Crucifixion Creek

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Yes, okay.’

  ‘What I can tell you is known to a number of other officers, but they’ll know that you’ve contacted me in the past, and so I’ll come under suspicion. So: from now on there must be nothing to link us. It will probably be a good idea if you try to get interviews with other people in homicide and local area command. Spread the risk.’

  ‘Right, I can do that.’

  ‘Did you come down Crown Street?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There are lots of cameras there. I’ll show you a route back to avoid them. What? You think I’m being paranoid? Believe me, you’ve got to become paranoid too. Now, regarding a link between Kristich and the Crows, I can tell you that the second person killed in Kristich’s offices was a man named Benji Lavulo, a member of the Crows.’

  ‘Brilliant! How do you spell that?’

  ‘His name has not been released. Probably won’t be for another day or two.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No comment. The second thing I can tell you is that Kristich had a lawyer by the name of Nathaniel Horn.’

  ‘I met him. I went to the Gipps Tower and bumped into him on the twenty-third floor.’

  ‘You went up there?’

  ‘Yes, just for a look. I didn’t get anything from Horn except a faceful of menace. He was very hostile.’

  ‘Well, it’s probably good that you’ve had a brush with him. He’s persuaded a court to block police access to Kristich’s papers and computers.’

  ‘So there’s stuff in them that he doesn’t want made public.’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘There may well be some kind of police action against the Crows within the next day or two. I’ll try to give you a warning so you can cover it. You shouldn’t publish anything beforehand, but aim to have it out as soon afterwards as you can.’

  ‘That’s great!’ Kelly is excited, writing quickly in her notebook. ‘How about the builder? You knew him, didn’t you? Was he connected to Kristich in some way?’

  ‘No comment.’ Harry reaches into his bag and hands her a mobile phone. ‘Never contact me using your or my phones again. Use this one if you have to. There’s a number in its address book where you can get me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘As soon as you breathe a word of what you now know, Kelly, you’re in the firing line. Remember that.’

  She says goodbye to Jenny, who wishes her luck. Harry describes the camera-free route out of Surry Hills and at the front door he stops her, speaking softly so that his wife won’t hear. ‘Kelly, I want you to think about Jenny and how vulnerable she is. If anything happens to her because you screw up, you’ll answer to me.’

  She holds his gaze and says, ‘You can trust me, Harry.’

  17

  At two the following afternoon they all gather in the operations room—the Strike Force Gemini detectives from homicide and local command, inspectors from the gangs and drugs squads, and three representatives of the Tactical Operations Unit, including Deb’s partner, Damian Berardi. Deb introduces them as they wait for things to start, and he takes Harry’s hand in a hard grip. ‘Hi, Harry,’ he growls. ‘Good to meet you at last. Deb’s told me all about you.’

  ‘All good I hope, Damian. She hasn’t told me a thing about you.’ They grin at each other as if these platitudes hide some common knowledge.

  Bob Marshall opens the proceedings, emphasising speed, control and secrecy. He spells out the aims of the operation, to find evidence of criminal activities including drug use and possession of illegal firearms and other weapons, but most importantly to seize documentary evidence of illegal operations, clients and collaborators in the form of notebooks, files, computers, phones and other electronic devices. All such documentary evidence will be handed over immediately to a special task unit which will have its own vehicle and will, with tech support, begin recording and analysing such materials as soon as they become available. Everyone found within the premises will be cautioned and taken to the local station for processing and held for interview.

  He hands over to the senior TOU officer, who describes the target, the fortified clubhouse of the Crow motorcycle gang at the south end of Mortimer Street. On the wall are enlargements of maps, street plans and aerial photographs taken that morning by a helicopter of the Aviation Support Branch. There are potential difficulties in the approach along Mortimer Street to the main doors of the compound; the street is narrow and most of the houses are now believed to be occupied by Crow members and their families. There’s an alternative approach from the other side of the clubhouse, through the premises of a shipping container yard separated from the compound by a high wall topped by razor wire. A second warrant has been obtained for entry to the yard for that purpose.

  Deb Velasco, as operational head of Strike Force Gemini, then outlines the plan, identifying the members of each group and their tasks. When she finishes they break down into their teams to work out their individual roles. Harry is to head the group tasked with searching for the documentary evidence. They itemise the equipment they will need and plan how they will work their way through the building. There are no internal plans of the clubhouse and its ancillary buildings and only a hazy notion of what they may find inside. They talk about safes and electronic equipment and possible hiding places.

  And then they wait. The raid begins at 8.00 p.m., when they hope they’ll find the most bikies inside. They break up to get their gear together, to have a meal and a rest, and to phone home. Harry uses another unsourced mobile to send a text to Kelly, ‘20.00’.

