I vaguely remember somebody yelling instructions to ‘secure him with that harness’. That would explain my partly constrained right side. I feel the icy-cold metal buckle and webbing, and a freezing wind whipping across my face.
I manage to push myself up, my back against the side of the wildly flying Utility. My head doesn’t register much, just illogical emptiness, and there is a deafening silence. My head aches – my hand comes away sticky – my blood, I presume.
Slowly the fog starts to clear. I remember the long, dusty drive north off the Eyre Highway, hours out into the desert, eventually crossing the Adelaide to Perth railway, and finally the locked security gates. The intercom brings a vaguely military-looking guy, a huge handlebar moustache above several prominent gold teeth, and a gruff, heavily accented demand for explanation about my visit and my authorisations.
Both ASIO and Signals Directorate want urgent investigation into an unusual series of high-frequency data transmissions, traced back to the enriched nuclear storage facility at Maralinga, the former British Atomic testing range. My brief suggests extensive communications, transmitted in Farsi, and taken as a Code Red breach of security.
‘Goldtooth’ escorts me to the old corrugated building now doubling as an Admin centre. A heavily tattooed, orange-haired receptionist takes me into a small office, advising that the OIC will be with me directly. ”Would you like tea, coffee, or water?”
I remember the heavily sweetened tea, but everything else is pretty jumbled. There is a big face, close and enquiring, some mumbling.
And now here I am, bound, bouncing, and bruised. I continue to catapult around the back. I have occasional views over the sides, more so as we rocket across the heavily eroded track. I guess the Ute is back on the road I was on several hours earlier, although without the cautious regard for the washouts and steep, dry creek crossings.
I see a mob of kangaroos on one aerial bounce. I’m airborne again as we catapult over the railway, and a while later, a short, brief transit on a smooth bitumen surface, before we’re back onto a rough bush track. I can hear snatches of deeply melodic music, possibly of Middle Eastern origins. I also smell a cigarette and see an arm extended from the driver’s window.
I squirm and grab my left shoe. With my free hand, I swivel the heel, revealing and then activating the GPS emergency beacon. I replace the shoe.
Twenty minutes later the Ute stops. I hear waves, and I suspect we must be somewhere near the Head of Bight. ‘Goldtooth’, and another guy manhandle me down onto the beach, to the water’s edge. As I crumple, I hear one of them chuckle, suggesting “…the Great Whites will enjoy this morsel.”
I hear the rapidly approaching whirr. Swearing, then moments later, the Ute screams into life. A wave breaks over me, then the wash of the chopper’s downdraft, moving away in pursuit.
Just another day at the office!