Half Moon Bay Read Free Page B

going home.
    She paused just inside the cabin of the small jet, the air- conditioning cool on her chest, the harsh Afghani sun searing her back. She looked back across the tarmac to the Australian Defence Force team. Dave Miller and his commanding officer were still there. As the nurse reached to close the door of the jet, the CO saluted her. The man’s face was in the shadow of his helmet but the glass of his watch face caught the late afternoon rays like the bright flash of a dying star. Then the door-seal hissed and Ellie’s world became a miniature emergency room. Nina had to survive.
    The silver jet roared into the sky, heat shimmering from its twin exhausts. Barely airborne, it commenced a series of abrupt, seemingly random manoeuvres, as it tried desperately to present the lowest possible profile to the hidden insurgents.
    The watching men let out a combined sigh as the bright jet became a glittering speck in the sky.
    ‘One hell of a lady,’ Nicholas Lawson said grudgingly. ‘One hell of a mess.’
    Dave Miller nodded. ‘Do you think she realises Nina isn’t going to survive?’
    ‘Probably, but I doubt she’ll admit that until she has no option.’ Nick felt his short black hair ruffled by a hot gust of wind. He flinched at the blowtorch blast of heat, his voice bleak. ‘We deal in death every day and I’m having trouble accepting it’s happened. It’s a complete shambles.’
    The shorter man nodded. ‘When I met her at the hospital, I pegged her as just another interfering journalist like her sister. Your ears should have been burning.’ He ran a hard hand over his sandy stubble. ‘I held you responsible for lumbering me with the clean-up detail. But . . .’
    The roar of a landing fighter jet obliterated his words and they both turned away from the airstrip, the noise receding behind them.
    ‘She cried when I told her and then . . .’ Dave shook his head, his words drying up as they matched long-legged strides back to the armoured personnel carrier.
    Nick looked down at his colleague, anger and adrenalin simmering in his blood. He finished the other man’s sentence. ‘Then she turned into some sort of superwoman. What she’s achieved is nothing short of a miracle.’
    ‘To single-handedly organise a casevac in less than twenty-four hours?’ Dave snorted. ‘Hell, we can’t get a phone call home guaranteed in that time, let alone a private jet with a medical team. She never even raised her voice.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘And that’s a feat when you’re dealing with the locals. Even managed a smile. Hell of a woman.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Nick said. ‘Hope she’s strong enough to get through this fuck-up.’ He gripped Dave’s shoulder. ‘Thanks, mate, you did well.’ He couldn’t stop the muscle in his jaw from tightening. ‘What the hell were they doing out there anyway?’
    They reached the camouflage-brown vehicle with Dave still shaking his head. ‘Who knows. You okay, Nick? You can’t take this too hard. It’s war.’
    ‘It’s my responsibility when anyone in my division, or anyone attached to it, is injured or killed. I’m tired of killing, tired of war, fed up with all this.’ Nick flung his arm out towards the bomb-damaged buildings, the parched brown of the land. ‘Fed up with propping up a system that allows all those acres of poppies to end up as heroin in the veins of addicts on Bondi Beach.’
    ‘We’re not here for the drugs.’ Dave frowned. ‘It’s about the people.’
    ‘Yeah, and democracy they’ve never had, maybe never wanted, with their only cash crop an addictive drug that makes the Taliban richer. Warlords, drug lords, feudal leaders and we legitimise the lot of them, then build them schools and hospitals that get caught in the crossfire.’
    ‘Doing our job, mate.’
    ‘Yeah, I know. And having journalists the world over taking pot shots at us as well for our troubles. Even Nina, for all her pretty words, was trying to find the dirt on