Vigilante

by Brian Cain

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The drive back to Stanton's Newcastle home was a family affair for Cadiche and Lewis. They both sat in the back and talked non stop. There was an air of calm over the both of them as they spoke freely about their different upbringings. Cadiche felt more privileged in life with the cards he had been dealt as he heard some of the horrific battles Lewis had been through as he strived to rise from boredom and confront life. Lewis had not been able to read and write until he went to prison, where he grasped the opportunity to study and eventually passed year twelve. Cadiche had failed his year twelve and joined the police force to prove he could be something and found a notch in life when he excelled at it.

  Lewis asked Stanton about himself and Cadiche stepped in and gave him a short story. Anthony called Stanton on his satellite phone a few minutes before he reached home to inform him the grey laptop computer had been taken from his car and Robert and Anthony's families were in Hawks Nest. Time had now run out and Stanton would have to move.

  Stanton called Holmes as soon as he got into his house. He told Holmes to go and see Ben Porter immediately and tell him David Stokes was to be moved back to Sydney within forty-eight hours or the newspapers would know of Porter’s two Indonesian based brothels.

  "Porter has brothels in Indonesia, you're joking?"

  "If I was joking Holmes you’d be laughing because I would have put a joke in what I said, but I can't recall one being stated," replied Stanton.

  "David Stokes… that rings a bell, is that the huge guy from Sydney CIB?

  "Yes."

  "But he's already in Sydney."

  "No he is not and make sure you make really clear the forty-eight hours, Stokes or the media informed I don't care which one it is."

  "That's a shit job Stanton, I’ll be run out of town myself."

  "I've told you Holmes, I’ll give you something to do if you get railroaded."

  "You're all heart Stanton."

  "Get on with it Holmes," Stanton hung up and thought out loud. "I feel sorry for Holmes sometimes, there's that many people jabbing him up the ring he’d pass as a poofter I reckon."

  It was now Sunday the 29th of September 5.00 pm and seven am in London. Stanton rang Bruce Hurst on his normal phone. Hurst could see it was Stanton as his mobile window lit up and responded.

  "John?"

  "Yes."

  "We are without a doubt being listened to John."

  "Good, as long as the right people hear. Send the girls home. Let me know when so I can pick them up."

  "Well get them back to you John; I’ll do it myself."

  "I don't know if that's a good idea."

  "Why?"

  "Because your shit ugly Bruce he he he." Stanton hung up laughing. Hurst started ranting and raving at the top of his voice, spitting some of his breakfast across the kitchen table towards his wife.

  She responded with a smile. "John okay is he darling?"

  Stanton loaded his cars with most of his personal belongings ready for the move to Hawks Nest. Everything else stayed in case he needed to use the home again. He discussed the way they would take different routes to Hawks Nest and use anti-surveillance driving techniques. Lewis was given the job of driving Stanton's Mustang and Stanton took the Hummer. Cadiche and Jacob moved their cars into the street and Lewis tagged on the end. Stanton watched the door of the garage close behind him gradually blocking the view of his Harley Davidson. Cadiche and Lewis took off initially south; Jacob went directly north.

  Stanton stood outside the house that had been his home for the last nearly seven years. He felt it represented a time in his life of relative freedom and that he would not see such a time again. He pointed a remote at the garage and armed the security system. If the house was accessed without an involved process of switches and keyboard combinations it would self-destruct.

  He walked across the road to the dwelling he rented to the government, casually walked to the front door and knocked. A remote wireless camera in the garage of the dwelling fed a picture back to his home and he could see someone was there. The blind in the window adjacent to the door moved and there was a short time before the door opened a few inches. Stanton kicked the door and a stocky, short dark-haired man in black trousers and a white shirt was sent sprawling back on the floor of the entrance hall. Stanton walked in and stood over the man. A thin, middle-aged woman came down the stairs to his left wearing casual black pants and a white shirt holding a pistol in her right hand, levelled at Stanton's head. He looked at her and the man attempted to grab Stanton's leg and bring him down but Stanton punched him between the eyes and he fell back to the floor with a moan.

