Early Warning (Book 1): Martial Law

by McLean, Angus

  ‘What are they waiting for?’ Alex wondered aloud. ‘Why don’t they do something?’

  ‘What can they do?’ Gemma said.

  She kept a wary eye on the two bikes. The riders were keeping their distance but jeering at the cops, egging them on to do something. Gemma was pretty sure what Mark would have wanted to do if he was in their shoes.

  She wondered if she could approach the cops for help, but there seemed little point. They couldn’t get anywhere in this traffic anyway, even if they were available to help. She paused to consider their options.

  ‘TI Drive or Chapel Road?’ she said. ‘What d’you think?’

  ‘Chapel Rd,’ Alex said without hesitation. ‘It’s probably quieter.’

  She knew he was right. Te Irirangi Drive was another urban highway, a long double-lane road that went all the way to Manukau. A block further south, Chapel Rd ran parallel, but was more suburban and a little further from the crime-ridden ‘hood of Otara. Cutting through Dannemora, it also ended up at Manukau, but the parks and greenbelts should give them more opportunity for cover if they needed it.

  Decision made, they trotted across the junction past all the stationary cars. Gemma realised that many of them had been abandoned. She could see the frustration in the faces of many people they passed, and she felt for them. At least she and Alex were making ground. Who knew when these people would get home?

  To save time they cut across the car park of Botany Town Centre, which was also bedlam. Several cars had been smashed up and she could see a group of young thugs rifling through some of them. She steered Alex wider, putting on a trot to get distance, and soon they were jogging down Chapel Rd.

  Gemma knew that Dannemora was a mixed bag of good working people and not so good people. Mark had always said he would never live there because it had a high percentage of rental properties. Rentals attracted criminals, so you never knew who was going to be moving in next door. Sure enough, they soon saw signs of this. The first house in a side street had a bunch of cars haphazardly parked on the road, footpath and front lawn. She recognised gang colours on several of the thugs she saw outside, and a car stereo was booming out some kind of nonsensical bass.

  Bottles were being passed around and she could see broken glass on the road. The partygoers saw the two joggers passing by and yahooed, but made no move towards them. Gemma picked up the pace, her heart thumping in her chest. Resting one hand on the butt of the Glock in her waistband, she ran hard for a block before easing up, her lungs hankering for a break.

  ‘Jesus,’ Alex panted behind her, ‘slow down.’

  She dropped to a walk and checked behind them. Nobody was following. Vehicles were still going past but nobody stopped. Some people were outside their houses and she saw a few packing up their cars.

  A small block of shops up ahead had every front window broken. Shattered glass covered the footpath. A small group of Indian men were gathered outside, one each standing in the doorway of the neighbouring liquor store and dairy.

  Each man in the group carried a bat or length of wood. One gripped a hammer and another even held a carving knife. They were jabbering excitedly to each other in their language and one was waving his arm back down the road. Gemma guessed they were talking about the thugs around the corner, who were presumably responsible for the damage to the shops.

  The men stopped talking when they saw the two walkers approaching. Gemma raised her hands and tried to look non-threatening as she stepped onto the road and cut around them. The men eyed them menacingly but said nothing. As soon as Gemma and Alex had gone past, the group of men set off in the opposite direction, leaving the two guards behind.

  ‘Hey, wait up.’

  Gemma turned. Alex was looking back at the shops, something obviously on his mind.

  ‘You think we should get some food and stuff?’ he said.

  Gemma hesitated. It wasn’t a bad idea, given they had no idea how long it would take to get home, but she also didn’t want to get caught up in the drama that was obviously about to happen.

  ‘We’d have to be quick,’ she said. ‘Are they even open?’

  Alex approached the man standing guard outside the dairy. After a short conversation and Alex showing the guy that he had cash, they were allowed inside.

  ‘Hurry,’ the guard said. ‘You don’t wanna be here soon.’

  ‘Did you get robbed?’ Alex asked.

  The guard nodded. ‘They beat up my cousin in the liquor store. My aunty was in here and they beat her up too.’ His dark eyes glittered and he hefted the hockey stick in his hand. ‘They are going to learn a lesson.’

