by Gary Gregor
Desperation driving her thinking. Desperate situations make for desperate decisions and desperate decisions often lead to ill-conceived actions. Whatever decisions Tracy made in relation to the dilemma she and her class were in had to be well thought out. This was not a time for knee-jerk actions which may very well make their situation worse than it already was; if that were possible. But she had to do something. The man said he would release them all when he got what he wanted from the authorities. Should she just sit and wait for that to happen? What if it didn’t happen? What if no ransom was paid? She didn’t know much about how these things worked but she seemed to recall there was a policy for police not to pay ransom money to kidnappers. The police did not know where they were. No one knew where they were. If the kidnappers didn’t get their money, would they flee and leave them all here; perhaps to starve to death, or die of thirst? Tracy shuddered at the thought.
She looked again at the vent in the ceiling. If there was a way out, this had to be it. Just unscrew the vent cover and take a look. What harm could it do just to look? If the space underneath was too narrow to escape through, they could screw the cover back into place and re-think the whole idea.
She glanced back at the children, huddled together across the room. Most of them were still looking back at her, as though in anticipation of her taking some sort of action. Others reclined on their respective mattresses and talked in hushed tones. John Jabaldjari and his best friend Toby Miller were speaking quietly together, their heads almost touching. Occasionally one, or both of them would glance up at the ceiling vent.
“Toby, John, please come here boys,” Tracy called to them.
Hesitatingly, the two boys got to their feet and shuffled across to stand in front of their teacher.
“Yes, Miss?” Toby asked.
“There is something I want to talk to you both about,” Tracy said.
“Yes, Miss?” Toby said again.
Tracy got to her feet and stood close in front of the boys. “You know that game some of you play in the school yard, the one where one of you stands on the other’s shoulders and then somersaults off?”
“The dangerous game, Miss?” Toby asked.
“Well, yes, I think it is a dangerous game,” Tracy answered. “If it doesn’t work properly, you could get very seriously hurt.”
“That’s why we are not allowed to play that game anymore,” Toby said.
“That’s right, Toby. I had to ask you to stop because I don’t want anyone to break an arm, or a leg, or maybe worse.”
“We know, Miss. We don’t play that game anymore.”
“I know, I know,” Tracy nodded. “I also know that you and John were very good at the game.”
“We still play,” Toby said. “But not at school.”
“Okay,” Tracy smiled. “I thought that might be the case. Anyway, I want to ask you both something.”
“About the game, Miss?” Toby asked.
Tracy nodded. “Yes, sort of. Remember I spoke to you about the air vent, up there in the ceiling?”
“I remember,” Toby said.
“Do you think, if one of you sat on the other’s shoulders, you could unscrew the cover on the vent?”
Surprised, both boys turned their heads and looked up at the air vent.
John Jabaldjari was first to turn back to Tracy. “Might be like skinnin’ dat Kangaroo tail,” he said.
“What, John?” Tracy asked.
“Dat be easy, Miss,” Jabaldjari explained.
Tracy looked at Toby Miller. “Is he right, Toby? Would it be easy?”
“Easy for us, Miss,” Toby answered.
“Might be we need dat knife,” John said, inclining his head towards his knife laying on the mattress at Tracy’s feet.
“Of course,” Tracy responded. “But just the screw-driver part, right?”
“Yes, Miss,” John answered, sheepishly.
“Miss?” Toby Miller said.
“Yes, Toby?”
“What if the man with the gun comes in?”
“We will hear him,” Tracy said. “We will hear him unlocking the door and you can stop what you are doing and he will never know.”
“Okay, Miss,” Toby said. “Shall we do it now?”
Tracy raised a cautionary hand. “No, not yet. We will have a sing-song with the rest of the class. That will hide any noise you might make and the man outside will not know what you are doing.”
“Okay, Miss.”
“You can go and sit with the others now,” Tracy said. “I will tell you when to start.”
The two boys turned and headed briskly back to join their classmates. There was a spring in their step now, Tracy noticed. They were excited about what they had been asked to do. This was a big thing for the two friends. In the very short walk back to the group, their shoulders seemed no longer slumped as though in defeat. Their step was a little more jaunty than before. Responsibility had been placed upon their young shoulders. They were being asked to undertake a risky, possibly dangerous task. The adventurous, mildly rebellious, devil-may-care characteristics of youth were back. Tracy couldn’t help but smile as she watched the boys rejoin the class.
It was just another example of one of the many things Tracy loved about her job as a teacher; the remarkable resilience of children. They were scared. They were confronted with the unknown. There was every reason for each of them to be paralyzed with fear. But there was something about the inner strength and resilience of young children that never failed to amaze her.
As she looked across the room at her class, she saw they were all fully awake now and chatting amongst themselves. They were still scared, she could see that in their faces, but they were together and it was like whatever the future held in store for them they would all face it together. Perhaps for the children, it was all just an adventure; a big, scary adventure that would be over soon and they would all go home to their families.
