Coming Home

by Max Bolt

  Fitch’s anger gets away from him. He pushes the man back and he crashes into the desk behind him.

  “And who made you the judge and jury, arsehole? And if he does get himself a gun, here’s hoping he takes you out first. Piss off back to work.”

  Nate eases Fitch back.

  “Take it easy Chief,” and then to the office antagonist, “you heard him, get back to work.”

  The bloke picks himself up and walks away, muttering about police brutality and hidden cameras.

  “You alright chief?” Nate asks, putting his hand on Fitch’s shoulder.

  Fitch breathes hard. The anger had been building throughout the day. For Months. Years. And on many fronts. Mason’s disappearance is the trigger that sets it off. Fitch smoothes out his shirt.

  “I’m good.”

  “Don’t look good chief.”

  “And you’re a doctor now? Shut up and contact the IT department,” Fitch instructs, “dig up this man’s PC history. Internet searches, email, phone calls. Anything that might tell us where he went.”

  Nate senses Fitch’s desperation.

  “Why is this important to you Chief?”

  Fitch has asked himself the same question. Why is he sticking his neck out for Mason? Mason is old enough to look after himself. Mason can make and manage his own choices. And what about Fitch’s oath as a police officer, to protect and serve the community? But the community made Mason what he is, so let the community deal with what it created.

  But it is not about protecting the community from Mason, it is about protecting Mason from the community.

  “I don’t know,” Fitch says and leaves Nate to contact the IT department.

  *

  A train bound for the city. The passengers are hot and bothered and silent as they stare out the windows. Mason can feel Ben shaking beside him.

  “Now kid, you can’t let that worry you.”

  But even as he says it, Mason realises the absurdity of his words. His son has just watched his father come inches away from decapitation, as an entrée to his own similar execution. Ben pulls out his drawing pad and starts sketching. But he is scribbling, merely seeking comfort from the familiarity of the pen and paper.

  “I feel for you kid. I feel for your generation. I mean why would a bunch of teenage kids, that have the spoils of this country and no cause to feel aggrieved, imitate a bunch of madmen on the Internet?”

  Ben has stopped drawing. He hunches over the pad in his lap, staring at his hand like he is still holding the gun.

  Mason puts his arm around his son’s shoulders. Ben leans into him. Mason realises that Ben is crying. His son’s body heaves with the silent tears. Mason ruffles his son’s hair and holds him tight. He rests his chin on Ben’s head.

  “Don’t worry kid. We’ll restore some order. Gonna get ourselves some respect. Gonna get me job back.”

  The train slows into Wynyard and they disembark.

  *

  Mason’s FIBS encounter has gone viral. Viewers are calling it a no holds barred, no quarter given, FIBS butt-kicking.

  Hey did you see this…click

  Like check this out bro…click

  Like Conor McGregor on steroids…click

  Like FIBS just got butt whipped…click

  We got a Black FIBS down, we got a Black FIBS down – anyone got a de-FIB-ulator...click

  Like, LOL…click

  Ironically the FIBS perpetrators had been seeking just this kind of viral sensation. Their lone wolf execution was being streamed live to subscribers of an underground extremism website but certain rouge dissidents took the footage mainstream. And good luck stopping the Facebook Youtube Twitter (Fubeitter) express after that.

  The backyard video detectives, the self anointed vigilantes against all things fake on the Internet, have run their tests for photo/video shopping (warped images, shadows the wrong way, disconnected audio and visual) and certified the video legit. And with authenticity comes credibility and the “Likes” just keep mounting up. School kids, office workers, mums and dads, give the video the thumbs up and flick it on.

  A one man FIBS butt-kicking machine – click.

  WTF – click.

  Forget the coalition of the willing, hire this guy – click.

  Some insomniacs in the United States even pick it up in the wee hours of the night.

  Hey check out what some bloke did Down Under – click.

  Yeah that’s why we want those Aussies with us not against us – click.

