Dark Country (Dungirri)

by Parry, Bronwyn

  ‘One with multiple gunshot wounds to chest and upper leg, significant blood loss.’ She switched to speaker phone as she knelt beside Liam, dropped the phone and the torch on the ground as she tore off her jacket and T-shirt, and bundled it against the wound in the side of his chest. Gil’s large hand pressed down on it, and she reached for Liam’s wrist. ‘Pulse is weak,’ she said, loudly enough for the phone to pick up. ‘Patient is not conscious. We’ll need the rescue helicopter.’

  His tone polite and calming, the operator started to ask more questions, but despairing at the delay, she spoke over him. ‘I’m a police sergeant. I know serious injuries when I see them. Just get that chopper in the air now, and ambulances on the way, and then we can do the rest.’

  Liam’s lips moved up a fraction, and his hand moved slightly under hers. When she glanced down, she saw he’d given her a thumbs-up sign. Relief made her eyes blur, but it didn’t lessen her worry by much.

  Grim-faced, Gil told Liam to ‘Hang in there, mate. We’ve got you.’

  Kris continued reporting to the operator, responding to his questions, checking Liam’s leg wound. A bullet wound, blood loss, but from what she could tell, no main artery hit. She knew damned well that this far from help, Liam wouldn’t have stood much chance if that had been the case.

  She heard car engines approaching, saw headlights arc across the garden. Worried it might be the abductors returning, she quickly flicked the torch off, drew her gun, and with a signal to Gil to stay with Liam, she ducked around the side of the house to check, yanking on her jacket as she went.

  Two police cars pulled up in the driveway outside the house. The officer’s torch beams caught Mark, slumped against the post, and one swung around and blinded her as she approached.

  ‘Kris!’ Adam exclaimed, dropping the light from her eyes.

  ‘One of you get a first-aid kit around to the back,’ she instructed. ‘Someone else see to Mr Strelitz. Ambulance and chopper are coming.’

  ‘Yeah, we heard,’ Adam said, as the other officers hurried to act.

  ‘How did you get here so quickly?’ she asked. It could only be a few minutes since she’d called, nowhere near long enough for two cars to come from either Dungirri or Birraga.

  ‘The security firm in Moree alerted us. An alarm went on very briefly, then stopped, and they couldn’t get on to anyone by phone, or access the system. When you called, the operator relayed the call. We didn’t see any sign of the chopper, but we came from north of here, we were attending a domestic. You weren’t here when it happened?’

  ‘No. Gil and I just arrived back from Sydney. We saw the chopper from the corner of the main road.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I wondered why you hadn’t returned my call this morning.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’ she demanded, dreading the answer. Adam wouldn’t call her on days off without good reason.

  ‘The magistrate released Sean Barrett and the other blokes on bail this morning.’

  She closed her eyes briefly, silently cursed the magistrate. Mark had said there were about eight men in the vehicles, presumably another couple in the helicopter. Sergio, the Flanagan sons, Clinton the truck driver, the two others who’d been with Sergio at the old Gillespie place the other day – that made six they could reasonably suspect were already involved. Armed, prepared to shoot, and definitely dangerous.

  And now the magistrate had released four more men with a grudge against Gil – and Megan – some of whom had existing connections to the Flanagans, all of whom had mates in the wilder, rougher parts of the community, bored and disillusioned by long-term underemployment and lack of money. Chances were, Sergio and Tony would have plenty of potential recruits, keen to see some excitement.

  Paramedics bustled around Liam, examining him, setting up a drip, getting a briefing from the senior constable who’d joined Gil in looking after him.

  Seething with anger, frustrated by their collective helplessness – there was no news, yet, on where the helicopter might have landed – Gil gritted his teeth and watched the paramedics work on Liam.

  More police arrived, including Steve Fraser, and Gil heard Kris giving him a brief summary. One of the ambulances left again, with Mark, its siren wailing in the night. As it dimmed down the road, Gil heard the thwack of rotors in the distance, and before long the rescue chopper landed in the paddock, bringing with it another flurry of lights and activity.

