by Alex Focus
Chapter 19
Sydney - Wednesday: September 28
Roger's barking at the ring tone of my mobile, which sounded like a dog barking, woke me up.
I answered it. It was Robyn's unpleasant voice.
Once, a long while ago, it had sounded sexy, now it was as far removed from sexy as a dose of herpes. We had not heard from her for almost twenty-four hours, and considering the tight time schedule we were all working under, it had been a miracle that both Steve and I had resisted the temptation of interfering with AIA' s surveillance. They had the numbers, the expertise, the equipment and the big budget. We let them get on with it. We on the other hand, had run out of nails to bite and we were now considering starting on Roger's claws.
Once again, she started right away, without any sort of greeting.
"The first name on the list? a Mr. Allan Jones, is acting strangely. We suggest further investigation," she said.
"Strangely how?" I asked, wishing I had a coffee and a smoke in my hand to clear up the tendrils of sleep still trying to drag me down.
"Nothing really obvious, but he has just returned home from a quick shopping expedition. He bought almost identical food items of a middle eastern classification from four different outlets. Enough food for at least six people," she said.
"You think he has guests?" I asked.
"Almost certainly, but we did not see anyone arrive or leave his house? they must have been there already," she confirmed.
"I thought this guy was a teacher, why isn't he at school?" I asked.
"That's the other thing I was about to mention," she said.
"Mmm, I don't like the sound of that. They might be getting ready to activate the plan," I said.
"I agree and I strongly suggest that you let us handle it, from now on," she said in her commanding voice that expected no objections.
"No. That's fine. Leave it to us, thanks for the great work," I said. She huffed and hung up.
"Fuck you to!" I exclaimed into the dead phone and slammed it down.
"Fuck who?" Asked Steve coming out of his room rubbing his eyes.
"Fuck Robyn," I said.
"Not if she was the last woman in the universe," Steve said with conviction.
"Ditto," I said.
"So? What did Ms. Sour Pus want?" He asked.
"Looks like that the first guy on the list? er?Alan Jones, has a bunch of friends staying with him. Strangely, they all like Tabbouleh, for breakfast," I said.
"Interesting," Steve said, putting together two cups of Nestl?'s Instant espresso coffee, which is as close to the real thing as is scientifically possible and has the added advantage of being is ready in just under 1 minute.
"Thanks, I really need this," I said when he offered me a cup. I lit up the first cigarette of the day and inhaled deeply. "How do you reckon we should handle this?" I asked, exhaling enough smoke to cure a large ham.
"In our usual half-arsed way," he said.
"You mean shoot first and ask questions later?" I asked with a smile.
"No, that's YOUR half-arsed way," he said.
"Oh, so sorry. What is OUR way?" I asked again.
"We knock first," he said, smiling.
"You are a funny prick, you know that?" I said.
"I know that," he said, "but maybe in this case we need to be a little more subtle, if we shoot everyone up, we may not find the information we need."
"There is that," I agreed. "so, what do you suggest? Hang on?what about this: we go there, knock on the door and then Taser everyone, tie them up and see what we can get them to tell us." I added, pleased with my plan.
"Fantastic!" Steve said, but his lack of real enthusiasm told me he was resorting to his lowest form of wit: sarcasm.
"Okay? so what's wrong with it?" I asked. My feelings bruised.
"We don't have any Tasers," he pointed out.
"You can't get them from work?" I asked, surprised.
"You really want me to go in there and complete and submit for approval six forms in triplicate explaining why I need six or more Tasers?" He asked.
"Well, that's a shame: a perfect plan ruined," I said.
"What's plan number two?" he asked.
"Okay? while you hold them at gun point I tie them up," I suggested.
"Works for me," he said.
"Okay, this is what I suggest we do." And I told him.
"I hope we don't go to hell for this," he commented.
"No worries, mate. If there is a hell I'm pretty sure we have a reservation booked," I assured him.
"No virgins for us?"
"Hope not I prefer my girls hot and wanton,"
"Yeah me too."
We arrived at the address in Bondi that Henry had found for us about 2 hours later. We cruised-by a couple of times.
It was a very quiet neighbourhood with not much passing traffic. Most houses were pretty old and most were probably occupied by even older people, who were content in spending their days watching mind numbing reality shows, when all the reality they needed was just one-step away.
Nothing was stirring in the house we were there to look at.
All windows were heavily curtained. We drove around and parked the car a few streets away and then, we started walking toward Jones's house, keeping the walk easy and leisurely.
My plan had been that we were disguised as members of that religious group that go door-to-door selling Watchtower magazines.
In retrospect, I suppose we could have handled it differently. We could have called in a swat team of AIA agents. But we had discarded that plan because it could have caused a major commotion and it might have given enough time for at least one of the occupants of the house to contact some other cell and transfer control of their operation there. This would have been the worst result possible.
We had discussed a number of plans with Maria and the Commander over a conferencing connection. Finally, we had been able to convince them to let us act as decoys, while they got a bunch of their Navy seals to quietly come in and trap every one of the terrorists with their dicks in their hands, figuratively speaking, I hoped. We were not trying to be heroes, but not one of us could come up with a better alternative, and time was running out quickly. Assuming we still had time.