  "Get away from him!" shouted the woman. Stanton moved backwards to just inside the front door keeping them both in sight.

  "What are you doing here and who sent you?" asked Stanton.

  "Get out of here before we call the police; we are just minding our own business. How dare you!" said the woman.

  "Minding your own business. Everyone who minds their own business carries an automatic pistol and drives a vehicle with government plates listed to ASIO."

  "Who the hell are you? I'm going to hand you over to the police," said the woman as she slowly walked to the base of the stairs just to his left."

  "Stanton, John Stanton." The women lowered her pistol.

  "Oh my god you’re John Stanton," she replied with distress. The man on the floor sat up hunched on one arm, holding his nose.

  "Yes that's him, I've seen him before," said the man in a muffled tone inside his hand. "We don't know why we’re here; we haven’t received instructions yet."

  "Go home," said Stanton. "It's no longer safe for you. Tell whoever you're dealing with if I see you again I’ll kill you - a senseless waste but you could be after my family. Tell them whoever is at the top of what's going on is a dead person walking. Someone will know what I'm talking about one way or the other; it’s not really important. Brush up on your door answering skills – they’re atrocious." Stanton backed out of the door with a half smile, closing it behind him. He walked to his vehicle and drove off.

  Stanton headed for the d'Albora Marina at Nelson Bay where the Marie Celeste was now moored. Stanton had the cruiser moved from Sydney under cover of darkness while they were in Bourke. He knew the Marina was not a strategic place to base his boat but it was the only place in the area big enough to take the Marie Celeste and she would be able to put to sea if the tide was in or out. This was only a smoke screen and Stanton planned to use her as much as he could to draw attention away from more stealth modes of accessing John Gould Island.

  The houses he had set up were all esplanade addresses making it most confusing for anyone to tell the individual addresses apart. Stanton parked at the southern-most dwelling in Nelson Bay, where Cadiche, Lewis, Jacob and his fiancée were in residence. He stayed only a short time and then took Cadiche, Lewis and Jacob to the Marina leaving Jacob’s fiancée at the dwelling.

  Cadiche had spoken discreetly to Stanton about the gamble of including Lewis and Jacob's fiancée in such delicate proceedings. Stanton agreed on Jacob's fiancée but disagreed that Lewis would be a risk. Stanton would allow Jacob's fiancée to have only as much information as necessary and reminded Cadiche she was in danger because of them. He stated there was a lot of difference between a gamble and a calculated risk. Cadiche then agreed on his brother, explaining he did not want him getting hurt and was trying to keep him out of things as much as he could.

  Stanton powered the Marie Celeste towards the open sea, turning north around Yaccaba Head, the eastern most point before Hawks Nest beach, and dropped anchor two hundred metres off shore. Stanton left them on board and took the motor launch from the Marie Celeste’s bow and ran it up the beach opposite the central dwelling now occupied by Robert. Anthony was at the dwelling and both their families were at the north esplanade address now occupied by Anthony as pre-arranged by Stanton via satellite phones.

  They wasted no time getting back to the Mari
e Celeste; but Stanton powered past the motor cruiser and headed for John Gould Island. He made a heading straight for a high rock face with outcrops jutting out into the ocean. The outcrop was on the western side of the island, about a third of the way from the southern end and well sheltered from the pounding waves of the open Coral Sea. As the motor launch approached the rock face stretching skywards eighty metres before it rounded off to the heavy scrub and gum trees Stanton's passengers became edgy. He assured them it would be okay and nosed the launch between the rocky outcrops, turning hard starboard into a gap between one of the outcrops. The channel formed by the rocky outcrops either side looked like a dead end but after covering a further 50 metres the launch turned hard to port in a complete U turn bringing them directly under the island’s rock face.

