by Lee Murray
James took his seat. “A job for you, McKenna. From Aitkens Street,” he said, referring to the Defence Force head office. Not that there was anything much left to run these days, the force whittled away to the bare bones. The work of short-sighted suits in government – she’ll-be-right types, who thought the country was perfectly safe, simply because it was stuck on the arse-end of the globe…
Clearing his throat, James continued, “A ministerial Task Force is heading into the Ureweras to undertake some mineral prospecting. You and your boys will accompany them.”
“A Task Force, Boss?”
James snorted. “It’s the ministers’ term, not mine,” he said, shaking his head. “Watched too many Thunderbirds shows when they were kids.”
McKenna smiled.
“Made up of mainly government scientists and a couple of civilians, the Task Force will be led by a Dr Christian de Haas, from New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals… on the face of it, at least.”
“A babysitting job.”
“Of sorts.”
McKenna’s face darkened. “And the chain of command?”
“Dr de Haas will have full authority.”
“A civilian.” There was a ripple at the boy’s jawline.
James ran his fingers over the manila file on the desk. The army had all the bells and whistles when it came to digital technology but, providing confidentiality could be maintained, James preferred a paper copy. Brenda used to joke that he could read between the lines. Maybe there was an element of truth in that.
“I know it’s not ideal, but as it turns out, the civil expedition provides us with a plausible cover.”
McKenna didn’t say anything, waiting for James to elaborate.
Resting his elbows on the desk, James steepled his hands and took a slow breath before beginning. “Over the past three months, Urewera park authorities have received reports of people going missing in the forest. Lots of them. Fourteen,” he said. “And they haven’t turned up looking sheepish a few days later either.”
Opening the file, he flicked forward a couple of pages.
“Campbell Edwards, 29, and Terry Hubner, 28, both of Johnsonville,” he read aloud. “These two were the first to go missing. They set out on March 26th from Ruatahuna. Hut records show they stuck to the track for the first three days then disappeared. Edwards’ sister rang the police when the pair didn’t show up as planned. Seems she’d waited a week to call it in – in case they’d got it in their heads to finish up their holidays in Queenstown.”
“Going AWOL isn’t out of character for this pair?”
James shook his head. “No. But the sister maintains that staying away this long is unusual, even for these two.”
“It doesn’t necessarily point to foul play, sir. River crossings can be perilous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I agree, and I’d be tempted to discount those lads as unlucky adventurers and send out flowery condolence cards to the families. Except they’re not the only holidaymakers to go missing.” The timber armrest creaked as James shifted in his seat. “Only a week after Edwards’ sister contacted authorities, a pair of German honeymooners went astray. Same general area. Conservation staff found their packs, intact and tidied to one side of the track, but no sign of the couple. Then there’s a group of four from Otago, all experienced tramping club members. Their car was discovered parked at the campgrounds at Lake Waikaremoana. The last person to disappear was a farmer by the name of Samuel Waaka. Runs a small holding within the confines of the park. Wife reported him missing.”
“Why haven’t we heard about this on the news?”
“Things with the locals are still tense after police staged those terrorist raids in the Ureweras some years back. That’s Tūhoe tribal land. Authorities have been keeping a lid on the media, especially the location of the disappearances, in case it’s the Tūhoe separatist faction looking for attention.”
McKenna nodded. “I make the count nine, sir. I believe you said fourteen.”
“The rest are our own boys. Missing in action.” James wiped his face in his hands. McKenna said nothing. “We sent them in ten days ago, after the army got the gig from the police. Our boys were following a lead from DoC – a bloodied glove belonging to one of the missing hikers. On their sixth day in, Corporal Gavin Masterton reported they’d discovered the remains of a woman aged around forty-five. From Masterton’s description, we believe she was one of the Otago group. The communications operator taking the call said Masterton sounded shaken. She said… well, you can see for yourself.” James thrust the folder across the desk at McKenna, and stabbed at the page. “The transcript’s there.”
