Dance with the Devil (24 page)

Birds flew off as they advanced, flashes of bright colour in the never-ending green, their melodious songs and raucous squawks adding to the haze of insect chirrups and rustling fern fronds. The call of a whipbird echoed eerily across the gullies.

Drew stopped, his arm bent back to warn Emma, as a snake slithered in front of him. She remembered the pulp of the taipan splattering her, and shuddered. Drew turned, saw her expression, and drew her into his arms.

She hadn't realised how much she'd missed the feel of him, even after such a short time, but as she relaxed against his body and felt the heat of his flesh, it was as though she had reclaimed a part of herself that was missing.

For one long moment he held her, and she immersed herself in the love she felt emanating from him. Then he kissed her, this time with a restrained passion, and a new strength flooded through her.

A Forward Command Post had been set up in Tom and Mary Johnson's house and the telephone line reconnected. Tom was in hospital, and Kirri was staying to keep an eye on Mary.

Mick looked at a map of the area which had been hung on the living-room wall.

'There's been no marijuana growing activity in this area due to the steepness of the terrain.' A senior Drug Squad member pointed to the area of National Park surrounding the valley.

'Well, at least they won't have to contend with the booby traps that have injured our guys in other areas,' his partner added bitterly, and Mick shuddered at the memory of some of the devices described by his colleagues. Trip wires, fish hooks dangling at eye height, boards spiked with large nails and camouflaged by mulch. Even the marijuana stems themselves were sometimes implanted with razor blades to slice open the hands of police or poachers.

One of the National Parks and Wildlife officers turned to Mick. 'It's inaccessible by four-wheel drive, and we have no access tracks in there, but I've hiked through, and I don't envy them trying to find Morgan in that thick rainforest.'

Mick's feet were aching, and he didn't envy anyone who had to walk any further than the overstuffed lounge he was now eyeing off. He looked at his watch, impatient for the call from the Major Incident Room set up in Gordonvale which would update him on Hadley Morgan's background. He would rather be with Chayse and the other officers, searching with the police Dog Squad and two park rangers for the man who had caused such trauma to innocent people.

Through the windows he could see the police officers moving across the fields. Then he looked beyond them to the mountains, and a sense of dread settled in his gut. The rainforest had swallowed airplanes before, one man and a baby could easily disappear. Forever.

The police Air Wing had two planes in the air, but with only a general direction indicated by the Dog Squad, they were flying in a grid pattern, hoping to pick up Morgan on their heat-imaging devices. Not that Mick held too much hope for that, but in the thick rainforest it could be their only way to find him. From what Ivy Morgan had said, giving the dogs the slip would be easy for Morgan. Tomorrow the State Emergency Services helicopter and the Energex helicopter would be in the air at dawn, and their low-flying ability might give them an edge. Maybe. Never an optimist, Mick gravely doubted a successful outcome to the hunt.

Only one shrill ring pierced the air before Mick's hand curled around the receiver. 'Yes,' he barked and listened intently, sweat beginning to form on his forehead. As soon as he rang off, he dialled Chayse on his satellite phone.

Ivy Morgan had told Chayse and Mick what little she knew of Hadley's war service, but it had been enough for Mick to make further enquiries. Now as Chayse listened to Mick relating what he'd been told by the authorities in Canberra, the fear he held for his brother's and Emma's safety increased.

Hadley Morgan had joined the army at sixteen, and his natural jungle skills and capacity for carrying out even the most unpalatable orders had earned him a place in an elite group during the Vietnam War. This group carried out covert missions behind enemy lines, and required a certain type of soldier. A soldier who could kill without a second thought, who could remain in the jungle for weeks at a time if necessary, who could hide himself so that he could never be detected.

But it was his commanding officer's final remark on Morgan's file that worried Chayse most of all. 'I fear this soldier has come to enjoy his work too much.'

'Are you interested in bush medicine?'

Drew could tell his question took Emma by surprise. They had stopped for a few minutes to rest and snack on some biscuits he had packed. He was becoming increasingly concerned by the tense look on Emma's face. He'd been applying more of the cunjevoi sap whenever her arm began to sting again, but he knew it wasn't the pain that worried her. The condition of Mary's baby was weighing heavily on her mind.

