“I’ll tell you right now,” Cait had said to G, “Frog’s not all that smart. He’ll head straight back to see his wife. We just have to keep an eye on his place. I’m sure Irish can help out here.”
But G kept this conversation with his daughter to himself. Irish could only handle so much mumbo jumbo in one day.
Cait woke in a clammy sweat, feeling wired and on guard, forcefully dragging herself out of a space that was drifting with tortured souls and bolted upright, breathing heavily, wide eyes searching her bedroom for the evil that she had just felt in her vision.
Oh my God, the infinite blackness. It was so cold and foreboding, Cait recalled with chilling accuracy. If that’s death, then I don’t want to go there. It was sucking me in, deeper and deeper, inside a spiral that was compressing me, squeezing me, freezing me, reducing me to nothingness in a space without end, reducing me to a grain of sand in an eternal black desert.
And the frightening legacy of her vision was the overbearing presence of her two kidnappers, their spirits taunting her, circling her, remaining just out of reach, but there nonetheless.
“Frog and Boss-man are back!” Cait urgently exclaimed, verbalizing her thoughts to her alter ego. “You bastards are so close—I can feel you.”
Cait tilted her head back slightly and flared her nostrils, sniffing the air with a deep intake. “And smell you.
“And you can’t hide. Not from me. It’s time for revenge.” Cait knew she had an army on her side, a thousand mothers who would support her every step of the way.
“We’re coming to get you.” She felt invincible.
Frog had finally gone to court last week and the magistrate had no option but to release him on bail of $1,500 for possession of 0.82 grams of methamphetamine. The Northern Territory prosecutor unsuccessfully argued that there was a significant risk of Frog breaking the conditions of his bail and absconding, since he was free to walk the streets again until his court case in a few months. But the magistrate did make Frog’s bail conditional that he had to report into a Northern Territory police station twice a week.
Frog took no note of his bail conditions; they didn’t apply to the one-percenters. Besides, he was so incensed by the thought of Boss-man humping his missus—I’m gonna beat that bitch to within an inch of her life. Fucking slut!—that he hitched a ride that night to Alice Springs with a long-haul truckie driving a B-double, and then jumped on the first available train down to Melbourne.
“Look Sorenson, I’m telling you Rosi’s on the move and Dubarry’s just jumped bail from the Northern Territory and is heading this way. Now’s the time to move in on them.”
Irish had dispensed with pleasantries, and out of frustration was telling the DI in charge of Cait’s case how he should be doing his job.
“I know how it works,” continued Irish. “We’ve all been there. Too many cases and not enough manpower to investigate them all, so you take the path where the convictions are.”
“Irish, why don’t you piss off? You’ve been on the bottle too long.” Sorenson wasn’t impressed, and he certainly wasn’t going to be told how to run his case by a broken-down ex-cop who had been pushed out of the force after a major screwup.
“You actually expect me to believe that crap from Cait? This premonition stuff is all bullshit. Just get a grip, old-timer, and come back when you have some real, cold hard facts.” Sorenson was having a bad day, and he wasn’t about to waste time on the likes of Irish.
“Oh, and as a final piece of advice, just let us solve the case, not you, okay? My boys are on it. They’ve got some real leads to follow.”
“Kylie, Sorenson’s sitting on his hands, doing nothing. We’ve got to give him proof that Boss-man and Frog have surfaced,” said Irish. He was on the phone bringing her up to speed and trying to plan a way forward.
“So, you have anything in mind?”
“Yep. I’ll get some photos of the two together, then I take them to Sorenson. He’ll have to act when I show him where they are. His guys aren’t having any luck. They’re waiting for Boss-man to surface, and until he does, my bet is they’ll do nothing.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Kylie thought to herself how involved Irish was becoming with Cait’s case. It was unusual for him to be so proactive.
Usually it’s me who gives him the directives. It’s like she’s his own daughter. He’s becoming obsessed.
“You sound confident. Do you reckon you can pull it off? It’s a big ask.”