McKenna picked up the file and read:
Masterton: 12 May 1700 hours. This is Corporal Gavin Masterton. Our current position – [redacted] – a half-day walk north of Mangatoatoa Hut, in an area of dense bush. [Up to this point, the officer sounds composed]. We’ve located a body... a woman. [Officer’s voice wavers]. Fortyish, maybe 45. We suspect she’s from the Otago party, although so far we’ve been unable to locate any sign of her companions. The body is emaciated and the extremities show various healed scratches and a number of broken nails, which is consistent with her having been lost in the forest for a period of time. [Exhales hard]. She’s... the body... it’s been... [Word muffled].
Operator: Could you repeat that last sentence please, Corporal?
Masterton: She’s been mutilated. Murdered. Her stomach contents... [The officer breaks off].
Operator: Corporal Masterton?
Masterton: Whoever did this... it looks like they’ve tortured her. We think the victim was alive when they did it. Her eyes... [There’s a pause of 5 seconds. The officer composing himself?]. We don’t think she’s been dead long. A day, maybe two, which means whoever did this could still be in the area. We’ll store the body here for the moment – Pollock’s bagging it now – and widen our search. Just days ago this woman was alive so there may be other survivors.
McKenna looked up from the transcript, his face grave. “This wasn’t an accident.”
James exhaled slowly. “I pulled Masterton’s service file, checked his postings. He’s been in a few skirmishes, is no stranger to atrocities, so for him to react this way...”
James stood and stepped across to resume his vigil at the window, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. His warm breath fogged on the cold glass, the shrinking vapour distorting like a globule in a lava lamp. Outside, Mount Ruapehu’s snow-covered peak rose from the ocean of tundra. “Masterton’s party were due to radio in again the following morning. We’ve had no further contact.”
He turned back, put his hands on the desk, and fixed McKenna with a stare. “The problem is, we can’t locate them either. The Urewera bush is so thick you could hide a small town in there and never see it – all that damnable mist, shifting and moving over the terrain, hampering satellite surveillance…”
“What’s our brief, Boss?” said McKenna, matter-of-fact.
“I want you to go in and find out what the hell is going on in that backwater! The research team will provide you with your cover, and in return, your boys will keep the civilians safe.”
“Sir.” The sergeant’s frown was almost imperceptible.
Suddenly feeling heavy, James sat. There was no fooling the boy. They both knew it wasn’t army policy to send a second team in where a first had failed to return.
James wiped the bottom half of his face with his hand. “The first section’s involvement was sanctioned. As far as the powers-that-be are concerned, those boys are still in there looking for the missing nine, whereas your team will be on the ground to escort the Task Force. But if you and your boys find anything untoward going on in that goddamned forest, anything that threatens the safety of New Zealanders we are mandated to protect, then it becomes army business. And should that happen, let’s just say, how fortuitous it is that you happened to be there accompanying the Task Force.”
“Understood
, sir,” McKenna said, closing the file and getting to his feet. “Since the platoon lieutenant isn’t here.”
James gave a grim smile; he’d picked the right man. A veteran of Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and Egypt, McKenna knew a thing or two about unrecorded missions.
“And one other thing, Sergeant,” James said quietly.
“Boss?”
“My great-nephew Kevin was with the missing unit.”
* * *
Outside the office block, Taine found his corporal, a New Zealand-born Chinese named Jack Liu, with the Pinzgauers they’d driven up from Linton, along with Private Matt Read, one of two 19-year-old FNGs in McKenna’s section. Perched in the passenger seat, Liu’s right boot was propped casually on the open door frame – his left leg hanging out of the vehicle, while he cleaned his fingernails with a small knife. Nicknamed Coolie, not, as one might expect, for his Chinese ancestry, but for his cool head in a crisis, the soldier was almost effeminate. In the army, his manner might’ve made him a ready target, but Coolie’s light tread and quick reactions had gained him a reputation as a stealthy little bastard. No soldier in his right mind would creep up behind Coolie, even in jest. Not unless they were looking to get their head blown off.
