My feet hammered against the hillside as I sprinted away from the crumbling temple behind me, the hollering of Crowley’s men echoing closer and closer as they quickly realised I’d made it out of their trap alive.
‘Start the plane!’ I shouted at the top of my lungs to Raul, my pilot, sitting casually in his cockpit, flicking through a magazine. He looked up at me and, with a start, quickly leapt into action getting the engine ready to take off.
‘What did you do, Doc?’ he asked with genuine astonishment as I threw myself into one of the passenger seats behind him.
‘Just fly,’ I wheezed, dropping my hat onto my face as I struggled to relax. I felt the plane lurch underneath us, then the unmistakable feeling of us taking to the air.
‘No Jabar?’ Raul called back from the front of the plane.
‘Jabar had other plans,’ I muttered from underneath the hat.
‘But sir,’ Raul frowned, turning back to look at me with concern. ‘Didn’t you trust Jabar with the location of your secret local mechanic operating near Glen Iris?’
‘I did, Raul,’ I sighed. ‘I did. Crowley got his hooks in him.’
‘I see, sir,’ Raul nodded sadly. ‘I see.’
‘I can never go back there,’ I whispered, slightly tipping the brim of my hat back. ‘Best damn mechanic I ever knew, and I can never go back.’
‘Oh, you don’t know that, sir,’ Raul said, cheerfully. ‘One day this will all seem like a distant memory, and we’ll laugh about it together.’
‘I suppose.’
‘And you do always have that car service mechanic local to Malvern to visit in an emergency, right sir?’
‘I guess – wait a minute,’ I frowned, pushing the hat off my face entirely. ‘How did you know about—’
Raul stood over me, eyebrow raised and gun very much cocked. He gestured with the barrel and I swore.
‘You as well? What, is everybody in this damn jungle going to betray me.’
‘Only the smart ones, Doctor,’ Raul said with a laugh, and I noticed that he was wearing a parachute – the only parachute.