  *

  Harry and his team are in an unmarked white van, the fourth vehicle in a convoy of five for the initial assault. In the lead is the TOU’s black Lenco carrying Berardi and his ninja mates. They drive at speed down Mortimer Street without obstruction and come to a halt in front of the heavy steel gates. Behind them the fifth vehicle stops to form a barricade across the street entrance. Uniformed police pour out of it and deploy along the street to prevent people coming out of the houses. The arrest teams in the second and third vans wait as the loudspeaker in the Lenco announces the raid and demands that the gates be opened.

  Without a pause for a reply, the back of the truck opens and armed men in black jump out, among them a pair carrying a thermal lance. They run to the gate and get to work on the hinges, the plasma beam slicing through the steel like ice cream until they jump back and wave at the truck to rev up and charge the gates. The impact sends the gates crashing back into the yard behind and the assault and arrest teams race in. There is the noise of an explosion from inside the compound.

  To Harry, standing waiting behind his van, the scene has an unreal quality. There has been no sign of life from the compound or from the houses along the street. He looks up at the deserted lookout tower above the clubhouse and thinks of Afghanistan, tenses for the zip of incoming fire but there is nothing, only the barking of a dog. He leads his team towards the gates.

  As they step over the flattened steel they are met by a smell of dust and burning. They are on one side of a yard about twenty metres square, in which stand several Harley-Davidsons and some brightly coloured children’s play equipment. The hi
gh wall on the far side of the square has a hole blown in it and the second assault team is climbing in from the container lot. Debris from the explosion has knocked over a couple of the bikes and buckled a swing.

  The door of the clubhouse stands open and Harry walks in, then stops as he takes in a bizarre tableau. Four men—like cartoon bikies with their beards, ponytails and tattoos—are sitting around a table calmly playing cards, seemingly oblivious to the black uniforms and bristling weapons that surround them. There is a pool table over to one side, and on the wall beyond it a huge shield bearing the Crow colours above a red banner inscribed with black lettering: WE CRUSH OUR ENEMIES.

  Deb is yelling at the card players, attempting to get them to identify themselves. When they ignore her she has them hauled to their feet and their wallets searched. They are the club president Roman Bebchuk, the vice-president Frank Capp, the sergeant-at-arms Hakim Haddad and a fourth bikie, Thomas O’Brian. Harry recognises O’Brian. Their eyes meet briefly before the man turns his head.

  Beyond them Harry sees a door into a back room, which he discovers to be a small office, and he leads his team in there to begin gathering up a collection of battered paperbacks, a DVD set of Sons of Anarchy, a computer and a number of note and account books. While they work, Harry examines a collection of business cards in a plastic tub. Among them he finds a card for Chieftain Smash Repairs. He makes a note of the address in Mascot and bags the cards. There is a safe in the corner of the room, a relatively new strongly armoured steel box with a digital lock. It probably weighs over three hundred kilograms, and when the card players refuse to disclose the combination the thermal lance comes out again. When the door is off they find club badges, DVDs, a large wad of Australian currency and a number of large plastic bags filled with a white crystalline substance.

  Harry calls Deb in and her face lights up with relief. They have found little else to justify the raid, but this should be enough.

  The four men are taken to the local police station for interview. All four nominate Nathaniel Horn as their lawyer and refuse to speak until he arrives, which takes some time. While they wait, Bob

  Marshall calls a strategy meeting. The inspector from the gangs squad goes over what is known of the Crows. There isn’t much to tell. They are a single-clubhouse gang which split off eight years ago from one of the bigger clubs in the city’s west to establish their own territory based around Crucifixion Creek. Until now they have kept a low profile. Bebchuk, the president, has a history of drugs and violence and spent some years with an outlaw club in California. Harry tells them that he knew O’Brian, the fourth card player, in the army in Afghanistan. They served in the same special forces company.

  ‘His nickname was Rowdy,’ Harry explains, ‘because he was a man of few words. We won’t get anything out of him.’

  They debate whether Harry should conduct the interview with O’Brian, but in the end Marshall vetoes the idea. ‘Let’s see how it goes,’ he says. ‘We’ll hold Harry back in case we need to go about it a different way.’

  Harry wonders what that might be.

  Deb and the gangs inspector will lead the interview teams, with Harry, Bob Marshall and a number of others observing on the big screen in the theatrette on the next floor. There is a subdued air of disappointment among the observers as they take their seats to await the first interview. More was expected from the raid. But Marshall lightens the mood with stories of past raids, the gaffes and cock-ups and bloody-minded obstructionism, which get them all laughing.

  ‘Ah, here comes the vulture,’ Marshall says at last, and they straighten in their seats, watching the black-suited figure of Nathaniel Horn entering the interview room. For a brief moment the lawyer glances up at the camera, and Harry feels a frisson go through the watchers.

