‘Gotta get outa here,’ crackled Didge through the breather cylinders as the double air-lock doors automatically opened, allowing the truck to drive through.
‘Back to the labs,’ said Mac, heading for the doors that would allow them to escape through the venting system.
The air-lock doors to the lab area did not contain glass panels, and Mac held back to observe where the truck was going and what the workers were doing. The point of a recon exercise was to see or hear what was going on.
‘Mate – no glass,’ said Mac, pointing at the door. ‘I need to take some snaps, okay?’
Reluctantly, Didge followed Mac across the internal lino road and they made for one of the inhalation chambers where the internal lights had not been activated. Pulling the grey steel door back on themselves, they stood in the shadows of the inhalation chamber, breathing hard. The throb of the truck’s diesel engine sounded outside the area, and then intensified as the doors were opened. Craning his neck, Mac saw another double air-lock door at the end of the chambers which was also being opened.
Struggling for air, Mac realised they’d stumbled into the heart of the operation. Whatever was burned in that incinerator at such high heats, on a daily basis, was probably waiting on the other side of those doors. What was it, he wondered. Bad vaccines? Killer heroin? Monkeys who didn’t like what they were inhaling?
‘We’ve got to get in there, okay?’ rasped Mac, pointing towards the truck as it slipped through the opened air-lock doors.
Didge nodded, though his face was grim and his breathing was laboured.
‘You okay, mate?’ asked Mac as the Hino moved on, bringing some quiet again to the inhalation chambers.
‘Yeah, bra,’ said Didge.
‘Let’s get our breathing right, okay?’ said Mac.
Working together, they brought each other down to long deep breathing and then Mac pushed back the door to the inhalation chamber and they snuck out. Didge went in front with his SIG Sauer and they crept along the wall of inhalation chambers until they got to the door the Hino had just disappeared through. Sticking his head around the corner of the opened door, Didge checked their situation, hesitating a split second.
‘Okay, mate?’ asked Mac, as Didge groaned and sagged against the wall.
‘Holy shit,’ he hissed, staring into the mid-distance.
Mac angled himself around Didge and peeked around the corner to see for himself.
Taking it in, Mac’s breathing seized. The Hino was fifty metres away at the end of a long room, with people in biohazard suits moving around like ants in a colony. Large, glass-sided inhalation chambers ran the length of the space, all of them filled with naked humans. Most looked dead, but some of them were still alive.
Pulling back, stunned, Mac thought fast – he needed to manage Didge out of the situation without both of them being made.
‘Okay, we’re gonna do the gig and get out, right, mate?’ said Mac, who used his body to block Didge from walking into the room of inhalation chambers.
‘But, there’s people -’ started Didge, his eyes far away.
‘Don’t worry about that, mate,’ said Mac, feeling quite nauseous himself. ‘Let’s just focus on the gig, okay?’
‘Robbo – let’s call Robbo,’ said Didge, sounding as if he might be in shock.
Things balanced on a knife’s edge as Mac tried to catch the soldier’s eye. Didge was bigger and stronger than him, and by the way the other 4RAR commandos treated the big Cape Yorker, Mac suspected he was their wet- work guy: the one who took out the sentries, who slit the throats and made stealth entries possible. If Didge decided on a certain course of action, it would be hard to stop him.
‘C’mon, Didge – there’s nothing we can really do here,’ said Mac, trying to get Didge beyond his immediate desire to walk into that hall of horrors and start killing bad guys.
‘Let ’em go,’ said Didge, pushing at Mac.
‘Go where?’ asked Mac, gripping Didge’s elbows. ‘Out into the open? If we raise the alarm with the soldiers, the poor bastards will be shot anyway.’
Now Didge’s head and body were shaking and Mac suspected he was hyperventilating.
‘Or let ’em go so they can run around screaming and get us made?’ Mac continued. ‘We’ve still got a job to do in Maliana, mate.’
‘We gotta get them outa here,’ whispered Didge. ‘Can’t walk away, McQueen.’
‘Not walking away, mate,’ said Mac. ‘Trying to keep us alive and get the gig done. Maybe we save more lives with these photos and samples than by whacking a few soldiers, okay?’
Giving Didge another shake of the elbows, Mac tried to lock eyes with him, even as he lost his own cool about this place.
‘Okay, Didge?’
‘Whatever you say,’ said Didge, face stony.
Mac watched as the workers in biohazard suits threw body after body onto the back of the Hino. They seemed to be taking corpses from the right-hand inhalation chambers while the Timorese on the left were banging on the glass sides of their inhalation chambers.
Shouts rang out before the Hino beeped as it reversed. The next thing, the workers in the biohazard suits were walking back towards Mac and Didge.
Retreating back into their hide in the inhalation chamber, Mac and Didge waited in the dark as the truck drove past. After a few minutes the noise of the truck faded and then voices echoed from the loading bay as bodies were loaded onto the conveyor belt.
After a while the noises faded to silence and the entire area was plunged into darkness again as the lights were killed. Venturing out, Mac and Didge stealthed back to the large hall of inhalation chambers, pushed through the doors and entered the area where they’d just witnessed the horrifying scenes.
‘We’ll do this fast, okay, Didge?’ asked Mac as they walked quietly down the dim corridor between the chambers. A rustling noise started up, followed by voices and then thumping on the glass. It was overwhelming but Mac was determined to gather the intelligence that would see the operators of this place prosecuted.
Mac raised the Nikon and took a shot of the long chamber with the people in it. The bursting flash revealed the creepy sight of at least eighty people, staring out of the glass like living ghosts – naked, skinny and distressed. Realising that Mac and Didge were not the normal workers, the prisoners – or whatever they were – swarmed to the glass.
‘Fuck,’ muttered Didge, his voice shocked and disbelieving.
Turning, Mac gently took Didge’s arm and reminded him that they needed to keep going in order to save these folks’ lives. He took several shots of the empty chamber on the other side before walking to its sealed door. As he opened it, Mac heard the sigh of air pressure as he broke the seal. Didge joined him and they stepped into the chamber, which reeked of urine and faeces. Noticing a patch of wetness near the rear of the chamber, Mac knelt and took several wipes which he put in the sample jars.
Standing again, Mac saw Didge double over and then heave, his mask filling with vomit.
‘Shit,’ said Mac, grabbing at Didge as his own stomach turned.
‘Can’t take it off, mate,’ yelled Mac as Didge grabbed at the mask. ‘Don’t want to catch what these guys have got.’
Didge heaved again, then stood with his head down as he tried to pull himself together.
‘Mate, we’re out of here, okay?’ said Mac, helping Didge through the chamber door and into the clear space between the lines of inhalation chambers.
Stopping, Didge put both hands on the sides of his biohazard helmet and moved his head around inside, trying to find a better way to breathe with the vomit.
Sweat dripped into Mac’s shoes and, making a huge effort to block out the anguish around him, he aimed the Nikon at the chamber filled with people. Some of them still had the energy to slap their hands on the glass. Flashing off a final picture, he froze. Caught in his mind was an image that was too familiar, too recent. An image he couldn’t ignore by creating professional distance.
Taking a closer look at the inhalation chamber, Mac stared at a face that served him cold beer a week earlier.
