Stealth

by John Hollenkamp

  “Turn on that Dictaphone, please.” Cate requested as she peered through the binoculars.

  Her off-sider picked up the recording device. “Handy little things aren’t they?”

  “Yes. Saves a lot of time.” Cate put the binoculars down and started her observation report by speaking into the small microphone wired to the recording device. “Subject surveillance, DS Auto Repairs, also known as Devil’s Sinners clubhouse. No unusual activity. Despite tip-off no persons of interest have shown up. Two vehicles entered and left the site, both occupied with unknown persons. Licence plate checks revealed nothing of note. One taxi …” She stopped her report, her mouth slightly open. She whispered under her breath, “What the fuck.”

  As the taxi slowly rolled past them, she recognised the driver with the Tom Selleck moustache. Darren! What are you doing here?

  “Something wrong?” asked the young detective.

  “No. Nothing wrong,” Cate snapped, looking away.

  “One taxi observed slowing in front of subject building. Probably looking for street number. Duration of surveillance, two hours and fifteen minutes. Time now, midday.”

  She signalled Adam to switch off the recorder.

  Cate turned the key and the Commodore quietly came to life. She pressed the indicator lever down. One more look ahead, and then she eye-balled the mirror on the door and eased the car out of the parking spot. She was hungry.

  “We’ll stop in Collaroy and grab a bite.”

  “Good, I’m famished,” the young detective agreed.

  Adam Hinze had only recently joined the criminal investigation unit and like Cate, he had been catapulted through the ranks. He looked more like a uni student than a cop. He would blend easily in many circles. His dark wavy hair was deliberately kept rather long and was not tailored to be sympathetic to any particular pop culture. It was just casually long – not pony-tail long. He was otherwise well-shaven and clean, with blue dreamy eyes and could pass for a good-looking young professional in any number of professions. But a copper, no not likely. Coppers don’t wear skate-gear.

  Cate, on the other hand, mostly wore a detective’s outfit, dark-coloured pants with matching jacket over a white or light grey long-sleeved dress-shirt. Her work uniform did not make her look any less sexy, but every bit a serious police detective.

  Cate welcomed the change in the short time Adam had been appointed her new trainee-cum-offsider. She found him polite and responsive, although ‘disconnected’, or ‘distant’ at times, when in her presence. Sometimes, Cate felt that he didn’t like her. That was stupid, because he had never been anything but nice, courteous and generous. Unlike most of the male coppers, who couldn’t get past the ogling of her breasts, at every opportunity they could seize. Although, that perception was probably the result of being obsessed with a distaste for male sexual harassment. Adam had never imparted that feeling to her. She found it refreshing, but occasionally disappointing. He never once complimented her on her looks. Can’t have it both ways, I guess.

  “So, that was a bummer. What’s the next step?” After that comment Adam bit into his burger.

  Cate had a BLT. She hadn’t started on the nicely presented toasted sandwich, sitting to one side of her plate next to a dainty salad with a few sprigs of watercress on top.

  “I’ve never seen a bloke eat a burger with the finesse you do.” she remarked, then picked up her meal and started eating.

  “These guys are into some serious business. I’ll fill you in on some things, when we’re back at the office. Here and now, is not the right place. So let’s just eat.” Both detectives ate with gusto to finish their lunch.

  “Never had a bad burger here yet,” Adam complimented as they exited the café.

  While in the car on the way back to the precinct, Cate elaborated on her comments back at the café. She skilfully drove the wagon through heavy traffic on Pittwater Road, while feeding her young partner dribs and drabs of information.

  “You’re new to this investigation and have a lot to learn. To be fair, we’ve been looking into this club’s activities for a while now.” She steered the car past a bus and gunned her way well in front of it, before she slowed to the speed-limit.

  “Just as well we’re coppers,” Adam joked, while mimicking a whip-lash movement.

