by Gary Gregor
Suspecting the swaddle of rags held tightly to her chest was a bomb and the woman coming at them fast was willingly offering her life to Allah, instinct took over. Garrett took her out with one shot. Not wanting to hit the bundle, he tried for a head shot but the round went low and hit her at chest height. The bundle did not detonate and the woman collapsed to the ground. The swaddle of dirty, tattered linen rolled from her arms and fell open next to her body. A baby girl lay lifeless on the hot, dusty ground next to her dead mother. The round had plowed through the child’s soft, upper body and into the woman’s heart.
Garrett’s colleagues with him on that fateful day, including his immediate superior, declared it a “good kill”. The press, at home in Australia, however, did not.
How the events of that day ever became a matter of public knowledge was something that baffled Garrett and, apparently, everyone else who was there at the time. But front-line war correspondents were a common presence in the military, their often-confronting images and reporting of combat dated back beyond the first World War. So intrinsically ingrained had they become within the ranks of the front-line combat soldiers their presence had become an almost indiscernible thing. Their job was to report on the progress of the war, or indeed the lack of it, to the folks back home. Every newsworthy aspect of the war, be it good or bad, was relayed to news editors waiting patiently in the safety and comfort of their offices. Every heroic act, every death or wounding of an Aussie soldier, and every controversial incident which would make the headlines and arouse the curiosity of the news hungry public soared through cyberspace with the click of a button. And then, there was the enemy media machine; they were never going to put a righteous spin on such an incident. ‘Australian soldiers killing innocent women and children’ the insurgent media arm screamed.
The incident made international headlines, embarrassing the Australian military as well as the Australian government and, as it often does, politics and the government’s need to save face blurred and distorted the facts of the matter.
Politicians needed to appear to be sympathetic to the family of the dead woman and her child, notwithstanding the fact that she was a zealous enemy combatant. It was a typical government con-job; smoke and mirrors; something politicians world-wide are adept at. And, in the Court of public opinion, there was division; while the supportive called for understanding and forgiveness, the gullible, far-right radicals collectively bayed for Craig Garrett’s blood.
Garrett’s companions, thirty-four-year-old Mark Thomas and thirty-eight-year-old Liam Frayne, served with Garrett both in Iraq and Afghanistan and were present on the day Garrett shot and killed the woman and her child. However, the three men were more than just members of the same unit, they were friends. When you go to war with other like-minded soldiers, when you stand together in the face of a determined enemy hell-bent on killing you, a bond is forged that nothing can break. It was this very bond that tied the three former soldiers together.
Both Thomas and Frayne, like the rest of the unit present that day, were committed in their support of Garrett’s actions. But, the bond of friendship, camaraderie, and support of your comrades, accounts for nothing when politicians get involved. If it amounts to votes at the ballot box, politicians will throw even heroes to the wolves.
Garrett’s subsequent discharge from the army following Court-Martial proceedings was the beginning of an angry, bitter, spiral into a hate-filled desire for revenge. Then, when his longtime girlfriend left him, it was the ultimate face-slap. Claudia dutifully waited at home for Craig to return from active service, every day fearing the worst for him. Praying he would return safely to her and their life would resume as it had before his deployment to the war- ravaged country. They would marry and start a family; they talked about it often. Then, after news of the incident in Afghanistan broke, she began to question if she could confidently bring babies into the world with a father who could so easily do what the media reported he did. Claudia didn’t even consider that the whole thing might be a media beat-up, driven by politicians who had never been closer to a war zone than watching it unfold on the nightly news or facing an awkward question from a zealous reporter.
How do you reason with logic as warped as Claudia’s, Craig wondered? He tried, even pleaded with her to believe him, but ultimately it was easier just to watch her walk away as his mother once watched him walk away.
Someone had to pay for the loss of his career and for the unrepairable damage to his good name. He believed that, through no fault of his own, his life had been reduced to where it was before he joined the army. Now, his new family, and the woman he planned to marry, had abandoned him in favor of their own self-serving ideals.
Deemed by many to be foolhardy and ill-advised, Thomas and Frayne subsequently resigned from the Army. If asked, they would claim their resignations were an act of protest in support of their friend and to a degree that was true. What happened to Garrett was wrong, plain and simple, and they too were angry about his unceremonious discharge from the army, but that was only part of it. In actuality, they were tired. Tired of the fighting and tired of the killing. There had to be a better way to make a living than walking the constant knife-edge danger they faced almost on a daily basis when on deployment in a war zone.
Mark Thomas, unlike his friend Garrett, still had a girlfriend but in truth he wondered how much longer the relationship would last given how royally pissed off she was when he announced he was going away with Garrett and Frayne and couldn’t tell her how long he would be gone. Chasing work, he explained. Finding suitable, satisfying employment was difficult when all you really knew how to do well, all you had been trained over several years to do well, was fight and kill enemy combatants.