  Yeah can’t have those Aussies slipping into bed with Beijing – click.

  Maybe this guy’s got something to say about the Chinese building all those islands in the South China Sea. – click.

  Click – click – click – click – click.

  If FIBS had a legitimate corporate identity they’d be calling in the lawyers, because they’re suffering some serious brand damage.

  And Mason has become an Internet sensation. A modern age Butch Cassidy. A new age John McClane. A real life Indiana Jones toppling the FIBS Temple of Doom. Adults want to meet him and kids want to be him. Social commentators, as always, debate the morality of things.

  But he pulled the gun on FIBS.

  Only after they pulled the sword on him.

  He terrorised the terrorists, which makes him a terrorist.

  No that makes him a pacifist.

  Still a terrorist.

  A pacifist terrorist – like LOL.

  *

  Fitch has the map Nate marked up earlier with the day’s incidents spread over his office desk. A dot to dot of all things violent and wrong with society. But there is no pattern in the madness. No clue as to what comes next.

  Several witnesses have described a fifty-something male matching Mason’s appearance; height, hair colour, erratic behaviour. Fitch has marked the confirmed and likely sightings of Mason with red dots. He traces a path with his finger from the abandoned car at Emu Plains train station, to a fight on the train between Kingston and St Marys, Kingston medical centre, the 7-Eleven – scene of the great heist that wasn’t, and Ben’s school in Doonside.

  He is using the train but where is he going?

  You abduct your son – then where do you go?

  Home? Your ex-wife’s place? Out of town? Run for the hills? But the hills are on fire.

  Getting me job back.

  Fitch knows the words are somehow significant. What job? Current job? Does he mean the military?

  Fitch’s desk phone distracts him.

  It is Nate. He is excited, like he’s got something that is going to blow his boss’ socks off.

  “Shoot kid.”

  “I got our man’s PC records like you said Chief. Some aimless google searching and random work related emails, all real harmless, until his last activity, pulling up the CEO, the Big Cheese’s, profile on the office intranet. Name, address, phone number. He printed it boss. I checked the printer and it wasn’t left behind. I reckon he took it with him chief.”

  “Where’s the CEO’s office?”

  “City.”

  Things suddenly make sense. And like any well hidden puzzle, it looks so obvious to Fitch now that the solution had been laid bare.

  He’s on the train heading for the city. He’s going to get his job back from the CEO who took it from him.

  “Chief? You there? You’re going after him aren’t you Chief,” Nate says, concerned by Fitch’s silence, “I’m coming with you. Come and get me. Fitch. Fitch–”

  Fitch hangs up.

  *

  Policing is ten percent fact and evidence and ninety percent gut feel. And right now, Sergeant Fitch has a gut ache he cannot ignore as he speeds through the Penrith backstreets headed for the M4 motorway that will sweep him like a magic carpet into the CBD.

  But he has a choice to make.

  Does he stay on the case or hand it over?

  The policing handbook says hand it over. His moral compass says hand it over. Everything he was ever taught tells
him to hand it over to someone unattached to things. Personal interest can cloud your judgement and get people hurt.

  So just hand it over.

  But other officers will not understand Mason’s medical condition. They will come in heavy handed. And Mason will not go quietly. Handing it over would be synonomous with abandoning his brother.

  Choice two. Nate – in or out?

  Fitch’s gut says keep the kid out of it. Memories of what happened this day twenty years ago press at his conscience. The young officer taking both barrels from a madmen’s shotgun, but Fitch harbours a crazy belief that he might somehow redeem himself. Like taming the horse that just bucked him off. Fitch could let the kid in, keep him safe, just to prove that he can.

  Choices. Life is full of them.

  *

  They stalk through Wynyard Station in their too heavy, too hot, bomber jackets. The Bad Boys of the West on excursion, or incursion, to the East. The tide of suits swarming in the opposite direction part like Moses’ Red Sea giving the Bad Boys a wide berth. It is the evening peak hour and people are rushing home to their televisions. They’ll keep one eye on The Bachelor, and the other on the developing story of the crazy armed terrorist on the loose in Sydney.