“Kylie, leave it to me. I’ll do it. That’s all you need to know.”
Irish was actually going out on a limb here, because for the first time in his involvement with the case he was actually giving serious consideration to what Cait had told him. It went against thirty-odd years of policing to not only listen to, but actually act on, some half-arsed predictions that had their origin in a distressed lass’s visions. Ridiculous.
Caitie, you’re doing weird things to my brain, Irish mulled over in his head last night, his thoughts as clear as if he spoke them. How can you expect me to possibly believe in your harebrained predictions? But now, here I am, about to act on them. And you’re convinced that Frog’s now back at his home with his wife. How can you say that with such certainty?
“How’d you get these photos? We’ve been chasing that Rosi character for months but so far we’ve had no luck nailing him,” asked Detective Chief Inspector Adam Prince. “They’re time and date-stamped from yesterday afternoon. Did surveillance take them?”
“No sir, they come from our side. My team’s been chasing Rosi as part of a kidnapping investigation that we believe he’s tied up with.”
“Yeah, I heard that you were after him as well. Seems like this perp’s better inside. Good work, Sorenson.
“And we appreciate being given a heads-up on this. Thanks for sharing the intel so soon.”
Sorenson was playing a game here and he had an ulterior motive. He wanted to move up the ladder, and if he had to kiss arse and pass over his own squad’s findings to another department to achieve this, well so be it.
The Organised Crime Squad and a SWAT team were on the way to Frog’s house, prepared for a possible armed conflict, fully kitted up with Kevlar vests and full body armor. Sorenson had bummed a ride with his newfound contact DCI Prince so he could be seen as part of the action. This was the first positive and confirmed sighting of Rosi with one of his Warlock accomplices for months, and Prince’s Organised Crime team had no intention of letting him slip through the net again.
“One of my sources took it. I asked him to keep an eye out for Rosi when he next surfaced. He’s got a grudge against the Warlocks, so he was only too willing to snitch on them.”
Sorenson wanted all the glory for this and had no intention of letting his involvement slip by unnoticed. He’d put in for a promotion to move up the food chain and join Prince as a Detective Chief Inspector and this could reflect well on his chances, especially if he got Prince onside. So the fact that Irish had come up with a series of photos of Boss-man and Frog on Frog’s front veranda apparently arguing was none of the Organised Crime Squad’s damn business. As far as Sorenson was concerned, this was simply good detective work, and he planned to milk it for everything it was worth. Sorenson intended to take as much credit as was humanly possible for the photos, especially as he was currently talking with a Detective Chief Inspector who had just praised him for “good work in the field.”
“Police! Open the door,” screamed SWAT One, unsure of what he would find inside the house. He quickly slipped to the side of the entrance in case shots came raining at him through the closed door, as there was every expectation that whoever was in the house would be armed and dangerous.
Without waiting for a reply, the fully armored team members on point smashed Frog’s front door open. The doorjamb gave way, splinters of wood flying backward into the house. The broken door crashed back into the wall with a loud thud, and the SWAT operatives sprinted inside: SWAT Three to the left, SWAT T
wo to the right, and SWAT One crouched low and rushing straight ahead down the hallway. Their semiautomatic Glock 9mm handguns were drawn and cocked, pointing in front of them as they continuously moved, searching for a target, ready to squeeze the trigger at the slightest sign of a threat.
With a lightning-fast routine honed by months of practice and a hundred similar raids, they ran urgently from room to room, searching for Boss-man and Frog.
“Clear straight ahead,” SWAT One yelled into his throat mic, spinning around and taking up a prone firing position at the head of the hallway, checking the real estate behind him was still safe.
“Clear right,” yelled SWAT Two.
“We’ve got a suspect,” shouted SWAT Three. “Get down. I repeat, get down on the floor . . . now.
“You copy that, SWAT One?” said SWAT Three into his mic to the squad sergeant calling the shots from the hallway. “In the lounge room, end of the hall, to the left. Single male, contained. Woman and child free.
