by Gary Gregor
Apart from the road immediately ahead, Tracy was not taking a lot of notice of the countryside passing outside the bus window; she was way too busy trying to keep the bus on the road, and way too fearful of what fate awaited her and her charges when they got to wherever they were going to consider the aesthetics of the scenery. However, she had lived in this part of the country long enough to know there was nothing outside the bus other than flat, parched, extremely sparsely vegetated countryside. Help, if there was ever going to be any, was far, far from here. No one knew where they were; or where they were headed.
The man with the gun sat in the seat she had vacated. He was right behind her; so close she thought she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. Despite the fear threatening to overwhelm her, Tracy wasn’t thinking so much about her own predicament, but that of her students. Prior to the incident with the ‘stranded’ car and the man with the gun climbing on board, the children were scattered casually throughout the seats on the bus, laughing and chattering happily among themselves; this was a day out of the classroom, and any day out of the class room was always fun. Now though, they were silent. Sitting close together as if gathered close might bring them some measure of security.
Every few moments Tracy glanced into the rear vision mirror at the faces of the children behind her. All she saw was confusion in their eyes as they stared at the man seated behind their beloved teacher. What questions must be going through their minds, she wondered?
Beyond the children, out through the rear window, a thick cloud of dust stirred up by the wheels, followed the bus. There was a couple of times when she looked in the mirror at the children, Tracy thought she caught a glimpse through the dust cloud of a vehicle following.
The dust was so thick it was hard to be certain but she was reasonably sure there was a car back there. It was a long way behind, perhaps trying to avoid the dust thrown up by the bus, she surmised.
Through the dust cloud, she glimpsed it again. Now she was in no doubt. It was definitely there. For a brief moment she dared to hope it might mean rescue for her and her students. The more times she saw it, the more she thought there was something strangely familiar about the size and shape of it.
She glanced in the mirror once again and saw only dense, swirling dust. Then, there it was, closer this time. It was the same car! The same four-wheel-drive Walter stopped to help. It was following them! Was Walter in the car, she wondered hopefully?
The man sitting behind her leaned forward. Tracy flinched when she felt his moist, warm breath on her cheek. “What’s your name?” he asked softly, his lips almost brushing her ear.
“Tra… Tracy,” she stammered.
“Tracy,” the man said. “You are doing very well. About a kilometre ahead you will see a turn-off to the left. It’s just a bush track. Take it.”
“Where are we going?” Tracy asked.
“You don’t need to worry about where we are going. All you need to do for the moment is drive the bus.”
“What do you want with us?” Tracy asked, not sure that she wanted to know the answer.
“All will become clear soon enough,” the man answered.
“They… they’re only children. Please let them go. They are no threat to you.”
“Just drive the bus, Tracy!” the man hissed in her ear.
A tiny fleck of spittle landed on Tracy’s cheek. She took one hand from the wheel, wiped furiously at it, and the bus veered slightly from its track.
“Two hands!” The man said sternly. “Two bloody hands, Tracy! If you care about your precious rug-rats, keep two hands on the wheel!”
“What do you want with us?” Tracy asked again, fighting back tears.
“You look like a smart girl, Tracy,” the man answered. “Right now, the smart thing for you to do is to stop talking and keep driving.”
Tracy glanced again in the mirror above her head. She looked past the man, at her students. Then, her thoughts turned once again to Walter. She remembered the look on his face when she slowly passed the stranded vehicle and drove away. He appeared confused; the teacher was driving away with his bus, leaving him at the side of the road with a stranger. Would he understand the enormity of what was happening, Tracy asked herself? No, he wouldn’t, she decided. Walter was a nice man but he was a poorly educated, simple man. If she did not understand what was happening herself, there was no way Walter would. She hoped he was in the vehicle following, but for some reason, some strange, unfathomable reason, she knew he wasn’t.
“Slow down,” The man behind her ordered.
The commanding voice close to her ear startled her. “What?”
The man reached across in front of her and pointed out the window. “Slow down. There, on the left. Take the turn-off.”
Tracy braked a little too heavily. The bus slowed quickly and, forgetting to change to a lower gear, the engine began to shudder noisily.
“Change gear, Tracy!” the man ordered.
Tracy fumbled with the gear lever, forgot to use the clutch, the transmission complained loudly and, finally, she depressed the clutch, changed to a lower gear, and entered the turn-off.
The road, if it even qualified as a road, was narrow, ill defined, and very, very rough. It was little more than two tyre tracks faintly etched onto the hard, sunbaked earth. It was difficult to define for more than ten or twenty metres in front of the bus.
They were heading deeper into the vast central Australian outback. Farther and farther away from civilization and any hope of rescue. Tracy moaned softly and a few tears joined the rivulets of perspiration running down her cheeks. She stole another look in the mirror. The frightened, confused faces of her students stared back at her. And, outside, farther back behind the bus, beyond the dust cloud, she saw the other vehicle still followed.
