The neo Nazi didn’t see him do it, he was too busy trying to get to the bottom of why “Mike” wasn’t here. He didn’t want to leave any loose ends.
“Aha!” he said as he pressed re-dial on his phone, only to hear Mike’s phone go off a second later.
“But if you’re Mike,” he said, remembering that the copper’s name was Michael Marr, “then who was that good looking dude the other day?”
“Why?” Mike answered, “Would you like a date?”
“I’ll shove this fucken gun up your date, smartarse! That’s it! I’m well and truly over this. I think it’s time you two said your goodbyes.”
Mike tried to make him understand that that wouldn’t work.
“What, you think you’re going to get away with shooting us both? Your ugly red-headed mug will be all over the Hotel CCTV. You might as well hand yourself straight in.”
Caldwell had thought about this while he waited for Mike to show up.
“Nah, I’ve got it all worked out. Blonde Bitch here will hit her head on the side of the spa bath and drown. You’ll find her lifeless body and be so cut up, you’ll blow your brains out with your revolver. So tragic...but romantic as fuck, don’t you think?
“Speaking of romance, I think I’ll tie you up first, Mike, so I can put this slut to good use on that king size bed in there. She looks like she’d be fun to fuck. Right, now lie flat on the floor and put your hands behind your back. Don’t try anything funny or I’ll...”
BANG! BANG! BANG! came a thumping from the door, then a shout…
OPEN UP, CALDWELL! IT’S THE POLICE!
Chapter 41
A fate far worse than death.
Mike knew that the police pounding on the door was only Joe Guttuk. Caldwell didn’t. Mike could see the panic in their captor’s eyes as he walked back and forth and around in small circles trying to decide what to do, how to get out of this mess. He quickly worked out he had three options: surrender, fight it out or use Ronda as a human shield as he made good his escape.
He chose the latter.
He bent over to untie her feet and Ronda’s eyes opened wide. Not with fear, although she had every reason to be fearful, but with amazement. She had obviously heard of Calliophis bivirgata before – its reputation preceded it – but she had never seen one in the flesh. Yet there it was, as large as life on the Caesarstone kitchen bench, well within striking distance of her face. But it wasn’t after her, it was waiting for Caldwell to stand back up.
When he did, he followed her line of sight and saw the snake. He went to shoot it, but by the time that thought had left his brain, it was already too late. The snake had already got him, twice. First on the radial artery on the right hand holding the gun, and then biting through his shirt sleeve, right into the Swastika tattooed on his right bicep. He didn’t know it – although Ronda certainly did – but he was a goner.
It only took forty-five seconds for the venom to be pumped to his heart and then out to every part of his body, and it was already doing its thing. It triggered all his nerve endings to fire at once and he collapsed, groaning, his gun clattering across the floor.
Mike scooped up the Glock, then stepped over to Ronda, untied her arms and ripped off her gag. He asked her if she was alright, but she only had eyes for the snake.
“Oh my god, a Blue Coral Snake. It’s beautiful!” she said standing slowly, admiring the animal then realised that Mike was also in the firing line, his left arm mere centimetres away. “Mike! Move away, now!” she exclaimed, dragging him away from the bench.
“It’s alright,” he replied, “it’s…it’s friendly.”
Friendly? This from a man who’s scared stiff of Kids Carpet Snakes???
“Friendly?” she repeated. “Are you mad? It just attacked Caldwell.”
The man in question was spasming now, doubling up in agony. “Help me,” he begged, between bouts of the most excruciating pain he’d ever experienced.
“We’ll do everything we can,” she reassured him, before leading Mike across to the lounge area out of Caldwell’s earshot.
“There’s nothing we can do,” she told him, “There’s no way back for him. No one has ever survived their bite. The world’s leading neuroscientists have been trying to develop an antivenin for Blue Coral Snakes for years, with no joy.
“These are the ultimate predators, and I’m talking apex. Real killer killers. All they eat are other venomous snakes – they prey on King Cobras for crying out loud – and they have the biggest venom glands in the world, stretching back over a quarter the length of their body.
They watched as Caldwell started vomiting, severely, and rolling in his own vomit.
“Remember when I said that Western Browns were the ones I’d least like to get bitten by? I’d forgotten about these guys. They’re native to South East Asia…I didn’t know there were any in Australia.”
“There are”, said Joe, who’d just entered the room and was walking over to reclaim his Gladstone bag, “but only on one tiny Torres Strait island called Boigu, population 240. Grandfather went there recently to…er, bring one back.”
“He went to the Torres Strait?” said Ronda, baffled. “When? How?”
“Er…he went there in spirit,” replied Joe, gently picking up the snake and returning it to the bag.
Mike introduced Joe to Ronda but before she could question him further, they were interrupted by Caldwell’s ear-piercing screams.