On the way to Jones's house, we knocked on a few doors for practice and in case that someone from that house was watching the street and noticed our approach. We even carried Bibles and tried to look friendly and na?ve. Most people were nevertheless pretty rude; I guessed that 5 seconds away from their TV show was just too much for them.
"I would like to do this again sometime," I said between houses.
"Why? This sucks," Steve asked.
"I'd like to come back and teach some of these people some manners. Convert them to politeness if not religion," I said.
"Yeah, I see your point. Okay next weekend, mate. If we are still alive, if the world, as we now know it, has not ceased to exist and if we are not busy, we'll come back and educate a few of these assholes," he agreed.
"Done deal," I said and we continued with our mission.
We worked both sides of the street and worked slowly. We actually convinced a couple of people to buy a magazine or two. I don't think our message was illuminating - they were just trying to get rid of us and not feel too guilty about it.
Finally, we were nearing our target house.
"Ready?" I whispered to Steve.
"No," he said without hesitation, "but let's do it anyway."
"Good luck, mate," I said to him.
"You too."
With no visible hesitation, I preceded Steve through the front gate and to the front door. We listened for a minute, but there were no sounds coming from the house at all. I looked at Steve, who was just standing behind me and slightly to the right (he is right handed, and so his gun hand would not end up pointing at my back).
I knocked.
Nothing happened
I knocked, again.
Not
hing happened.
After a few moments the door opened and a pleasant looking man looked out and said
"Yes?"
I was just about to go into my spiel about eternal salvation and his absolute need for one of our magazines. When I felt a gun barrel shoved into by back.
For a moment, I thought that Steve had stuffed up and had actually been standing on my left, but the rough accented voice behind me told me it wasn't Steve's gun.
"Shut up, pig! Walk inside," the voice said. The man who had opened the door smiled, and now he did not look pleasant at all; his smile was enough to give most people nightmares. The gun was again shoved into my back, this time with enough force to cause some damage to a couple of vertebrae. I walked, or more accurately, stumbled painfully inside.
We were pushed and prodded to a lounge room, which had another five men sitting on the floor; they looked up: one was uglier than the next; but none looked even slightly middle-eastern. The remains of some sort of feast were still on the floor, spread out on a nice Persian rug. There were all kinds of middle-eastern foods, some of the packages and wrappings the food had come in, still littered the floor. The men were sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with a number of pillows all around them. It was like we had stepped into some tent belonging to some strange nomadic tribe or maybe, onto the set of a movie.
They did not invite us to share their bounty - where was the renown hospitality of desert dwellers?
"This does not feel right," I said to Steve, and got another hard prod in the back with the barrel of the gun for my trouble. I had time enough to see Steve look around and then look at me, his expression was questioning, puzzled.
We were pushed past this room and into a kitchen. The kitchen table had been moved to one side and two kitchen chairs were placed in the middle of the room.We were quickly pushed onto them and then expertly tied to them, hands behind our backs and feet to the legs of the chairs:there would be no kicking our way out, this time. Steve turned to me and murmured, "what is it? What's not right? Apart from the fact that we are all tied up, instead of them."
"I can't put my finger on it, but?" but I never finished. Some guy behind me smashed his gun across the back of my scalp.
I was momentarily dazed.
Through the pain and the mist, I heard Steve say, "the food."
"Food? You're hungry? " I whispered as I surfaced slowly back to reality and more intense pain. I could feel blood trickle down the back of my neck.
"Shut up pig. Just answer my questions, if you don't want more of the same," the man behind me shouted in my ear.
"Fuck you, Ali," I said, which got me pistol whipped again, but on the side of the face this time. He was good at it and it hurt like hell. Teeth cut into my cheeks deeply and blood poured out of my mouth, mixed with saliva and a lot of swearing.
"I told you to shut up! You only answer my questions, you understand?" He shouted in my face, garlic still very strong on his breath. I saw then that it had been Jones.
"The food wrappings?" Steve said
"Will you stop going on about fucking food? I couldn't eat a thing, at the moment," I barked at Steve turning my face away from bad-breath-Jones to catch a bit of fresh air into my sore mouth. It didn't feel any better.
I coughed, bringing up mucous, blood and probably bits of my cheek. I turned back to bad-breath-Jones and gurgled at him, "hit me again and I will kill you," and then I spat all of it onto his face. He reeled back. Shit, you should have heard him scream!
"Listen, Louie? the food wrappings, did not have Halal markings on it," Steve said to me.Finally, I understood what Steve had been trying to tell me: according to Islamic law, any food item that is okay for a Muslim to eat must have a Halal marking on it.
Just then another thought crystallized in my sluggish brain. I now knew what had struck me as not been 'right' when I had first entered the house. I had smelled the scent of bacon and eggs. No way, any Muslim would ever go near a piece of bacon. These guys were definitely not members of Al Qaeda.
We had really fucked up this time! We were in the wrong house and about to be killed for it!
Way to go!
Chapter 20
