by JD Nixon
The bikie who’d been shouting spoke first. He was an ugly man, his shaved head covered with a spider web tattoo, his teeth brown with rot.
“Where’s the fat bitch? Or that fucker, Jye?”
“They’ve gone. All of them cleared out of here, leaving us behind,” I managed to say, thinking of the children and little baby.
“Leaving you behind to carry the can?” He slid his weapon behind my neck to lift up my hair, an unnerving experience. “I haven’t met you before, darling. I’d remember if I had. Are you new?”
I nodded, eyes wide with fear, and I didn’t need to act. I was really scared. He pointed the weapon at Simon. “I’ve seen you before. Out in the fields. When I was at the lab. Do you know about the lab?”
We both shook our heads vigorously in denial.
“So the fuckers left behind a couple of patsies to carry the can for them. Fucking ace,” he spat in disgust, scratching his pate with his free hand. “Let me explain my position. Your friends promised me a delivery of . . . produce. I paid for the produce, but haven’t received it. When I enquired, in a most friendly way, when could I expect to receive delivery, I was fobbed off. Time and time again, until I got the shits. Since then though, a little birdie told me that my produce has been sold to someone else. My produce! Which I paid for! Does that sound like a fair business transaction to you?”
We both shook our heads again.
“See, I’m a little annoyed. Because of those fuckers, I’ve had to give up a night with my family to come here and sort them out. NCIS is on TV tonight and that’s my favourite show. I’m going to miss it. Now I won’t know what Jethro’s up to. So you can appreciate why I’m so pissed off.”
We both nodded.
“Now I just want some justice. I want my money back and I want the produce as well to compensate me for my inconvenience. See, I’d already promised to sell that produce to someone else, and now they’re annoyed with me because I haven’t delivered. Makes me look like an amateur and I hate that. So you two little innocents are going to have to help me find some justice.”
He prodded me with the rifle. “You’re a newbie. You won’t know shit, so no point getting you to help.” He turned to Simon. “Up you get, sunshine. I want you to find me some money. And if you don’t cooperate with me, your little whacko girlfriend here is going to end up with some extra ventilation in her head. Where do the fuckers keep the money?”
He aimed his weapon at my temple. It took everything I had to keep still, afraid that he had an itchy trigger finger.
“I don’t know, but there’s a safe behind that painting over there,” Simon was able to keep his voice even. The bikie nodded to one of his mates who stalked over, ripped the painting from the wall and dumped it on the floor, revealing the small wall safe.
“Combination?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been trusted with it.”
The bikie sighed wearily. “I hate patsies. They’re no fucking use whatsoever. Fortunately, as you would have noticed from that little bang earlier in the evening, we’ve brought our own materials.”
And he nodded to another of his mates who placed some plastic explosives around the safe. We all hustled out of the room while it was detonated, creating quite a loud blast and considerably damaging the wall. But it did the trick and the door to the safe dangled from one hinge.
The bikie was outraged though when he peered inside. There was nothing in there, except for a piddly amount of cash – a couple of hundred bucks – and some deed titles.
“Where’s the fucking money?” he screamed at Simon.
“I don’t know! They must have another safe. One I don’t know about,” he answered, sounding admirably calm despite our desperate situation.
With another nod, the other bikies went to work, tearing the room apart, ripping down paintings, sweeping books off their shelves, breaking open the filing cabinet and tossing its contents carelessly on the floor, spilling the desk drawers. Nothing. The bikie was becoming increasingly frustrated and I hoped that he wouldn’t take it out on Simon and me.
“You two are fucking useless,” he said to us with scorn. “No wonder they left you behind. I should just fucking shoot you on the spot. At least it would stop you breeding and bringing more whackos into the world. Reggie, lock them up somewhere. I’m sick of the sight of them. Not here though. We’re going to toss this place thoroughly.”
They weren’t going to find anything. The Head Farmer had probably taken the money with her into the bunker. I didn’t know what would happen to Simon and me when they realised the money wasn’t here, but I was pretty sure it was going to be unpleasant for both of us.
Chapter 16
The bikie who’d trapped us at the back of the office prodded us with his weapon and forced us to walk in front of him out of the office door. He took us to a small outbuilding. The door was unlocked, the key in the door and he roughly pushed Simon inside, grasping me tightly around the arm.
“I think I’ll have a bit of fun with you first, gorgeous. Then you can join your boyfriend again,” he said to me, then to Simon, “I love mixing business with pleasure. And don’t worry, mate. I won’t hurt her. Much.” Evil laughter.
Simon rushed forward to protect me and after a brief struggle, the bikie used the end of his rifle to wallop him viciously across the head. Simon’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed at our feet. The bikie laughed again and used his feet to roll Simon back into the shed, closing and locking the door behind him.
I struggled against him, but he only clasped my wrist tighter. Though I dug my heels into the ground, he was strong enough to drag me along with him without much effort.
“What’s the matter, gorgeous? I thought you hippy-types were right into free love. I’ve got some free love I want to share with you. I want to squirt it down your throat actually. Hope you’re good at deep-throating.”
