Snatched! (Foley & Rose Book 6)

by Gary Gregor

  Somehow, above the jumble of voices, Tracy heard Toby’s voice. “We tipped the piss and shit out on the ground.”

  Tracy, trying very hard not to smile at Toby’s words, raised her hands and hushed the children. “Children, please quieten down. Don’t bother Toby and John.”

  Slowly the mishmash of voices began to settle. The children moved back from the boys and stood nearby, their eyes darting between their teacher and the boys.

  “Thank you,” Tracy said. “I think Toby and John were very brave in going outside with the man to empty our toilet and bring us more water. “I think we should give them both a clap for what they did for us.” She began to quietly clap her hands and slowly, the class followed her lead. A round of sedate, polite applause, directed at Miller and Jabaldjari, soon had both boys grinning widely. John Jabaldjari, a somewhat less exuberant character than his friend Toby, did not quite understand the meaning of the applause and he smiled because Toby was smiling and he supposed it was expected of him. Toby Miller, on the other hand, basked in the admiration of his classmates. He and his friend were now class heroes.

  Slowly, the applause died away and eventually stopped. Toby and John both stepped back into the assembled group and were once more, mere members of their class. They would, however, relish the pleasure of their brief moment in the spotlight for a long time.

  “Okay everybody, thank you. That was a very nice way to say thank you to Toby and John. Now, we need to get the toilet and the water into the next room. Who would like to help with that?”

  Eleven hands shot into the air and several students actually took a step forward.

  “Thank you again,” Tracy smiled. “The water is very heavy, and because Toby and John carried it in here from outside, perhaps a couple of you other boys might like to carry it into the next room. The toilet is very light now it’s empty,” she added. “Perhaps one of the girls would like to carry it into the next room.”

  Craig Garrett sat on the edge of his camp stretcher. It was stuffy in the confined space but it was several degrees cooler than it was outside under the burning afternoon sun. He wiped at a bead of perspiration that ran into his eye. His mind drifted back to the time he, Liam Frayne and Mark Thomas, along with the others of his Commando unit, trained in this place. The ‘bunker’ system he now sat in was there back then but it was the company command centre and generally off limits to those, like him, who were unauthorised to be there.

  Back then there was a huge, mobile, diesel generator unit behind the hill providing power to each of the four rooms buried under the hill. Power meant air-conditioning; something he wished he had now. This place was as hot and as uninviting as it was in Afghanistan. The only difference now was that no one was trying to kill him.

  Thomas and Frayne would be back in Alice Springs by now. They would lay low until it was dark, and then travel to Mount Liebig, hide out among the rocky out-crops high above the drop point, collect the ransom money, and leave. Later in the day, they would drive to the old training base, pick him up, and they would all leave this place together, never to return.

  Before leaving, however, Frayne would complete his grizzly task; kill the hostages.

  It was the killing part of the plan that still concerned Garrett; now more than at any time since they snatched the hostages. He had killed a child once; a child and its mother. He paid a hefty price for that, and was still paying. The thought of killing the teacher, and all of her eleven students still did not sit with him. They only agreed to kill them because his was the face they had all seen. If they were released, they could give the police a very good description of him. The cops were not fools. It would not take them long to identify him and then, by association, identify Frayne and Thomas. But still, it clawed at his gut like a painful, persistent itch he couldn’t relieve.

  He had been in this place for three days. Apart from brief moments spent with the twelve people locked in the adjacent room, he had been alone, with nothing but time to think about the last part of their plan.

  Garrett was a former career soldier. He had seen the very worst of humankind, and very little of the best. His experiences at the front line of a decorated combat unit had, he believed, given him a resilience to just about anything life could throw at him.

  This was different. The teacher and the children were not trying to kill him. They were not enemy combatants. All they wanted was to go home to their families. There was a part of him that wanted to give them that. He knew that letting them go was dangerous. He knew it was never in the plan to release them. He also knew he would get one hell of an argument from Frayne and Thomas; particularly Liam Frayne.