He was severely spasming and bashing his head on the tiles, presumably trying to knock himself out.
This was because the human body is blessed with a trigger called vasovagal syncope. It’s what causes a person to blissfully pass out when pain becomes unbearable. Some people call it the trip switch, others the safety switch.
Sadly, Blue Coral Snake venom has a unique constituent, a one-off enzyme that either bypasses or overrides this trigger. Scientists can’t agree on which. Caldwell was going through hell. His highest pain threshold would never be reached, just get exponentially worse. If he still had his gun, he would have ended the agony without a second thought. He was suffering unendurable pain that he had to endure right till the end. The only saving grace was that end was almost upon him.
The humanitarian in Mike hated to see a fellow human being, even a lowlife like Caldwell, suffer so badly. The policeman in him thought “Damn! If only I could have got him to tell us what’s about to go down. And who this mysterious Benefactor is.”
Too late for that now. Caldwell’s pulse was weakening, his breathing almost non-existent. His time was up, what was left of his life could now be measured in seconds.
Chapter 42
But wait, there’s more!
At the very last second, Joe removed a syringe from the bag and stabbed it into Caldwell’s left wrist, squeezing the contents right into the artery. Almost immediately he began to stir, but was still a long way from being anywhere near right. Out of ten, his pain went from right off the scale to a more manageable 9.5. It would be at least another ten minutes before he was compos mentis again. At the moment, all he could manage to do was groan and twitch.
“What’s this?” Ronda asked Joe, picking up an empty glass vial, “Since when has there been an antivenin for Blue Coral Snake venom?”
“Boigu Island’s leading neuroscientist – Uncle Freddy – developed this stuff ten years ago,” he replied with a grin.
“Then why hasn’t he told anyone about it?” Ronda asked
“He tried to. But when the head sherangs found out he didn’t have a uni degree, and that he was an Islander, they hung up on him. So he’s keeping it to himself till they ring back.”
“Speaking of keeping things to ourselves,” Mike said, “you don’t honestly expect me to turn a blind eye to all these deaths in the past year, do you?”
“Well Detective, the snake’s in the bag,” Joe said. “Feel free to arrest him. Good luck putting the handcuffs on him though. Or keeping him behind bars. Besides, this particular snake hasn
’t killed anyone. Yet.”
“But Lirrru..?”
“…is a frail old man with one leg. You think a jury would find him guilty? Although he is black, so you never know.”
“What about Eddy Van Heerden?” Mike asked. “He was badly beaten before he fell or was pushed to his death. Did you kill him, Joe?”
“I wish I had,” said Joe with a wry smile as he removed the video camera from his bag of tricks and handed it over. “But as you’ll see, it was pretty much self defence before he took a dive.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, Caldwell was stirring. Still a dull ache from head to toe, but alive and sitting up. What a nightmare he thought. He turned and looked around groggily. There was the blonde he’s gunna fuck…and whatsisname, the detective…and some young abo prick he’d never seen before. Fuck! You just can’t get away from them, can you!
“Welcome back, Colin,” the copper said quietly. “I know you’re not feeling 100%, but you need to tell me about the Benefactor and what he’s got planned.”
“Suck my dick. Or better still, she can.”
Mike would have given him a backhander, if it weren’t for Ronda’s views on police brutality. Instead he grabbed him by the collar and dragged him closer till they were almost nose-to-nose.
“What’s about to happen, Caldwell? Who is this Benefactor? You’ve got to tell us.”
“Or what?” Caldwell sneered. “You can’t do any worse to me than what just happened.”
“That’s true,” said Joe, breaking in on the conversation, “but we can do the same again. In fact, we can keep doing it all day. Dying is too good for scum like you,” he added holding the Blue Coral Snake up to Caldwell’s neck.
And to his horror, Caldwell realised that he’d been bitten again. Knowing what to expect made the terror of what he was about to experience all over again even more devastating and he was screaming even before the pain kicked in.
“I can’t watch this again, Mike,” Ronda announced, hand to her mouth and tears in her eyes. “It’s too awful. Get me out of here.”
“We’ll be down in the lobby,” he told Joe as they walked out of Caldwell’s living nightmare. “Keep me posted on any developments especially if he spills his guts about you-know-who and what’s going down.”
With Mike’s protective arm over her shoulder, they left the room, almost tripping over a wooden crutch lying outside the door. Ronda looked back at it quizzically, pointed at it and went to say something, but changed her mind… because Mike had done something extraordinary. He’d walked down the hallway and straight into a waiting lift!
“But hang on,” she said as he pressed Ground, “you’re scared of lifts?”
“Don’t be silly. What’s to be scared of? It’s just a lift. It’s not going to kill you. Not like a snake.”
