After making arrangements for Wendy’s bag to be brought to the hotel’s storage room, she checked out.
During the short ride to the airport, she began to wonder about defying the police inspector’s request to remain on Hamilton
Island. She wondered if security people at the airport might try to stop her. But there was no problem and she boarded the plane for Brisbane without any incident.
In Brisbane she had a short wait before she boarded a commuter plane with only twelve seats. At a little after nine in the evening, the plane lifted off the tarmac, and headed due west toward Charleville, a town situated on the edge of the broad expanse of the Australian outback.
While Marissa was flying over the Great Dividing Ran 9e, a series of mountains separating the narrow, lush coastline from the rest of Australia, Ned Kelly and Willy Tong climbed the stairs in the mostly darkened FCA clinic and headed for the deserted administration area. The door to Charles Lester’s office was ajar. The two men walked in unannounced.
Charles looked up from a puddle of light emanating from his brass desk lamp. The shadows made his deep eye sockets appear blank like a man with no eyes. His mouth beneath his heavy mustache was clamped shut with the corners downturned.
Charles was not happy.
“Sit down!” he ordered.
Ned flopped casually into one of the chairs facing the desk while Willy leaned up against a bookcase.
“I just heard what happened on the evening news,” Lester said.
“You’ve managed to make things worse. First, you only got rid of one of the women. The one you let get away is talking about her friend’s death being deliberate because she saw you two blokes. The police, it seems, are investigating.”
“How were we to know one of them would come out of the water while we were throwing in the chum?” Ned said.
“It was a bit of bad luck. Otherwise it would have worked. We tossed in enough bait to summon every shark from the entire Coral Sea.”
“But eliminating one and raising suspicions is not what you were supposed to do,” Lester snapped.
“Now it is imperative rather than merely advisable that this second woman be eliminated.
It said on the news that her name was Dr. Marissa Blumenthal-Buchanan.”
“I know which one it is,” Ned said.
“The sheila with the brown hair.”
“You want us to go back to Hamilton Island and hit her?”
Willy asked.
“I want you to do whatever it takes,” Lester said.
“What if she’s already left the island?” Ned asked.
“I doubt she’s left with an investigation underway,” 1,ester said.
“But let’s call the hotel. You said she was staying at the Hamilton Island Resort?”
“That’s the one,” Ned said.
Lester picked up his phone and, after obtaining the number, called the hotel. To his dismay he learned that Mrs. Buchanan had already checked out.
Lester stood up and leaned over his desk.
“I want you mates to clean this affair up. Ned, you start looking for this woman in the usual hotels, here and in Sydney. Use our government connections to find out if she’s left the country. Willy, I want you to visit Tristan Williams and hang around. This Mrs. Buchanan had originally talked about finding the man. If she were to have a conversation with him, a bad situation could conceivably get far worse.”
“What if she’s already left the country?” Ned asked.
“I want her disposed of,” Lester said.
“I don’t care where she goes, the States or even Europe. Is that clear?”
Ned stood up.
“Perfectly clear,” he said.
“It’ll be a challenge.
But then, I like challenges.”
April 9, 19907:11 Am.
Marissa woke up feeling exhausted. She had not had a good night’s sleep. She had checked into a tidy motel in Charleville and, though her bed was comfortable, she’d hardly done more than doze. Every time she closed her eyes, she’d see that great white shark. The few times she managed to fall asleep, she’d be shocked awake by a nightmare vision of Wendy in the shark’s jaws. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, she did sleep fitfully for almost three hours.