Finally, Mrs Winters was on her way, Sergeant Schueling was on his way, and cool and friendly to the end, the three elders were on their way also, although beneath their smiles, the agents would have liked nothing better than to have shot both Mrs Winters and Sergeant Schueling. Between her ringing the police, Sergeant Schueling getting there and moving around like a sloth with a haemorrhoid problem when he did, the agents were now hours behind time and it would be dark when they arrived in Muswellbrook trying to find a yellow 1936 Buick and somewhere to stay for the night.
It was late and the pool was filling with children being coached in the finer arts of swimming when Mick folded his towel, marked the page in his book and put it in his backpack. He drove back to the hotel and went straight to his room. After a quick shave in the shower block he changed into a pair of jeans and a grey Powderfinger T-shirt, then plugged in his radio. Mick was lying back on the bed listening to James Blundell on a country music station when Jesse came in the door. She had a newspaper in her bag and an odd look on her face.
‘Hey. How did you go?’ asked Mick.
Jesse handed Mick the newspaper and tossed her bag on the other bed. ‘Read that,’ she said, without bothering to sit down. ‘It’s the afternoon edition. Have a look on page three.’
Mick switched off the radio and took the Newcastle paper. Andrew Johns had cut himself shaving, so that was splashed all over the front page. A captured tiger shark at Stockton Beach was on the second page. But the top half of the third page was a graphic photo taken at the Fenton Avenue crime scene, with the story taking up the bottom half of the page. Mick sat up on the bed as Jesse sat down on hers.
‘Holy bloody hell!’ said Mick. ‘That’s…’
‘Your place,’ nodded Jesse.
‘And that’s…’
‘What’s left of your van.’
‘Shit a brick!’
‘Something like that. Yes,’ said Jesse.
With Jesse watching him impassively, Mick read the report, then read it again before putting the paper down and staring at her across the short distance between their beds.
‘It says they arrested Andrew. But his mother rang me after the funeral and said not to take any notice of what he said. And when I bumped into him in the street one day he apologised. Why…?’
‘Mick,’ Jesse said quietly. ‘There’s a couple of things I’ve been meaning to tell you…dear.’
‘Meaning to tell me,’ echoed Mick. ‘Like what…Oz?’
Jesse looked at the floor for a moment then looked up at Mick. ‘Mick. The Pentagon have got an open file on Tesla with NORAD called Assignment Arragon.’
‘NORAD?’ enquired Mick.
‘Yes, Mick. The North American Aerospace Defence Command. Underneath Pikes Peak in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. It’s part of their Star Wars defence shield.’
‘Star Wars. Okay. And what’s this Assignment Arragon?’
‘Assignment Arragon,’ said Jesse, ‘is to do with Tesla’s death ray machine. When he died, trunks of his papers went missing. The Russians got some. The old Yugoslavia got some. The Yanks got a few. But the important ones are still missing. Whoever finds them, finds the key to the ultimate non-nuclear weapon.’
‘So that’s what we’re looking for now?’ said Mick. ‘A box of papers.’
Jesse shook her head. ‘No. Tesla built a death ray machine out here all right. Assignment Arragon is mainly the search for the instructions on how to build it. What they don’t know is the thing’s already built. Or maybe they do know, but they don’t know where. Who knows what they know?’
‘And they being NORAD?’
Jesse shook her head. ‘No. I believe it’s the NSA.’
‘The NSA? Who’s the bloody NSA?’
‘That’s the other thing I have to tell you, Mick. Remember round your place on Wednesday night, I looked up Project Piggie on the internet and the monitor went all funny?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I said it was a power surge.’ Jesse pointed to the paper. ‘After reading that, I reckon the NSA hacked into your computer.’
‘Hacked into my computer?’ Mick shook his head. ‘Christ, Oz! As well as worried, I’m getting a bit confused. All right. Who’s the bloody NSA? And what’ve they got to do with Project bloody Piggie?’
‘Okay,’ replied Jesse. ‘The NSA is the United States National Security Agency. The Yanks set it up after 9/11 along with the Patriot Act.’
‘Go on,’ said Mick.
‘These people are like the right-wing weirdo that organised them. Crazy. They see terrorists under every bed. In their cornflakes. Down the dunny. Up their grandmother’s dress. And as well as being crazy, they’re ruthless. They don’t give a shit who they kill or kidnap in good old Uncle Sam’s war against terrorism.’
‘Not to mention freedom and democracy and God bless America.’
‘Yeahhh. Well, yuh got that right, pilgrim,’ drawled Jesse.