He was concerned for the child, too, but right now it was Emma's welfare that he had some control over. If he could distract her thoughts for a while, it might ease her tension, lighten her emotional burden.

'I've always been interested in the local cures when I've been in foreign countries,' she replied. 'Sometimes when you're isolated you mightn't be able to get enough supplies brought in and you have to use anything you can.'

She bit her lip and looked slightly shamefaced. 'I'm afraid I haven't done much research in my own country.'

Drew pointed to the small, bright red figs that littered the forest floor. 'Cluster figs,' he said. 'Edible.' Then he pointed to the tall spreading tree above them. 'Scrape the inner wood of the fig tree's branches into warm water and you have a relief for diarrhoea.'

He picked up some green seed pods lying underneath another tree. One pod nearly covered the palm of his hand. He cracked it open to reveal four brown nuts. 'Candle nuts. The kernel inside tastes like a macadamia nut. But you have to roast it first or it acts like a laxative.'

'Then you drink your fig water,' she quipped, and Drew was grateful to see some of the tension had eased from her face.

'Yep. And if you don't want to eat it, you can burn it like a candle. It's extremely oily.'

Emma's expression grew serious. 'When this is over, perhaps you can give me some more lessons.'

Drew nodded, and tossed the nuts into his pack. Once Morgan was behind bars, he was going to devote a lot of time to showing Emma more than just bush tucker and bush medicine.

They'd been climbing progressively higher as the light faded, and Drew knew they would soon have to stop. It was getting harder to see the imprint of Morgan's boots and he was afraid of losing the trail altogether.

He stopped and waited for Emma to catch up. She had been lagging behind for the past half hour, but had refused to stop, assuring him she was all right.

'We'll have to camp overnight, Emma, it's getting too dark to see properly.'

She was breathing heavily, and he knew that although she was fit, his stamina, in spite of his recent ordeal, was far greater, and he had pushed their pace in the past few hours.

She unzipped a pocket on her pack and handed him a miner's torch. 'Sometimes I've had to operate at night without electricity. Will it be enough for you to see by? I've also got a Mag-Lite torch on my Swiss army knife, it's only small but quite powerful.'

'We have to rest, Emma. Morgan won't be going anywhere in the dark, and we run the risk of injury if we try to.' He gestured ahead where the slope seemed to level out and the tree density lessened. 'We'll rig up some shelter and see if we can start a fire. Come on.'

As shelters went, it was crude but effective. Palm fronds covered propped-up branches to form a forty-five degree angle to the ground, and the foil blanket from Emma's pack covered a bed of hastily picked bracken. Their packs were pushed to the back of the shelter to keep them safe from inquisitive possums.

Drew dug a hole in the ground and started a fire from the paper bags holding their sandwiches and some dry bark he'd found under several fallen trees. He used palm fronds as a barrier to prevent the light being seen from anywhere but their shelter. He didn't think Morgan knew they were tracking him, and he wanted to have the element of surprise on their side, if possible.

The contents of Emma's pack amazed Drew. She had produced mosquito repellent, matches, water purifying tablets - not that they needed those in this pristine rainforest. Unfortunately, she had no coffee. Better nothing, he thought grimly, than a week of lukewarm tea in Morgan's shed.

They sat under the shelter and ate the rest of the sandwiches, deciding to keep for breakfast the fruit Drew had packed. He looked up through the rainforest canopy and was grateful to see bright moonlight in a clear sky. He'd worried that night-time rain would wash away Morgan's tracks but it looked as though they were going to be lucky.

Emma's hand on his thigh brought his attention back to her. Her hair needed combing, she had smudges on her cheek, and her once-crisp blouse hung limply. But as he looked into her sherry-rich eyes reflecting the flickering firelight, he thought her almost unbearably beautiful. He knew he could never let her go from his life, and somehow he knew he would have to convince her she was meant to be his.

