this talk about your precious father, when did you last spend a night looking after him? When did you last even visit him?’
‘I can’t get near him without you standing two metres away trying to score points off me.’
‘Get out of my face, Spider,’ Susie said, sounding exasperated. ‘Haven’t you got a service to conduct, or some stupid little beads to hand out?’
‘Devil,’ Eleanor screamed. ‘It sickens me that my father takes to his bed each night with an unbeliever.’
Susie chuckled, ‘Oh no, here we go. Your daddy didn’t meet god, Eleanor. He invented the Survivors as a way to make a bit of cash.’
Rat broke into a huge grin when he heard this blasphemy. Lauren pretended to be shocked.
Eleanor sounded genuinely upset and gave a big sob. ‘My father is a great man. A prophet. God will punish you for what you’ve done to us.’
Lauren knew all about the power struggle between Susie and Eleanor, but only now was she realising how different the two womens’ opinions about Joel Regan and being a Survivor were.
‘I’m not even interested in arguing with you,’ Susie said finally. ‘Piss off out of my way.’
The Spider pounded angrily on the door. Lauren and Rat scurried back towards the desk, half expecting her to come into the room, but after a few seconds’ silence they realised Eleanor and Susie had moved on.
Lauren gave Rat a relieved smile, followed by an excuse about having some photocopying to do. She dived off to lock herself in a toilet cubicle, grabbed the radio out of her trainer and called Chloe to tell her about Susie and Eleanor’s conversation.
‘What you say about Susie confirms the picture ASIS have been getting from other sources, including your brother,’ Chloe said. ‘But we didn’t realise that Eleanor and the other devout Survivors knew nothing about the links.’
‘Did Susie have anything to do with environmental groups before she came to the Ark?’
‘Not really,’ Chloe said. ‘The only thing the Americans turned up was that Susie refused to wear fur when she worked as a model, but a lot of models insist on that. We’ve got no idea if Susie cares about the environment, or if she’s skimming the proceeds to line her own pockets. Whatever the case, she’s definitely been using Survivor money to fund Help Earth.’
Lauren hadn’t been in touch with James since the morning run, so Chloe brought her up to speed on everything that was going on, including James finding the laboratory and the latest news from Dana.
‘Do you know where your brother is?’ Chloe asked.
‘I expect he’ll go for dinner and evening service as soon as he gets back from his delivery run,’ Lauren replied, keeping her voice really low because one of the admin staff was washing their hands on the other side of the cubicle door.
‘Right, do you think you’ll be able to ditch your schedule and meet up with James as soon as he arrives back?’
‘I guess,’ Lauren said warily. ‘This office is right next to the vehicle compound, but the teachers at the boarding school keep close tabs on us. We’ll get asked questions if we disappear for long and skipping a service is a paddling offence.’
‘OK,’ Chloe said. ‘Try not to worry about that. ASIS would prefer to wait while you guys and some of their other operations gather more evidence, but the Australian government now know that a Help Earth attack is imminent. If the public found out that the government knew in advance and didn’t warn them, the political implications would be enormous.’
‘Right,’ Lauren said. ‘So what does that mean for us?’
‘The Intelligence Minister will make a televised statement at eight-thirty this evening, putting the country on its highest state of alert. Every oil facility is going to be evacuated of all but a few essential staff. Dana and her terrorist buddies are going to be picked up when they try to set off in their boat. The Ark is going to be stormed and all the senior personnel will be detained for questioning.’
‘Stormed by who?’
‘The Australian military have had their Tactical Assault Group training for a surprise raid on the Ark ever since the link with Help Earth was first uncovered. They’re afraid that information will be destroyed, or that there’ll be a siege situation if they move in on the Ark by road. So they’re using a small airborne force: four helicopters, sixty TAG commandos and a dozen back-up personnel from ASIS. The aim is to land troops inside