Outback

OUTBACKThe Desmond Bagley Centenary ThrillerMichael Davies CopyrightHarperCollinsPublishers Ltd1 London Bridge Street,London SE1 9GFwww.harpercollins.co.ukFirst published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023Copyright © Michael Davies, 2023Map copyright © Nicolette Caven, 2023Michael Davies asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this workJacket design by Claire Ward/HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023Jacket photographs: Phil Copp/Getty ImagesA catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.Source ISBN: 9780008581350Ebook Edition © May 2023 ISBN: 9780008581374Version: 2023-04-06 DedicationFor Tricia – for real this timeAnd for my boys –Matthew, Ethan, Alex and Oliver ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationAuthor’s NoteMapPart One: BlueChapter IChapter IIChapter IIIChapter IVChapter VPart Two: GoldChapter IChapter IIChapter IIIChapter IVChapter VPart Three: RedChapter IChapter IIChapter IIIChapter IVPart Four: BlackChapter IChapter IIChapter IIIChapter IVChapter VChapter VIAlso in this seriesAbout the Publisher AUTHOR’S NOTEI have something of a complicated relationship with Bill Kemp. I’ve now lived with him through two adventures, spread across the globe and almost five years, and he’s been an entertaining companion. Described by Jeffrey Deaver as ‘part James Bond, part Philip Marlowe, and all hero’, he certainly gets himself into some interesting scrapes, and it’s been a delight to bring a few more of them into the light for your enjoyment.And yet he doesn’t quite belong to me.Bill Kemp – albeit under a different name – was the creation of Desmond Bagley, one of the world’s best-loved thriller writers through the 1960s, 70s and 80s. He initially appeared in Domino Island, a novel whose first draft was discovered in the archives 35 years after Bagley’s death and which was finally delivered to an excited public by his longstanding publishers HarperCollins in 2019. I had the privilege of editing, redrafting and polishing that early manuscript – we ended up calling it ‘curating’ – and that was how I came to know and cherish Bill Kemp.I’d known and cherished Desmond Bagley a lot longer than that. My older brother Patrick reminds me that it was a teacher at school, Paul Wickham, who first introduced us to the thrills and spills of Bagley’s novels; Running Blind, The Tightrope Men and The Enemy were particular favourites. When the opportunity arose to find ways of celebrating the centenary of Bagley’s birth, I immediately knew there was more to Bill Kemp that could be explored. His natural resourcefulness, military background and sheer bloody-mindedness made him an ideal candidate for putting through the wringer in a new, original story that would aim not to mimic Bagley but to pay modest tribute to the master and his legacy: sixteen novels over a period of eighteen years until his early death, aged just 59, in 1983.The project would never have come to fruition without the support, encouragement and hard work of a number of people. Foremost in that group comes David Brawn, Estates Publisher at HarperCollins, who has nurtured the memory of Desmond Bagley – not least by keeping all his books in print – while juggling other behemoths such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Agatha Christie and Alistair MacLean. David’s assiduous care of Bagley’s literary legacy is a mark both of his professional excellence and of his love of the work, and I suspect his deceased authors owe him just as much a debt as this living one does. David was kind enough to bestow upon me the wonderful editor Sophia Schoepfer, whose perspicacity and attention to detail have contributed considerably to the finished novel. Along the way, the ever-generous Paul Campbell offered terrific advice while another keeper of the Bagley flame, Nigel Alefounder, has always been on hand with an encouraging word. I urge you to pay a visit to his highly informative website at desmondbagley.blogspot.com, as well as Philip Eastwood’s comprehensive biographical one, thebagleybrief.com.Outside the publishing world, I was lucky enough to enjoy a brief but joyous correspondence with Bagley’s widow Joan before her own death in 1999. Fortunately for me, Joan’s sister Lecia and her husband Peter have, in the years since, made me feel a very welcome part of the Bagley story and theirs is a friendship I continue to cherish. Their love and inspiration have been major factors in my ongoing Bagley obsession and I hope they will feel I have done the family justice with my tribute.There is, of course, another person without whom this novel would never have happened. For Desmond Bagley – known to friends and family as Simon, for reasons unclear – his wife Joan provided an intellectual sounding board, a safe space in which to play with his stories, and an invaluable first-read editor. Indeed, she herself prepared two of his manuscripts for posthumous publication. I have been blessed with my own equivalent in the shape of my wife Tricia, who has supported and enabled the book to be written. Thank you for being you.Oh, and if you’re wondering about Bill Kemp’s original name, there’s a story. Bagley christened him Robert Armin, after a member of the troupe of actors for whom Shakespeare wrote and performed. While I was working on Domino Island, my sense was that the name Armin was too similar to the notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and might prompt some unhelpful associations in the mind of the reader, so instead I borrowed the name of another Shakespearean colleague for our hero. Bagley had explicitly given permission for the book to be retitled (he had even