It was true that he considered her an equal, but if they caught up with Morgan -
when
they caught up with Morgan, he amended grimly - there was no way he was letting her get within a stone's throw of the man. He never again wanted to experience the terror he'd felt when he'd thought she had been caught by the firebomb. He was determined to protect her. With his life if necessary.

'I know there's no ladies room, Drew, but I have to use it.'

'Don't go far,' he warned.

The blackness was almost tangible, so 'far' wasn't a problem. Nothing could have persuaded her to blunder around in the undergrowth without a light and risk another encounter with a stinging tree, and she was grateful for the small beam from her Mag-Lite torch.

If she'd thought the rainforest relatively quiet during the day, the night opened up a new world of sound. A cacophony of frog croaks filled the air, and possums scurried about in the treetops. The noise was almost like a physical assault, and when it stopped for a brief second it was the reverse of a gunshot on a quiet evening. Then it began again and she made a conscious effort to blot out its intensity.

She returned to Drew and quivered as he pulled her close to sit beside him. There should be a law, she thought, something that made it illegal for her heart to pound like crazy just because he touched her. She was tired, her legs ached from hours of walking and struggling over logs and boulders, but as he leaned over and smoothed the hair off her forehead, she wanted him with a fervour that surprised her. She turned her head to kiss his palm, then he captured her in an embrace that was both comforting and arousing.

With a reluctant sigh he eased away. 'We'd better get some sleep. We'll be up at first light.' He grinned. 'And it's my turn to use the wilderness toilet.'

Suddenly there was a terrible thrashing about in the foliage above their heads. Twigs and leaves went flying. A sharp hiss was followed by clicks and grunts, then a furry body fell heavily beside their shelter. They barely had time to make out the lustrous silver-grey fur and cream underbelly, lank tail and possum-like face of a tree kangaroo before it shook itself fiercely and hopped away into the undergrowth.

Emma had jumped up as the animal had fallen, but now she laughed, relief easing the tension she'd felt all day. She offered Drew her torch, but he put on the miner's torch she had given him. 'I prefer to keep one hand free,' he said as he picked up the rifle.

She heard him walk into the undergrowth, and soon only the sound of him relieving himself helped to pinpoint where he was.

The mountain air was cool and crisp, and she was grateful she would have Drew's warm body around her through the night. She started to bend down to go back under the shelter when a rough hand snaked around her mouth and pulled her back against a hard, large body.

A knife blade pressed against her throat.

When it had become obvious that Hadley Morgan's trail and that of Emma and Drew led high into the mountain, Mick had called the searching officers back to a hastily set up camp at the mountain base. There was no point having them wandering around in the dark, particularly as Morgan, with his jungle skills, could easily kill them one by one if he wanted to.

He'd requested Ivy Morgan to be brought to Tom's house. If they caught up to Morgan, perhaps they could helicopter Ivy in to plead with her husband to give up the baby.

He questioned her about Morgan, trying to glean anything that might help them to understand why he had taken the baby, and what he might do next.

Ivy sat quietly, her eyes downcast, fingers twining together. Mick noticed how haggard she looked. Even since he'd seen her that afternoon, she seemed to have shrivelled up, aged ten years.

'When we were first married, Hadley was wonderful,' she said softly. 'He worked hard, helped with Simon. But as the years went on he…he would go off into the mountains for days at a time. He always told me he was going, was always sorry for causing me concern, but he didn't seem able to help himself. It was as though he needed the solitude. I used to worry that he would get lost or hurt, but he kept reassuring me that he was more at home there than he was in a house.'

She raised her eyes to Mick. 'Since Simon's death, he's disappeared for up to two weeks at a time. And each time he returned, he was more remote than before. Hadley would know that National Park better than the rangers, Detective. It will be a miracle if you find him.'

'Did you bring baby food?' The whisper breathed into Emma's ear.

Shock and terror froze her motionless; then her survival instinct kicked in and she nodded, the movement difficult against the force of his hand. She pointed to the strap of her pack, just visible in the firelight.

'Pick it up. Don't struggle, don't scream, or you'll die.'