  On the outside, Frayne was a typical Aussie ‘good bloke’ but Garrett knew him better than most. Under the skin, just below the surface, there was something unnerving about his friend.

  In combat, Frayne had killed more enemy militants than anyone else in their unit. And, he did it with obvious relish. When the killing was done, he was just one of the boys; laughing, joking, talking about going home, and girls; he was always talking about girls. There was a phrase that came to Garrett’s mind when he thought about Liam Frayne. He didn’t remember from where he recalled the phrase, an old movie perhaps, or maybe a book title: ‘natural-born killer’. Garrett felt the phrase may well have been invented specifically for Liam Frayne; it fit him like a beautifully tailored suit.

  Then, there was the teacher. She was very obviously dedicated to her students and that was admirable. Tracy was young, and very pretty. In another time and place, somewhere where the terror of what she was facing never existed, Garrett could see himself asking her on a date.

  And, the kids. There was something about the two boys he took outside to empty the toilet and fetch more water that he liked. The little black kid was quiet and, when he did speak, his voice was quiet and his articulation was deeply affected by his aboriginality. The white kid, well, he was a dude. Like his classmates he was scared, but he was doing his best not to openly display his fear. And, there was his language. It was rare to hear such colorful language from one so young.

  Could he actually watch all these people die? Could he live with that for the rest of his life? Already, the killing of a mother and child in Afghanistan weighed heavily on him but this was a whole other level. Killing them all had, up to now, never been anything more than talking about it and planning it. Now that he had come to know them all, albeit briefly, it was different. The more he thought about it, the more it concerned him. Deep in his heart, he did not want them to die. If he was honest with himself, he probably never did.

  29

  The BAB Quad road-train, consisting of three semi-trailers connected by two converter dollys behind a powerful seven-hundred-horsepower FH16 Volvo prime mover, measured approximately fifty metres in length and weighed close to one-hundred-and-five tonnes.

  Traveling at ninety kilometres per hour, it was going to take upwards of two hundred metres to stop one of these mammoth truck/trailer combinations in an emergency. The driver, Tom Cremer, a big, burly man in his mid-fifties, had in excess of fifteen years behind the wheel pushing big rigs up and down the Stuart Highway. Sitting high in the cab of the big Volvo, his view of the road ahead was unobstructed and he saw the four-wheel-drive coming in the opposite direction from a long way off.

  As the distance between the two vehicles rapidly closed, he paid the much smaller four-wheel-drive the attention it deserved. Cremer had been doing this job long enough and had seen enough traffic accidents, some minor, some not so minor, and others fatal, to have learned a long time ago not to lose concentration on both the road ahead and other road users.

  Sometimes the road ahead can appear clear and, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a kangaroo, or a stray cow from one of the local cattle stations will be right there in front of the truck. Examples of road-kill littering the Stuart Highway in both directions was evidence of that. Concentration was pivotal to staying alive long enough to reach your destination, discharge yo
ur cargo, and then do it all again.

  The Toyota was well within the bounds of its own side of the road, but Cremer watched it anyway. Then, the unpredictable happened. Less than a hundred metres in front of him, the Toyota began to move to the right, towards the centre-line of the highway.

  As a precaution, Cremer lifted his foot from the accelerator and felt the Volvo’s speed begin to bleed away. The Toyota kept coming, and kept drifting to its right, the distance between the two vehicles decreasing rapidly. Still the Toyota kept moving across. Then, the right-hand, driver’s side wheels crossed the center line and the vehicle drifted directly into the path of the oncoming road-train.

