Half Moon Bay (2 page)

Jarrod pushed open a door into a small room next to a nurse’s station. A ginger-haired man got to his feet, his fatigues rumpled.

‘This is Captain Miller.’

Ellie shook hands, mute and numb. With a salute the younger man left them alone and she turned to the new soldier, forcing her voice to work.

‘Captain Miller, where’s Nina?’

‘Ms Wilding, please call me Dave. Major Lawson sends his respects. I’m the liaison officer. I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances.’

She waved his politeness away, terror shortening her breath. ‘Where is she?’

‘The doctors are still operating. Once she’s stable we’ll need to try and organise a casevac out to a hospital in Germany. Ellie, I’m not going to lie to you. Your sister has been critically injured. She was hit by sniper fire out on patrol with us.’ He shook his head. ‘Two bullets hit her, but one snuck under her helmet and it’s lodged in her brain. The other one tore through her armpit and she lost a lot of blood before we could stabilise her.’

Ellie felt the tears streaming down her face.
No, no, no
. It couldn’t be Nina. She was invincible! The captain reached out to steady her and she realised she was swaying on her feet, the pale green walls starting to spin. Words were impossible as the sobs caught in her throat.

‘Sit down, Ellie.’ He steered her to a rickety chair, and she heard him curse under his breath.

His voice was disembodied. It came from down a very long and shadowy tunnel. Nina was gravely ill. He was so sorry. She’d been such a vibrant addition to them, imbedded for two weeks with their company. Guys, a long way from home, without loved ones, craved female company. She’d been a breath of fresh air, but she needed specialist medical treatment now and that was not going to be found in Kandahar.

Ellie sensed an undercurrent in his voice. Had Nina got too close to one of them? Probably, because this was war and the rules were different. You didn’t know if you’d be around tomorrow so why not enjoy today? He stopped talking, his gaze resting on her face, his hand on her shoulder. She shut her eyes against reality.

Nina. Her older sister, her protector. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Nina, who’d shepherded and guarded Ellie, who’d been the strength in their family when the foundations had crumbled. This should never have happened. Ellie should have been here, not chasing her own dream. It was her fault Nina was alone! Her fault her sister lay in this crowded hospital, her life in the balance. Accepting the blame didn’t stop the tears, but it forced her to act. This time it was up to Ellie to get Nina out, to stand up and take charge.

‘Can I see her?’ Ellie asked, taking tiny breaths to enable her to speak.

‘Come, we’ll see what the doctors say.’

The walk through the maze of corridors, dodging stretchers, wheelchairs and people squatting on the floor, was surreal. The sounds, the odours, were background annoyances she barely registered as she followed the broad shoulders ahead of her.

Dave stopped outside a pair of swing doors and looked through. His hand burned through the thin fabric of her shirt as he anchored her beside him. ‘We can’t go in. They’re still operating.’

Ellie curled her fists tight against the urge to shove this man aside, burst through the doors and wrap her sister safely in her arms. Through the window she saw a stranger, bandages half covering her head. Nina’s trademark straight blond hair was gone. Her skin was pallid, as though the life had already drained away. Tubes from her mouth and her arm connected her to machines that were long past their warranty date. Ellie swayed towards the door as Dave’s fingers tightened on her arm.

‘No, Ellie, let them work.’

‘Nina . . . Nina . . .’ Ellie whispered, splaying her hand against the glass, the scene blurring as tears dripped from her chin. ‘Hang in there, Nina. I’ll get you home.’ Her voice broke on the last word. Home was so far away, the other side of the world in a place untouched by war. Home, where Ellie knew firsthand that time could heal.

A tall man turned from the table, his hands raised and bloody. For an instant he locked gazes with Ellie. She saw the pity in his eyes and the resignation in his shoulders. Her anger was swift. He didn’t know Nina. He didn’t know Ellie. He had no idea how hard they would fight for something they loved. He had no right to believe the worst.

The building shook as something solid found its mark. Dust and paint showered from the ceiling and Dave threw Ellie to the floor, covering her protectively.

‘Mortar fire. It’s been a difficult couple of days.’ She strained to hear him over the cacophony of alarms, raised voices and running feet. ‘Let’s hope it’s just a stray.’

‘At least the power’s still on.’ Ellie raised her head. The corridor had emptied. The doors behind them stayed resolutely closed.

‘Until the next strike.’

‘I need to make phone calls. I have to get Nina out of here.’

‘We’ve notified the consulate. They’ll do what they can.’

‘No!’ Ellie sat up now, leaning on the wall, palming her cheeks dry. ‘No way. They’ll take too long. I’ll handle it.’

‘We can help, Ellie. You don’t need to do this alone.’