Coolie dropped his foot when Taine approached.
“They give you our assignment?” asked Read. The newbie had been slouched against the vehicle, sunning himself. He stepped forward, pulling the buds from his ears. “We heading out, then?”
“I’m going to need you to round up the others, Read. We’re leaving at 0800 hours. Going up country to the Urewera ranges.”
The boy crammed the leads into his pocket. “Whoa! We gonna be dropping into the forest, Boss?” Taine smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm. For Read, every day was like an episode from a Marvel comic.
“No choppers today, Private.”
“But this isn’t a training exercise, right? It’s a proper assignment. Searching out separatist cells or something?” Read looked hopeful.
“We’ll drive in as far as we can then head into the forest on foot. It’s a proper operation, yes. We’ll be accompanying a research team. And we need to keep it under the radar, so try not to make a song and dance when you round up the others.”
Read’s eyes widened. “Awesome!” He scampered off across the quadrangle to round up the rest of the section.
“Were we ever like that?” Coolie said. “All bright-eyed and bushy tailed?” He shook his head. “The way I heard it, we just got ourselves another babysitting assignment, and Read there is all Indiana Jones – tally-ho we’re off in search of the lost ark.”
Taine gave Coolie a grim smile. “The lost ark might be a fair assessment. Seems we’ve got fourteen people unaccounted for in there.” Coolie raised his eyebrows as Taine continued. “And five of them our own boys.”
Coolie whistled under his breath. “Fourteen! I don’t suppose they’re just lost, then?”
Taine shook his head. “Unlikely. There’s more. One of the missing diggers was a Private Kevin James Arnold, twenty years old.”
“A relative of the major’s?”
Taine nodded. “And the platoon lieutenant wasn’t present when I received the orders.”
Coolie’s brow creased. “No chain of command. So, it’s an unofficial mission.”
“Oh, it’s official, Coolie,” Taine said. “We’re going to protect a scientific team in an area where the locals could be hostile.”
Coolie scuffed his boot in the dirt. “And the fourteen people gone AWOL is just an aside?”
“Something like that.”
“That’d explain why we’re not getting a chopper.” Coolie said. “Let me guess. We don’t come back with the kid, we can forget about being written up for any medals.”
Taine grinned. Won over long ago by the glitzy ‘go places’ army recruitment advertisements, Coolie couldn’t give a rat’s arse about medals. Read wasn’t the only one here for the adrenalin fix.
Squinting against the sunlight, McKenna glanced across the quadrangle; the new boy disappeared into the mess.
“So, will we be taking all the normal kit?” Coolie asked.
“Yes, but I hope we won’t need it. Whoever’s causing the disappearances, whoever we encounter out there in the bush, greenies, Tūhoe separatists or just pissed off locals, they’re all going to be Kiwis, aren’t they? Personally, I don’t like the idea of pointing a machine gun at anyone, least of all one of our own. If we’re forced to shoot, let’s go for casualties, not corpses.”
“Hide the rocket launcher under our lunchboxes then?”
“That’s the plan.”
Coolie glanced in the direction of the mess then cocked his head. “You know Trigger isn’t going to like this. He fucking hates babysitting.”
Taine nodded; Coolie wasn’t wrong. A few years older and built like a small refrigerator, Trevor Grierson had done a couple of tours with McKenna. Their last babysitting assignment had been on tour, on a morning not unlike this one, the low-angled sunlight glancing off dusty buildings…
They were in Afghanistan, part of the International Security Assistance Force, teaching the Afghans how to protect their own when the Taliban announced their intent to target central Kabul and then went about doing just that, launching simultaneous assaults on the Wazir Akbar Khan district, as well as in the eastern townships of Jalalabad, Pul-e-Abam and Gardez.