  Cremer grabbed the air-horn cord hanging from the ceiling above him, yanked it hard, and held it down. The bellowing warning howl was deafening. Simultaneously, he hit the brakes. He stood on the brake pedal hard and the forward momentum lifted him from the driver’s seat. The seat belt strap cut deeply into his shoulder and chest, preventing him from flying forward out of his seat. The air-brakes on the huge rig screeched and squealed in protest as the wheels locked up sending clouds of blue/black tyre smoke into the air. He let go of the air-horn cord, put both hands on the steering wheel, and fought desperately for control over the sway that threatened to jack-knife the three trailers behind him. The momentum of the massive weight pushed the huge rig forward despite resistance from the screaming brakes and, while the unit was definitely slowing, it was obvious the brakes were going to lose the fight. The road-train was just too big and too heavy. It was never going to stop in time to avoid the inevitable collision. Cremer cursed loudly and braced himself for the impact.

  In the Toyota, Liam Frayne nodded off behind the wheel. Unaware there was anything wrong until Mark Thomas yelled, he opened his eyes and saw the gigantic road-train looming over them, so close that the image filled the windscreen. There was simply not enough time for the image to register in his brain as imminent danger and allow him to react accordingly before the two vehicles came together at a combined speed of close to two hundred kilometres per hour.

  The Volvo hit the much smaller Toyota head-on. The heavy-duty, protective roo-bar attached to the front of the truck ploughed into the grill of the Toyota and the front of the four-wheel-drive folded like paper. The rear wheels lifted high, to a point where the vehicle was almost at a forty-five-degree angle to the road surface. The force of the huge road-train against the front of the Toyota pushed the big six-cylinder engine block into the front seat and beyond. Tossed aside like a Mattel Matchbox toy, the four-wheel-drive flew into the air, flipped twice, and came to rest upside-down in a cloud of red dust on the wide verge of the highway.

  The huge Volvo swerved dangerously. The trailer sway, exacerbated by three trailers behind the prime mover, increased rapidly, threatening to fling the fifty metre rig onto its side. Cremer struggled furiously to keep the monster truck on the bitumen. If one or more of the trailers swayed onto the soft, loose, dirt verge and flipped, one-hundred-and-five tonnes of screaming road-train hauling three trailers filled with diesel fuel was not something Cremer wanted to think about. A few years previously he had seen a driver incinerated in a diesel tanker roll-over and the mental image had never really left him.

  Eventually, with some skillful, experienced driving, he was able to guide the Volvo to a slow, controllable stop. It seemed like a long time that he sat behind the wheel, his head lowered, his eyes closed, and both hands in a vice-like grip on the wheel. He breathed heavily, inhaling and exhaling loudly, his heart pounding against his painful chest.

  The big, seven-hundred-horsepower engine beneath him had stalled and he could hear the pinging and cracking as it slowly cooled. After what seemed to him like hours but was in fact just a few minutes, his heartbeat and his breathing returned to some degree of normality. He lifted his head, opened his eyes and stared at his hands. His knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel. He tried to open his fingers but couldn’t. His hands were locked so tightly around the wheel he couldn’t let go. It was only when the pain in his hands and wrists became intolerable that he focused on opening his fingers and his hands came away from the steering wheel. He held both hands in front of his face and flexed them into fists, opening and closing them until the cramp was gone.

  Then, he thought about the four-wheel-drive. He stared out through the windscreen, casting his eyes to-and-fro, from the left of the road to the right. The road ahead was clear. There was no sign of the Toyota. He looked first into his external driver’s side rear-vision and saw nothing but clear highway behind him. Then, he swung his eyes to the passenger side mirror and there it was, or what was left of it.

  It lay on the dirt verge about seventy-five metres behind him. A crumpled, compacted buddle of scrap metal, virtually unrecognisable as a strong, sturdy, Toyota four-wheel-drive. It was like someone had taken a large piece of paper, scrunched it into a distorted ball and cast it aside like so much unwanted garbage.

  Cremer sat staring at the image in the mirror; perhaps looking for, hoping for, some sign of life but knowing instinctively there would be no survivors. No one could live through that degree of physical trauma and live. Somewhere in the middle of the twisted, mangled wreck there would be the remains of the driver. He tried to remember if he had noticed anyone else in the Toyota other than the driver. It all happened so quickly he couldn’t recall whether there was one, or two, or more, occupants. Perhaps there was more than one body in the wreck. He shook his head, trying to clear the macabre thoughts.

