There was potentially a WMD on its way and yet here she was, waiting for it to arrive. What the hell am I doing in this place? She lay in the unfamiliar bed struggling in vain for the release of sleep, and just succeeded in pulling out the sheets and making things even more uncomfortable as she tossed and turned. The heat had a lot to do with her inability to get comfortable. Something had happened to the hotel’s air-con and the mercury had begun to rise immediately thereafter. The blokes had been unable to fix it quickly and the hotel maintenance staff had long since gone south, so the technicians gave up trying, lest they do permanent damage to the system. The windows in all the rooms had been taped up and covered with plastic sheeting. A small, noisy fan pushed close, fetid air around the room, clicking noisily as it swept from left to right. ‘Five star, my arse,’ she said quietly. Annabelle took her mind back to the previous day – the airport, the NBC suit, the chaos and then utter stillness of Darwin itself.
