by Gary Gregor
“Why are you not coming with us?” Tracy asked.
Garrett took a step closer to Tracy. “Tracy,…” he began.
Tracy took a step backwards. “Don’t come any closer!” she said firmly.
Garrett stopped. He raised both hands in a submissive gesture. “I’m not going to hurt you, Tracy. I’m offering you and the children a way out of here. It’s up to you whether you take it or not.”
“How are you getting out?”
Garrett shrugged. “I’ll walk.”
“With us?”
“No.”
“Where are your friends? The two men who were with you when you brought us here?”
Garrett looked at his watch again. “They’re not coming.”
“Why, where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you ‘don’t know’?”
“They should have been here by now,” Garrett answered. “I don’t think they are coming.”
“What do you think happened to them?” Tracy asked
“I don’t know that either.”
“Maybe they simply decided to leave you here,” Tracy suggested. “Take the ransom money and leave you here.”
“No, they wouldn’t do that. I know them. They would not leave me here.”
“Maybe there was no ransom money. Maybe they went to collect it and the police were waiting for them. They will tell the police where we are. They might be coming to rescue us at this very moment.”
“No one is coming, Tracy,” Garrett responded.
“Let me try to understand this,” Tracy said. “Your friends should be here, but they are not. You are adamant they would not deliberately leave you here. You are giving us the chance to walk out of this awful place, and you say you will walk out yourself.” Tracy paused and looked Garrett in the eyes. “Your plan has failed, hasn’t it?”
“It would seem that way, yes,” Garrett said.
Then, an unheralded thought came to Tracy from somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind. “You could walk out with us,” she suggested.
“No,” Garrett said.
“Why not? You could help us carry more water. We could all go out together.”
“No,” Garrett said adamantly.
“Why?”
“Because I do not intend to spend the next thirty years of my life in prison.”
Tracy held his eyes for a few moments and then said… “I could tell them you helped us.” It was more a desperate suggestion than it was a serious option.
A hint of a smile formed on Garrett’s lips. “Perhaps they will knock five years off my sentence,” he said. “Thank you anyway. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Where will you go?”
Garrett shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’ll have plenty of time to think about it on the walk out.”
“How far is it?”
“If you don’t take too many rest stops, you can be back at the road where we stopped you in five or six hours. If you wait there, someone will come along soon enough. Or, you can keep walking and when you reach the road, follow it back to Haasts Bluff or Papunya.”
“What if we get lost out there in the dark?”
“Stick together. Do regular head counts of the kids. There is no cloud cover so you should be able to see clearly. I’ll give you a compass and all you have to do is follow it.”
“When would we leave?” Tracy asked.
“Tonight. If you leave at midnight, you should make the road by dawn.”
“When will you leave?”
“I’ll be gone before you leave.”
Tracy’s eyes widened. “You are going to leave us here alone?”
“You’ll be fine.”
“N… no… no we won’t be fine!” Tracy stammered. “You can’t just leave us here!”
“Tracy, I could have walked out of here at any time in the last few days and you would never have known I was gone. You will be fine.” Garrett reached into his pocket and withdrew a small hand-held compass. He stepped closer to Tracy and held it out to her. “Take this. Follow it to the east. Check it often so you do not veer off course.”
Tracy hesitated, staring at Garrett’s outstretched hand. “I don’t know how to read a compass,” she said.
“It’s not hard,” Garrett said. He opened the compass cover and leaned closer to Tracy so their heads were almost touching. “Hold the compass in front of you and turn the bezel until east is aligned with the white mark at the top.” He indicated a small white mark at the top of the compass face. “Then rotate the compass, and yourself, until the red end of the pointer is in the shaded area at North. When the red end is inside the shaded area, you will be facing east. Set off walking and keep the pointer in the shaded area.” He closed the compass and offered it to Tracy.
Tracy reached out and warily took the compass from Garrett’s outstretched hand. She opened the small compass, rotated it a couple of times and watched the pointer turn accordingly. Then she looked up at Garrett. ‘White marks?’ – ‘Red pointers?’ – Shaded areas?’. It was all very confusing for Tracy.
“We’ll wait until the morning,” she said.
“Tracy, you have worked out here in this country long enough to know how hot it can get during the day. The temperature can, and often does, reach forty-five degrees Celsius, or even higher. You have eleven young children to think about. Trust me, it will be much safer to walk out at night.”
“It’s too cold at night,” Tracy said. “It will be dark and harder to keep all the children together.” She held the compass up. “And, I’ll never be able to read this thing in the dark.”
Garrett shrugged. “Suit yourself, Tracy. I thought you would be anxious to leave this place.”
“We are,” Tracy agreed. “But I don’t want to wander around in the dark, in the freezing cold, and put the children at risk. Besides, you said there were planes flying over looking for us. They won’t see us at night.”
“They won’t be flying overhead looking for you at night,” Garrett said. He shrugged. “Okay, Tracy,” he said. “You can leave whenever you want to, but if you wait until morning, make sure you carry plenty of water.”
“It sounds like you actually care what becomes of us,” Tracy said.
Garrett paused. Then, he looked Tracy in the eyes. “I do,” he said.