  It was all the impetus that Gemma and Alex needed. The shelves were almost empty and a lot of stock was scattered across the floor, but they managed to find crackers, biscuits, lighters and a few batteries. Gemma found that the hygiene supplies were largely untouched and she took toothbrushes and paste, roll-on deodorant, soap, sunscreen and tampons. She met with Alex at the checkout and they pooled their cash, which was just shy of forty dollars.

  The guard ran an eye over the goods and took all the cash, waving them away as he pocketed the money. They moved past the shops before stopping and cramming all the goods into their bags. Alex had carried less to start with so he filled his bag with most of the food.

  They carried on, making good time on the long road until they reached the northern fringes of Manukau itself. The bag was heavy on Gemma’s shoulders, but it was satisfying to know that they had enough food for a couple of days.

  The housing was denser now and they tracked upwards, sticking to the footpath on their way up a hill to Redoubt Rd. To their left it went rural and meandered south. To their right it ran down to Manukau City Centre. The Police district headquarters was down there, as well as the courthouse and the main Westfield shopping centre.

  Straight ahead of them, Everglade Drive was a steep drop down through a residential area, heading south towards the sprawling mass of Totara Park and the Botanical Gardens. That was the way they wanted to head; Alex’s home was in The Gardens on the other side. They were only a few k’s walk from it now.

  Gemma could see smoke rising from the direction of Manukau centre, and the smell of burning was heavy in the air. Turning further she could see more smoke from the direction they had come and back towards downtown Auckland. There were so many columns of smoke now they were combining into a single wide cloud that hung over the city. It was like the place had been bombed.

  The lights at the intersection they had reached were out and a light delivery truck was stuck through a fence.

  ‘Can you drive a truck?’ she asked Alex, and his eyes lit up.

  ‘I can give it a go.’

  They waited for a few cars to go past and started to cross the road, but were only halfway through the intersection when she heard and saw movement on the other side of the truck. She grabbed Alex’s arm and veered to the left, towards the opposite side.

  ‘What?’ he said loudly, caught by surprise.

  ‘Keep going,’ she hissed.

  A head popped around the rear of the truck to investigate the noise then ducked back. As they came level on the other side of Everglade, they saw what looked like a family pillaging the truck. The parents were carrying armloads of parcels into the property the truck had crashed into, while six or seven teens were unloading the back of it.

  They saw the travellers and stopped momentarily.

  ‘What the fuck are you lookin’ at?’ a teenage boy shouted.

  The parents stopped at the front doorstep and put their parcels down, looking back. They were a bogun family – sleeveless T-shirts and singlets, snap back hats, black jeans, lots of hair and tattoos. A pair of dogs were with the younger ones at the roadside.

  ‘Keep walking,’ Gemma muttered, one eye on the humans and one on the dogs. Both dogs had pricked their ears up. One was a big bull mastiff, the other a pit bull. Both had studded collars and looked fierce.

  ‘Fuck off or I’ll fuck you up, you
fuckin’ faggot,’ one of the girls shouted at them. She was a skanky looking piece with her fat midriff showing beneath a ripped T-shirt. Her hair was streaked with puke green. ‘Fuckin’ nosey cunts.’

  ‘Watch the dogs,’ Gemma muttered.

  They kept moving and she was pretty sure they were clear, then one of the dogs bolted. It was the mastiff, a burly beast with a head like a boulder. Its teeth were bared and it was onto the road in a flash.

  Alex let out a yelp of alarm and made to run. Gemma stepped back, grabbing at the Glock as the big dog bore down on them. She could hear shouting in the distance but all her attention was on the dog that had zeroed in on Alex and was going for him. It was big enough to knock him over and she could only imagine what it would do if it got him down.

  ‘Call it off!’ she screamed, getting the Glock out and extending her arms in a two-handed grip.

  The bogun family were still shouting but the dog never flinched. It was almost at the grass verge when she fired. The first round went wide but was enough to distract the dog from Alex. It hesitated, locking onto Gemma instead, and its ears went back. At the same time as the dog came for her Gemma fired, squeezing the trigger three times in quick succession.

