Redback. Lindy Cameron
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he hadn't dug a hole in the sand to hide from the chaos.
Seven seconds later he passed within a breath of her position.
Gideon tackled him around the thighs, rammed her shoulder into his lower back and sent him face-first to the ground. She sprang to her feet then dropped again, driving one knee heavily between his shoulder blades. A quick jab to the left side of the rebel's head, and the guy was both down and out.
'Commander!' It was Dr Rossi. 'Help!'
Gideon crashed back onto the path to discover belatedly that trouble comes in pairs. A second man had already found Dr Rossi.
Jana had been dragged to her feet by the very large man who'd materialised out of the dark much closer than the rebel the Commander had gone after.
'I'm not armed,' she'd said, holding her empty hands out. 'I'm a hostage.'
'You escape,' he shouted right in her face, twisting her collar till it choked her, 'you pay'.
Jana tried to kick him but the man held her at arm's length, while his right hand searched his belt for something. He clamped a large knife between his teeth. His pants were also suddenly around his ankles.
Oh crap. Jana struggled even harder.
The rebel released his chokehold to grab her arm instead. He dragged her close, ripped at her collar and forced her to the ground and onto her back.
'Commander!' Jana screamed, as the rebel straddled her legs. She could feel his naked arse and worse on her thighs.
'Help!' she yelled, as he opened his mouth to let the knife drop. He caught the hilt in his hand as Jana continued to squirm and kick. 'Get off me, you bastard!'
Jana screwed her eyes shut as the bastard thrust his hips forward to lurch over her body. She flexed every muscle in her torso to withstand the force and weight of his body. But it never came.
It started raining instead: a quick passing shower.
Jana opened one eye. The rebel and what was left of his head lay sprawled on the path.
The Commander loomed over her instead. 'Dr Rossi, you okay?'
'Yes. Thank you,' she said, accepting the hand up. 'Your timing, though impeccable, could have been fa…faster.' Jana started shaking, with rage - or something.
She looked down and noticed her T-shirt was completely ripped apart and covered in wet stuff, as was her now bare chest and stomach.
'Here,' Gideon said, unbuckling and handing over her flak-vest. 'Give me your shirt.'
Jana just stood there frowning, the vest dangling in her hand, so Gideon took charge and removed the ruined shirt. 'Help me out here, Doc,' she urged. 'You can freak out later.'
'I'm not freaking out,' Jana declared.
'You would if you could see yourself,' Gideon said, re-buckling her vest on Dr Rossi. It was way too big but better than nothing. Gideon used the back of the now useless T-shirt to wipe the rebel's blood and brains off the good doctor's face.
'Okay. Running now,' Gideon said. She clasped her charge by the wrist and all but dragged her down the path. After about ten paces, Dr Rossi got into the swing of things and they ran flat out for the beach.
Gideon flicked her throat mike. 'Redbacks, report.'
'Team Two on the beach. Boats ready,' Triko said. 'There's a lot of someones heading our way.'
'It's me, Marco; plus nine hostages.'
'Coop and Pete; ditto, plus sixteen.'
'Finch; en route with ten.'
Gideon, making the most of the last of the vegetation, skidded to her knees in the cold sand at the end of the path. Jana followed suit.
'The PO and I will be right with you. We're 20 west of your possie,' Gideon said, spotting the gathering at the water's edge to their left. She then checked the coast further west, to her right.
'What on earth is a PO?' Jana asked. 'And what did you say your name was?'
'You: Prime Objective. Me: Bryn Gideon.'
The lagoon swelled languidly to the dark horizon. It was, like the beach, oddly unoccupied by either rebel foe or friendly squad of lunatics. Thirty-five metres along the sand to her right a small promontory obscured the view of the dock area, though not the telltale smoky evidence of the damage that was still being wrought there. While it was logical that the bulk of the action was concentrated inland, it wasn't right that the beachfront was so deserted.
Gideon turned to her charge, 'Get ready, Doc. When I say run, make like Cathy Freeman for those boats.' She pulled a second pistol from the holster at her back, said 'Run, now' and leapt dramatically out onto the beach, guns up, facing west. 'Redbacks! Cover,' she requested, as Dr Rossi did exactly as she was told, this time without a word.
Gideon backed up the beach after her, all the while expecting a surprise attack. It never came.
'Stop mucking around Bryn,' Wade said, popping up beside her, 'and get in the boat.'
'All present and accounted for,' Cooper confirmed.
Gideon shrugged and let herself fall back into the inflatable. 'Let's get the hell out of here then.'
Four Zodiacs towing four inflatables pulled away from shore and headed southeast, across the lagoon and out to sea, to a rendezvous with the Australian submarine that Jana Rossi hadn't seen earlier.
Commander Bryn Gideon and her Redbacks left Laui Island as quietly as they'd arrived, but with 36 extra people and no casualties on their side.
Chapter Five
Wellington, New Zealand:
Tuesday 7.15 pm
Aaron Danby fiddled with the coins in his pocket. There were few things that annoyed him more than having to wait around for self-important people to get their own shit together.
Christ! He was the Australian Foreign Minister. He was sitting between the New Zealand PM and her Foreign Minister, and some other fairly significant people from around the western Pacific. Yet here they were, waiting for a bloody low-level CIA spook to take a call from home, before he could finish his redundant briefing.
Around about the fifteenth minute of these official talks on what could, should and would be done to secure the release of the hostages, his PA Mick had stuck his head around the door and nodded at him. Danby assumed that had meant the retrieval team had started retrieving.
Ten minutes later the American had been beeped. He left the room like his duds were on fire.
And now here they all were - actual important people - making small talk.
'You wouldn't credit this would you,' David Bailey, his Kiwi counterpart whispered. 'What do you reckon the odds are of having an international crisis only a week after taking this portfolio?'
Danby turned to Bailey, a wiry little man who looked not unlike a bantam rooster. 'Welcome to the Foreign Minister's club,' he smiled, 'where shit happens daily.'
Bailey gave a snort of laughter. 'I suppose I should be grateful I'm not in the middle of organising a major international meeting like you are, Aaron.'
Danby shrugged. 'Another bonus of our club, David, is that 'we' don't have to organise anything anymore. The SETSA meeting is being tooled to perfection by an entire city full of bureaucrats who I'm sure are thrilled to have something different to do with their time. We just have to meet and talk, front up and negotiate, turn up and argue.'
Bailey smiled. 'What on earth do you suppose that American spy is up to?'
'No good, no doubt,' Danby said, acknowledging Mick who this time had entered the room without his poker face. 'But it looks like my only source of reliable intel may have news.'
Mick