He pulled me behind the shed where it was dark and secluded. I did the only thing that came to mind – I made myself go loose and floppy as if I was fainting, not something easy to do when you’re scared stiff. He had trouble dragging my dead weight along with him. And when I’d collapsed to the ground, he couldn’t manage both his rifle and me.
“Stupid bitch,” he cursed me.
To him, I appeared to be completely insensible. He stopped and laid his rifle down to one side. He leaned over me, ungently slapping me across the cheek.
“Wake up, you dumb bitch.”
As he leaned over me, I jerked up my right knee and cracked him on the chin, slamming his jaw closed and causing him to bite his tongue. While he reacted to that, I pushed him off me and jumped to my feet. I kicked him in the face, wishing I was wearing my work boots instead of the flimsy sandals. Something crunched and I think it was his nose. He howled in pain. I dived down to seize his rifle from its resting place and aimed it at his head, trying to hold it as if I had a clue what to do with it. Blood trickled from his mouth and nose.
“Okay, jerkoff, turn around and place your hands on your head. Walk slowly back to the front of the shed.”
He was slow to do as I ordered so I poked him viciously in the back with the rifle. At the front of the shed, I made him unlock the door and pull Simon out, before pushing him inside with a judicious foot to his lower back. I locked him in and tried to revive Simon. No good. He was out cold, a huge lump forming on his temple. With the rifle awkwardly stored under my arm, I used both arms to haul Simon away from the building. Where to go though? I thought desperately, worried the other bikies would soon come looking for their buddy.
I decided on the hall because it had a small bathroom to one side where I could lock us in and give Simon some first aid. But to reach the hall, I had to drag him right across the compound, in the open, afraid that I’d be seen and stopped. It was slow going, but we made it inside the hall with me sweating and my arms aching with the effort.
I didn’t want to alert anyone to our location, so didn’t switch on any lights. I fumbled arou
nd in the bathroom in the dark, dampening some tissues and holding them to Simon’s lump. Slumped on the floor, I tried to plan our next step. There was nowhere safe for us to hide in the compound, especially as the bikies had explosives. They might decide to blow up every building, just because they were angry.
If I could get Simon to come around, we could escape into the fields and at least wait the bikies out. They couldn’t stay here forever, and at least out in the open we would be safe from any more explosions. Maybe we could even start walking to the nearest town to raise the alarm. I thought about the Kombi, but immediately ruled it out. Even if I knew where the keys were kept, the noise was sure to attract the attention of the bikies. They might have even disabled it earlier.
I wet some more tissues and had just placed them on Simon’s temple again, when a burst of gunfire sounded nearby. It was answered by a more distant burst. I rushed to the small external window, and could make out people creeping around in the dark, but couldn’t identify them. More bikies? I hoped not.
As I returned to Simon, the little window exploded with another round of gunfire, spraying glass over both of us. The door to the hall flung open and I heard men stomping around, shouting at each other and some more loud gunfire. Heart pounding, I climbed onto the vanity and peered out of the small window over the door that looked into the hall. Tears of relief flooded my eyes when I spotted three Heller’s men, wearing their distinctive black uniforms. I jumped down, threw open the bathroom door and instantly had three rifles pointing at me. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
“Hold fire!” yelled one urgently, his familiar features bringing more tears to my eyes. And I didn’t care that the other men were watching and would tell Heller, I ran over to hug him fiercely.
“Hugh! I’ve never been so glad to see your ugly face before!” I smiled at him through my tears.
“Crying like a girl again, Chalmers?” he tutted, shaking his head. “You’re embarrassing yourself, as usual. And God, what the fuck are you wearing? You look ridiculous.”
I peered down at my shift, which was quite dirty by now, and pulled a face. “I know.”
“Would love to talk fashion all night, but we have to get moving. The boss ordered us to find you and hustle your fat arse out of here.”
“We have to take Simon with us. He unconscious.” I led the men to the bathroom.
“Shit,” said Farrell under his breath. “That’s a complication we don’t need.”
He leaned down and hauled Simon over one shoulder, slinging his rifle over the other. I picked up the rifle I’d taken from the bikie. Farrell looked at it in surprise.
“How many of them have you knocked over?” he asked.
“Just one.”
“You’re losing it, Chalmers. Thought you’d have them all sorted by now. Do you know how to use that weapon?”
“No idea.”
“Don’t fire it then. You’re likely to kill one of us instead.” Frankly, I thought that was good advice. “Let me check to make sure the safety’s on.”
“Okay,” he said to us after he’d done that. “We have . . . how many combatants, Chalmers?”
“Five, but one’s locked in that small building over there.”
“Four active combatants. Judging by the gunfire, all in the vicinity of the large building in the middle. Forget about them. We don’t care about them. Leave them for the cops to deal with. We just want to get past them. They’re engaging us, but we’ll try not to engage them any more than necessary for our safety. Our job is to bring Chalmers back to safety and that’s it. Everyone clear?”
We all nodded.
“We’re going to run, single file, down low, across the open space to that building over there. We’ll reconvene there. Everyone ready?”
We all nodded again.
“Let’s go!”
