And just maybe, C was the length of chain back at the roller door.
As a bonus, the Toyota had a tow bar.
You have to understand that in this situation there was simply nothing else, and once I put the three objects together they burnt so brightly in my mind that I couldn’t think of anything else. We were completely cut off on the right, the mall was behind us and probably now full of enemy troops, and we would never get across the vast desert of the car park to the left without being cut off and killed. So in that situation, the Toyota, the dump bin and the chain were like a dying guy in the outback seeing a drink machine, a power point and a pile of dollar coins. The combination the three objects made in my mind was suddenly irresistible.
If everything goes in threes, I also knew that there were at least three major problems. And they were major major major. On the Richter scale they would have rated a nine. I knew from talking to the bloke who emptied our dump bin at home that they weigh six hundred kilos. Of course I had no idea what else was in the dump bin. It could have been full of concrete blocks that some bloke had chucked out from the building site. So, first problem, the bin might be too heavy.
On the other hand, Toyota claimed that these vehicles could pull anything. Elephants up Everest.
I also knew that bullets might penetrate the steel wall, in which case the people inside would be dead, dead, a thousand times over. And the third thing: I knew that the person stupid enough to do the driving was extremely vulnerable.
On another hand, one person in the car was a much better risk than five people in the car. I didn’t know what was in those boxes, the ones that filled the Toyota. If they contained inflated balloons for a party, they were not going to be much help. But if they had pillows or china plates or TVs they might just act as bullet-resistant barriers. The best thing of all would be books. Oh how I hoped they were books. I’ve always liked reading, but at this moment I felt an attraction for books more powerful than ever before. I hoped that whoever owned the four-wheel drive was equally keen on them.
At the same time, my sitting at the wheel of the Toyota was going to leave me highly exposed. I wouldn’t be much of a challenge to a marksman. Or a markswoman. Or a markschild. Even a marksbaby.
D, in my equation, represented what? Beyond a faint chance, beyond hope, it represented escape, safety, getting out of here. D would need a lot more than A, B and C. It would also need roads we could use, roads free of traps and ambushes and flying bullets. But that would have to wait. This was all about short-term solutions. This was about the here and now. I’ve never been any good at games like chess, where people can think five or ten moves ahead. On yet another hand, in farming, you do that all the time, so maybe I’m selling myself short. Anyway, there was nothing I could do about the long-term while I was in the car park at that mall. I yelled at Jeremy, ‘Cover Homer, I’ll be back,’ and took off for the roller door.
Chain is terrible stuff to carry. This one was heavy. These weren’t the roller doors they put in suburban garages; this one was serious. But it wasn’t only the weight of the chain that caused me problems. Chain is like picking up a boa constrictor. It slithers and slides and gets away from you and tries to escape, and just when you get a grip on one section another part manages to run off.
I grabbed armfuls, as much as I could manage, and set about dragging it all backwards, to the dump bin. I was sweating like a very anxious pig. In twenty or thirty seconds I was almost clear of the roller door, having made an excellent five metres of progress. Great! I should be back at the Toyota by Christmas.
Feeling desperate, I looked up and nearly dropped the chain again. Three soldiers had simultaneously appeared on the loading dock. They were in a line across the dock. Weirdly, they were like dancers in a theatre. Their movements seemed to be so synchronised. And these guys wore uniforms. Somehow Homer and Lee and Jeremy and Jess had stumbled into half an army.
At that moment I was dead. At the next moment a series of shots roared behind me, bullets no doubt whistled past me, but I was too deafened from the explosions to hear them. One of the soldiers went flying backwards into the storeroom as though he had been king-hit by the heavyweight champion of the world. The other two bolted back into the darkness.
I turned around. Lee. He was kneeling. He had evidently dropped to one knee as he had fired. Before he could get up again I said, ‘That’s the way I like to see you.’