“Lie facedown. Put your hands where I can see them, straight out in front of you. Move!”
“SWAT Two, any sign of the second suspect?” said SWAT One in a clipped, authoritative tone.
“Negative,” replied SWAT Two.
“Move to the lounge room and help SWAT Three,” ordered SWAT One.
“All clear inside. What’s the status outside?” SWAT One had positioned a further four SWAT operatives spread around the building, two around back, two out front.
“All clear in front.” SWAT Four.
“All clear in back.” SWAT Six.
“SWAT Five and SWAT Seven, move inside. SWAT Four and SWAT Six, stay outside where you are.” SWAT One didn’t want any surprises from a hidden suspect jumping out and opening fire, or bolting, for that matter.
Thirty seconds from start to finish. That’s all it took to totally secure the premises and round up the suspects: Frog, lying spread-eagled on the floor of his living room, facedown and helpless with SWAT Three’s size-twelve jackboot pressing firmly down on his back, along with a woman and a three-year-old child both screaming in terror in the far corner.
“You bastards. Leave him alone,” shrieked Frog’s missus, clutching her son closely to her chest, shaking uncontrollably, looking for all intents and purposes as if she was about to have an epileptic fit.
“Get off him . . . get off him. He’s done nothin’ bad to yous guys. What do you want?”
A look of abject fear crossed her face as she took in the gravity of the situation. There was her partner, Frog, pushed facedown on her floor, being handcuffed—“Don’t you arseholes put them cuffs on too tight. You always make them too tight,” she screamed hysterically at them—and her son was crying uncontrollably. Her lounge room was full of cops in black battle fatigues with an armory of weapons around their waists, black full-face helmets, guns drawn and pointed at her, at her defenseless young son, threatening her, telling her to shut the fuck up.
“Where’s Rosi?” a voice yelled from the menacing sea of faces that were confronting her. “Where is he?”
“Who?” the missus managed to squeak, not even aware of what she was saying.
“Boss-man. Where is he?” A face inside a helmet with the visor pulled back placed itself six inches from her nose. “We know he was here yesterday.”
“I ain’t tellin’ you pigs nothin’,” she replied defiantly.
“Where is he?” the face yelled at the top of his voice, a glob of spittle landing somewhere just below her left eye.
“I . . . I don’t know.” She started crying uncontrollably. “Him and Frog had an argument and Boss-man buggered off. Didn’t even come inside.”
“Leave her alone,” yelled Frog.
“Shut your trap.” A boot ended up landing in Frog’s side. “And that one’s for the bruises on your missus’s face. You been laying into her?”
“Take him away and hold him until we figure what to do with the prick,” said a commanding voice from the back of the crowd of men in black. Senior Detective Inspector Prince had entered the room. “He’s skipped bail in Darwin, so we can hold him as long as we like. And search the house. Usual stuff—drugs, cash, guns, stolen goods,” Prince said to his men from Organised Crime who had followed him inside Frog’s house.
“And get social services here. That kid’s way too young to be left with that slut. Look at the condition of this place. It’s a bloody pigsty. You wouldn’t let your dog live here.”
Frog looked up at the bare walls. They were once cream, but now yellowing and heavily marked. His attention was caught by a series of brown-red stains that were intimidatingly splattered across the wall opposite him, looking as if someone had haphazardly flicked a paintbrush across the vertical surface . . . or was it blood? His mind was playing tricks on him as thoughts of torture and a beating rang through his drug-addled brain, causing an involuntary weakness in his bowels as he felt himself leaking into his pants.
He was handcuffed to a steel-topped table in an interview room with no windows, somewhere deep inside the depths of the Melbourne Remand Centre. A fluorescent tube in one of the ceiling lights flickered on and off with a buzzing sound, and he started fidgeting, nervously scratching a nonexistent itch on his arm, trying to look tough for whoever was staring at him from behind the large mirrored wall opposite where he was sitting.
