by Tim Ayliffe
CHAPTER 32
Sydney, Friday
A chemical smell was stinging Bailey’s nostrils and burning his eyes. He blinked to flush out the fumes and clear the white glow clouding his vision. It didn’t work. The pungent liquid used to wake him had been smeared across his upper lip and nose. It was like steam rising through his eyes. He was powerless to wipe it away. His hands were tied to a wooden chair, along with his ankles.
Bailey could hear the faint hum of traffic outside and a loose sheet of corrugated iron on the roof flapping in the wind. Another distinctive noise was coming from the shadows in front of him – garbled rushes of air. They were the sounds of a fat man breathing.
‘You’re a restless sleeper, John Bailey.’
He was speaking slowly, with an accent clipping the end of his words.
Bailey was too disorientated to acknowledge the man sitting opposite. He blinked again, this time shaking his head and holding his eyes tightly closed for a few seconds, trying to encourage his tear ducts to open and let the salty water clear the gunk from his eyes.
‘We don’t have much time.’
The moisture was building, easing the burning sensation from the chemicals, clearing Bailey’s eyes. He was sitting in almost total darkness, were it not for the soft glow of the night sky slipping into the room. The man was talking to him from an adjacent chair, his face disguised by the dark.
‘Where am I?’ Bailey said.
The man leaned forward, the moonlight bouncing off the round contours of his face. Bailey knew him. It was the fat guy he first saw with Li Chen at the quay, then again outside the pub in Newtown. The guy who kidnapped Anderson.
‘I know you,’ Bailey said. ‘Who are you?’
‘You should be less concerned about who I am and a little more worried about what I’m going to do to you.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘I’m going to hurt you,’ he said. ‘And then I am going to keep hurting you until you tell me everything you know about Gary Page and Ambassador Li Chen.’
Bailey knew fear better than most. He also knew how this was supposed to play out. He avoided his kidnapper’s stare and studied his surroundings, desperate to find something that would give him hope. The concrete floor was stained and covered with dust. Graffiti was splashed across old brick walls. At least half of the windows that Bailey could see were either cracked or smashed.
He knew this room.
In the corner, about ten metres away, sat an empty chair, police tape cordoning off the area around it.
‘You murdered Michael Anderson.’ Bailey wasn’t sure whether to be frightened or angry. ‘And you did it here.’
He wanted to know why his kidnapper would bring him to the scene of Anderson’s horrific death. ‘Why?’
‘This is the most secure place in Sydney, John Bailey,’ he said. ‘The police have blocked off its surrounds and the forensics team will not be back until the morning.’
Bailey felt a sudden rush of rage, remembering the bloodied, tortured corpse he had found here only hours ago. ‘You’re a fucking animal!’
‘You Australians have such foul mouths.’
‘Who are you?’ If Bailey was going to die, he at least wanted to know the identity of his killer.
‘I will be asking the questions, John Bailey.’
The man got up and walked over to a small table. It was so close that Bailey could have reached out and touched it, were his hands not tied to the arms of the chair.
The man was busy untying a sheet of leather. Bailey noticed smoke rising from a smouldering pile of plastic. He could see an old VHS tape with the word ‘sixteen’ written on the label. The film had been ripped out and set on fire. It was Mario Monticello’s tape. The evidence against David Davis and Victor Ho. Destroyed.
Dexter.
‘The woman with me. Where is she now?’
‘Don’t worry about that. It’s not your concern.’
Bailey remembered the flash of light and Dexter falling to the ground. After that – nothing. ‘What did you do to her?’
The man unrolled the leather and spread it across the table. There must have been a dozen pockets, each with a metal instrument inside. It looked like a carpenter’s toolkit. Only, it wasn’t.
Anderson’s killer ran his fingers across the pockets while he decided which lethal tool to call on first. Bailey knew how these things worked. It had to be something that would inflict pain, while not detracting from the task at hand. Extracting information. And Bailey would be a tough assignment, he’d make sure of it.