  The Bad Boys pause and gather around the mobile. The red dot is stationary and they look around. The OMF is here somewhere. And this time there is no issue with the cheap GPS freezing. They see their target entering a convenience store, leaving a kid sitting outside with a book.

  “That’d be our OMF.”

  “He be stopped.”

  “He be dead.”

  “Put a cap in his arse.”

  They, like the rest of the world, heard this once on Cops and liked it, so it stuck.

  “Put a double cap in his arse.”

  Now that is taking some license.

  They hurdle the ticket turnstiles; the Bad Boys in New York don’t buy no train tickets; tickets would be a tax on the poor yeah, Gee.

  The leader pulls them together, however, before they start something they can’t stop. He tames the bluster with some reality.

  “He’d be mean. He knows how to fight. Be good with his fists. We take him together yeah?”

  They knock knuckles and swagger up to the store. Hands inside their jackets, they’ve come prepared this time. They’re carrying. Guns and knives and one of them intends to go all Chuck Norris, with a set of metal nunchaku he picked up from a cheap military disposal store.

  *

  Nate is outside in the car park. It is late afternoon and the wind has swept the smoke from the fires across the sky like spilt ink. The sun has turned stark red behind the grey veil. The beast from the West is coming to devour the East.

  Nate knows that Fitch won’t come. Fitch does not need a newbie getting in the way.

  Why would he…

  Fitch’s patrol car streaks into the parking lot.

  “Get in kid,” Fitch says through the open window.

  Nate does and Fitch gets the car back on the road.

  “Where we going Chief?” Nate is buzzing.

  “City.”

  “You reckon our man’s going after the big boss?”

  Fitch doesn’t reply. He keeps his eyes on the road as the police radio lights up with reports of a terrorist on the loose in Sydney.

  Chapter 13

  The police are slow in picking up the Mason vs FIBS footage, but once they have it, they move quickly. They track the IP address of the offending PC to a warehouse in Granville. A counter terrorism unit raids the place; Kevlar bullet proof vests, automatic assault rifles, riot gear and all the rest; Robocops come for the Robojihadists. Except the Robojihadists have cleared out leaving an abandoned blood splattered suburban cave. But the police get their men soon after at Westmead hospital. Two men presenting with gunshot wounds from a hunting trip gone wrong, was too farfetched a story for the emergency staff to digest.

  But Mason is the one the police want. They see beyond the glorified vigilante angle. They see a madman with a gun and a young hostage. They do the ring around and door knock of the local residents and businesses. Someone saw this and someone saw that but the truth is no one saw anything. But the CCTV camera footage from Granville train station saw Australia’s newest reality star getting on the 17:30 city bound train carrying a briefcase and leading a young kid with a book.

  The real prize though, comes in the form of a phone call. A distressed woman claiming to be the ex of Australia’s most wanted man.

  Go on. We’re listening.

  She tells them everything; name, age, military history and tendency for violence. She tells them that Mason has abducted her son and the seemingly minor detail of how she is the sister-in-law of Fitch Turner, Sergeant of the Penrith police branch, and that Sergeant Fitch has been after his brother Mason Turner since mid-morning.

  *

  Don’t ever let the facts get in the way of a good story.

  Print the headline before the commentary.

  Facts don’t sell stories – stories sell stories.

  And so is the media’s approach to Sydney’s potential terrorist. Newsrooms around Sydney pick up the story and run with it. As next to natural disasters, terrorism related incidents are pure media gold. The Fubeitter train has left the station and anybody who’s anybody, has to be on it. The public want to know who this man is and what he wants. And the media is going to tell them, with or without the facts.