  Kris came and stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder. She’d found another T-shirt, discarded her jacket somewhere along the line.

  ‘How’s Mark?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re taking him to Birraga for X-rays and monitoring. The rescue helicopter can only take one – they’ll come back to Birraga for Mark if he needs it.’

  She heaved in a deep breath, her fingers tightening on his arm. ‘They were organised, Gil. A planned operation. The phone line and power were cut. They stormed in, heavily armed, and one of them at least knew the operation of the security system, took out the battery backup. They rounded them all up, held them at gunpoint, and collected up their mobiles and smashed them.’

  That matched the few phrases Liam had muttered, in between apologies for failing Megan and Deb, as he wavered in and out of consciousness.

  Four unarmed people, against almost a dozen, some with semi-automatic weapons. Liam – bright, too-young, too-loyal Liam – could die, doing what Gil thought he should have been there to do: protect them. Deb would take the same risks. The thought of what they’d been through – of what still might be happening to Megan and Deb, wherever they were – snapped his control.

  He spun away from Kris, belted his fist against a tree.

  ‘We shouldn’t have left them here,’ he raged. ‘It’s my fucking fault for leaving them here, unprotected.’

  ‘You think I feel any better about it?’ she snapped back, her own temper flaring. ‘This wasn’t a few thugs. They could have dealt with that. It was a bloody paramilitary-style extraction, planned with inside information. So it’s no good either of us blaming ourselves, no matter how much we damned well want to.’

  Lights suddenly came on, bright compared to the flickering torch beams, a security light shining into his eyes so that he had to blink.

  ‘Good – power’s back.’ Her voice was brisk, focused again after that outburst. ‘We’ll meet in Mark’s office, get the search for them underway. I want your input, Gillespie. It’s probably more useful than thumping things,’ she added dryly, before she turned and walked away.

  He took a short time to calm down, then found the water tank and washed Liam’s blood off his hands. When he stood in the doorway of Mark’s office a few minutes later, Kris was well underway, rolling off instructions to the ten or so cops in the room.

  ‘Jake, get on to Harry at Birraga Air Charter, see what he knows about helicopter pilots in the district, and any choppers or pilots visiting. And then check with the properties around the region that use choppers for mustering. Adam, phone around the local graziers, see if you can get a path on the chopper. They’ll likely have heard it, might be able to give us a better idea of direction. And find out if they know if Mark’s had any visitors the past two days. Kate and Todd, check the manager’s cottage, the outbuildings, and the old shearers’ quarters down by the woolshed for anyone there, or signs that anyone’s been watching the place. Trisha – the security firm at Moree – find out everything they’ve logged over the past two days around this place. I don’t think the full system was running, but find out what was.’

  She would cover it all, he knew. She’d efficiently go through all the possible sources of information, pull together every fact, keep searching and asking and hunting as long as she needed. Because she was a damned good cop and a dedicated one, who cared about the people she’d sworn to serve.

  But she couldn’t do the one thing he could do. The one thing that might have a chance of getting Megan and Deb released, unharmed.

  He turned and left the house.
>
  He could hear the rescue helicopter preparing to take off behind the house, but he didn’t go that way. He dialled directory assistance while he walked down the drive and received the number by text just as he reached the bike.

  The moon shone in a clear sky overhead, dimming out half the stars. Waiting for the phone to pick up, he searched for the constellations he’d watched as a kid, alone in the dark.

  ‘Flanagan, it’s Gillespie. Tell the Russos that I have the will. They can have me and it in exchange for the women. Use this number to arrange a time and place. No cops, because I know you’ve got a mole. Just me and the will.’

  He disconnected as soon as he finished. Leaving Kris’s bag by the road, he drove away into the darkness.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The bastard had left, and he wasn’t answering her calls. Every hour, she left a message – first angry, then worried, then pleading – and her heart leapt every time her phone rang, but he didn’t respond.

