Peter Corris - The January Zone

‘I’ll travel with you, Minister,’ I said, ‘and Trudi and the others can go in together. Gary, you come with us. Is there some kind of contact man around I can talk to?’

‘Here he is,’ Gary said. ‘This is…sorry, mate, I forget your name. This is Cliff Hardy.’

I shook hands with a chunky, useful-looking man who herded us along towards the doors. ‘Mike Borg,’ he said. ‘I’ve gotta nursemaid F…ah, the Ambassador at some do or other but I’ll see you to the cars. How’re you splittin’ em?’

I told him and he nodded agreement. ‘What were you going to call Kirby?’ I asked.

‘Freckles,’ he said. ‘Cost me m’ job if he heard it. Here we go.’

We stood by a sweeping driveway under a grey sky that was starting to spit rain. Two black limousines were waiting with a black driver in each.

Borg looked in at each man and said something brief and polite. I took Trudi to the second car and opened the door. She got in the back with Bolton. Martin sat next to the driver. Gary supervised the loading of the baggage into the trunks of the cars; he and January settled into the padding and I got in the front. The driver was a lean, whippy-looking man with a thin moustache and a tuft of hair on his chin. He started the motor, which made no sound at all, and pulled smoothly out onto the roadway which was turning dark as the rain started to fall heavily.

‘Lincoln,’ he said.

‘Right. How long?’

‘Well, it so happens we’ve got to go a little out of our way today. There’s some roadworks on the usual route. Depends on the traffic’ His voice was slow but with a neutral, eastern accent. ‘It’s a quiet day, won’t take long.’

The car was moving fast in the middle lane of a five lane road. The traffic slowed and bunched up as we reached the roadworks. We followed a detour sign right and picked up a secondary road that ran at an angle from the highway. I looked out of the tinted window through the screen of rain at a low-lying light industrial and residential area. It looked to be in need of trees and paint.

‘Is there anything to see on the way in?’

The driver glanced across at me and grinned. He had good strong teeth but nothing out of the ordinary, no gold. I was feeling a bit disappointed in him. ‘Are you from the city?’

‘Sydney,’ I said. ‘Australia.’

‘Then I’d say you’ve seen a whole lot better than this. I’m from Boston myself and I know I have.’

Gary and January were murmuring in the back seat. The car seemed to glide and I could feel sleep sneaking up on me. The driver’s big pink palm was in front of me with a small package between the fingers.

‘You look tired,’ he said. ‘Not far now. Want some gum?’

‘Thanks.’ I took a piece of the gum, unwrapped it and put the paper in the pull-out ashtray; it would’ve held the yellow pages. ‘Who do you work for exactly?’

‘Hang…on!’ The big car swayed to the right like a tacking yacht and then came back, slewing and rocking across the buttons in the road that marked the lanes. I heard January yell and Gary swear and then I was pressed back against the seat as the driver accelerated.

‘Behind and right!’ He yelled. ‘You see ‘em?’

I swivelled to look out the back window which was clear and clouded as the wiper slashed across it. I saw a big grey car gaining fast and rocking as gusts of wind hit it. I tugged the. 38 free for no good reason I could think of, maybe to encourage him to drive faster.

‘Grey car, foreign-looking?’

‘That’s him. He tried to push me through the wall back there. He’ll be coming again?’

‘Where’s our other car?’

‘Way back. I had to hit the juice to make him miss. They’re back in the bunch. Hold it! He’s coming! Your side!’

The grey car loomed up alongside and crowded us. The driver yielded one lane; we clicked over the buttons and then he held firm. We must have been travelling at over 90 miles an hour but the car could have been cruising. I was dimly aware of posts and overhead lights flashing past as we rocketed along side by side towards a few cars moving sedately ahead of us.

‘What can you do?’ My teeth were clenched and the words came out thin and tight.

‘Hold the road.’

The grey car hung back while we flashed past a couple of cars steering a frantic wavering line. I wound down the window and felt the wind and water whip at me as the grey car drew up again.

‘You seem to know what you’re doing,’ I said. ‘You think I should take a shot at him?’

He held the wheel lightly and only the fact that he was chewing the gum at a slower rate betrayed his reaction. ‘Think I see what they’re trying to do. No, don’t shoot. But it wouldn’t hurt to show them the piece.’

I half-turned, cocked an arm and levelled the gun at the windscreen a few feet away using the arm as a rest. The grey car was inches away, crowding us right. Ahead I saw a ramp running off to the right down from the elevated road into a grey, misty sea of streets and buildings.

‘He’s going to hit us!’ I yelled.

The driver sucked on his top lip. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I think he’s through.’ A wave of power seemed to run through the car and it surged forward until we were a few yards ahead by the time we reached the ramp. January was quiet; Gary was muttering what might have been a prayer.

‘They’re dropping back.’ I pulled my wet gun and damp arm inside and wound up the window. ‘Will they have a go at the other car?’

‘Have a go,’ the driver said. ‘That’s nice. No, I don’t think they’ll have a go at it. I’m not even sure they were having a go at us.’

‘Would you mind telling me what the hell that was all about?’ January’s voice was firm but a tone or two higher than normal.

I touched the driver on the shoulder. ‘This man saved our lives, that’s what happened.’

‘Thank you,’ January said.

‘Nothing, Mr January.’

‘I was asking you who you worked for,’ I said. ‘I suppose it isn’t the ACME limousine company?’

He laughed. ‘No, sir. Mr Hardy, is that right?’

‘Cliff,’ I said.

‘Billy Spinoza. I liked what you didn’t do with the gun, Cliff. I guess they were pretty good but if they weren’t a gunshot at the wrong time could’ve killed us all. Did you get a look at them?’

I tried to remember. ‘Just a flash. Two men; the driver was young and fair. The other one was heavier, older probably.’

‘You know this trick? Close your eyes and try to sort of print their picture inside your head. Might want you to look at some photographs later.’

I’d done it before, more or less automatically, but I did it deliberately now. ‘Long fair hair,’ I said.

Spinoza nodded. ‘Good.’

‘What were they trying to do?’ Gary asked.

‘They were trying to run us down the west ramp back there.’ Spinoza was chewing rhythmically again. ‘If they’d succeeded there’s no telling what might have happened. It’s rough down there.’

I coughed. ‘You still haven’t told me…’

Spinoza laughed. ‘Cliff, you could say I work for the Australian Government.’

Billy Spinoza slowed the limousine until the other car caught up and we went on our stately way into the city. He explained that he was a ‘sort of government man’ on loan to the branch of the Australian security service that protected the diplomats.

‘You’ve got a couple of good men,’ he said, ‘but they’re stretched thin and they get called away to other places. Job like this needs local knowledge or something like it.’

‘A job like what?’

‘Like you, Mr January. I don’t know how long it is since you’ve been here but things are changing every day. The crazies are coming out of the woods. Should see it when the President travels, it’s like a red alert.’