They walked into Caffe Cino in the lobby. He sat Ronda down at a table on the perimeter where he could keep an eye on the elevator, in case Joe and Lirru turned up. As soon as she was seated, he turned to her and smiled.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to do for hours...”
“Kiss me?”
“Maybe later. First, I’ve got to syphon the python. I’ve been busting for a snake’s hiss since the damn stakeout…”
***
Their mood was sombre as they awaited news of any developments from Room 2705. Watching Caldwell’s horrifying near death experience was harrowing. However, there was one surreal moment when, for no apparent reason, a dear little old lady with a walking stick shuffled up behind Mike, tapped him on the shoulder and said: “No, you fuck off!” and walked away.
***
The best part of an hour later, they were onto their third coffees. They had watched Joe’s enlightening home movie twice – very impressed with his fighting skills and toenail trick – when they heard the click…click…click of a crutch on tiles. They looked up and saw Joe and Lirru approaching. Where had he come from thought Ronda and why was his crutch upstairs?
Mike stood up and introduced Ronda to Lirru, and invited the Guttuks to join them but they were in ‘a plurry hurry’.
“Not so fast, Lirru,” Mike informed him, “I need to know what happened.”
The sharp-eyed old man seemed to know everything about what had happened upstairs. His grandson must have brought him up to speed. But no, as it turns out he was there.
“He was either brave or stubborn,” the elder said, “it took us another three goes. He wasn’t saying anything at first, was going to take his secret to his grave. But then, while he was coming back from the dead the third time, his phone rang and I answered it, pretending to be him. It was the Benefactor!
“He asked me why my voice sounded so hoarse and I told him I had a cold. He then said: “Everything’s in place for ‘The Counter Attack’…give everyone the order to go!” I panicked a bit at that, but recovered in time and said: ‘Let’s go through it one last time, just to make sure I don’t fuck anything up’ and after a long pause he agreed and told me half of what I needed to know.
Can I have some water? Got a real bad taste in my mouth.”
Joe handed his grandfather a glass of water and took up the story.
“Then when Caldwell was coming round, but still a bit groggy, I bluffed him into thinking that the Benefactor had told us everything about this ‘Counter Attack’ and he broke down and told us the other half. You won’t believe what’s happening.”
“Try me”, Mike said. “After today, I’ll believe anything.”
“Over 100 aboriginal elders from the biggest clans in Australia are about to be kidnapped at gunpoint and held for ransom. Unless Aboriginal Australia rips up the Mabo Agreement and hands Sovereignty of the entire country back to the Commonwealth immediately, they and their families will be killed.”
Mike tried to get his head around that. All he could think to ask was “Why?”
“Mining leases mainly,” Joe answered.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Ronda pointed out, “everything will happen at gunpoint, the aborigines will be under extreme duress. The High Court will throw it straight out once the elders are released.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lirru pointed out, “by then the mining will have begun, starting with the sacred sites. The plurry emu will have bolted. Throwing it ‘straight out’ could take months. You know what the courts are like. By then, it’ll be “Oh sorry, but it’s too late now.”
Joe was visibly angry and upset.
“And Caldwell admitted that the elders aren’t ever going to be released anyway. After they renounce Sovereignty, they’re going to be massacred.”
Mike and Ronda were gobsmacked. This couldn’t happen, not in Australia surely.
“Is Caldwell still up in the room?” Mike said, “I’ve got to speak to him.”
“Sadly, he didn’t make it,” Joe informed him, although he didn’t look real sad, “wouldn’t you know it we ran out of antivenom right after he ’fessed up.”
“But did he tell you who the Benefactor was, before he died?”
Joe and Lirru swapped glances, as if wondering whether they should tell him or not.
“He did,” Lirru said at last.
“Who?”
“Never you mind who. We’re on our way to see him now.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” Mike said, standing up and grabbing his jacket, “to arrest him.”
“No, you’re not. He’s not being arrested.”
“Yes I am! And yes, he is!” Mike insisted. There’d been more than enough deaths already.
Lirru gave him a thousand-yard stare before finally asking “Do you want this all to be over? Done and dusted? End of story?”
“Of course.”
“Then wait here. We’ll be back.”
***
Lirru and Joe waited patiently on the Hilton forecourt for five minutes before a cab eventually stopped for them. The first four had slowed down but driven off. They were ‘abos’ after all, they w
ere probably pissed, or off their faces on drugs, and would probably chuck up in the cab, slash the seats, bash the driver and do a runner… even with only three legs between the pair.
They thanked the driver and got in. Lirru took the front seat and handed his crutch over to Joe in the back.
“Where to, gentlemen?” the driver asked.
“Kirribilli House, please matey.”
###
Overkill : Pure Venom Page 21