  The only thing she had was the note he’d left in her jacket pocket: Look for the informant. I’ll be in touch. G. Look for the informant. A whole lot easier said than done. Look for an informant, while at the same time trying to locate a helicopter and two abducted women, with a small force of police in a huge regional area where she wasn’t sure who she could trust.

  Adam’s enquiries traced the noise of the chopper to an area southwest of Birraga, but there the trail ended. Whether that meant it had landed in the area, or flown further on, they had no way of knowing. In the interview room in the Dungirri station, she and Adam studied maps spread on the table, trying to match scraps of information that might or might not be relevant to find some sort – any sort – of pattern.

  Steve had emailed scanned copies of Gil’s maps from years ago, and the photos and notes, and she looked through the printed pages, identifying properties on the larger survey maps, comparing them with the lists she had of current Flanagan-owned properties. There were at least fifteen of the latter, and she didn’t know if the list was complete. It was also likely that not everything they had an interest in was directly registered under the Flanagan Agricultural Company.

  Properties in the outback areas beyond Birraga tended to be huge, and a few landholders used helicopters for mustering and other work. Harry at Birraga Air Charter gave them a list of the ones he knew, but they were all smaller aircraft, not large enough to carry four people. Still, she cross-matched that data against the Flanagan properties … and came up with nothing.

  She closed her eyes, bit her lip, trying to keep from howling like a little girl from exhaustion and despair. Megan was out there … somewhere. Just seventeen years old, and vulnerable. Kris hoped she and Deb were together – Deb would do her best to look after her.

  But they were both reliant on her to find those responsible, locate the hiding place and organise a rescue. She’d failed before. Little Jess Sutherland was lying in a grave, murdered. Tanya Wilson had survived, but no thanks to her.

  Look for the informant, Gil had said.

  But if she hadn’t recognised a murderer when she’d seen him in the street almost every day, how could she hope to identify an informant when she had no evidence?

  They waited until six-thirty in the morning to call him. The first rays of sunlight slanted through the timber gaps in the deserted shearing shed he’d hidden in, not far outside Birraga, and he woke from his doze with a start when his phone rang.

  ‘It’s a deal, Gillespie,’ an accented voice said in his ear. ‘Ten o’clock this morning. On the Tarlinton Road, five kilometres west of Dog Creek. Just you and the will. If we see even a hint of anyone else, we will shoot the hostages.’

  The click of disconnection sounded in his ear.

  Tarlinton Road. He pulled up the GPS maps on his phone, checked the location and distance. About twenty-five kilometres southwest of Birraga, in an isolated area a long way from major roads, and with few properties around.

  They weren’t planning on making anything easy, but he had some time to prepare. He slid open the back of his phone, removed the SIM card, and replaced it with one of the ones he’d salvaged from the smashed phones at Mark’s house.

  Megan’s, he discovered, when he switched the phone on again. She had Kris’s number programmed in already. And Liam’s, he noted, with some surprise. Fast workers, these modern kids.

  He selected Kris’s number, and hit the call button.

  She answered immediately. ‘Megan?’

  ‘No, Blue. It’s Gil. Using Megan’s card in case they’re tracing mine. Can you be on the Tarlinton Road, five k’s west of Dog Creek, at ten-thirty? I’ll text you the coordinates. Just you, in an unmarked car.’

  ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘Where are you, Gil? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. Any luck?’

  ‘Nothing definite. I can’t pin anything to anyone or any place. Steve interviewed Dan Flanagan, but he was at a function in Birraga last night, with fifty witnesses, and swears he knows nothing. His sons are apparently pig shooting in Queensland.’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘I can’t disprove it, yet. And I don’t know who knew Megan was at Mark’s.’ She sounded weary, had probably worked all night. ‘There’s no evidence of visitors, or staff near the homestead, and I won’t be able to talk to Mark until later today.’

  ‘Steve might have told them,’ he suggested. ‘Or Adam.’

  He watched a spider walk across in front of him in the silence.

  ‘Not Adam,’ she eventually said, firmly.