‘Great. Then help. I need my satphone.’ She scrambled to her feet. It would be easy to abdicate her responsibility to the Australian Defence Force and Foreign Affairs, but she couldn’t do that. She needed to make this happen; take the lead. It was
her
sister’s life in the balance, not theirs.

‘Okay.’ Dave stood up and pushed her leather bag across to her. ‘We can go back to the meeting room. It will be quieter.’

‘No,’ Ellie replied, hauling her satphone free from the front pocket. ‘I’ve got reception here. I’m staying until they finish. And Dave?’

‘Hmm?’ He looked down at her and she mustered a glimmer of a shaky smile.

‘Thank you for everything you’ve done.’

He bobbed his head, looking uncomfortable as she started scrolling through her numbers.

She pressed send and waited for the satellite to route the call. A voice answered, but the line was still crackly.

‘Don? Don? Can you hear me? It’s Ellie, Ellie Wilding. I need your help.’

Several hours later the medical staff finally left Nina cocooned in white sheets and bandages. They had no comfort to offer Ellie. They’d done their best, but that might not be enough. Ellie sat on the chair by the bed, holding her sister’s hand, as the machines beside her hissed and pumped, keeping Nina alive but buried in a coma. Her injuries were hidden. Nina could have been stretched out waiting for the luxury of a facial, so serene was her expression. It helped to steady Ellie’s hammering heart.

‘Talk to her,’ the doctor had said as he left. ‘She may hear you.’

Ellie licked her lips and swallowed. Her voice croaked on the first few words. ‘You’re going home, Neens. Dad will be waiting for us. He’ll cook that lousy stroganoff he’s been dishing up since we were kids and we’ll be eating leftovers for days. I can just imagine Shadow going crazy having us both home to go for walks. And once you’re back on your feet you’ll be able to swim in the ocean. It’s autumn in the Bay, remember? The winter swells will be rolling in soon. Remember the last time we were home together – Christmas two years ago? It must have been thirty degrees in the shade and someone put a couple of prawn heads in the pot plant. Dad spent all week trying to find the source of the stink. I know who put them there, Neens. You always did like making trouble!’

She tried to smile, but her lips only trembled. Nina’s pale cold hand lay still, unresponsive. ‘What were you doing out there, Neens? No one’s telling me exactly what happened and that makes me nervous. There’s a whisper that someone else was killed.’ Her fingers were intertwined with Nina’s now. ‘You can’t leave unfinished business. I only take the photos. This story will die without you. I promise to get you home and you have to promise to finish the story, whatever it takes.’

There was no response but Ellie carried on talking, remembering, reliving their lives. Her tears ran out some time before dawn.

By morning her voice was hoarse and Nina’s condition was unchanged. Dave Miller arrived back with his commanding officer at the same time as the private medical team. Ellie couldn’t remember the major’s name five minutes after they were introduced. The man looked like he needed to sleep for a week. The physical presence of the two army officers gave her an odd comfort, as though someone had her back covered, but she only had eyes for Nina. The mountain of paperwork was enough to break her, let alone the expressions on the faces of the medical staff.

Late that afternoon, she was bundled into the back of an ambulance, holding tight to her sister’s hand. No one had actually said it, but Ellie knew the casevac team didn’t believe Nina would survive the journey. Yet it made no difference. There was no way Ellie was going to leave Nina to die in this harsh and battle-weary city that they’d come to know so intimately. Nina was 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 our troops. No way was I playing her game so she went and hit on an easy target. I should have seen it coming. I should have realised she was even bigger trouble than we first thought.’ He looked down at his liaison officer. ‘I’m out of line. Forget it. Nina doesn’t deserve to die this way and her younger sister doesn’t deserve to have to deal with it. Ellie Wilding should be told the truth, but that’s never going to happen, not officially. The inquiry will offer a sanitised version of events and the case will be closed.’

‘Glad you don’t run with that in front of the men.’

Nick snorted, the anger draining from him as quickly as it had risen. ‘No danger of that. You can rely on Nick Lawson to run the government line in public. Maybe . . .’ He couldn’t keep his feelings of defeat entirely hidden. Life in a war zone exacted a toll that couldn’t be measured. He felt much smaller than his usual six foot four. Was the price too high? he wondered for the thousandth time. One of his soldiers dead, Nina fighting for her life, both their families ripped apart, and all for what?

‘Nick, mate, it’s almost the end of our tour of duty. We all end up like this.’ Dave hesitated. ‘Worrying over your old man’s health as well?’ He shrugged again. ‘We’ll be out of here next week. Afghanistan will be just another deployment to forget. It’ll all be over.’

Nick looked to the sky again, searching for a last glimpse of the shiny jet. ‘For us, maybe, but courtesy of Nina and her reckless ambition Ellie Wilding will remember this day for the rest of her life.’