by Anita Bell
‘Pop’s gotta go to work now,’ he told Gerty, setting her down on the driver’s seat. She hopped up onto the windscreen, using it like a perch while the engine gargled to life, but she clucked up a fuss as a chopper flew over.
‘Oiii!’ Murphy yelled at the pilot. ‘Get a day job!’ He cooed to his chicken, petting her feathers while the engine warmed over. ‘You do like the excitement, young lady,’ he told her. ‘No, we ain’t going out on the water tonight. If you want wind in your feathers I’ll put the fan on when we get home.’
What a lunatic! It looked like he was headed straight into the power station. ‘Come from somewhere in a hurry,’ he told his hen. ‘Woah!’ he whistled. ‘Check out that bonfire, Gerty. That’s infractions against the water resources, that is,’ he said, casting off. ‘Looks like Maitland’s place. He’s in for it this time,’ he grinned. ‘And you’ll get wind in your feathers after all!’
‘He’s done it again, Colonel!’ Beattie called as the Iroquois set down. They had put down on a public lookout directly over the intake to the hydro-electric station that was sandwiched between Splityard Creek and Wivenhoe Dam. There was plenty of room here to wait for the RAAF troop transport full of ADGies. They were less than eight minutes away, and as the Iroquois side door slid open, Beattie followed Chang clear of the rotors to wait for them.
‘Our boy dialled two numbers in quick succession. And you’re right, sir,’ Beattie added, ‘triangulation confirms he’s gone home. From here, that would be … that way,’ he said, turning with his arm outstretched. But there was no need to point. A bonfire lit the way like a beacon.
‘Okay,’ Chang said, as the ADGies arrived. ‘Let’s see if we can’t sneak over a bit closer for a better look.’
Nikki’s hands may have been tied, but her legs and mouth were free. In the short drive to the boathouse, she had busted the glove compartment and the stereo controls inside the rented Mercedes and nearly screamed herself hoarse.
‘You killed my mum and now you want to kill me? Why?’ she cried as the car pulled up.
‘You little fool,’ Fletcher snapped, wrenching open her door. ‘Do you think I meant to kill her? I was safe behind her political career! Now if you’re going to scream,’ he added, ‘then I’ll give you something to scream about. Bricker!’ he called. ‘Throw her in the pit!’
‘Boss,’ Bricker said, ‘the pit’s full of —’
Fletcher glared at him and Bricker put his hands up in defence.
‘I’m doing it,’ he said, already at her door. ‘Hope you like dog-paddling, kid,’ he said, untying her arms so he could get her out. She struggled and kicked him in the shins, until he pinned her against the car.
‘Sykes!’ Fletcher called, not wanting to help in case he got his clothes messier before the plane arrived. A man ran from the trees to help, this time from north of the cabin, and Fletcher pointed him over to the car. ‘Give him a hand!’ he shouted.
The two men man-handled Nikki into the cabin and she caught Bricker in the jaw with her heel. He yelped, squeezing her tighter while Sykes lifted the trapdoors and emptied out the first aid kit and signal flares from the compartment onto Maitland’s work table.
‘Hey!’ Maitland whined. ‘I’m working here.’
‘Help!’ Nikki yelled, recognising his voice from his fight with Thorna that morning. But she saw from the defeated look on his face, that he wasn’t about to budge.
‘Looks like you’re nearly finished to me,’ Fletcher said ignoring her pleas. ‘Clean up.’
Fletcher nodded at his two men and they lowered Nikki headfirst into cold dark water. They closed both trapdoors, sealing her into blackness, but they could still hear her cursing them through the floorboards as she sucked air from the remaining centimetres above water.
‘Well, go on,’ Fletcher goaded. ‘Anyone else want to complain? You can join her.’
‘Bring any marshmallows?’ Knox asked, pulling the Falcon up at a safe distance from the burning wreck. They checked around the stables first, then did a running room-by-room check inside the house.
‘Nothing,’ Knox said, eight minutes later. ‘Not even your witness.’