Taine’s section was assigned to extract some administrators from the British Embassy, but at the eleventh hour the orders changed: the embassy was in lock-down, so they were to secure the adjacent French-run school instead. Taine and his boys had arrived at the school just as insurgents stormed a nearby construction site. From this vantage point, the cool-headed fanatics assaulted the district. For hours, machine-gun fire and striking shells of rocket-propelled launchers performed a deathly opera, the wail of sirens and pop of machine-gun fire providing top notes to the periodic bass explosions of NATO’s air support. Inside the school compound, the screams of the kids put everyone’s teeth on edge.
The noise didn’t bother Taine particularly, but a little girl of six wearing a pale blue smock did, one of the three girls lucky enough to attend school. She was terrified. Wisps of shiny black hair escaping from under her hijab, she curled up under a table, whimpering as she sucked her thumb, rocking back and forth to squeeze out the din.
An hour passed. Then another. The insurgents’ rockets hit the school building more than once. Taine doubted the Afghans had the situation under control. Their track record was dismal. Less than a year before, the US embassy had been the centre of a 19-hour siege by the Taliban. Finally, suicide bombers had put an end to the waiting, attacking the compound and killing nine civilians. No way was Taine going to have a repeat of that snafu on his conscience. Besides, this group wouldn’t handle a prolonged stand-off. Already one of the teachers was showing signs of flipping out. It wouldn’t be the first time. Last thing they needed was him running out into the street in a panic. For a Taliban sniper, a hysterical teacher could be brought down like a housefly with a single squirt of fly-spray.
Better to get the kids out. They’d take the back route out of the compound while the allied air support had the fanatics boxed in.
Taine had already given the order when Trigger pulled him away from the civilians. “What the fuck, McKenna?” he’d hissed. “We can’t go out there! We gotta just sit tight and let the local boys handle this.”
“Like they did last year?”
“I don’t like it either, but we have to take our chances. There are little kids here. How are we supposed to get them out under fire, man?”
“But this is a school, Trigger,” Taine had retorted, wrenching his arm free. “If the Taliban can’t make a dent in the diplomatic compound across the road, how long do you think it’ll take them to turn their fire on the next best target, one that’ll make the western world sit up and take notice? What if they’ve got someone out there strapping on explosives as we speak? Some jih
adist nutter prepared to run in here and blow himself and everyone in here to Hawijah? Tell me what chance these kids will have, then?”
They’d hardly made it two blocks before Taine knew it was a mistake. The street was choked with smoke and fumes. Full of debris. Empty car carcasses stood in the middle of the road, the doors flung open. Overhead NATO Black Hawks bombarded the construction site, kicking up rubble to contain the militants. Taine’s group made themselves small, moved swiftly. It might’ve worked, but friendly fire kills just the same.
The girl took a hit to her femoral artery. Trigger had picked her up and carried her to cover, but by that time she was as good as empty. With a tiny gasp, she expired in Trigger’s arms, her blood seeping into his uniform, the white of her skin and serenity in her face a contrast to his horror. The girl’s hijab had slipped off in the scuffle. McKenna recalled a tiny ribbon clinging tenaciously to a braid.
Afterwards, the official story had been positive: twenty-three civilians safely extracted with only one fatality. For once, western media played it down, supposedly out of respect for the girl’s family, but mostly because no-one wanted the Taliban to clock up the point. There was a debrief. Reports were written and filed. Life went on. But Taine hadn’t forgotten and neither had Trigger – although to be fair, the big man had said little about that day. Not that it mattered. Taine carried guilt enough for both of them…
“McKenna,” Coolie said, interrupting Taine’s nightmare. “Before Read gets back with the others there’s something else you should know.”
Taine kept his face deadpan. “I’m listening.”
“Lefty and Eriksen have an issue.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Taine sighed. Skilled combatants both of them, mostly the pair are mates, but lately they’d been as compatible as a small boy and soap.
“So what are they squabbling over this time?”