He got up quickly when I said that, although I doubt if he heard me — I couldn’t hear myself after the noise of those bullets. He grabbed half of the chain I was trying to hold, without even asking why I needed it. Trust Lee. In fact, Lee was all about trust, except when he was with girls. With two people the boa constrictor gave up its fight, and we were back at the dump bin in seconds.
At least everyone was there. Everyone bar Gavin. Jeremy, Jess, Homer. That was an improvement in the situation. They were all pale. We tried to smile at each other. But it was pretty much impossible. I’d noticed before how when things get really frightening and dangerous I lose the ability to smile. It’s because of the tension in my face. The whole face locks up, and I have the feeling that if I look into a mirror I’ll see shiny pink skin, like someone who is recovering from burns. It gets too stretched for smiles. The others seemed to be the same. The smiles were in the eyes.
Nothing else improved. In fact it got significantly worse. The car park to the left was now full of visible danger again. I could see four guys with rifles, all advancing, running from car to car. They had spread out too, so that they were almost impossible targets. I didn’t even bother to look to the right, because I knew what I would see. I left the others to do the shooting, and instead carried an end of chain to the loophole at the base of the dump bin.
There was only one hole, at the left-hand end. As I fed the chain through it, I nodded to Lee and then to the tow bar of the Toyota. He got the idea straight away and started wrapping the chain around it. I figured the shorter the chain the better, up to a point, as that would reduce sway. Whatever, the people in the dump bin were in for a bad time.
I wasn’t sure if Lee had worked out exactly what I was suggesting. He sure hesitated when I yelled at them, ‘Get in! Get in!’
Certainly Homer and Jess and Jeremy looked at me like I was mad. ‘Bullets won’t go through it!’ I screamed at them, running around to the driver’s door. It was a big statement to make, but if I was wrong, I would never have to see their accusing faces or hear their accusing voices, for the rest of my life, although I would see them and hear them in my nightmares sure enough.
I realised I had forgotten my rifle, and hesitated, wondering whether to get it, and wondering whether they needed more incentive to get in the dump bin. Then I saw Lee pick up my rifle. At the same time I saw Homer scrambling up the side of the bin. It was going to be fun getting in there. But that was their problem.
I jumped in the cab. When I saw the keys I realised that there had been at least one factor I’d forgotten in my equation. I should have had another letter, E, to represent the keys of the Landcruiser. If the driver had taken the keys with him, we would have been totally rooted. I can’t hot-wire a car, and I don’t think any of the others could either. One of those little jewels of knowledge they didn’t teach at Wirrawee High School.
I started the engine. Looking back, I could only see Jeremy and Lee. This was good news, as it suggested that Homer and Jess were already inside. Normally I wouldn’t have been too keen on the idea of Jess being in a confined, darkish space with either Homer or Lee, but I was guessing that whatever was in the dump bin, if it wasn’t concrete blocks, was likely to be rotting fruit and vegetables, or the contents of the mall’s rubbish bins, or the out-of-date sausages from the butcher in the supermarket.
Anyway, they would have other things on their minds. As did I. I saw Jeremy sliding over the top into the dump bin. It looked like he went in headfirst. Then Homer’s head and shoulders popped up. He must have found something to stand on, possibly Jess, and he dragged Lee, as Lee’s feet scrabbled at the sides, trying to find a foothold.
Well, now to test C in the equation. Would the Landcruiser tow the dump bin?
Elements A and B were also about to be tested, and tested to their absolute limits. Algebra doesn’t allow any room for doubt or ambiguities. Either X represents 1.7852801, or it doesn’t. It was the same here in the car park. Either the dump bin resisted bullets, or the people inside it were dead. Either the driver of the Landcruiser would escape getting shot, or else everyone was dead. Either the Landcruiser would tow the dump bin, or else we were all dead.
Not much doubt or ambiguity there.
I shoved it into four-wheel drive, low range, low gear, low everything. If there’d been an ‘activate bullock train’ button, I would have pressed that. It was an automatic, so there wasn’t much more I could do except to go easy on the take-off. I started easing down the accelerator with my right foot.