Parry scratched the bald spot on the back of his head, certain that it felt like it was spreading. ‘Any idea where she’d go?’
Knox nodded, radioing Jody Davenport to organise another crime scene team from Ipswich and an ambulance — no need to hurry on the ambo.
‘Ambo’s no prob, Sarge, but they say it could be a while before they get help out to us for the crime scene. Ipswich teams are still busy with that meatworks fire. They haven’t got much to go on, so it’s all hands on deck.’
‘Keep trying, Jody,’ Knox growled. ‘We’ve got people dying out here.’ Then he signed off and frowned at Parry. ‘Assuming Supergran didn’t rocket here on her broomstick,’ he said wryly, ‘it looks like there’s someone else, either chasing them or being chased. And I reckon next stop we should try is where this whole mess started.’
‘Oh?’ Parry said, getting back in the car.
‘Yeah,’ Knox said, turning the car around. ‘It’s right next door.’
Locklin urged his horse faster, but with every step the stallion’s strength seemed to be draining. ‘Come on, boy!’ he said. ‘Nearly there!’ He could see the giant gum with the twisted branches and the fence where he’d woven the white branch as a top rail. He could see it, but like a bad dream it seemed to take forever to get near.
The big animal’s chest heaved, his nostrils flared and foam gathered at the bit as his hooves leapt from the ground. They were flying, but not high enough. Jack clipped the wire and screamed as he went down, taking his rider with him.
Locklin rolled, landing metres from his horse.
He scrambled back, rubbing his old friend’s neck as he explored the horse’s body under starlight with his hand. He discovered the bloodied mess where part of his rump had been and wondered how he’d made it this far.
Locklin sank his head against Jack’s. Nikki had to come first, but getting her out and getting back here couldn’t take anything under twenty minutes even if everything went well, and it never did. But his horse would be on the brink by then, and his gut knotted up at the thought of him suffering.
‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, pulling the Winchester from under his friend’s shoulder. He checked the magazine, then he clenched his fists until his knuckles went white.
One bullet left, and he couldn’t spare it for his friend.
Locklin came in on foot from the south, stopping just inside the treeline to recon the boathouse and count the opposition. He could see a man-shape outlined against the lake, motionless, as if admiring the view of a rising full moon over water.
On the far side of the boathouse, not far from the Landcruiser, a car door opened and an internal light came on. That made at least two. He figured another one, maybe two in the boathouse, bringing worst case scenario to four — unless there was another car load of bad guys driving around.
He saw a small white spark followed by a red glow in the trees west of the cabin and counted one more, someone who didn’t realise how far a lit cigarette could be seen in the dark.
Locklin circled that way first, hoping to relieve the guy of any hardware while his mind was lulled into contentment by nicotine. He approached from the side, watching the man take a long drag on the drug before blowing smoke rings into the cooling night air. He was leaning against a tree, a medium-set man about the same size as Locklin, with one foot hooked up behind his other knee, and the silhouette of a rifle leaned against the tree beside his leg, like two friends sharing a smoke.
Attack from behind would be difficult. Locklin could see that he’d be exposed for about twelve metres and would have to take him by reaching around the tree. He circled his target further, positioning himself for the dash and heard an engine, a plane. And his target moved to watch it come in.
‘Eric!’ Fletcher shouted from the water’s edge. ‘Get your butt out here and help Syke
s and Bricker get the pontoon in the water!’ Fletcher turned and looked in Locklin’s direction. ‘Heath!’ he shouted. ‘Get over here too and give us a hand.’
‘On my way!’ Locklin’s target shouted back, dropping his cigarette and stubbing it out with his boot.
‘No you’re not,’ Locklin said as he turned round to pick up his rifle. He was already offering it to him, business end first. ‘You’re taking off your shirt and hugging the dirt.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Heath swore. Then he laughed. ‘All I gotta do is shout and there’ll be more guns on you than ants on the ground.’
‘Think about that,’ Locklin said with a thousand times more patience than he felt. ‘You shout and I’ll have to shoot you to concentrate on your friends. You lie down here nice and quiet, and you get to live. Choose now.’