  There follow two hours of tedious silences, ‘no comment’s and inarticulate grunts. Gradually however a defence position becomes clear—Benji Lavulo is to be blamed for everything. Benji was the club treasurer and, so it is claimed, the only one who knew the safe combination. The gangs inspector’s incredulity at this suggestion is met with blank innocence. Benji was a bit of a loner, apparently. Secretive. They have no idea what he might have been doing in the office of Alexander Kristich, a man of whom they have never heard.

  While this is going on, a note is passed to Superintendent Marshall from technical support. The white crystals are indeed methamphetamine, and a single set of fingerprints has been identified on the plastic bag as matching those of Benji Lavulo. Marshall vents a loud obscenity and sinks lower in his seat.

  In the early hours of the morning the four men are charged with several offences that probably won’t stand up and released on police bail. A despondent Strike Force Gemini and its support team disperse into the night.

  Meanwhile, not far away, the only person who is pleased by the evening’s events is sitting in her living room finishing a bottle of wine. Having snapped a few pictures of the Mortimer Street raid with the paper’s telephoto lens camera, Kelly dashed to the office and finished her new article inspired by Harry’s revelations in time to meet the deadline set by Bernie Westergard for the next day’s edition. Bernie was waiting in his office with a sour expression on his face when she rushed in and slapped the piece down in front of him. He frowned and shook his head at the title, ‘Bikie gang link to CBD murders’, but read on, ominously silent as he turned the pages and examined the pictures.

  Finally he said, ‘You’ve shown this to the lawyers?’

  ‘All but the bit about the police raid. I was the only reporter there, Bernie. That’s a scoop. It all is.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me your source?’

  ‘No. I can’t. That was a strict condition of them speaking to me.’

  ‘But they would be in a position to know all this stuff about Lavulo and the Kristich files?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘So, a member of the police.’ He looked at her, considering. ‘They’ll go for you, Kelly, you and the paper. There’ll be pressure. You ready for that?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Hm. Of course, they may be pleased to have it out in the open. But they’ll still go for us.’

  And that’s when Kelly knew he was going to print it.

  So now she sits alone in her living room savouring the moment, trying to be temperate in her enjoyment of a feeling she hasn’t had for a very long time. She aims for a campaign that will build momentum, sweeping her irresistibly upward. First she must establish her credibility. Tomorrow is only the beginning.

  18

  They are quiet the next morning, filing into the office, yawning from the adrenaline hangover. On the way in Harry buys a copy of the Bankstown Chronicle. Kelly’s story is the lead on page one, complete with a dramatic picture of the TOU forcing their way into the Crow compound. The article reveals the name of the second dead man in the Gipps Tower and his association with the Crows, and links this to the police raid and to other disturbances in the Creek. It doesn’t mention the suppression of Kristich’s files. Harry wonders why not. He dumps the paper before he reaches work.

  Mid-morning Deb emerges from Superintendent Marshall’s office and says, ‘Something’s up. The boss got called upstairs suddenly.’

  Marshall returns
half an hour later, clutching a newspaper that Harry recognises. His face is set in a puzzled scowl. He calls Deb and Harry in to his office.

  ‘Seen this?’ He hands them the paper.

  Deb says, ‘Kelly Pool…Isn’t that the reporter that spoke to you, Harry?’

  ‘At the Stefan Ganis siege, sir. That’s her beat. She recognised me, wanted to ask questions. Persistent too. She’s tried to contact me a couple of times since, here and at home. What’s she got?’

  Marshall frowns at him before replying. ‘She knows that the other victim with Kristich was a Crow. Knows his name. How?’

  ‘Security at the Gipps Tower identified Lavulo,’ Deb says. ‘Could be them.’

  Marshall thinks about that. He obviously likes the idea. ‘All right. Let’s just make sure no one in this building is leaking. The lawyers think we’ll get a ruling on the Kristich material today. They’re hopeful. How about the Crow records?’

  ‘Coming through bit by bit. So far the most interesting thing is copies of old invoices for dietary health supplements. A Chinese company based in Vanuatu, suspected in the past of selling pseudoephedrine and benzyl chloride.’

  ‘Which powerfully suggests a Crow meth kitchen somewhere,’ Marshall nods. ‘Good. But unless we can prove that anyone apart from Lavulo was involved we may have trouble making a case. So, Harry, how well did you know O’Brian?’

  ‘Pretty well. Six months together in Kandahar province in 2002. He was a very good soldier.’

  ‘Will he talk to you?’

  ‘He might, but I don’t think he’ll sell out his mates.’

  ‘Okay, but you could suggest that information about what Lavulo was doing in Kristich’s office might take some of the heat off him and his mates. Anything else he can tell you about what the Crows are up to could be helpful.’ He taps the newspaper. ‘It says here they’ve been evicting people from houses in the area. What’s that about? And what was the connection with the Ganis siege down the road from their clubhouse?’