Page 72

11

Dimitry

Gascoyne Region, Western Australia

Present Day

Ididn’t think I’d sleep, but I must have, because when I open my eyes again it’s dark and Luke has pulled the four-wheel drive to a halt.

“Where are we?” I look around, but all I can see is what looks like a moonscape of gravel, interspersed by a few low bushes that gleam palely beneath a glittering sea of stars.

“About ten clicks from Turbo’s hideout.” Luke opens the door and swings himself out of the vehicle, stretching. “You need to change your clothes, and I want to call him before we get there. Turbo isn’t the kind of bloke who appreciates late-night visitors. We’re just as likely to be met by a double-barrel shotgun as a cold beer, and I’d rather start off on good terms.”

“Call him?” I look around. “You mean there’s reception out here?”

He holds his phone up. “Couple of bars. Enough to make the call.” He grins. “There’s a town close by, remember?”

The night is almost completely silent, and I can’t see a single light on the horizon. I shake my head. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Here.” Luke throws me the clothes currently hanging out of the car windows. “Put these on. They’ve hung outside for a few clicks down a dirt road, so they should look suitably crusty.”

I pull on the Wrangler jeans, which we picked up in a charity shop in Perth, and a navy drill shirt with three buttons down the front and a V neck. Both look suitably worn and faded after Luke’s quick-aging treatment. The boots were another charity pickup, low-heeled brown leather, scuffed and worn.

He throws me a felt hat that looks equally battered and aged. “That’s my good one,” he says, grinning. “Don’t lose it.”

I eye the hat skeptically. “I feel like a fucking cowboy.”

“Well, so does everyone around here, so lean into it. You spent a fair bit of time in London, didn’t you?”

“Several years on and off, yes.”

“Can you pull off the accent?”

I nod. “No problem.”

“Good.” Luke pulls on jeans and a shirt similar to my own. “Australians tend to loathe Americans on sight, so my advice is to come off as British. That way I can explain you away as an army mate.”

“Copy that.” I give him a curious look. “What’s the issue with Americans?”

He shrugs. “Started during the Second World War. The Seppos were paid a hell of a lot more than the Australian soldiers, so the local ladies were pretty happy to go out with them. The saying at the time was that Americans wereoversexed, overpaid, and over here. And given the fact that since then we’ve been dragged into every one of your wars, from Korea to Vietnam and on into the Gulf and Afghanistan, you can probably imagine why Seppos aren’t particularly popular.”

“Seppos?”

“Seppos. Yanks. Americans.” He grins at my confusion. “Yanksrhymes withseptic tanks. Seppos for short Basically, it’s a polite way of saying Americans are full of shit.”

“Ha.” I accept the beer he throws me. “Well, technically, I’m Russian. How do Australians feel about those guys?”

Luke screws up his face. “Couldn’t give a fuck, for the most part. But let’s stick to British to be safe.”

We takea series of obscure dirt roads and eventually come to a chained gate, which I jump out and open, then close and lock when Luke drives through. It takes another five minutes until we come to a grass clearing. The lone building on it is a prefabricated transportable with a corrugated roof, set on low concrete blocks. It looks like it fell off the back of a truck. I’m guessing that a construction site somewhere is missing its office building.

An enormous man is silhouetted in the open doorway. He’s almost as tall as me and broad enough to block most of the light. Even in the darkness I can see the bulge of an extremely lush beard around his face and equally wild hair. As Luke predicted, he’s pointing a shotgun at us.

“Hey, Turbo,” Luke calls as we pull up. “It’s just me and the army mate I told you about on the phone.”

He gestures with the gun. “Get out of the car.”

Despite Luke’s reassurances, the man doesn’t sound chill at all.