‘Heath!’ Fletcher shouted again. ‘Where are you?’ A white plane was coming in low over the lake and the men struggled as they dragged the pontoon down to the water.
Heath looked at Locklin and Locklin motioned to his fly.
‘I’m taking a leak!’ Heath yelled as he handed his shirt to Locklin.
‘Drop your pants too, not all the way off,’ Locklin ordered as he ripped the shirt in two. ‘Where’s the girl? In the cabin?’
Heath nodded and dropped his trousers before lying down. Locklin used half the shirt to bind his arms behind his back and the trousers and belt to tie his ankles up to his wrists behind his back. The plane swung round to back into the platform as Locklin twisted the other half of the shirt into a gag.
‘This is so embarrasarargh —,’ Heath said as Locklin pushed the gag in his mouth and fixed it in back.
‘You say something?’
‘Arrrghaarghh.’
‘Well I suggest,’ Locklin said mockingly, ‘that you roll out there on the gravel when this is over and flop around when the police come so they know you’re here.’ He patted Heath’s head and slung Rick’s Winchester around his shoulder then picked up Heath’s fully loaded rifle and ran towards the pontoon, pretending to do up his fly, as Heath would have done.
He stopped near the boathouse door and backed up against the wall. Fletcher and Maitland were in front of him. They were only a few metres away but facing away from him. Another two men stood one on each side of the pontoon.
‘Hey, Bricker,’ one said to the other. ‘Watch your side, it’s drifting.’
‘You’re an idiot, Sykes,’ Bricker answered. ‘We just have to hold it steady. The plane will hold it down.’
In under two minutes, the Cessna Skywagon did exactly that, backing itself in, like an old white pigeon backing onto its nest.
Against the boathouse, Locklin tried to look casual, hooking one boot up behind his knee. His heart smashed around inside his ribs, and he was thankful it didn’t sound as loud on the outside as it did on the inside.
The side door of the Cessna folded open under the wing and the pilot and a Mediterranean-looking man climbed out onto the amphibious floats. They didn’t plan on staying long, Locklin realised. They kept the engine running. A cabin light stayed on too, illuminating the fact that no-one else seemed to be behind the tinted glass. And Fletcher appeared upset by that. He wanted to know where the buyers were and the pilot and his sidekick shook their heads.
They began to argue, and Locklin took the cue to explore inside the boathouse.
‘It’s not my fault, Aaron,’ the pilot said. ‘My employers are very cautious,’ he added. ‘They feel vulnerable to be present at the transaction. You understand? Too many things can go wrong. It’s just a safety precaution, like Mr Moltoni here.’
Fletcher nodded a greeting before shaking hands with the Italian.
‘Mr Moltoni will verify the authenticity of the paintings and while we’re loading them, he’ll radio the buyers to confirm the acquisition has been made and they’ll transfer payment electronically to your account, just as you requested. They suggest you ring your bank before I leave to confirm the deal has gone through.’
‘My employers are most keen for your next delivery,’ Moltoni said. ‘They wish to ensure that you’re happy with our arrangements.’
Fletcher nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said, keen to secure his first really big clients. ‘But I want to talk to them myself.’
‘No problem,’ the pilot said. ‘Come on up and I’ll get ’em on the wire.’
Inside the boathouse, Locklin heard muffled splashing and scratching under the floorboards and hurried to open the trapdoors.
‘Nikki!’ he whispered into the hole. He put down the rifles and lay flat on the floor, reaching in further than the ache in his sore shoulder wanted him to while he searched his hand around in the freezing water.
‘I’ve got you,’ he said, feeling hair as she splashed towards the light. She had to duck under a beam to get back to the trapdoor and as she surfaced, he reached deeper to hook her up by her armpits.
‘Quiet,’ he warned as she came up shivering. ‘They’re right outside.’
She seemed colder than the water and he pulled her wet shirt off and took off his dry one to wrap around her. She stood shivering, her eyes fixed on the partially healed bullet wound in his shoulder while he helped her put it on.