And we ran, Farrell struggling under Simon’s unconscious weight. A burst of gunfire made the dirt jump around us and a rock flung up at me, stinging my right upper arm. An answering round of gunfire from the opposite side of the compound surprised me. There were more people here than the three men with me.
We all made it safely to the target building and waited there for another opportunity to run to the next one.
“Are there more men here?” I asked Farrell, clutching my arm. It stang. A damp stain of blood spread across the sleeve of my shift.
“We’ve brought a whole battalion to rescue you, Chalmers. What’s the matter with your arm?”
“I don’t know. It just suddenly started hurting.”
He pulled up my sleeve and sighed, rolling his eyes. “You’ve managed to get yourself winged by a bullet, haven’t you? The boss is going to kill me.”
“Sorry, Hugh,” I said sheepishly. “It’s not your fault.”
“Does it hurt?”
“It’s all right. It’s only stinging a little.”
“You’re an endless worry.” He turned to the men. “Listen up. This next run is the dangerous part. We have a lot of open territory to cover and we’re right in the line of fire. Chalmers, you’re not wearing any bulletproofs, so I want someone running beside you.”
One of the men volunteered and I smiled at him gratefully.
“We’re heading for that building over there. Everybody ready? Good, let’s go.”
We moved out into the open again. The man running with me had his arm through mine to ensure I kept up with his pace. Fortunately this time, no gunfire aimed in our direction.
We passed the point where we were closest to the office building, the danger spot for us, when there was an enormous explosion that knocked us all flying in different directions. I lay on the ground, dazed and disoriented, covered in dust and wreckage, my ears ringing with the noise of the blast.
A swarm of men, some Heller’s, some cops, rushed forward from their cover behind a building to pull us to safety. I wasn’t given a chance to stand. The man-mountain who helped me just scooped me up in his arms and ran back behind the building, gently placing me on the ground. When my hearing cleared, I noticed distant gunfire at the back of the ruined office and some faint shouts.
I anxiously looked through the crowd of Heller’s men and spotted Simon rousing from his unconsciousness, propped up against another wall. I crawled slowly over to him.
“Dear God,” he moaned, flinching when he touched his bump. “Oh, my head. What happened? Who are all these men?”
“The cavalry has arrived,” I said and sat next to him, holding his hand.
“Your boss?”
“Yep, and some cops too. Those bikies just blew up the office building. When we were running past it. It knocked us off our feet.”
“I guess that explains why we’re both covered in dirt and dust.”
“Yeah.” I brushed ineffectually at my shift, wondering if my face was as dirty as his.
There was a sudden commotion near us. One of the bikies had made a desperate break from the cops for freedom, not realising he was turning a corner into a throng of testosterone. He was tackled, secured and handed over to the cops within minutes, every man there wanting a piece of him.
“Wow!” said Simon, eyes huge. “I’ll make sure I don’t make a run for it around here.”
“You’re safe. You’re one of the good guys,” I said, and we smiled at each other. I gently brushed some dust from his face and hair, before giving up. We needed showers.
“I can’t believe how many men are here,” said Simon.
“Looks like Heller brought everyone with him. Hey!” I yelled out to the nearest one. “There’s another bikie locked in the small shed over there. Someone better get him too. I don’t think he’s armed. I took his rifle.”
“Thanks, Miss,” he said, before jostling with a crowd of other men to reach him first. Faced with an army of big burly blokes, he didn’t put up any fight and the men handed him over to cops as well. I overheard one of the cops confirming that they’d now captured all five of them, the other three bikies bein
g caught at the back of the office after a brief battle.
I stood up shakily. “We have to get everyone out of the bunker. They’ll be scared, hearing all that gunfire.” I approached the closest cop. He shot me a wary look, taking in my dishevelled appearance. “Do you want to speak to some people who are running a meth lab on this property?”
His eyes lit up. I drew him and his colleagues a mud map of where the bunker was, and described the Head Farmer and Jye with as much detail as possible. Simon anxiously reminded them that there were a number of innocent Farmers and children in the bunker as well and we watched after them as they left. I would have gone with them to show them the way, but I was wobbly on my feet, and didn’t trust myself to walk.
I was about to sit back down again, feeling rather faint, when I spotted Heller walking towards me, Clive following close behind him. He was hard to miss, even in this crowd of gigantic men, with his great height and spiky blond hair. He pushed through the men with single-minded determination, his eyes locked on me. I stood there, staring at him, and waited for him to reach me before stepping silently into his open arms.
He crushed me tightly and I forgot about everything that had happened, tuning out everybody around us. I breathed in his scent, and focussed on his heartbeat. I was too overwhelmed with emotion to speak. I didn’t know for how long we hugged – it could have been minutes, it could have been hours. When I trusted myself to speak, I pulled back and looked up at him.
“Are you still angry with me?”
“Oh, Matilda. No, no, no. Of course I’m not. I stopped being angry with you about five minutes after you left, when I realised how much I already missed you.” He kissed me on the top of my dusty head, briefly pressed his forehead against mine, and glanced down at me, his gorgeous half-smile playing on his lips. “What on earth are you wearing, my sweet? It’s hideous.”
I laughed, looking down at my dress. “Isn’t it just? It’s homemade. My clothes were confiscated.”