‘Let’s start with this one, shall we?’ He held up a small hammer. ‘One of my favourites. It will fracture, or at least crack, a bone. The pain will be sudden, and it will be excruciating. But I think it’ll be a suitable way to begin our conversation, don’t you?’
‘Are you going to talk like this the entire time?’
‘Funny.’
‘No, I mean it.’ The only weapon Bailey had was his mouth. ‘Since you’re a talker, tell me – does this shit make you hard?’
The man ignored the insult and smashed his elbow into Bailey’s cheek and started trying to force a rag into his mouth.
‘For when you scream.’
He rammed the cloth so far inside Bailey’s mouth that it touched the back of his throat, making him gag.
‘Because you will scream.’
He brought the hammer crashing down on the thumb of Bailey’s right hand. Bailey bit into the rag to distract his mind from the pain. He felt dizzy, his chin slumping to his chest.
‘No, no. Head up. Head up.’ He grabbed Bailey by the chin and lifted his head. ‘We’re just getting started.’
Bailey could feel the warmth of his torturer’s rank breath each time he whispered into his ear.
‘Now, let’s begin.’ He pulled the cloth from Bailey’s mouth. ‘What did Mr Anderson tell you?’
The initial shock from the pain was waning and Bailey was regaining his composure. The sharp pain in his thumb was becoming a dull throb.
‘What did Anderson tell you, is my question.’ The old defiance in Bailey was overpowering his common sense.
The man ignored the question and calmly walked over to the table and slipped a metal object over his knuckles. The sound of footsteps and metal chinking together warned Bailey about what was to come. Within seconds, a fist crashed into his cheek, likely fracturing the bone, causing his head to snap to the side and his body to jolt with the force of the blow.
‘I love nothing more than wearing knuckledusters, you know,’ the man said. ‘You can feel the vibration of the metal rings on your fingers when they bounce off the face of a fool like you, someone stupid enough not to give me what I want.’
‘There’s . . . there’s . . .’ Bailey was trying to catch his breath. ‘There’s a special place in hell reserved for people like you.’
‘Let me be clear about the rules again, Mr Bailey.’
‘There are rules? I thought that –’
This time he caught Bailey on the jaw, splitting his lip and splashing blood across his tongue.
‘As I was saying . . .’
Bailey could see that he was getting under the man’s skin.
‘The rules are simple. I ask questions, you provide me with answers. There’ll be pain – I won’t deny this – but the extent of this pain is entirely up to you.’
Bailey chose pain.
‘So, you’re Li Chen’s hatchet man? The boy he deploys to clean up the mess when his greedy schemes go wrong?’
Another fist smashed into Bailey’s stomach, knocking the wind from his lungs, sending him into a coughing fit. Saliva and blood splashed on his legs and the concrete floor.
‘Answer my questions!’ He buried his fist into Bailey’s gut again, leaving him winded and gasping for air. ‘Too much talking!’
‘Got ya,’ Bailey said, smiling a blood-soaked smile.
The man turned his back on him, his heavy breathing the only sound punctu
ating the silence.
‘I wonder if this was how you addressed your kidnappers in Iraq?’
‘Don’t pretend you know me, fat boy.’
‘Can’t you see what’s happening here? There’s no way out for you, John Bailey. In China we talk about the chi – the energy in the blood. It’s the force of life and nature, about influence and momentum. That force is working against you. You’re as stupid as the rest of them. The sleeping dragon is waking up but nobody wants to know.’
‘What’re you talking about, you lunatic? It doesn’t matter what I tell you. Li Chen is done. Exposed. Page too. The game is up. There’ll be no payday.’
‘I’m not interested in any payday. I play a different game, Mr Bailey. But finally it appears that we’re getting somewhere.’
He walked back to the table and picked up something that looked like a pair of pliers.
‘Now, tell me what you know about this game. Or better still, open your mouth. You can answer my question in a moment.’
He grabbed Bailey’s neck and bashed his battered cheek with his elbow, trying to force open his mouth.
