Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

The loadmaster turned and whistled to his crew. “Pull the other pallets off and load her up with this one. And make it quick,” he grumbled. “We’re not getting paid by the hour.”

As the ground crew went to work, a young woman from inside the charter company’s office brought Joe an ice-cold bottle of water. She smiled at him, all dimples and sparkling eyes.

“Thank you,” he said.

“My pleasure, sir.”

She winked and turned with a swish, and Joe had to fight hard to keep himself from following.

He stood and considered the situation. He was accustomed to being covered in grease and neck-deep in the hands-on work. He’d certainly never considered himself the supervisor type. But as he sipped the cool drink and watched from the shade while the heavy cargo pallets were pulled off and rearranged in the strong morning sun, he began to consider it an option.

He straightened his tie and glanced once more at the smiling customer service rep.

“A guy could get used to this.”

* * *

A few hours later and a thousand miles away, Kurt Austin waited in the cab of a boxy-looking flatbed. He watched as the CASA-212 landed on the centerline of the tiny Alice Springs Regional Airport and taxied toward him.

As the aircraft eased to a stop, Kurt put the truck in gear and drove up. While the ground crew went to work on the plane, Kurt climbed out of the cab and onto the flatbed. He activated the truck’s hydraulics and tilted the flatbed down until its far edge touched the ground like a ramp. By the time he locked it in place, the ground crew had begun wheeling the pallet with the speeders on it toward him.

Kurt attached a cable to the front of the pallet and used the flatbed’s winch to haul it up on board. After locking it in place, he leveled the flatbed once again and jumped down.

Joe Zavala sauntered out of the aircraft cabin a moment later, wearing a tailored suit and sunglasses.

“Looking sharper than I remember,” Kurt said.

“I’m in management now,” Joe said. “We have to dress for success.”

Kurt chuckled. He and Joe had been friends for years. They’d met at NUMA, finding themselves to be kindred spirits who’d rather be doing anything than sitting around bored. They’d been called troublemakers, undesirables, and been thrown out of at least twenty bars in their lifetimes, though none in the past year or so. But in the often tense and dangerous world that NUMA worked in, there were none better at keeping their cool and getting the job done.

“By the way,” Joe said, “you owe me five hundred dollars.”

Kurt paused at the door. “For what?”

“I had to grease the skids to get these things here.”

Kurt pulled the door open and climbed in. “You’re in management now. Put it on your expense account.”

Joe got in on the other side. “You are my expense account,” he said. “Now, how about telling me what we’re doing out here in the driest of the dry with a truckload of diving equipment.”

“I’ll explain on the road,” Kurt said, starting the engine. “We’re burning daylight.”

They drove off the airport grounds and were soon rumbling west, out of Alice Springs and into the desert.

As they drove, Joe changed his clothes, and Kurt explained the situation, starting with the events in Sydney and his odd meeting with Hayley Anderson and Cecil Bradshaw of the ASIO.

“The courier had red dust on him. It was packed into the mesh of his clothing. Bradshaw called it a palaeosol. It’s very old and infertile and commonly found here in the outback. Half the reason this place is so barren. The dead guy also had a mix of toxic metals on his skin. The kind usually found in mining operations.”

“Again pointing in this direction,” Joe said.

“Exactly,” Kurt said. “The problem was the decompression sickness. I’m certain the guy had the bends, but most of the lakes out here are transient. Even the year-round ones are shallow.”

He motioned to the surroundings. There was nothing but desert and dust in every direction, right out to the horizon.

“And yet, you’ve found a place out here where the water is both deep and poisonous.”

Kurt nodded. “Ever hear of the Berkeley Pit?”