  She saw two shots ping off the asphalt in front of it but the third impacted the dog’s torso and it jerked, stopped, howled and turned and ran. It circled in the middle of the road, craning its neck to lick at its wound, and she became aware of some of the boguns now running towards her.

  The mastiff was howling like crazy and flopped onto the road. The people kept coming and she realised that one of the boys, a teenager with an AC/DC T-shirt over his no-chest, was waving a hammer over his head.

  Gemma backtracked, her legs wobbling beneath her, her vision completely filled by the guy with the hammer. She could see his mouth moving but couldn’t hear a thing over the ringing in her ears from the gunshots. Spit was flying from his lips and his eyes were raging wide, and he was coming for her.

  She felt her trigger finger close again and the Glock bucked in her hands. As the barrel dropped down again and the gun smoke wisped away she saw the guy reeling back, a look of complete shock on his face. The hammer was spinning away, end over end, and a second later the guy was following it.

  He went down on his back, legs up in the air, twisted and went flat on his back. She saw blood on his chest and he was grabbing at it, pulling his knees up towards his torso.

  Gemma stared at him, watching in slow motion as the surreal scene unfolded in front of her. The guy wasn’t making a noise but the dog was whining and whimpering. Another sound cut in through the buzz in her head.

  ‘Gemmalookout!’

  She snapped her head up, seeing two more boguns bearing down on her. A fat female with yellow/brown hair and an unshaven guy with a snap brim cap and a dog chain in his hand. They were only a few metres away when she punched the Glock towards them in a two-handed grip.

  ‘Fuck off!’ she snarled, her ferocity surprising even her. ‘Fuck off or I’ll shoot you!’

  The guy’s eyes widened and he staggered, cutting to the side and doubling over as he ran away. The girl was too heavy and uncoordinated to follow suit. Instead of ducking aside she lost her balance, fell on her fat arse and tumbled like a toppled baby.

  ‘Come on!’

  Alex was screaming at her and she turned, realising he was right beside her and pulling on her arm.

  She went with it, leaving the carnage behind them as they sprinted away down the hill. Alex tripped and tumbled head over heels on the footpath, but got straight back up and carried on running. Gemma’s legs moved without conscious effort and she was acutely aware of everything around them – screams and shouts behind them, a car racing by in the opposite direction, birds in the trees of a house they ran past. The warmth of the afternoon sun. The light breeze on her skin. The smell of cordite filling her nostrils.

  They crossed side streets and kept going until they reached the end of the road where the hill bottomed out. The expanse of the Botanical Gardens’ open green fields was straight ahead and the heavily wooded hills of Totara Park were to their left.

  Alex kept going into the green and Gemma followed on, slowing down to catch her breath. Her lungs were heaving and her pulse was slamming but she didn’t feel panicked. She called out twice before Alex slowed and looked back. She held the Glock out and he took it like he was taking a scorpion.

  ‘What d’you want me to do with this?’ he said.

  Gemma moved off the path to the grass. ‘Hold it,’ she said, tucking back a loose strand of hair, ‘I’m just going to throw up.’

  Forty

  Back up the road, the family gathered over the fallen youth.

  ‘You dumb fuck,’ Curtis Green said, shaking his head. ‘Why’d you have to go and do that?’

  His wife looked at him, her lip curling. ‘He’s your fuckin’ flesh an’ blood,’ Lena said. ‘Got your fuckin’ genes.’

  Curtis glowered as he looked down at his nephew. ‘He ain’t got the brains of my side,’ he said. ‘Get him up and back inside.’

  His two sons, Gunner and Tyson, picked their cousin up under his arms, causing him to cry out in pain. It was a wet, gurgling cry and blood trickled down his chin and onto his throat. His other two kids, the ones who had been shot at by the crazy bitch with the gun, were tending to the wounded dog and looking pissed off.

  Carley, fat like her mother but with the stupid impulsiveness of youth, and Zane, as thick as he thought he was smart – which was a lot. Between them they caused him more headaches than anyone ever had. They were from his first missus, not Lena, and were only supposed to be staying a few days. The sooner they fucked off back to her the better, far as Curtis was concerned. Now they’d gone and fucked up again.