‘Okay,’ said Mick. ‘Now back to Project Piggie.’
‘All right,’ said Jesse. ‘Project Piggie has to be a spin-off from Assignment Arragon. Tesla might have alluded to it at some time. Now it’s keyed
into a Pentagon search engine. I triggered it at your place. And bingo! They zeroed in on you and sent someone to stop you from finding it. In other words, Mick, the NSA is on your arse. And mine too, you can bet.’
Mick stared at Jesse for a moment. ‘In other words, Oz, we blew it. All that talk about saving our arses is out the window. We’re rooted.’
‘Yes,’ Jesse replied slowly. ‘You could pretty much say that.’
Mick stood up and threw his hands in the air. ‘Well, that’s it. We got to get home. And we got to go to the police. And you’d better ring your parents. I’ll ring my sister.’ Mick reached for his bag. ‘Where’s my phone?’
Jesse shook her head firmly and stopped him. ‘No,’ she emphasised. ‘Using your mobile’s the worst thing you can do. If they could find you through your computer, they’ll trace you even quicker on your mobile.’
‘Then we’ll go to the local police,’ said Mick. ‘Come on. They’re just up the road.’
‘No,’ said Jesse again. ‘Mick. This is that big, you can’t even trust the cops.’
‘Can’t trust the local wallopers? Well, if you can’t trust them, who can you trust?’
‘No one,’ said Jesse. ‘We’re on our own.’
‘On our own? Oh shit! That’s just great.’ Mick looked directly at Jesse. ‘So what are we gonna do?’
‘Do? Nothing,’ replied Jesse.
‘Nothing? What, just let them shoot us or blow us up? Yeah, pig’s arse. You’re talking to a Newcastle boy here, woman.’
‘By nothing, Mick,’ explained Jesse, ‘I mean, nothing for the time being. Carry on as planned and see if we can find this thing. And whether we do or don’t, we still go to the papers first thing Monday and give them the story. In fact, your car getting blown up could make this gig worth even more money.’
‘Oh, great, Oz,’ said Mick, sitting back on the bed. ‘You might even get a book out of it.’
‘Hey, don’t worry. I’ve been thinking about that, handsome. The advance would be astronomical.’
Mick rolled his eyes. ‘Fair dinkum. I don’t believe you. The bloody NSA have just tried to kill me. Now they probably want to kill you as well. And all you can think about is money.’
Jesse reached over and took Mick’s hand. ‘Mick, I’m only thinking of you, darling. Look at all the money you spent on this room. I want you to get some back.’
Mick snatched his hand away. ‘Okay. That’s it,’ he said. ‘Get out. Go on. Go and get a room in a motel. We’re finished.’
‘Fair enough,’ replied Jesse. She wiggled her backside on the bed and ran her hands between her thighs. ‘But remember, sugar lips, if I go, this goes with me.’
Mick’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ooohh, you’re a bastard of a woman,’ he said.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ purred Jesse, ‘people tell me I’m nice.’
‘All right then,’ said Mick. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Like I told you. Nothing,’ said Jesse. ‘Just keep doing what we’re doing. And stay very low key.’ She looked at Mick for a second. ‘Your bright yellow Buick could be a problem, though.’
‘Well,’ smiled Mick. ‘Funny you should say that.’
Mick told Jesse about seeing the publican, parking the Buick then going round to Ralphy Boy and picking up the old Holden.
Mick held up the keys. ‘And it’s parked out the back right now. With a full tank of petrol.’
‘Oh. Well done,’ said Jesse. ‘We’re laughing.’
‘Thanks,’ smiled Mick. ‘I feel better already.’ Mick put the paper to one side and eased back on
the bed. ‘So how did you go at the library?’ he asked. ‘Did you find anything?’
‘Did I find anything?’ echoed Jesse. ‘Mick. I read every bloody book there was on old Muswellbrook. And there was no sign of a Klaus Slate anywhere.’
‘What about the bank robbery?’ said Mick.
‘That would have been in an old newspaper. And apart from the
Muswellbrook Chronicle
, all the old newspapers from this area are long gone.’
‘Oh.’
‘But I did come across something.’
‘You did?’
Jesse had the contents of the two old briefcases in a plastic case in her overnight bag. She opened it and took out the paysheets that had been in Lander Oldfield’s briefcase. She then sat down next to Mick and compared one of the paysheets to the photocopy she’d done in the library.
‘Okay,’ she said, pointing them out to Mick. ‘In amongst the thousand or so bloody books I went through this afternoon, there was one called
A History of the Seaton Family.