  Journalists gather what they can from the Internet and from scanning the police radio channels. They get a name, Mason Turner, but the rest is all very sketchy. But pretty soon what started as Mason Turner – FIBS’ worst nightmare, becomes Mason Turner the radicalised Islamic sympathiser. A FIBS insider and defector. You see, what happened in the warehouse was the culmination of a power struggle in the FIBS hierarchy. Mason Turner wanted control. It was a clash over how to coordinate the group’s next terrorist attack. Mason wanted it his way. He got it his way.

  Unsubstantiated sightings come in from people having seen this man acting suspiciously around prominent Sydney landmarks in the past days. People call claiming to know him. And they describe a distant and violent individual. Counter terrorism experts run the standard psychology checklist over him and conclude he fits the lone wolf terrorist profile. And then there is the military history. The bloke served in Afghanistan in the military explosives unit.

  Did someone say explosives?

  The Fubeitter train is moving so fast it risks derailing as people take the news into their own hands. Facts and updates get texted and tweeted and Instagrammed. Reports of bombs planted around Sydney. Unattended bags left outside popular CBD meeting points. Strange men lurking on crowded train platforms.

  Maybe our man is not working alone.

  Each half-truth spawns a thousand more. The unsubstantiated snippets become fact. It is real time news creation in the hands of the masses; created by the public for the public. And the public go mad for the dissident FIBS insider angle.

  A homegrown Afghan inspired jihadist holding a young boy hostage.

  The reality has been pushed and pulled and twisted in so many directions that who knows what’s true.

  But does that really matter?

  *

  Mason recognises them immediately, it isn’t hard, dumbarse bomber jackets and hats the wrong way around. Three of them have trapped him inside the store and two more stand over Ben outside.

  “Remember us?”

  Mason screws up his face struggling to recall.

  “Let me see. Ip, Dip and Dogshit.”

  “We’re going to mess you up.”

  “Yeah, mess you up.”

  “Big time mess you up.”

  Mason considers the echoed threat. His gun and knife are inside the brief case he left with Ben. And he knows his antagonists have got some hardware inside their jackets.

  “Look,” Mason says, “I know we got off on the wrong foot this morning but I’ve had a bloody ordinary afternoon. So why don
’t we just…”

  “We’re gonna kick your bitchy arse bitch.”

  “You mess with us in our hood we always be finding you.”

  Mason watches their eyes. He has seen the scattered vagueness of Afghanistan suicide bombers, young men who have surrendered everything in preparation for the otherside. But in these young men he sees fear.

  “Well you found me alright,” Mason laughs, “but we’re a long way from your hood. Will you find your way home alright?”

  “This bitch would be lookin’ for a kickin’.”

  “Yeah, this bitch be thinkin’ he’s funny but he be cryin’ soon.”

  They close in and Mason backs up a step. He does not want another fight. He is done with fighting. And he has things to do.

  “I’m getting me job back,” he says, “nothin’ else. Just getting me job back.”

  “You be getting messed up mista is what you be gettin’.”

  The fist is a blur and it knocks Mason sideways into the confectionary impulse stand. Mars bars and M&Ms and Tic Tacs scatter across the floor. The young woman behind the counter screams. People outside see what is happening and quickly keep walking. There is no time to waste, The Bachelor starts soon. A boot rocks Mason’s head, another mashes his mouth. He sees stars and six assailants where a moment ago there were three.

  “Gonna mess you up man,” the leader taunts.

  Mason’s head snaps back. He spits blood on to the floor. He can see Ben wrestling with the two gang members outside, desperate to get in and help him. Mason starts to stand but a gun appears centimetres from his face.

  “You got something to say now,” Ring Leader’s face leers behind the gun.

  Mason knows the kid is crazy enough to do it. Put that cap, or whatever he calls it, into his head. Anything to recapture his tattered pride. But the kid is unsure how to do it. His LA and NYC COPS education never covered the shooting part. The show always started after the shooting had gone down and the cops were coming after the bad boys. And what had seemed so simple, just point and shoot, suddenly seems very hard.

  Big mistake. Big Big mistake. Never pull a gun unless you intend to use it.