Jasmine didn’t like Craig Garrett and had already spent way too many hours since Mark’s departure from the army trying to persuade him to cut himself loose from his friend. It simply wasn’t right she insisted, that Garrett should have such an influence on Mark’s life. And, she reasoned, there was Garrett’s unflattering reputation to consider. If he didn’t distance himself from Garrett, some of that reputation was going to rub off on him. People were going to make assumptions based on his association with Craig Garrett. Surely he could find far better friends to hang out with she insisted. Liam Frayne for instance; he was nice. Why couldn’t he just be satisfied with Liam as his best friend?
Now, there were three angry, disgruntled ex-soldiers bound together in a show of unity, travelling around the country together working for a few weeks here and there before moving on to the next stop on their journey. Along the way, the three former soldiers became even closer than they were before leaving the military.
Craig Garrett was alone in the second shipping container. He moved away from the locked door leading to the third room, crossed to his camp stretcher and sat. He removed his mobile phone from his pocket, checked the battery life and, satisfied it was fully charged, he powered it down and replaced it in his pocket. Now it was just a matter of waiting. He would not turn his phone on again until 9.00am the next morning. It was important to preserve the life of the battery. If it ran out of charge out here and he was unable to send or receive communications with his colleagues, the plan may well collapse; just like his military career. It was going to be a long night.
He looked across at the locked door behind which the school teacher and eleven of her students huddled, scared, confused and surely wondering when, and if, they were ever going to see their families again. Kidnapping anyone came with obvious inherent risk, kidnapping a bus load of school kids and their teacher however, had to increase the risk factor a hundred-fold.
The police would thoroughly investigate any case of this nature but, eleven young children, one teacher, and a bright yellow school bus snatched in broad daylight had to add a heightened degree of aggravation to the offence. It was probably a subjective thing more than it was the degree of actual time and effort expended by investigating officers. There was no reason or justificati
on for more resources, physical or otherwise, to be put into an investigation into the kidnapping of twelve people than there was for one, it was just that for twelve, eleven of them children, it was accompanied with a perceived seriousness much greater than perhaps it might be for one.
Garrett was aware of the risks. He knew if he and his two co-offenders were caught, they would probably spend the rest of their lives in prison. But he was also a determined man; determined to have vengeance for his dismissal and the subsequent financial loss that followed his inglorious Court-Martial. He loved the army. He loved the thought of being a career soldier. He was never going to attain great wealth as a soldier; the military pays well but no one walks away a millionaire at the end of their career regardless of how long they serve. But for Garrett, the money was a secondary consideration. It was about family, camaraderie, mate-ship, the sense of belonging, the knowing that the man alongside you in combat had your back. He cared about you and you cared about him. The money was nice, but it was incidental to the sense of belonging which had been taken from him.
Now, his life was empty. He had nothing. A small pension hardly sufficient to live on, a rented home he shared with his two colleagues, Thomas and Frayne, and a future offering little more than a day-to-day, hum-drum existence where the greatest challenge each day was deciding which mind-numbing television program to watch. He tried a few different jobs, most of them mundane and unchallenging, and none offering him any real incentive to consider as a worthwhile, post-military career. A handful of employment opportunities never got past the initial interview stage once the prospective employer learned of his past: It seems no one wants to hire a baby killer.
He would, however, have his vengeance. Of that he was certain. And, he would have enough money to ensure he did not spend the rest of his life struggling to pay the bills and feed himself. He had no desire to be so rich he could never spend the money in his lifetime. The money would be both compensation for lost income and punitive for the government he held responsible for the situation he now found himself in. He knew the government instigated his dismissal from the military, and they had to pay for that. It was not complicated, at least not to Garrett. If they compensated him fairly for his loss, no one gets hurt. The teacher and her motley bunch of rug-rats get to go home, and he walks away satisfied that justice, at least in some small degree, has been served.
Garrett also had no real desire to hurt anyone else. At thirty-six years of age, he had seen enough and participated in enough hurt to last a dozen lifetimes. However, extensive, expert training in the art of killing drilled into you over years and enhanced by actual combat experience tends to stay with you long after you stop and the desire not to hurt someone does not erase the knowledge of how to go about it.
Killing the bus driver, although undesirable, was a necessary part of the plan. They could have taken him with the teacher and the students and he would now also be behind the locked door a few metres from where Garrett sat. That, however, might well have been the catalyst for problems they did not need. The driver was an adult male and an adult male may not be as compliant as a young female teacher and eleven terrified children. He may have chosen to resist. He may have chosen to fight back; play the hero and save the teacher and her students. Besides, at the ‘break-down’ site back at the roadside, he had seen the faces of both himself and Liam Frayne. It was not practical to wear masks covering their faces; if they had, the bus would never have stopped. And, killing the bus driver served another purpose; hopefully it would send a chilling message to the authorities that they were prepared to go to any length to get what they wanted.