  “That’s what I like about you. You got a sense of humour. Just don’t get carried away with it.” That was Cate all over: straightforward, honest, positive. But observe the line in the sand, buddy.

  “In fact, this gig was the first one to be thrown on my desk, other than a backlog of four years’ worth of unsolved drug related street-crime. The serious ones. One’s with bodies,” she said without taking her eyes off the road.

  “’Matlock’, came into my new office with a pile of files, threw them on my desk and said, ‘may as well throw you to the wolves at the start’, ‘there’s no pussyfooting in this department. Clear’?” Cate emphasised with a mocking deep Matlock voice.

  “Matlock. Yeah, I’ve heard that name a few times. Popular fellow, I gather,” Adam said with understated humour.

  “Don’t worry, he’s pensioned off. Just before you were transferred. To get to the point now, the Devil’s Sinners moved into the Narrabeen area from the western suburbs to open up a legitimate mechanical business. Although well-established out west, they are only new kids on the block here.” She pulled the wagon into the underground carpark.

  “A low-key investigation into their activities was started, after a stolen Harley was recovered in their western suburbs workshop, during a routine DMR check. No charges were laid, because we didn’t have enough evidence. Purely coincidental stuff, but sometimes you need a bit of luck in police-work to win.”

  At the elevator she paused her briefing; in the elevator on the way to the second floor Cate stayed silent, her eye-contact and expression telling Adam to follow suit. As soon as they were in her office, she showed him the chair opposite her desk.

  “Before I transferred here, I was on a task-force involved in recovery of stolen cars, rebirthing etcetera. That’s where I first encountered the Devil’s Sinners. The rumour-mill told us that this mob was also peddling drugs. Usual stuff, amphetamines, marijuana, and cocaine. Whispers about close ties with the Italian mafia prompted us to take these guys more seriously. It was decided to infiltrate and put someone on the ground under deep cover.” She cleared her throat and continued.

  “Only four people directly know of his existence. You’re the fifth. There cannot be a sixth or seventh. Do you get my drift?” Cate looked at her apprentice with an empty expression. But one that said: if this goes any further, I’ll make sure your career is finished.

  Adam’s expression was equally blank, and he replied, “Crystal clear.”

  “Although it was difficult at first, our guy managed to become a patched member after six months. He is not your usual suspect, for lack of a better description. Anyway, you don’t need to know his identity.”

  “This mob is knee-deep in all sorts of shit. Grand theft is not their forte, but in the distribution of drugs, they are really gaining some ground. The leader of the club, a guy called Eddie, is smart. They stay away from making pills, but they source and on-sell. Lots of their stuff goes to Canberra.”

  She took a short break and picked up the internal line, “Mill, can you bring me a couple of coffees, milk and sugar on the side thanks.” And hung up.

  “Eddie also has a contact for cocaine distribution. This is the one we are really interested in. Hence our impromptu stake-out this morning.” Cate cleared her throat, as the air in the office was dry. Cate got up and opened the sliding window a few inches. Enough to let some fresh air in but keep the street noise down.

  “Another interesting part to this operation of theirs is that they don’t do much in retail, meaning the bikie members don’t stand on a street corner and flog pills. They do control distribution and are involved in enforcement of their business empire. They use an outside crew to do
the running-around, deliveries, pick-ups. A couple of boys from the South Coast, apparently.”

  There was a knock on the door. Adam got out of his seat and promptly opened the door for the clerk. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the plastic cups were placed on the desk. Millie the clerk then produced some sachets of sugar and powdered milk. She dropped them between the cups and left without a word, closing the door just under a slam.

  “She obviously doesn’t like being a tea-lady, or in this case, coffee-lady,” Adam remarked.

  “In some work places appreciation of where you are in the food-chain is often lost,” Cate said while casting a philosophical look at the ceiling.

  “Okay, so let’s go back to the cocaine angle. To obtain a kilo of cocaine you need good contacts, especially when your deliveries are more or less consistent. This sort of contact is built on trust. And big money. This scenario leads me to link big money, access to cocaine and ability to import. Answer – Italian mafia.”