’
‘Seaton?’ said Mick.
‘Yes. They were an old pioneering family. They settled here in 1820. Molan Seaton and his beautiful young wife Orseline.’
‘Orseline? I put that in the Buick to stop the tappets rattling.’
‘Actually, it’s an old Dutch name,’ replied Jesse. ‘Anyway. Molan and his missus must have liked a root. Because they had fifteen children.’
‘Fifteen bloody kids,’ said Mick. ‘Christ! Couldn’t Molan drag his arse down to Blockbuster and rent a couple of videos?’
Jesse ignored him. ‘So from the original ankle biters, they all went on to become timber merchants, land owners, cattle farmers, on the council, off to war, whatever. Amongst them was Reginald Seaton, a lightweight boxer. He went away for six months in 1925. And when he came back, he opened up a saddlery, just off the main drag. That’s all it said about him. But…’ Jesse pointed to a line of figures on one of the paysheets. ‘On that paysheet is a Reginald Seaton. And,’ Jesse took out Tesla’s diary and opened it, ‘on this page here Tesla says, amongst other things, “A surprising event happened at the hotel tonight. I was confronted outside the dining room by a brooding great bully. One of our workers, Reginald Seaton, a young man of only quite small stature, came to my assistance and rendered the much larger man unconscious with two punches. I was so impressed, I gave
Reginald one hundred pounds. I kept my generosity from Lander and the others and requested young Mr Seaton do the same. But my word, it was a plucky effort.”’ Jesse winked at Mick. ‘So what do you think of that? Reginald Seaton was working for Klaus Slate, aka Nikola Tesla.’
Mick smiled and slipped his arm around her. ‘Oz. You are a genius. No wonder I worship and adore you.’
‘Thank you, my jewel,’ Jesse smiled back. ‘But it gets better. I asked the librarian, and even though the saddlery has been closed for years, the old shop is still there. And there’s a W and H Seaton still living at that address.’
‘Which means?’
‘They have to be family going back to Reginald Seaton.’
‘Oh yeah, baby,’ enthused Mick. ‘So what do you want to do?’
‘Go round and see the Seatons. You never know. They might be able to tell us where Reginald got to in 1925.’
‘Okay,’ said Mick. ‘Let’s go.’
Jesse shook her head. ‘Not right now. I’ve been sitting on my big fat arse in a library all day and I need to stretch out.’
‘Which means you want to go for a walk,’ muttered Mick.
‘Yeah. You coming with me?’
‘Do I have to?’
‘Not unless you wish to incur my wrath.’
Although Mick truly loved Jesse and everything about her, he didn’t particularly like the walks. She never spoke, and she walked like a demon. Mick would have preferred to simply run for an hour and be done with it. The only way he handled the walks was to slip a couple of metres behind Jesse, remain deep in thought and watch her adorable tight rump moving from side to side while he hurried to keep up.
Mick shook his head. ‘Okay. I’ll get out of my nice clean gear. I just had a bloody shave too.’
‘And you look so nice,’ smiled Jesse, running a hand across Mick’s face.
‘What if the NSA are out there looking for us?’
‘We’ll just have to burn those bridges when we come to them,’ replied Jesse.
‘Okay,’ said Mick. ‘But don’t let them pull the rug from over your eyes.’
Jesse unzipped her jeans. ‘I’m also working on another theory,’ she said.
‘Another one? Like what?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
Jesse got out of the clothes she was wearing into a pair of shorts, an old white T-shirt, trainers and a sweatband. Mick changed into much the same gear, except for an old black T-shirt with the sleeves missing. There wasn’t much room between the beds and Mick managed to bump into Jesse a few times while she was in her underwear. Jesse warned him off and before long, Mick found himself outside the hotel doing stretches with her. When they’d finished, he asked Jesse which way she wanted to go. Jesse sniffed the air and pointed west.
They took off down the street, turned left and passed under the railway bridge. Jesse indicated straight ahead at the lights and soon they were following a long flat road past shops and houses on the left and fields on the right as the road arrowed towards the distant mountain ranges. Sweat stinging his face, Mick fell back his customary two metres behind Jesse and mulled over the photo of what was left of his van. He also thought about the people that wanted him dead and wondered if Jesse might be taking the search for Tesla’s death ray machine a bit lightly.
While Jesse and Mick were power walking into the sunset, the people in question were arriving
in Muswellbrook with the two ASIO officers dodging in and out of traffic further behind them.
‘So this is Muswellbrook,’ said Agent Niland. ‘It reminds me of that movie
The Last Picture Show.
’