The heavy door flung open then immediately slammed shut with a thunk, and two policemen marched back into the room: the one who had been asking the questions so far sitting opposite him, and the one who was doing all the yelling and making all the threats standing to his left.
I wonder which copper’s going to lay into me first? thought Frog.
“So Dubarry, you know where you stand. You’re going down. If we throw the book at you, by the time you get out of the nick you’ll be pension age and in a wheelchair,” said cop number one, enjoying watching the poor excuse for a human being in front of him squirm.
“And you’ll never see your kid grow up, and that scrag of a wife of yours will be screwing another man. Or knowing her, probably hundreds of other men,” said cop number two in a threatening tone, raising his voice to a pitch just below the sound barrier.
Frog had been interviewed by the cops many times before, and he always hated his time in jail—it was such a daily battle just to stay alive, apart from protecting your ring from some randy inmate—but he remained silent. He knew from past experience it was the best way to get up their nose and really piss them off.
Except this time, there was a way out. If he snitched on his Warlock brothers, Boss-man in particular, the coppers would downgrade his charges to aiding and abetting in Cait’s kidnapping, which would see him with a max of ten years inside, but probably way less, and no charges would be laid about Rishi’s murder. Boss-man would have to wear that one on his own down the track.
“Okay, I’ll tell yous guys where to find Boss-man. But no one’s to know where the information’s from. Right? You just raid the place, yeah?”
“Correct. You need to tell us when he’s there. And make sure you’re there too, slimebag. We’ll take you in with the others, then send you up to Darwin for your safety. You broke bail, remember?”
“And what about the charges?” Frog wasn’t totally stupid.
“You’ll go down. There’s no free ride here. But you’ll only be charged with aiding and abetting, so, maybe two or three years? And if you testify against Rosi you’ll be immune from any charges related to that Indian kid’s death.”
“How do I know you’ll follow through?”
“You don’t, but that’s the deal, Dubarry. Take it, get bailed so you can guide us to Rosi and then get arrested again and have a short holiday courtesy of Her Majesty’s government. Or you can leave it, and look at spending maybe fifteen or twenty years in the nick, with no bail. Your choice.”
“These guys are dangerous. Expect them to be armed and put up a fight if cornered. They’ll be protecting their turf at all costs, so if you’re threaten
ed, return fire, but go for limb shots. No center mass or headshots,” said the Special Operations Group Commander to his troops. They were having a preraid briefing in the nondescript black SOG SUV on the early morning drive out to the Warlocks’ property, just off the Western Highway near Bacchus Marsh. The SOG had been deployed instead of the police SWAT team because there was a high degree of probability that shots would be fired. The Warlocks were known to be armed, and there were rumors that they possessed several fully automatic weapons and had somehow gotten their hands on some dangerous military hardware.
The atmosphere inside the SUV was electric—a mixture of fear, testosterone, and bravado, layered with the smell of gun oil and sweat hanging in the air. None of the SOGs spoke. Like a prizefighter psyching himself up before a title fight, they were silent, lost in their thoughts as they prepared themselves for the impending conflict.
“Fifteen minutes before action. Weapons check.” The snap of opening and closing guns and breeches pinged around the inside of the van.
“Safeties off as soon as we move on the property and you make visual contact. We go into position at zero five thirty hours, as originally advised.”
The SOG commander had personally taken control of this raid as there was significant risk his men would face a violent opponent. The Warlocks’ reputation had preceded them, and he was taking no chances.
“And watch out for booby traps and surveillance cameras. Intel has said the place is like Fort Knox, so they’ll be there.”
The eight Sons of God members had been briefed on the raid by the Serious Crime Squad in conjunction with the Drug Squad, so they had an idea of what to expect. They had run a high-flying drone over the property late yesterday afternoon to get the lay of the land, and it had picked out six to eight people walking around outside, moving in and out of the buildings and outhouses. One large outbuilding in particular that appeared to be inside what looked like a fortified compound was of interest to them, as it could be a drug lab.
The Cait Lennox Box Set Page 45