Tracy shuddered. A brief, uncontrolled, unwelcome shiver vibrated through her body. A premonition perhaps, she thought? Of what? Of what awaited her and the children? She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and waited for her the ominous feeling to subside.
19
Craig Garrett moved across to the heavy, steel door and leaned in close. The sound of children singing coming from the other side of the door was muffled making the lyrics of the song they were singing indistinct. The melody was vaguely familiar, though the name of the song escaped him. He remembered singing in class when he was a young student but his school days were now long behind him. Besides, in recent times there was nothing about his life that would inspire him to sing, or even enjoy listening to music. Music, song, and dance were for happy people and Craig Garrett was not one who would be considered a happy person.
As he listened to the tune filtering through the heavy door, he wondered what the children and their teacher could possibly find to sing about. They were locked in a small, compact room, buried under hundreds of tons of earth, and with a locked door standing between them and the freedom on offer outside. Their future was unknown – at least to them. In Garrett’s mind, there was nothing about that particular scenario that anyone would want to sing about.
He supposed the teacher was keeping her students occupied. Eleven little rug-rats, full of energy and mischief, had to be hard to control at the best of times. For them, this was not the best of times. They had to be frightened. Somehow, their teacher had to take control. If not to totally allay their fears but to keep their little minds busy so they were not constantly thinking about the situation they were in. Garrett was not convinced singing songs was going to achieve that objective, but the girl was their teacher, she knew her students, so, if she wanted them to sing childhood ditties, so be it.
His thoughts turned more closely to the teacher – Tracy. She was young, she was pretty, and she had a body that would turn any man’s head. It was a shame she had to die along with her students. But she had seen his face. If they let her go, she cou
ld identify him. She could give the police a very good description of him. He was well known in military circles; his face had been splashed all over the national media during his Court-Martial. One, probably many more than one, of his former army mates could identify him. How long would it take for the police to name him as a suspect? Every cop in the Territory, in the whole country, would be on the lookout for him. She had to go. It was not a plan he relished but the alternative was not worth thinking about.
Killing them all was Liam Frayne’s idea. Frayne was a sadistic bastard who seemed to take great pleasure in killing people. At least that was Garretts experience of his friend during their deployment in Afghanistan. Frayne was never all that concerned with taking prisoners. Interrogation and information gathering had never been one of his strong points. “Shoot the towel-head bastards and let Allah sort them out” was the motto Frayne lived by.
Perhaps there was a little jealousy involved in relation to Liam and the teacher, Garrett thought. Liam was keen on her, after all. He admitted to as much when he worked briefly at Haasts Bluff constructing the bus shelter adjacent to the school. “Bitch was bonking the local copper” was how he announced it to Garrett and Thomas. She rejected his advances in favour of the town cop. Shit, he didn’t want to marry the girl! A quick roll in the hay was all he wanted from her. What harm could it do. She didn’t have to tell her cop boyfriend. No one would ever know. He was leaving as soon as the bus shelter was finished. Just a quick romp. No promises or commitments. How was that going to hurt anyone? It was a simplistic way of looking at it but that was Liam Frayne’s way. He approached his whole life that way. Why complicate it with all the righteous, noble-minded bullshit?
The more he thought about it, Garrett didn’t really think it was a jealousy thing. Liam Frayne was his friend, but there was no doubting he was a hard bastard. He could kill anyone and not blink an eye. Sometimes Garrett wondered if Frayne was always like that, or was it the war? War had a habit of turning decent men, and women, into something they never were before their first taste of combat.
Most front-line soldiers dreaded the thought of going into combat. Not Liam Frayne. Frayne seemed to anticipate a looming confrontation with a relish uncharacteristic in his fellow combatants. That was Liam Frayne. That was the way he was.
While Frayne’s attitude concerned Garrett, it took nothing away from the friendship they enjoyed. Besides, Garrett, like many of his former colleagues, had developed a tough attitude in relation to war and the effects it can have on the mentality of those who experience it first-hand. Not every soldier reacts the same way to the combat experience. People are different. Liam Frayne was different. His disparateness however, did not detract from how Garrett felt about him.
Not many people stood by Garrett when he was going through the whole Court-Martial thing but Liam Frayne and Mark Thomas did. They were already his friends before the woman and baby shooting, but their loyalty never faltered and that made their friendship even stronger.
Garrett reluctantly accepted that the teacher and the kids had to die and, while he knew he could never do it himself, Liam Frayne was just the man to take care of that detail.
The random, eclectic mixture of thoughts and mental images that flashed in and out of his mind; thoughts of the past, the present, and the future, were suddenly interrupted by a much more prominent conception. What if the teacher was up to something? What if all the singing was for a purpose other than keeping the students occupied? But what? What could she possibly be planning? There was simply no escaping the room. There was only one way in, and one way out. The heavy, locked, steel door was the barrier. Even if by some miracle she found a way past the door, he stood on the other side – and he was armed. If all the singing was designed to hide the sound of an escape attempt, the teacher was deluding herself. There was no way out.