Of course, the teacher, Tracy, and the children had also seen their faces and that presented Garrett with the same problem. How he was going to resolve that he did not yet know. Killing them all would immediately solve the problem but in his heart, he felt he could not do that no matter how experienced he may be at it. He had already killed one child, albeit unintentionally, and he knew how that made him feel. Perhaps the answer would come to him.
He laid back on his camp stretcher, closed his eyes, and listened to the profound silence that engulfed the hill and everything beneath it. Comfortably several degrees cooler beneath the ground, he hoped he could nap peacefully, without the constant recurring nightmare images of a dead infant laying in the dust in a distant, foreign, war-torn land flooding his mind.
9
Sam Rose and the two Papunya officers, Sparrow and Smart stood together in the tiny office of the Papunya Police Station. They studied a large wall-map displaying the vast region from Yuendumu, north of Papunya, to King’s Canyon, south of Haasts Bluff. Sparsely dotted with occasional geographical land features such as dry creek beds, a canyon or two, several large, mostly dry salt lakes, and a number of cattle stations battling to survive in the hot, arid climate, it was an immense area of inhospitable, unwelcoming land.
Russell Foley entered the office and joined the others.
“Any news?” Sam asked.
“John Singh and a couple of his Forensic team attended the scene of the bus fire with three of our Major Crime chaps. The bus was empty, nothing left but a burnt-out hulk with the charred remains of a number of back-packs and one smashed and burnt mobile phone. Any evidence there might have been was totally destroyed in the fire.”
“I suppose we should be thankful they didn’t find a bus-load of cremated bodies,” Sam said. “It indicates they are still alive… somewhere.”
“Yeah, that’s the key word… ‘somewhere’,” Foley said. “Our three chaps, Fisher, Campbell and Howell, travelled further up the Tanami Track to Tilmouth Roadhouse and nosed around.”
“And… ?” Sam prompted.
“Nothing,” Foley confirmed. “No one has seen a group of school children in the area.”
“Maybe they didn’t stop,” Sparrow suggested.
Foley shrugged. “Maybe,” he agreed. “But I don’t think so. First of all, Tilmouth Roadhouse is the last stop for fuel and supplies before Western Australia. Secondly, why transport them up the Tanami Track?” He stepped up to the wall-map and ran his finger along the dotted line indicating the unsealed Tanami Track. “There’s nothing out there except a thousand kilometres of desert wilderness.”
“What about cattle stations?” Sam asked.
Foley turned to Sparrow. “Spog, have you got contact details for all of the cattle stations in the district?”
“Yes, most of them,” Sparrow answered.
“I want you to contact them. Many of them muster cattle with helicopters these days.” He glanced at his watch. “There’s a few hours of daylight left. Ask them to conduct an aerial fly-over of their properties. We have to assume there are at least two offenders, maybe three, or even four. Transporting twelve people across country has got to take more than one offender and more than one vehicle.”
“Or, another bus,” Smart suggested.
“Possible, Max,” Foley said. “But a bus has got to stand out like dog’s nuts out here.”
“Not necessarily,” Sparrow added. “There are tourist busses, big and small, running around out here all the time.”
“Good point, Spog,” Foley conceded. He turned to Smart. “Max, while Spog is checking with the station owners, perhaps you can contact the administrators at all the surrounding aboriginal settlements, ask them to look for a bus carrying a group of school children. I doubt these people will take the risk of stopping anywhere where they might be recognised, but it’s worth a try.”
“I’ll get on it right away,” Smart said.
“Thanks,” Foley said. “In the meantime, I’ll get onto the boss and get some of our chaps to check with the tourist companies and vehicle rental companies operating out of the Alice. We’re looking for a tourist bus, possibly a twenty-seater, hired without a driver, anytime in the last two weeks and not yet returned.”
“Or maybe a large van of some sort,” Sam added. “Like a small, enclosed furniture removal van.”
�
��Okay,” Foley nodded.
While Sparrow and Smart moved across to their respective desks to begin making phone calls, Sam looked at Foley. “Got a job for me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Foley nodded. “There’s a community store just a short walk away, I need a change of underwear.”
“What?”
Foley shrugged. “You were in such a hurry to get going this morning I forgot to pack clean undies.”
“We are only staying overnight… aren’t we?” Sam asked.
“That was when we thought we were investigating a murder. Now it’s a murder, and a kidnapping. We will probably be here until we find the teacher and her students.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously,” Foley said with a smile. “Get me four pairs, size 38.”
“You should buy your own underwear?” Sam said. “I’m kinda uncomfortable buying underpants for someone else.”
“They won’t know you’re buying them for someone else, Sam. Besides, I’m gonna be busy. I’ve got to ring the boss and get some of our chaps checking the vehicle rental companies. Anyway, don’t you need to get some new underwear yourself?”
“Why don’t you just turn your dirty underwear inside out, like everyone else does?”
“You mean like you do?”
“Only once. Then I throw them away and go a-la-natural.”
Foley grimaced. “There’s a mind-picture that’s gonna give me nightmares. You know, you are a disgusting individual. I don’t know what women see in you.”