  ‘Get that fuckin’ mutt off the road,’ he growled. ‘Go an’ sort your shit out.’

  ‘He’s really hurt, Dad,’ Carley whined. She was cradling the dog’s head and crying, making black streaks down her cheeks.

  ‘Well fuckin’ sort it out before I shoot the fucker myself,’ Curtis snapped.

  She started to object but thought better of it, knowing he wasn’t joking. She and her brother picked the dog up between them and lugged him across the road, managing to drop him twice before they got him inside.

  Curtis looked at Lena and they both rolled their eyes.

  ‘You two.’ Curtis looked to the other boy and his sister. ‘Go and find where those two cunts have gone.’

  Cody nodded hard, her jaw set. She had thin lips and black eyeliner and a rose tattoo on her neck. Dice was the oldest brother but he was retarded – their mother had drunk way too much piss when she was carrying him and taken too many beatings from the old man, not to mention the beatings Dice had taken himself.

  The old man was long gone but Dice was still there, as fucked as he was. The youngest, Jaysin, watched them weakly as his cousins carried him towards the house.

  ‘Whaddaya want us to do with them?’ Cody said. ‘You want us to fuck them up?’

  Cody was good at that, but Dice was better. He’d got off every charge he’d ever faced because of his mental disabilities, but she knew damn well he knew what he was doing. He was psychotically violent and he had killed another kid while still at school. These days his talents were often used by their uncle and aunt when low level dealers were fucking them about.

  ‘No.’ Lena was emphatic. ‘Find out where they are and come tell us.’ She gave a cruel sneer. ‘We’ll go fuck them up ourselves, eh hon?’

  Curtis had been staring down the road as if he could see where the man and woman had run to. He turned to her now, his hard gaze meeting hers. For a big man his eyes were abnormally small. He studied his wife for a moment then turned his head, spat, and looked back at his niece and nephew.

  ‘Just find ‘em,’ he rasped. ‘Go.’

  As the two youngsters raced off down the street, Lena said, ‘He better be okay.’

  Curtis took a deep breath and ga
ve his wife a thoughtful look. ‘He’s gunna die,’ he said. ‘If he hasn’t already.’

  Lena felt a kick in her chest. He was so hard that it sometimes even scared her. Years in jail had hardened him beyond repair and she knew he had killed at least two men.

  One had been a street bashing when he was just a teenager, and the jury had bought his argument of provocation. The other had been a West Auckland meth dealer only a few years ago. He’d tried to source his gear from another supplier and in the process had bad-mouthed Curtis Green.

  Curtis had fixed that by ramming a bayonet through the guy’s head. Lena knew all about that one because she’d helped him dump the body in a swamp where, as far as they knew, he still was.

  ‘What’ll you tell your brother?’ Lena said.

  Curtis’ lip curled. ‘That his son was a fuckin’ knucklehead who took a hammer to a fuckin’ gunfight.’ He put a hand on her back and ushered her towards the house. ‘Come on, we got shit to do.’

  Forty-One

  The afternoon had passed slowly, even though I was flat out busy.

  I’d checked our property again, thrashed out some plans with Rob, checked on the van Dijks, checked on the ladies who were busy in the kitchen, checked on Rob who was playing Bingo Zingo with Archie. Everyone was fine, everything was secure.

  I climbed up and checked the water tank. I checked the food supplies.

  Checking, checking, checking. Everything seemed okay, but I was so wired I kept going. I grabbed out my backpack, emptied it and packed it up again. If we needed to bug out for some reason, I wanted to be good to go. I did the same with the small bug out bag I kept for Archie. In the garage cupboard with our two bags was a third – Gemma’s.

  It was a backpack like mine, a rugged, hard wearing 65-litre pack that carried enough gear for her for three days. Clothes, shelter, lighting, first aid gear, food and water, heating. In the event the shit ever hit the fan, we were good to go. We could drive out or walk out, didn’t matter which. We had always hiked as a family and Archie was well used to the great outdoors.