Lake Lewis was an impermanent salt-lake approximately one hundred and seventy kilometres north-west of Alice Springs. Bordered in the north by Stuart Bluff Range, the lake covered an area of almost two hundred and fifty square kilometres. Sited on lease-hold pastoral land shared by Napperby Station to the north and Derwent station to the west and free-hold land owned by the native Ngalurrtju people, it comprised a series of salt-pans, clay pans and smaller salt lakes.
Mostly dry from one year to the next, on the rare occasion it was inundated, water flowed from Napperby Creek to the north and other small, surrounding ephemeral creeks leaving it relatively deep for up to six months before evaporating under the relentless central Australian sun and returning once again to a vast area of parched, cracked, hardened salt-pans.
On the south-western fringe of the lake, some fifty metres from the high-water mark, there was an expansive hummock on top of which stood the remnants of a communication antenna. From ground level, the hummock appeared as an incongruent hillock against the vast surrounding salt-lake stretching across the otherwise low, flat, featureless terrain.
Once standing many metres above the hummock and enabling communications with a base-station in Alice Springs, the antenna was now little more than four, short, rusted, iron support legs, entrenched deep into a large, solid, concrete base. It was not, however, only the rusted relic on top of the hummock which remained at this long-abandoned place; it was what was concealed below.
Here, many years earlier, there was a top secret, operational observation and communication outpost manned by personnel from the Australian Army. Hurriedly constructed in secret in the early months of 2003 and used as a command post during extensive military training operations designed to accustom troops to the harsh, desert conditions they could expect to encounter on deployment in Iraq during the Second Gulf War, the hummock deceptively disguised a four-room complex buried beneath.
Below the knoll, four large, dry-freight shipping containers, each six metres in length and arranged as two front-to-back, alongside a second pair similarly positioned, formed a large square. Each container was butted hard against the one in front, and the one alongside it. At the base of the hummock,
on the western side, a short, sloping walkway led to the exposed front end of one of the two leading containers. Here, the large, heavy, steel, hinged door traditionally used for the loading and unloading of freight was welded shut and a smaller, single-person-access door had been fitted into its centre.
All four containers were interconnected by a series of internal doors constructed centrally in the sides of both the front and rear containers where each butted against the one adjacent to it, allowing access to and from each. Another door in the rear wall of the second, front container connected it to the third immediately behind it.
The result was, essentially, a four-room building completely hidden from view beneath hundreds of tons of compacted dirt. Over time, sparse, stunted vegetation, struggling for survival in the harsh conditions, had dotted the top of the hummock. To the unaware, it appeared as an odd geographical hump on the edge of a large salt-lake system in the middle of a vast landscape of hot, dry, inhospitable nothingness.
At the height of the Gulf War, up to two hundred Australian Army troops bivouacked in a sea of tents surrounding the hummock. Relatively comfortably ensconced in the Command Post beneath the hummock, the Commanding Officer, along with a small team of strategists and communications personnel, oversaw extensive war-games training exercises taking place across the wide, flat, insufferably-hot plains outside.
Whether soldiers can ever be adequately trained to endure the horrors of war, and in particular the climate and terrain one might expect to encounter on deployment in a war zone, is and always will be a highly debated issue. However, if there was ever a place where one might, in some small way, become familiar with combat under desert conditions, Lake Lewis and its surrounds was the place. Even for hardened combat soldiers, life in this place, albeit temporary, was bleak, hostile, and uninviting. The attrition rate of soldiers training here was high. Too high it was finally decided by those assigned to send them there in the first place. Just two years after it was built, Camp Lake Lewis was decommissioned and permanently closed down. The tall communications antenna on top of the hummock was removed, several truckloads of expensive communications equipment was dismantled and taken from the Command Post, hundreds of tents were taken down and, in very short time, the area returned to its natural state; a burning, desolate wasteland.
Tracy saw the large salt-lake long before she reached it. It was the glare she noticed first. Ahead, spread from east to west across her field of view, a thin ribbon of brilliant white shimmered on the distant horizon. As the bus bumped and jolted across the rough ground, slowly closing the distance between the bus and the lake, the harsher the glare of the blazing early afternoon sun reflecting off the dry surface of the lake became. The closer she got, the tighter she squinted against the brightness, silently wishing her sunglasses were on her head and not in her purse on the seat next to the stranger behind her.
Instinctively, she knew what this place was. She couldn’t remember the name of the lake but she remembered it was very large, and mostly dry. She had never been here before but she had read about it, back when she was first assigned to Haasts Bluff for her two-year teaching stint and she took the time to research the community and the surrounding area.
She glanced again into the rear vision mirror, beyond her captor, at the children. They were scared. The fear she saw in their faces was palpable. It looked like a couple of the young girls might be crying. It made her want to cry herself. What was happening to them, she wondered? What did this awful man want with them? For an instant, her eyes met the man’s. He was looking into the mirror, directly at her. He smiled.