‘It goes with the leg,’ he whispered, feeling her eyes. He led her to the back wall and slid the biggest window open. Cobwebs tore but the window slid aside quietly and he lifted her and put her through to the outside, dreading the next part. He could barely bring himself to say it, but he couldn’t think of any other way.
‘Run to the trees and turn left,’ he said, flicking the safety off Ricks’ rifle. His heart pounded in his throat as he cocked a bullet up into position with the lever. ‘Keep going until you get to the fence and turn left again, following it to the water.’ He passed the loaded Winchester through the window and wrapped her cold hands around it. ‘Find Jack for me,’ he said, clasping his hand tight over hers. ‘He needs this.’
Nikki stared at him as he let her take the weight. ‘I can’t!’
‘You can when you see him,’ he said. ‘It’s cocked ready to fire. Be kind,’ he added, swallowing hard. ‘Put it behind his ear.’
‘Lot of traffic on the water tonight,’ the pilot told his loadmaster over the intercom.
‘Copy that,’ the loadie said. ‘Fishing won’t be good with a party like that going on — a boat, a plane and a bonfire. Breakout the Ninox and we can check out the girls.’
‘No fishing allowed on Wivenhoe,’ the pilot said. ‘No power boats either.’
‘Do they count planes as boats? What is that, a Skywagon? Maybe they lifted the restrictions?’
‘I don’t think so, gentlemen,’ Chang interrupted. ‘Keep your eyes open. I think this might be the party our boy has come home to gatecrash.’
Chang figured they’d crept close enough and ordered the Iroquois to set down. He didn’t know how long he’d be out, but he knew how much fuel he had in the tank, and he didn’t want to break off surveillance for a lousy pit stop.
He chose a remote and empty camping ground on the north bank of the lake that was also inside a nine kilometre radius of the suspected objective. No matter which way Locklin went now, if he was there, they could close in on him. All they had to do was identify him, and Chang hoped they could do that by watching what everyone got up to.
‘Break out the TI,’ he said, and the loadmaster carried out a black plastic briefcase. He opened it and set up a tripod with a Thermal Imager that looked pretty much like a fancy black camcorder, except it could take heat pictures using a laser rangefinder of any heat source up to nine clicks away. An extended range lens in the carry case could magnify that distance again, but they wouldn’t need that. Maitland’s farm and the party next door were easy watching at only seven clicks.
‘Got them, sir,’ the loadie said. ‘Aside from a bunch of cows and a couple of roos, in the immediate vicinity it looks like we’ve got one on the boat that’s got something small with him, like a really li
ttle kid or a small dog or something. There’s two coming off the plane, four on the bank, one in the building, one in the forest and two more coming in a car.’
‘Good work,’ Chang said. ‘Now all we have to do is figure out which one is him.’
‘Well, sir,’ Beattie suggested. ‘We’ve still got Ryan at the hospital. We could get him to keep ringing until he picks up. I mean, even if he knows his sister’s under surveillance, he might still pick up if he thinks it could be her.’
Chang nodded. ‘Yes, do that. Contact Ryan now.’
‘Hey, did you see that?’ Parry asked, turning his neck sharply to look out his window.
Knox looked left, scanning the scrub along the track that followed the Scrubhaven-Freeman boundary to the boathouse. He couldn’t see anything that was worth shouting about. ‘What did you see?’
Parry peered out his window again and saw nothing. ‘I don’t know, movement — must have been a roo.’
‘Plenty of them around,’ Knox said, turning left as the track bent away from the boundary. Through the trees ahead they saw lights and Knox pulled over and switched off his.
‘Looks like we made the party this time,’ Knox said. ‘Let’s make it a surprise party.’ He passed the police strobe out his window and made sure it was switched off before letting the magnetic base suck it to the roof.
‘This car come with protection?’ Parry asked.
‘Yeah, two in the boot,’ Knox said, popping the lever. He got out and met Parry at the back, where he pulled out a pair of Kevlar vests and handed him one. They weren’t completely bulletproof, but they’d stop a couple of rounds before their impact absorption was rooted.