For some reason, Garrett could not get rid of the feeling of apprehension accompanying the hypothesis of an escape attempt. It was ridiculous he knew, but there it was, at the forefront of his mind. Was it a premonition? A passing, meaningless disquiet? He had planned on entering the room later in the day, for no reason other than to remind his prisoners that he was still there. To remind them that he was their captor. He was in complete charge, and they were his to do with as he pleased. It was important, he reasoned, that they were compliant. An occasional reminder, as if they needed reminding, of the situation they were now in would keep them that way.
The padlock securing the heavy, sliding pad-bolt on the door was not necessary. Without it, no one on the other side of the door was ever going to slide the pad-bolt back and open the door. It was another of Liam Frayne’s ideas. Slide the pad-bolt home and secure it in place with a heavy-duty padlock. Overkill? Almost certainly, Garrett decided. However, Liam supplied the padlock – purchased it himself. What harm could it do to humour him?
Garrett fished in his pocket, removed the key and unlocked the padlock. In the confined space the noise of the pad-bolt as he slid it back was incongruently loud in the relevant quiet of the room.
The door was constructed from heavy, reinforced steel. Why the doors separating each room had to be so rigidly made escaped him. The place was a dis-used, long abandoned military training facility; why not just use simple timber doors? Just another example of the often-irrational military decision making, he supposed.
The door squeaked loudly as it swung open on rusty hinges. The singing within faded quickly and finally ceased altogether. Garrett stepped into the room and stopped. In the middle of the room, one boy, facing away from the door, stood in front of his classmates. A second boy, somewhat smaller, sat astride his shoulders. In his hand, the second boy held what appeared to Garrett to be a pocket knife. A few inches above his head, the plastic air vent cover had been partially unscrewed from its mounting in the ceiling.
The uppermost boy turned as the door swung open and, wearing an expression of surprise mixed with fear, he scrambled clumsily off his friend’s shoulders and stood sheepishly next to his mate. Tracy stepped protectively in front of the two boys and stared at Garrett. For a few moments, a profound silence engulfed the room.
Garrett looked up at the partially dismantled air vent cover and then turned his focus to Tracy.
“Tracy, Tracy, Tracy,” he smiled. “Did I just walk in on an escape attempt?”
“There’s no air in here,” Tracy said hurriedly. “We need more ventilation.”
Garrett glanced up at the partially dismantled vent cover and then back at Tracy. “That is not an air conditioner, Tracy. It is an exhaust fan. It is powered by the wind outside and it sucks the stale air out of the room. It does not blow fresh air into the room.” He paused. “But then, I think you already knew that.”
Tracy remained silent and stared back at the man, steeling herself to remain strong and confident in front of her students.
Garrett leaned to one side, looking past Tracy at the two boys behind her. “What is that?” he asked. “Is that a pocket knife?”
Toby Miller and John Jabaldjari stood close together, their heads lowered, staring at the floor. Both boys radiated a sense of guilt; like they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
“I asked you a question, Tracy,” Garrett said with undisguised menace. “Is that a pocket knife the kid has?”
John Jabaldjari raised his head and looked around his teacher at the man standing just inside the doorway. “It’s not a pocket knife,” he said quietly.
“What?” Garrett said
Tracy half turned and spoke to Jabaldjari. “It’s okay, John,” she cautioned. “It’s okay.”
Jabaldjari glanced at his teacher and then he returned his gaze to the man. “It’s not a pocket knife. It’s a Swiss Army Knife.”
Garrett looked at Tracy. “Kid’s got a smart mouth,” he said. “Take the knife from him, Tracy.”
Tracy turned and spoke quietly to Jabaldjari. “Give me the knife please, John.”
Jabaldjari hesitated. It was his
special knife. His uncle gave it to him. He did not want to give it to anyone, let alone the bad man who locked them all in this place.
Tracy held out her hand to Jabaldjari. “Please, John, give it to me.”
Reluctantly, Jabaldjari offered the knife to Tracy. “I want it back,” he said.
“Thank you, John,” Tracy said. She accepted the multi-tool, took one step cautious towards the man, and slowly raised the hand that held the pocket knife.
“Bring it here,” Garrett ordered.
The last thing Tracy wanted to do was get any closer to the man than she already was. In relation to its dimensions, the room was not large and although several feet separated them, in the confined, compact space, she felt as though the man’s presence loomed over her. She hesitated.
“Bring it here!” the man insisted.
Tracy stepped forward and stopped just a few feet from Garrett. She held out the pocket knife and Garrett took it from her.
Garrett looked at the knife. The screw driver component of the multi-tool was still open. He closed it and dropped the knife into his pocket. He smiled at Tracy. “Thank you,” he said. “You know,” he continued. “Under that air vent cover there is a flu… an air shaft that goes up to the surface. On the outside, firmly attached to the top of the flu, there is a fan which turns as the wind blows across the top of the hill. It is designed to suck the stale air out of the room…”