  Adam held up his hand to ask a question. “Are we the only ones digging into this operation, or are we working with other taskforces?”

  “Fair question. We are in communication with someone in the Southern Region investigations division, but it is limited to keeping an eye on a couple of suspects doing the running around for Eddie and his mates.” She stopped and sipped the hot coffee. “However, in the last week we have learnt that the two couriers are actually cousins and are in the legal courier business. Speculation has it they have branched out and are engaged in some illegal activities relating to transport of other contraband. Let’s not worry about them for the moment. We know who they are and we’ll keep tabs on them.” Cate leaned back on her creaking office-chair and folded her arms behind her head. She yawned. Then she put her arms back down in front of her on the desk.

  “We keep our ears to the ground and our eyes open. We share little with others.” She paused. “Anyway back to the nuts and bolts. We have to follow the trail back. Our job is to trace the origin of the coke. Apart from some top brass, there are only three people involved at ground level. You, me, and our guy.” She stared into the young detective’s blue eyes.

  Adam acknowledged her with a nod.

  So where did we get the info about the Italian connection?”

  “Our mole.”

  “What’s next?” asked Adam, shifting in his chair with enthusiasm.

  CHAPTER 45

  COMPLICATIONS

  No matter how many times Darren had driven past the Devil’s Sinners’ clubhouse in the last few months, he still had no answer to his questions. How could he physically get to Eddie? How would he be able to draw him out away from his mates? Why didn’t Eddie ever leave the shop? Darren was going around in circles. And one day, someone was going to catch him out with the drive-by capers. No, he needed to get closer. Crawl around at night like a stalker. It was a far cry from banging on someone’s door at midnight threatening physical harm if they didn’t pay their debts. The stalking bit wasn’t out of his range of capability, but tackling seven or eight pissed off bikies if he got made, that was another matter.

  Today’s drive-by highlighted another problem. What the fuck was Cate doing over there? On a stake-out? And did she see him? Like a dark-blue Commodore wagon with near black tinted windows and two occupants in the front seat doesn’t stand out, parked under a tree on the side of the road. Darren shook his head. He was probably just as crazy for driving past twice in one day.

  He parked the taxi in a side-street off Winbourne Road in Brookvale and pulled a small note-book out from under his seat. He opened it and flicked through the pages of sketches. The pencil drawings were rough outlines of buildings, of how they were laid out, with notes depicting windows, doors and fencing. The drawings got better as he flicked to his more recent doodles. Darren even appointed several dimensions of size, relating known dimensions of familiar items to a translation of estimated measurements in metres. The garage at the rear of the Sinners auto shop was about ten metres long, probably seven metres deep and looked to be about four and a half metres from the main clubhouse in the front. He put another note on the last empty page: only one way in and out, through the front gate. The premises were securely fenced off with a seven-foot-high wire fence. He marked the security lights with sensors with a cross wherever they were located: only the ones he could see from the road. There were bound to be other lights with sensors. Although the map was not complete, he started to feel more familiar with the lay-out. Maybe tonight. That thought set his heart beating a little harder.

  CHAPTER 46

  SECRETS

  It was just after three o’clock in the afternoon and Cate was relieved that Adam had left her office. The door had just clicked shut. A bit of peace and quiet to reflect on the day’s events. She was not pleased about seeing Darren do a drive-by in Warraba Road. Maybe he was lost. Could have got the wrong address. The street number could have been missing. Or not visible. Possible. Entirely possible. Her fingers were dancing on the desk. Don’t overthink, keep it simple. What does it look like? Go with your gut feel. It looked like a drive-by and recon.

  Frustrated, she sprung to her feet and shoved her desk chair back forcefully. She snatched her jacket from the back of it. She marched to the door, opened it, left through it, and slammed it shut.