Tracy tore her eyes away and focused again out through the windscreen. He’s smiling, she said to herself! What the hell is he smiling about? Was he going to hurt the children? Was he going to hurt her… or worse?
She felt his warm breath on her face again. “We’re nearly there, Tracy,” he said softly.
“T… tell me what you want?” Tracy begged, her voice cracking. “P… please!”
“Just drive, Tracy,” the man said. “Don’t worry about what I want. Think about your students. Think about yourself. Just do as I ask and you will all get to go home.”
“When?” Tracy asked.
“When this is over. Just drive the fucking bus, Tracy,” he hissed in her ear.
Suddenly it came to Tracy. They were not going home… ever! This man was going to kill them all! All her beautiful children; and her! They were never going to survive. She glanced again quickly into the mirror. He was still smiling. The bastard was still smiling at her!
She knew what he looked like! He was not trying to hide his identity. He was not wearing a mask. If he was telling the truth and intended to release them all at some point, he would be wearing a mask so she could not tell the authorities what he looked like. He was not wearing a mask! Tracy bit down on her lip, stifling a pitiful moan threatening to emerge, and the tears started again.
4
Sam Rose looked across at his partner in the passenger seat. “So,” he said. “When were you going to tell me about Jessica?”
Russell Foley ignored the question and continued to focus on the scenery rushing by outside the vehicle.
“Well?” Sam insisted.
Foley turned in his seat and looked at Sam. “Why all the sudden interest in my love life?”
“Because I can’t remember when you last had a love life.”
“And I can’t remember when I last considered you to be funny,” Foley responded.
Sam shrugged. “We’re friends,” he answered. “I like to know if my friends have something wonderful going on in their lives.”
Foley stared in silence at Sam.
“What?” Sam asked, glancing quickly at Foley.
“You are so full of shit,” Foley said. “I met someone, she’s nice, we’re dating. It’s not earth-shattering news.”
“Yes, it is,” Sam said. “You never date.”
“Of course I date,” Foley countered. “I just don’t tell you about it when I do. My private life is just that – private.”
“I’m offended,” Sam huffed. “We tell each other everything.”
“Not everything,” Foley disagreed. “But, there is one thing I would like to tell you.”
Sam smiled at Foley. “Oh, goody!” he said cheerfully. “Is it about you and Jessica?”
“No, it’s not about me and Jessica,” Foley answered.
“Okay, but we are going to get back to you and Jessica later, Russell. You can count on it. What is it you want to tell me?”
Foley returned his attention to the passing landscape. “I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re an idiot,” he said.
“That’s not news,” Sam said. “You tell me that all the time.”
“I don’t want you to forget,” Foley explained.
Sam began to slow the vehicle. “There,” he said, pointing ahead. “That might be the two Papunya chaps.”
Ahead in the distance, two police officers stood at the side of the road, near where it intersected with Gary Junction Road. They leaned casually against the side of their station vehicle, a Toyota four-wheel-drive utility fitted with a covered cage at the rear, used for transporting prisoners.
Sam slowed, and parked behind the Toyota. He and Foley climbed out of their vehicle and approached the two uniformed officers.
Senior Constable David “Spog” Sparrow, officer in charge of Papunya Police Station stepped away from the Toyota and offered his hand to Russell Foley. “David Sparrow, sir,” he said, shaking Foley’s hand.
“G’day Spog,” Foley smiled. “I remember you from your time at Alice Springs.” He turned to face the second officer. “You must be Richard Smart,” he smiled, offering his hand.
“Yes, sir,” Smart said. “They call me ‘Maxwell’.”
“Yes,” Foley smiled. “I remember that also.” He turned and indicated Sam, standing behind him. “Have you chaps met Sam Rose?” he asked.
“No,” Smart a
nd Sparrow said in unison. “We know of Sergeant Rose though,” Sparrow said.
Sam stepped forward and shook firmly with both men. “Nice to meet you, fellas,” he said. “And you can dispense with the ‘Sergeant’ stuff. Out here, it’s just Sam.”
Russell Foley stepped away from the small group and looked around the immediate area. He noticed a dark patch at the verge of the road, stepped cautiously across and squatted on his haunches closely examining the pool of dried blood which had almost entirely soaked away into the hot, dry earth. A swarm of flies buzzed angrily at the intrusion onto their feeding ground before settling once again on what remained. “Where’s the body, Spog?” he asked, getting to his feet and looking back at Sparrow.
“At the medical clinic at Papunya,” Sparrow said. “We took photos of the scene before moving it, and then ‘Max’ took it back to Papunya before returning here.”
“Tell us about him,” Foley said.
Constable Richard ‘Maxwell’ Smart referred to his official handbook. “Walter Tjapanangka,” he began. “Local aboriginal from Haasts Bluff. Age unknown but estimated at around fifty. He was employed by the community as a general handy-man-come-gardener-come-school-bus driver.” He flipped a page and continued. “Shot once, in the chest, and fell right there, at the side of the road. We have requested the Flying Doctor to come out and transport the body back to Alice Springs.”