his desk and an ashtray with a pile of stubs.
“Good day, Alex.” He also spoke with an Australian accent. “Take a seat!”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command.
“I’m Bill Tanner. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few weeks, so I might as well get a few things clear from the start. Fancy a beer?”
“No,” Alex replied.
“You’d better drink something anyway,” the nurse said. “You don’t want to get dehydrated.” She went over to the fridge and produced a bottle of mineral water. Alex didn’t touch it. He had already decided. He wasn’t going to play these people’s game.
“How was the flight?” Tanner asked.
Alex didn’t answer.
The doctor shrugged. “You’re angry. That’s okay. I’d be pretty angry if I were in your shoes. But maybe you should have thought about the consequences before you took on the snakehead.”
He leaned forward, and Alex knew, with a sense of revulsion, that he had had this conversation many times before. Alex wasn’t the first person to be brought unwill-292
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ingly to this secret hospital. Others would have sat right where he was sitting now.
“Let me tell you how this works,” Dr. Tanner began.
“You’re going to die. I’m sorry to have to tell you that, but you might as well get used to it. We all have to die sometime, although for you it’s probably a little sooner than expected. But you have to look on the bright side. You’re going to be well looked after. We have a really qualified team here, and it’s in our interests to keep you going as long as possible. You’re going to have a lot of surgery, Alex. There are some bad days ahead. But you’ll come through . . . I know you will. We’ll help you to the finish line.”
Alex glanced briefly at the cart, measuring the distance between himself and the scalpel. He thought about making a grab for it, using it as a weapon. But that wouldn’t help him. Better to take it with him, to find a use for it later. He realized that the doctor was waiting for him to reply. He answered with a single, ugly swearword. Tanner just smiled.
“Your language is a little ripe, son,” he said. “But that’s all right. I’ve heard it all before.” He gestured out the window. “Now, you’re probably wondering how you can escape from here,” he went on. “You’ve seen the fence, and you’re thinking you can climb over it. Or maybe you’ve looked at the river and decided you can try swimming. It all looks pretty easy, doesn’t it? No TV cameras.
Just the seven of us in the compound. Me, four nurses, Jacko, and Quombi. Not much security . . . that’s what you’re thinking.
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, mate. But you’re wrong.
You go out at night and you’re going to have to reckon with Jacko’s dog. It’s a pit bull. His name is Spike, and he’s a nasty piece of work. He’ll rip you apart as soon as look at you. As for the fence, it’s electrified. Touch it and it’ll take you a week to wake up. And you’re not getting anywhere near the generator—not unless you know how to bite your way through razor wire—so you can forget about tampering with the current.
“And even if you did manage to get out, it wouldn’t do you much good. We’re on the edge of the Kakadu National Park . . . two billion years old and as bad as the world was when it began. The start of Arnhem Land is about a mile from here, but that’s a mile of tropical rain forest, and you’d never find your way through. Assuming a death adder or a king brown didn’t get you, there are spiders, wasps, stinging nettles, biting ants, and—waiting for you on the other side—saltwater crocodiles.” He jerked a thumb. “There are a hundred ways to die out there, and all of them are more painful than anything we’ve got lined up for you here.
“That leaves the river. Looks pretty tempting, doesn’t it? Well, there are no boats here. No canoes or kayaks or rafts or anything else you can get your hands on. We even
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keep the coffins locked up after one guy tried to bust out in one of those. You remember that, Charleen?” The nurse laughed. “He was using the lid as a paddle.”
“But he didn’t get very far, Alex, and neither would you. Because this is the start of the storm season . . . what the Aboriginals call Gunumeleng. The water’s swollen and fast-moving. About ten minutes downriver you’ll hit the first rapids, and after that it just gets worse and worse.
You try to swim, you’ll be cut to pieces on the rocks. You’ll almost certainly drown first. And waiting for you a mile downstream is the Bora Falls. A fifty-yard drop with a ton of water crashing down every minute. So do you get what I’m saying? You’re stuck here, mate, and that’s that.” Alex said nothing, but he was storing away everything Tanner was telling him. It was just possible that the doctor was giving away more than he realized. Outside the window, he heard a sudden whirring. The engine of the Piper had started again. He glanced out and saw the seaplane moving away from the jetty, preparing to take off.
“We’re not going to lock you up, Alex,” Tanner went on. “The grub’s good, and if you want a beer, just help yourself. There’s no TV, but you can listen to the radio, and I think we’ve got a few books. The point I’m trying to make is—right now, you’re here as our guest. Soon you’ll be here as our patient, And after we’ve begun work, you won’t be going anywhere. But until then, I want you to take it easy.”
“We have to watch your blood pressure,” the nurse muttered.
“That’s right. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to roll up a sleeve so I can take a blood sample. It doesn’t matter which arm. I also want a urine sample. It looks to me like you’re pretty fit, but I need to get it all down on the computer.”
