Black Ice

by Leah Giarratano

  'Baby, what happened?' She struggled to keep the scream from her voice. He wasn't just late home from school. Something was very wrong.

  He stared at her.

  'Are you hurt?' she said. 'Here, sit down.'

  She turned the kitchen tap on and splashed water into a glass. Put it in front of him. He drained it, and seemed to gather himself. His eyes filled with tears.

  'What?' she said.

  'Aunty Angel,' he said.

  Oh God – was Angel hurt? She shook Marco's shoulder, once, to keep him talking.

  'She took me,' he said.

  'Took you where, darling?' What the hell? Where is Angel?

  'She took me from school,' he said. 'At lunchtime. She told me you had to go back to gaol and she was gonna take care of me now.' Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  'She told you . . .' Seren couldn't make sense of any of his words. She stood. 'Angel said . . . What are you talking about, Marco?' Her voice bounced off the walls and he flinched.

  'We got on a bus to Queensland. She was all weird, Mum. She's been real weird to me lately, like calling me her boy and stuff like that. And she told me she's my mum now and we'll be okay together.' He cried and she held him. He looked up at her. 'I got off the bus when we stopped for a toilet break and I ran.'

  'But how did you get here, darling?'

  'I told this man at the servo what happened and he drove me back here.'

  'You . . . He drove you . . . Where is he? Did he hurt you?'

  'No, Mum. He was cool. He just dropped me here and said good luck and he drove away.'

  Oh. My. God. She gathered him up again. 'I'm here, baby, it's all right.'

  Seren rubbed Marco's back reflexively as her thoughts scudded. Suddenly her hand stopped and she raised it to her mouth. Horror mushroomed in her chest and a chill raised the hairs on her arms. An image of Angel's hand, bandaged since the night her unit had been robbed, flashed before her. The thief had broken her window to get in. Angel took her rent money? Angel had wanted her locked up again?

  'Marco.' She struggled to keep from screeching. A siren blatted ceaselessly in her mind, and she felt certain she must be shouting. 'Try and remember, honey. It's really important. Did Angel leave you alone in her unit for a while on the night we got robbed?'

  He wrinkled his brow. 'I don't know, Mum. I always fall asleep after dinner over there. I'm not going there anymore. I don't care what you say!'

  'No, baby. You're not going there ever again.' She stood and checked that the front door was locked. 'In fact, you're never going to have to see her or this place again. Go pack up some clothes and your games. You don't need everything – I just want you to hurry. Only grab your favourites. We're getting out of here.'

  The Christian plan was going ahead. No way was she going to sit here and wait for Tready or some other prick to rape her and move in; or for some deranged woman to snatch her son. She'd fight her fate or die trying. She rushed into her bedroom and hauled out a duffle bag, shoved a few things in and then kneeled down by the bed to grab the laptop.

  It was gone.

  She flattened herself on the floor and swept her hands wildly under the bed, reaching as far as she could.

  'I've got it, Mum.'

  She snapped her head up, smacking it against the underside of the bed.

  'What?'

  'I've got the laptop. It's in my room. Don't be mad. I was playing games before school.'

  She jumped up and hugged him again. 'I love you, Marco.'

  'You're not very good at hiding things, Mum.'

  63

  Monday 15 April, 3.45 pm

  'Sorry about that,' said Jill. She straightened in the passenger seat and wiped her face on her sleeve. She felt oddly calm, even peaceful.

  'You all right?' said Gabriel.

  'Mm-hmm. Where are we?'

  'Approaching Blacktown. We should reach Riverstone in fifteen, twenty.'

  'How'd they find him?'

  'Techies got multiple hits from a thirty-second conversation. Most important word was "Urgill".'

  'Huh. Dickheads. And then what?'

  'Satellite navigation triangulated the call to the exact location. Have a look in the folder.'

  Jill had intended to go through the information as soon as they'd begun the drive. But her outburst of emotion had come as a complete surprise. She pulled the folder from between the seats, flipped it open, and took out three stapled pages. The first contained an address in Riverstone and five or six bullet points about the area immediately surrounding the target property. She turned over to find a full-page colour aerial photograph of a sprawling, fenced homestead. The detail was amazing. She could see a rusted car, dead grass and missing roof tiles. She flipped the page again.

  'Oh my God! Are you kidding me?' she said.