  The water in the inner channels was calm and after thirty metres Stanton turned to starboard into a cave opening twenty metres wide and ten metres high. The air became black as he motored further in, turned on the launch’s lights following a round tunnel for one hundred metres left and right in an S shape. They pulled alongside a rock face with steps up to a ledge where Stanton tied the launch's bow to a metal ring in the rock alongside the steps. He activated a remote on his key ring and the steps lit up from lighting high in the roof of a cavern. He led them up the steps to a solid rock wall in front of them. Stanton pulled open a small door that looked part of the rock face, it revealed a key pad. He punched in some numbers and pushed the rock wall next to the keypad; an area the size of a door opened inwards.

  Stanton directed them all in the door then followed them closing the door behind him; he then led them along a tunnel carved into the solid rock. Marks from stonemason’s tools could be seen in the wall faces and light shone from the end of the tunnel some fifteen metres away. Stanton explained as they went how a large area of the cavern system was natural, left by the volcanic formation lava flows and considerable work had been undertaken by hand to achieve the rest. As they reached the light it revealed an open cavern some twenty metres square and five metres high. The patterns of the igneous granite rock with quartz intrusions shone in the fluorescent lighting mounted on the walls.

  Tunnels ran centrally in the middle of each wall to other caverns in the complex. The cavern was sparsely furnished with a table and six chairs, a fridge and kitchen unit in one corner with some pipe work running along the wall of the tunnel to the left; with two bunk beds against the walls. Stanton showed them the rest of the complex, some three other caverns the same size, one with a shower and toilet with the effluent being delivered to a lower cavern just above the sea water level. Once the effluent was processed the clean water ran back into the sea. An in-ground water tank above the complex island level was fed from a few steel sheds and was backed up with a small desalination plant should dry conditions prevail, also hidden below the surface.

  All the power was supplied by a combination of solar and wind generators scattered about the island, on or around buildings and dwellings used for the safari and fishing business currently not operating. From the central cavern a ladder ran up the right hand wall next to the tunnel leading up a vertical shaft just big enough to climb up. The ladder went up for some twenty metres to a small five metre square cavern then continued on to a trap door on the island surface. The roof of the cavern was five metres below the island surface and dead tree roots could be seen embedded in the rock walls and ceiling. The room bristled with computers, screens, desks and chairs, with wiring running skywards up perfectly round drill holes of one hundred millimetres in diameter connecting the elaborate communication system with satellite dishes mounted on the scattered buildings above. They all returned to the central cavern where Stanton explained this was a last resort for them and he expected them never to have to use it; but it was a place where information could be gathered in complete stealth.

  The complex communicated with the outside world via his satellites and bounced to three dwellings on different parts of the globe. The dwellings then connected with normal information routes such as the internet and cell phone systems. It was possible to trace the dwellings as they communicated through normal channels but there the trail would go cold; the activation and retrieval of such communications was virtually impossible to trace. The dwellings also had failsafe entry systems and would self destruct should anyone attempt to gain entry without the correct codes and process.

  The dwellings were in Pimba near Island Lagoon tracking station in South Australia, Black Beach Hawaii in the north Pacific and Angel City near Cape Canaveral Florida. Stanton explained he had put them there for two main reasons. One being masses of communication traffic due to military installations close by; this would make tracking signals difficult and very risky for government bodies with little control of the areas. The other being that Stanton could be realistically assumed to be in such places due to western alliances giving more scope for him to sidetrack any interference. He insisted that from now on direct contact person to person with him would cease until such time he deemed it safe; thus the elaborate communication system he had built to keep in touch.

  They left the island complex and Stanton dropped them at Hawks Nest beach. Just before he left he instructed Anthony and Robert to head to Sydney Airport and pick up the girls; Hurst had done such a good job of hiding their arrival not even he could tell them at what time they would arrive. He told the boys to tell Jodi that he loved them all and should he return they would all be together; he stated his chances were less than forty percent, the best he had given himself ever to date. The boys watched the launch reach the Marie Celeste. The Marie Celeste faded from view.