  She didn’t say, ‘Not Steve.’ He didn’t think it would be Steve either, but he couldn’t be sure. Steve had access to information, was in touch with Petric and Macklin, had been involved in the investigations from the start, and knew where Kris had taken Megan.

  But most of the town probably knew Kris had gone to Mark’s, and it wouldn’t have been too hard to guess Megan was there, too. It didn’t narrow the field down, much.

  ‘Why don’t you go through the information from Vince?’ he suggested. ‘See if there’s anything there that helps.’

  ‘I’ve just started on that.’

  ‘I’ll go through my copy. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything. Listen, Blue, gotta go. I’ll see you at ten-thirty. Be on time, but not early. And don’t tell a soul – not until we’ve got this worked out.’

  After disconnecting and turning the phone off, he let his head fall back against the wall. He wouldn’t see her at ten-thirty. He’d either be with the Russos, or dead on the road. But all going well, she’d find Megan and Deb, and he’d have to trust her to track him down, too.

  He crossed the sandy causeway over Dog Creek in plenty of time, the rivergums along its banks creating a brief space of shade before he was out on the sunlit road again. Here, an hour west of Dungirri and its scrub, the flat plains stretched into the distance under a huge sky, the paddocks cleared for grazing.

  Deep ridges ran along either side of the unsealed road, where graders and each passing vehicle had pushed the fine rust-red sand. Down the middle of the road ran another ridge, maybe six inches high, guaranteed to send the bike skating or sliding, if he veered into it.

  He watched the odometer and stopped just on the five kilometres from the creek. There were no trees along the road here – nothing to interrupt the view in all four directions. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. They’d chosen the place well.

  He hung the helmet on the bike, left his jacket draped on the seat, and the key in the ignition. He took only his phone, and the envelope with the will.

  He caught a glint on the road ahead, and strolled towards it while he waited. A dead lizard was flipped over onto its back in the sand, its light underbelly shining white in the sun. A few ants had already found it, and more would find it soon, devour it, stripping away the flesh bite by bite. Or one of the larger birds, grateful for an easy lunch.

  The sight of it found a small chink in his calmness, and he suppressed a shudder. He would do what he c
ame to do and, if it worked, Megan and Deb would get away safely. If it didn’t work … if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t feel the ants, and Kris would be along to find him, soon enough.

  A plume of dust appeared in the west, and he waited on the road, some distance from the bike.

  They only brought one vehicle – the black Land Rover. It stopped thirty metres away, and Sergio got out, a pistol in his hand.

  ‘I’m pleased that you followed instructions, Gillespie,’ he said.

  ‘Now let’s see if you can, Russo. Let the women go, and let them walk to the bike. Once they’re there, I’ll walk to you.’ He held up the envelope with one hand.

  ‘And if I don’t like your instructions?’

  ‘My thumb is hovering on the “send” button of a text message, to a senior police contact, advising that a certain freighter about to dock in Sydney is carrying a shipment of cocaine.’

  ‘I could shoot you now, Gillespie.’

  ‘If you raise your arm, I press the button.’

  He forced himself to keep calm, keep still. It would work within seconds, or not at all.

  ‘Release the women,’ Sergio ordered.

  Three men hauled them out of the back, and they stumbled, blindfolded, hands bound. One of the men cut the ties around their wrists, and Sergio himself ripped the blindfolds off.

  ‘Walk to the motorcycle, ladies. Do not go anywhere near Gillespie, do not stop, do not talk. Have I made myself clear?’

  They nodded, then Deb put her arm around Megan and started guiding her away.

  Gil remained motionless. They crossed to the side of the road, to keep their distance from him, but as they came closer, he saw the bruises on Deb’s face and arms, the raw red marks on Megan’s wrists.

  ‘Get away,’ he mouthed, and Deb gave a minute nod. If she’d been by herself, he might have had an argument, but with Megan to protect, she’d do the right thing.

  As soon as Deb and Megan reached the bike, the men came at him. He raised his hand with the phone, growling, ‘Wait until they leave.’