  The picture had been zoomed in multiple times. She stared at another aerial shot, this time of a man sitting on a back porch. A child's pink bicycle, missing the back wheel, lay discarded at the bottom of the concrete steps. The man was smoking, and was unmistakably Francis Agassi.

  Gabriel smiled.

  'When was this taken?' she asked.

  He glanced at the clock in the dash. 'Ah, around thirty minutes ago,' he said.

  'But how'd they get it? Google Earth can't do this.'

  'Well, they could if they wanted to, but they're not permitted. Google Earth can't get these shots – privacy issues. The mapping software's called Global Discovery; all our intelligence organisations have access to it. Google gets delayed feed. Ours is live.'

  She turned back to the front page to read the bullet points. 'So the Feds will be running this one, then?' she said.

  'Oh, we'll be there, all right. And so will Hazmat, the riot squad, and the local boys. Last'll be called in because you're involved, and I'm sure he'll bring a couple of the people you've been working with at Fairfield. It makes us all look stupid when the crooks use the suburbs to cook meth and then blow the place up when they're done. Everyone will want in. And half of them will be hoping for another bonfire.'

  The show started on the main road leading into Riverstone. Detours were in place, with officers diverting traffic from entering the suburb. As the uniformed cop waved them through, she saw a female motorist out of her vehicle and having a stand-up argument about being denied access to her street. Jill knew that if the road was blocked this far out, they'd already have all exits from the homestead locked up tight. Any one of these cars being turned away could have made a call to the target property, warning them to get out.

  They motored smoothly along their side of the traffic-free streets. Every motorist on the other side of the road, heading back towards the main highway, gawked at them. A few people nodded or even waved.

  'They're evacuating the houses?' said Jill.

  'I'd imagine it would just be a couple of neighbouring properties,' said Gabriel. 'This would just be the local traffic being moved out. The only spectators in there will be cops.'

  They turned a corner and both sides of the street suddenly became a parking lot for government vehicles.

  'Look: Lanvin and Genovese,' she said.

  Gabriel grunted. 'Yep. They're in charge.' He parked next to another unmarked vehicle and turned to Jill as she was getting out. 'You know they're not gonna let you anywhere near the house, don't you, Jill?' he said.

  She waited, her hand on the door.

  'And you know that Damien and White could get hurt?' he said.

  She gave him another look.

  'And that if that happens, it's not our fault,' he continued. Waited for a response; got nothing. He began again. 'Because they got themselves –'

  'Are we getting out of the car some time today, Gabe?' she said.

  He smiled. They left the vehicle and headed over to Lanvin and Genovese.

  The takedown of the homestead at Riverstone was textbook. Riot squad approached with loudspeakers first and told the occupants they had sixty seconds to evacuate before the gas went in.
Jill and Gabriel had close viewing access, but were warned not to take any part in the operation.

  Almost immediately following the loudspeaker directions, Jill watched Urgill walk out expressionless, hands in the air, palms forward. He lay down lithely on the parched lawn. Whitey was next, looking a mess; his nose was plastered all over his face, his eyes were barely slits and there was bruising up to his hairline and down to his mouth. Francis Agassi came out next with a big smile: the genial gangster, pleased with the show. He squinted through smoke, a newly lit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. It took him a lot longer to get to the ground than Urgill, although it appeared a knee gave way mid-squat and in the end he hit the dirt like a sack of shit.

  Come on, Damien, thought Jill. Where are you? The squad had their masks on; the gas canisters would be fired in within seconds.

  Finally, Damien emerged, his face a portrait of misery. Jill knew he felt like everything he'd ever wanted in life was ending today. She knew he'd be taken into custody and charged. There was no getting around that. But she and Last would do everything they could to let the prosecutors know that he'd been cooperative, and hopefully they'd come up with something fair that most involved could live with. She knew that what he'd done was stupid, but she doubted he'd ever again have anything to do with something like this.

  The moment Damien was on the ground, the gas went in, but no one else emerged. The riot team secured the house, and Hazmat followed for the clean-up.

  Jill and Gabriel made their way over to Superintendent Last, who stood with Genovese and Lanvin.

  'No Nader,' she said.

  'Nope,' said Genovese.

  'What next, then?' she said.

  'Whatever,' he said.

  'What does that mean?' said Jill.

  'It means he'll show up. We've just gotta wait,' said Lanvin.

  'We need to get you debriefed, Jill,' said Last.