  He had to focus. There were things he had to do. He knew there would be no one alive in the Toyota, but he had to check anyway. He had to make the area as safe as it was possible to make it for other road users who would come along. He had to call for and ambulance and notify the police. He had to notify his boss. He was not going to get back on the road for a long time. This was a fatal motor vehicle accident. There would be a protracted police investigation into the circumstances surrounding the accident. He would be mandatory breath tested to determine if he may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time. The road may even be closed, at least in the southbound lane, for some time, delaying traffic in both directions.

  Cremer hit the hazard warning button on the dashboard and immediately bright orange lights began to flash on and off around the vehicle, warning approaching motorists to slow down and take care. He released his seat belt catch, slowly retracted the restraining strap, and gently rubbed at the soreness across his chest and shoulder where the belt had bitten deep into his skin. He would have a bruise there for a long while, he figured.

  Cautiously, he opened the driver’s door and climbed down out of the cab. When his feet touched the ground, he was momentarily unsteady on his feet and stumbled against the side of the open door. He did not want to walk back the Toyota but knew he had to. He walked slowly to the rear of the last trailer, paused, and looked at the mangled wreck seventy-five metres away.

  Looking across at the pile of twisted and broken metal, he knew the odds against there being anyone alive were astronomical, but he had to check. Just have to do it, he told himself. It was the right thing to do. Just do it and it’s done, he urged himself. Steeling himself, he inhaled deeply, stepped off, and walked apprehensively towards the wreck. Bloody driver must have fallen asleep he deduced; bloody stupid thing to do. You have to stay awake on long road trips. Maybe he was distracted by his mobile phone; another stupid thing to do. Fall asleep at the wheel, use your phone, succumb to any distraction and, sooner or later, you are probably going to die. Got to take regular rest stops. Have a coffee, or a cold drink. Take a short, twenty-minute power-nap. Take a short stroll around and keep the blood circulating in your legs. Got to stay alert. Turn your phone off before you get back behind the wheel. All rudimentary, safe-driving tips. What the fuck is wrong with some people, Cremer wondered?

  Just a few metres from the wreck, it became very obvious there was no one alive. There couldn’t possibly be. There was bloo
d; a lot of blood. Splashes of red, hundreds of them it seemed, were spattered throughout the intertwisted confusion of metal, rubber tyres, and other components Cremer struggled to recognise. The whole thing looked like some sort of ugly, wildly abstract, artistic, sculptural piece that, when completed, the artist decided it needed a couple of tins of red paint thrown haphazardly over it.

  Cremer stepped up close to the wreck, leaned forward and peered into the matted remains of what was, a few minutes ago, a perfectly good, sturdy motor vehicle. He saw two heads; close together and smashed like watermelons hit with a sledge-hammer. It was a macabre confusion of blood, skin, hair, teeth, and three eyeballs. He reeled away, turned his back to the Toyota and threw up in the dirt. Coughing and spluttering, he spat into the soft, red soil at his feet. A line of spittle hung from his chin and he wiped at it with the back of his hand. He stepped away from the Toyota and began walking back to his truck.

  Cremer had been trying to give up cigarettes. Generally, he was doing well, but he always carried a packet in the glove box of his rig; just in case. Many years of driving monster road-trains up and down the length of the Stuart Highway, six to eight hours a day sitting sedentary behind the wheel, was conducive to a habit of heavy smoking. He hadn’t had a cigarette in two days and was happy that he had almost kicked the habit. He climbed up the steps on the passenger side of the Volvo, reached into the glove box, removed his emergency packet of Benson and Hedges, and climbed back down to the ground. He paused for a moment, staring numbly at the packet in his hand, and then he lit up. He inhaled deeply, held the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds, exhaled slowly, and walked to the centre of the first trailer.