  Adam looked up from his desk as the door slammed and she sailed past his desk without a word or a glance. He watched her exit towards the elevator through the glass panel separating their office space from the foyer. She’s got the shits about something. He tapped his pen on the desk and contemplated. Then he put his head down and continued scouring the pages of notes about the Devil’s Sinners M.C.

  She unlocked the door to her two-bedroom unit in Dee Why, her mind clogged with unanswered questions. But one other question had resurfaced consistently in the last few weeks. Why did the punishment not equal the crime? And even more worrying to her was her reluctance to ask him about that. She knew deep down that her lover’s past included a few dark secrets; they might be covered in cobwebs for now but they were bound to surface one day. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Looking to be squeaky clean as a copper was difficult enough. Keeping clean was even harder. But she had to know. Today’s event made that clear.

  They hadn’t planned anything other than seeing each other this evening after he finished his shift. She was overcome with impatience. Would this be their first blue? She didn’t smoke. She quit a long time ago. She really felt like lighting one up now. Maybe even two.

  After pacing between the kitchen and the bedroom, then the balcony, back to the bedroom for ten minutes, she calmed herself and kicked off her shoes. She took off her jacket and dropped it on the white leather lounge. From there she went back into the bedroom and undressed. Naked, she went into the bathroom and turned on the hot-water tap over the bath.

  Cate lay in the bath for nearly an hour; surrounded by bath-suds, the aroma from lavender oil and thoughts of a holiday in the Whitsundays. The water temperature had cooled. She had cooled. Refreshed and feeling sedated, she unplugged the tub and let the water out. She remained lying in the bath until all the water had drained out, then she got out and dried herself. Ten minutes later she emerged from the bedroom, dressed in jeans and one of Darren’s shirts.

  She decided to do something that she rarely ever did; she left the unit with an empty grocery satchel – deciding to be a girlfriend for a while, not a copper.

  Darren finished his shift earlier than usual and decided to go back to his unit. The recon idea he’d toyed with for tonight wasn’t not going to happen. There was no point in carrying out a ‘look and see’ mission without a real objective. And the objective was: punish Eddie, kill Eddie. But walking up to the front door and greeting his enemy with a bullet from a gun was not part of a plan that appealed to him, at least not until he had figured out how to get away without getting caught. Blind vengeance had no room in his mind space, despite an on-going little battle between a bitter devi
l and the grim reaper. Carlos would remind him faithfully: “Punishment is a measured response, not an act of passion.” But tonight, another question was burning in his head: did Cate see him?

  Darren felt the coldness of the tiled floor underneath his bare feet. His apartment in a unit complex in Harbord had never given him much of a home feeling. Standing in front of his fridge with the door open confirmed his desire for change. The bloody thing was nearly empty, except for some tomato sauce and some butter left wrapped roughly and left in the door tray. He retrieved a jar labelled fruit chutney. Curious, because he couldn’t remember how long it had been there, he unscrewed the lid. The contents were crystallised. Three stubbies were holding the fort on the middle glass shelf. They’ll keep. He shut the fridge, chucked out the chutney and left his unit.

  The door lock clicked and Cate heard it shut a few seconds later. “Wow, what’s that I can smell? Is that a roast pork?” Darren’s smile said it all and he walked straight into the arms of a stunning would-be chef. They kissed intimately for more than a minute. When they came up for air Cate was first, “Hi.”

  “And hi to you too.” He perused the kitchen and saw the array of cookware and utensils scattered on the benchtop and in the sink, “Wow, you really went to town tonight. It smells bloody beautiful. Not second-guessing, but there is a very porky flavour in the air. How long?” Darren’s nose perked and tried to pull him away from her to follow the aroma to the oven.

  “It’s got another half an hour to go. And look home-made apple-sauce.” She lifted the lid to the smallest of the stainless pots simmering on the stove. The steam dissipated from the boiling apples. She lowered the flame right down to minimum. Darren inspected the other larger pot; he lifted the lid to boiling spuds.