Bailey felt the cold metal arm of the pliers rest on his lip, so he clenched his jaw as hard as he could to stop it from getting inside and doing its work. He was shaking his head from side to side, until an elbow crashed into his cheekbone again. And again. And again.
Weakened and disorientated by the pain, Bailey was struggling to stay lucid. The pliers entered his mouth, searching for a tooth.
Torture. Pain. Fear. Bailey had been here before.
His mind turned to Miranda. The lawyer, all grown up. His little girl with the cheeky smile. All that he needed to do was close his eyes and she was there in the darkness, numbing the pain. He could even hear her laughter. Silly Daddy. Just like in Iraq.
Year after year, Bailey had waved goodbye to her at airports so he could follow his dreams. His obsessions. John Bailey the war reporter. The Middle East correspondent. The Europe correspondent.
It didn’t matter what this guy did to him.
Nothing hurt more than the pain of knowing he had left Miranda behind to tell other people’s stories, forgetting that the most important story in his life was hers. Theirs.
Miranda had a life of her own. Despite everything, she had let him back in. He had missed too many years. He couldn’t miss any more.
He would survive. He had to. He had done it before.
Bailey’s head was swinging from side to side. The pliers found a tooth, shredding and cracking it while the fat man yanked and pulled, trying to wrench it from Bailey’s mouth.
The pain was incredible, sharp and ferocious. Bailey was delirious.
Focus, he told himself. Miranda – your reason to live. Second chances.
A second chance with Dexter too.
It had been too many years but his memories were her memories too. She would listen to him. Really listen. Lift him up out of his lows. Their love was real, despite the way he had cast it aside to watch the American cavalry roll into Baghdad and tear down that statue of Saddam.
His captor was bashing away at his mouth in search of another tooth. Bailey groaned and tried to clench his jaw. It was useless. He was trapped in this warehouse murder scene.
His mind wandered again, scanning images of better days. Sharon Dexter’s naked body on the bed beside him. The days they’d sleep in until lunchtime, not because they were tired but because there couldn’t possibly be anything better to do.
Their lovemaking was the one thing that took Bailey away from the violent things he’d seen. He was cupping her breast in one hand now, the other sliding down between her legs. He loved the sounds she made when they were innocent together. He wanted to hear them again.
He had to make it out of here alive.
Dexter and Miranda. John Bailey’s two reasons to live.
Pop!
A peculiar sound brought Bailey back into the room with his torturer. The metal pliers slipped from his mouth and clanged on the ground.
Bailey looked up at the face of the man before him, the menace in his eyes replaced by confusion. He shuffled backwards, unsteady on his feet. He reached behind him, touching his shoulder blade, bringing his hand back around, staring at fingertips stained with blood. Bewildered by an attack he didn’t see coming.
Pop!
The sound echoed again from the back of the room. The fat man fell forward onto one knee, close to where Bailey’s ankles were bound to the chair. He reached for the table, trying to keep himself from falling, desperately clutching at the metal objects, searching for a weapon.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
This time the bullets hit his chest. Three splotches of red. He tumbled forward, his head crashing into the table, turning it onto its side, scattering the leather sheet, the torture apparatus and the ruined VHS tape on the floor.
Bailey’s eyes moved from his kidnapper’s groaning body on the concrete to the far corner of the room. Ronnie Johnson was bent down on one knee, his gun steadily pointed at the lonely figure on the ground.
‘Bailey!’ Ronnie got to his feet. ‘Is he armed?’
Bailey spat a glob of blood and broken teeth on the ground. ‘I think he’s dead.’
Ronnie had climbed in through the same flap in the wall that Bailey had used to leave the warehouse earlier that day.
He jogged the short distance to Bailey and checked on the near-lifeless body on the ground. He put his hand inside the man’s jacket and pulled out his gun, tossing it on the ground out of reach, just in case.
Ronnie withdrew a knife from his pocket and cut through Bailey’s restraints.
‘Are you okay, bubba?’ Ronnie inspected his friend’s face, disfigured – temporarily, at least – by violence.