  Oh. Great. That's just what I need, she thought, another freaken debrief. She grimaced at Gabriel, who grinned widely, and together they walked back to his car.

  64

  Monday 15 April, 4 pm

  Byron hit the horn in the Rexie as soon as the traffic slowed up on Richmond Road. It didn't do any good in terms of moving things the fuck along, but it made him feel better, 'specially since it was giving the shits to the driver in the three-series BMW in front. He watched the man eyeballing him through the rear vision mirror.

  Byron wound his window down and asked the bloke if he wanted to talk about it. 'What's your fucken problem, cunt?' he screamed. 'You wanna have a go? Pull that piece of shit of yours over now!' He hung his whole arm out the window, and gestured the prick to the side of the road. The eyeballs dropped out of view in the mirror and the BMW's window buzzed closed. Fucken typical yuppie, he thought. No fucken balls at all.

  'Ya fucken yuppie!' he shouted out the window for good measure. 'You've got no balls!'

  He hit the horn a couple more times, but this time everyone minded their own business. Finally, the traffic began to move.

  When Byron spotted the blue lights flashing ahead, he joined the other cars making U-turns to head the other way. Fuck that shit, he told himself. Nader would have to get someone else to do this pick-up. There was some sort of bust going down.

  Sick of the pissants in front of him, who were obviously now lost because they'd had to change route, Byron peeled off onto a back road to take a short cut through St Marys. Fuck Riverstone. Who the fuck would want to move things out there anyway? Place was probably full of fucken hillbillies.

  Byron opened the Rexie up and hammered it down the rural road.

  65

  Monday 15 April, 3.15 pm

  Cassie woke up in Christian's bed with nothing left. Her mouth tasted of chemicals, cigarettes and semen. A perfect match for the way she felt – like an inanimate object: an ashtray or condom. So, this is what rock bottom feels like, she thought. She would have cried, but there were no tears available.

  Instead, she stared at the ceiling. Pleaded. 'I surrender,' she said.

  'Did you say something, darling?' said Christian.

  'You're awake,' she said. Funny that a condom could speak, that an ashtray could converse.

  'I'm worried,' he said.

  'I'm past that,' she answered.

  'What?'

  'Nothing. What are you worried about?' she said.

  Christian sat up in the bed. Surely he should resemble a cadaver, or something close to it. Shouldn't his teeth be rotten, his nails be black; shouldn't there be acne at least?

  'Or horns?' she said.

  'What did you say?' he said.

  'I'm an idiot, Christian,' she said. 'Ignore me, darling. What are you worried about?'

  The skin on his chest was hairless and golden. But she thought she could still smell the spray tan.

  He spoke, and his teeth were so perfect. She remembered the plastic mouth moulds in the bathroom sink some mornings, gummy with spit and whitening gel. 'I've set up a deal,' he said. 'A big one. Same guys. Eight hundred grand.'

  'Eight hundred thousand dollars?' she said. 'What are you, some kind of Colombian drug lord?'

  He laughed. He shouldn't have, really, but she'd known he would.

  'So, what are you worried about?' she said. No, really Christian, she wondered, what worries you about an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar drug deal? Which part of that concerns you?

  'I'm scared they could try to kill me and take the money,' he said.

  Well, there's that, she thought. 'Mmm,' she said. 'That doesn't sound good.'

  'I was thinking you should maybe come with me.'

  'You were thinking I should maybe come with you,' she repeated. 'To the drug deal where you might get killed.' Just to be clear here.

  'You're so funny, Cass.' He smiled with his mouth only. 'To be honest, I know everything will be fine. I mean, I know this guy isn't a pussy, but it's not like he's a bikie either. He's in this for the business, like me. But just to be certain, I'm thinking that if there're a couple of us, it would be more of a hassle to take both of us out, and he'd be better off just continuing with the deal as arranged.'

  More of a hassle, she thought.

  'And I can trust you,' he added.

  More of a hassle to kill two people than one, and he can trust me, thought Cassie. You slept with this man last night, she told herself. No, Cassie. You fucked him for drugs. You sucked his cock for cocaine and ecstasy.

  She forced herself to stay in the bed. These were the moments she had to remember. Words she had to hear. Leaving now and pretending he was joking, that he was just talking three-o'clock-in-the-morning-drug-fucked-crazy-talk would just mean another day waking up just like this. Hating herself this much.