highway with a smile of triumph on my face. It didn’t matter if they caught up to me now as they would soon run out of petrol and become stranded somewhere further north.

      For my own part, I reached down and flicked a switch. My faltering motor gave a sudden surge as the thin remains of LPG gas were replaced by my alternate tank full of petrol.

      * * *

      ‘The bastard knew we were behind him and he’s given us the slip,’ the male follower reported.

      ‘He was probably onto you both all along. I suppose any ASIO agent worth his salt would have been. It simply confirms what I believed all along. Fill up and come on home. We’ll have another car waiting to pick him up when he reaches Narellan,’ his supervisor in Sydney replied bleakly.

      CHAPTER 6

       Dan

      I was eager to return to home as quickly as possible because I knew that Sandy and the kids would be worrying about me. My mobile phone was still turned off, and I wondered if I could bring myself to reconnect it. News of the worst kind I felt sure would spew forth as soon as I dared push the on button.

      I drove without stopping, and pulled into my street to find several cars parked close to my driveway. The front gate had been left open which was unusual, but I was glad that Sandy had done so, when a group of men, some with cameras, came rushing toward me. I accelerated up the driveway leaving them floundering at the gate, and parked out of sight behind our house.

      Also parked here was a work van with both a handyman’s ladder and a surf board strapped to its roof. Emblazoned on the van’s side was the company name of Bowats Plumbing and Electrical and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Sandy was being guarded by my best friends Rick Bonham and Sam Watson.

      I found the trio seated around the kitchen table, and as I entered, Sandy jumped to her feet and threw herself into my arms. The feeling of her arms around me, and her face pressed tightly into my neck was what I had been craving ever since my fall from grace. All the tension of the past days flowed out of me for the first time, and my knees began to feel like jelly. I luxuriated in the feeling of release that our embrace afforded me and totally ignored my two friends who remained seated with a beer close at hand and seemingly completely relaxed.

      ‘Where have you been? What have you been doing?’ asked Sandy worriedly as she finally released me.

      ‘Leave him be Sandy,’ smiled Rick. ‘He’s only just in the door. Get him a beer will you Sammy,’ he added quietly to his friend.

      Sam leaned back precariously on his chair and opened the fridge door behind him. He extracted a bottle and twisted off the cap before handing it to me.

      I took the bottle with one arm still around Sandy’s waist, and stood in the middle of the kitchen floor while I drank the contents in a couple of long gulps.

      ‘Who are those blokes outside?’ I asked as I placed the empty bottle on the table.

      ‘They’re the press boyo,’ replied Sam. ‘You’re famous.’

      ‘Shit!’ I responded.

      ‘You might very well say that,’ nodded the bearded Rick.

      ‘You haven’t seen the papers or the television?’ asked Sandy.

      ‘I’ve been doing other things. I didn’t have time to worry about the news, and I’ve been playing music in the car.’

      ‘Well it looks like we all have a lot to talk about,’ said Rick.

      ‘Do you mind if I have a shower first? I need to get my wits about me after that long trip.’

      ‘What long trip?’ asked Sandy. ‘Where have you been all this time?’

      I gave her a quick kiss. ‘I’ll tell you everything as soon as I get showered,’ I promised.

      I turned to Sam. ‘How much beer is in the fridge?’

      ‘Plenty.’

      ‘Put in some more. Plenty won’t be enough.’

      * * *

      As I showered I reflected on the pair of men seated in my kitchen. Sam and Rick had grown up together in Seashell Cove, a tiny dot on the eastern coast of northern New South Wales. After completing high school they had both chosen to do apprenticeships with the Australian Army, Rick as a plumber and Sam as an electrician. When I asked them why they hadn’t done their apprenticeships at home they had explained that Seashell Cove was so small that after the town had one of everything there was no room for a second. As the town already had a plumber and an electrician they had been forced to look elsewhere for employment and the army seemed to offer them the best choice of a future.

      We had first met when I received an overseas secondment from the Joint Communications Centre to the signal centre operated by the Australian forces in East Timor. Rick and Sam’s unit had been helping the locals with the reconstruction of basic infrastructure and we had met in the army’s mess tent.

      I had been reading a surfing magazine and sipping at a cold beer when a large shadow fell over me. ‘Surfing magazine?’ had asked the giant of a man that was looking down on me.

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Where do you get them around here?’

      ‘A mate in my unit in Canberra posts them to me,’ I explained.

      The big man nodded to a nearby table where he had been seated with a much smaller man. ‘Can we borrow it when you’re finished?’

      ‘You surf?’ I asked casually.

      ‘Yeah. We come from a place where the waves are the most consistent and best formed in the world.’

      ‘Oh yeah,’ I scoffed, ‘and where would that be?’

      ‘Seashell Cove, just north of Taree.’

      ‘Never heard of it.’

      ‘Of course not. We don’t want every bastard to know about it.’

      I nodded. It was exactly the answer I would have expected from a dedicated surfer. ‘And now you’re going to tell a complete stranger about your secret?’

      He grinned. ‘Only because you’re going to lend us your magazines.’

      We СКАЧАТЬ