‘The sick bastard was enjoying that.’ Bailey spat more shards of tooth on the floor.
‘It’s okay, bubba.’ Ronnie grabbed him under the arm with one of his giant catcher’s mitt hands, pulling him to his feet. ‘It’s over.’
When Bailey was steady, Ronnie walked back to the body on the ground, flipping it over so that the man was face up.
‘Son of a bitch.’
Bailey noticed the surprised look on Ronnie’s face. ‘Know him?’
There was still life in the fat man’s eyes. He was trying to say something.
Ronnie knelt down so he could hear.
‘You win . . .’ Blood spluttered from his lips. ‘You win, you . . . you lose.’
‘What?’ Ronnie slapped his face for more. ‘What are you saying!’
The man’s eyes stared into nothing, his head falling lifelessly to the side. Dead.
‘What did he say?’
‘You win, you lose.’
‘You know him?’ Bailey asked.
‘Bo Leung, one of China’s most senior intelligence agents. Haven’t heard peep from him outside the Republic for years. I came across his handiwork in Africa, and Hong Kong before the handover, among other places. He was a violent lunatic capable of anything.’
‘I can testify to that.’
‘Bubba.’ Ronnie put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re pretty banged up. We’d better get you to a hospital.’
‘Later. We need to get back to Gerald.’ It even hurt to speak but Bailey wasn’t resting until this was over. ‘What’s the time? I’ve got no idea how long I’ve been here. Prick knocked me out.’
Ronnie looked at his watch. ‘Almost eleven.’
‘Fuck! Give me your phone,’ Bailey said. ‘Dexter was with me. We were attacked back at the apartment.’
‘She’s fine, Bailey.’
‘How do you know?’
There was another noise in the corner. Bailey watched Detective Sharon Dexter climb through the hole in the wall.
‘Sharon!’ Bailey kept staring at her until she was standing beside him.
She put her arms around him, causing him to shudder with pain, then stepped back, gently touching his bloodied and bruised face, the dent in his cheek, the cuts on h
is lips.
‘What the hell did he do to you?’ She looked around at the overturned table and the kit of tools scattered across the floor.
‘Forget about it. It’s over.’ Bailey was never one to look back and he wasn’t about to start now. He rested his chin on her shoulder and closed his eyes, exhausted, but with a reason to live. It felt good. After what he had been through, he needed a moment to reset.
‘I hate to interrupt, bubba,’ Ronnie said, ‘but I just shot a guy, which means we really need to go.’
Bailey let go of Dexter.
‘Yeah, we do,’ she said. ‘I can’t be seen here either.’
Dexter bent over and picked up Mario Monticello’s security tape from the floor. The film had been reduced to a sticky pile of plastic.
‘Destroyed,’ Bailey said.
‘Don’t worry about that now. We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘How’d you guys find me, anyway?’ Bailey said.
‘I followed you to the apartment building. Found Dexter unconscious beside the building while I was trying to find a way inside.’
‘And then you thought you’d do a routine check on the crime scene?’
‘Not quite, bubba.’ Ronnie reached out and touched Bailey’s jacket underneath his collar, picking off a small round object, about half the size of a button.
‘You’re joking.’
‘Sorry, bubba. I know how you hate being ignored.’
‘When?’ Bailey asked.
‘Back in Gerald’s office. A friendly pat on the shoulder, not hard to do.’
‘Well done, genius.’ Bailey attempted a smile. ‘But what the fuck took you so long?’
‘Sorry. Got here as fast as I could.’
Bailey stopped at the door. ‘That’s twice, Ronnie.’
‘Who’s counting, bubba?’
Neither of them was any good at the emotional stuff. ‘Thanks. Thought I was gone this time.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
Ronnie slapped him on the shoulder, forgetting about the bruises.
‘Aaaaghh! I take that back – you’re an idiot.’
Bailey waited for Dexter to tear down the police tape blocking the door and then followed her through it. He was limping, grimacing with each step.
‘C’mon, we need to get moving,’ she said.