“What’s your name?” Tracy asked.
“You’re back on that again?”
“Yes, your name.” she said.
“My name is not important, Tracy,” Garrett answered. He stepped back, further away from Tracy. “Now, I suggest you go back inside the room and start preparing to leave, whenever that might be. You will need to carry plenty of water and maybe some food for the walk out. I’m sure the children will be only too happy to help you prepare.”
“Please, come with us,” Tracy said, her voice cracking just a little.
“I can’t do that, Tracy,” Garrett said. “You are a strong woman. Strong and determined. You don’t need me.”
Tracy lowered her eyes and looked again at the compass in her hand. Then, with a last look at Garrett, she stepped back into the room, turned her back on the open door, and crossed to where her students waited.
Garrett watched her turn and walk away and then he stepped forward and pushed the heavy door closed. He did not lock it.
DAY FIVE
35
Peter Cornwell left Alice Springs two hours before dawn. When he arrived at Mount Liebig, he parked his hire car in a secluded area close to where he expected to find the money. It was still dark, but the sky was filled with stars and, coupled with a hint of light to the east as a wisp of faint, pre-dawn light peeped above the horizon, he knew full daylight would soon arrive.
He did not want to be out here in this place in broad daylight so, steeling himself, he walked, retracing his steps time and time again until he was so exhausted that he was starting to believe he was never going to find it. Perspiration ran down his face, stung
his eyes, and dripped off his numerous chins.
Any physical exertion requiring more than a modicum of personal input was a foreign concept to Peter Cornwell. He could not remember the last time he walked more than one hundred metres anywhere. Probably when he was at secondary school in Sydney, he supposed. Way back when Physical Training was a compulsory element in the education of the youth of the day. Why anyone in their right mind would consider physical exercise of any variety a necessity for young school leavers seeking satisfactory employment was a mystery to him then, and still was today.
From a medical perspective, Cornwell was the perfect example of how to live an unhealthy, unfit, and mostly sedentary life. Decades of heavy smoking and even heavier drinking, and grossly stuffing all manner of food, most of it completely lacking in anything resembling nutrition, into his mouth had finally come back to haunt him. Actually, it came back to haunt him many years ago but he had never been one to vacillate on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.
He very nearly quit looking, particularly when, on one of his frequent rest stops, he noticed that the early rays of sunlight were encroaching upon the landscape far quicker than he expected. But, the draw of the money was too strong. He had to keep going. Back and forth, back and forth, over and over again.
His search area widened, then narrowed, and then widened again. At one point he stopped, leaned forward with his hands resting on his beefy thighs, and gulped great mouthfuls of air, almost committed to quitting and going back to Alice Springs empty handed.
Deciding to have just one more walk around, he looked up and there it was, in the near distance, perhaps just fifty metres from where he stood. Although bright orange in colour and stark against the surrounding landscape, he stopped and stared at it, convincing himself that he had actually found it. He probably walked right past it several times during his search and it was only now, as the day became lighter, that he was able to see it.
With a burst of energy and enthusiasm inspired by visions of instant wealth, he stumbled, limping with excruciating arthritic stabs in his knees and thighs, as quickly as his tired body would allow across to the bag.
He always knew when and where the ransom money was going to be dropped, despite what he told Cameron Barker. He knew because it was his idea in the first place. His telephone conversation with the senior cop was all about supporting his alibi. When he spoke to Barker, he had already collected the money and was just a few kilometres from the comfort of his luxurious suite at Lasseters Casino.
When he finally arrived at the car park at the Casino, he sat for several minutes, staring at the large bag on the passenger seat. Thoughts of the new life that awaited him, thoughts that accompanied him on his search for the bag and on the long drive back from Mount Liebig, swam through his mind, seducing him even sweeter than the prettiest Fijian maiden.
Laboring under the weight of the canvas, sixty-litre duffle-bag, he paused every few metres to catch his breath. A few steps from the casino entrance he paused again, swapped the bag into his free hand, and flexed his fat, aching, arthritic fingers. He looked up. His room was on the third floor. He still had to carry the bag into the casino, into the lift, and then into his room.
The bag was heavy. How could a bag filled with paper be so heavy? It was only paper, he thought. He was going to have to carry it down to the car park again when he left to return to Darwin, but he was not prepared to leave the bag unattended in the rental car. Two million dollars, in cash, was the sort of money that any unsuspecting car thief would love to unwittingly stumble upon; and there was no shortage of opportunist car thieves in Alice Springs. He wiped at the perspiration dripping down his forehead and into his eyes, and set off again.
When he finally reached his room, he opened the door, stepped inside and kicked the door closed behind him. He waddled laboriously across the large room and dropped the heavy bag onto the floor at the foot of the bed. Perspiring profusely, and flexing his fingers again in an attempt to ease the cramping, he sat down heavily on the end of the king-size bed. He sat for a while with his head lowered, noisily sucking air into his lungs.
He leaned forward and peered between his legs at the large, khaki colored, canvas bag on the floor at his feet. This was going to solve all of his problems. It would clear the outrageous debts he had amassed over many years with illegal, off-course bookmakers, and compensate him for the tens of thousands of dollars he had, over many years, lost at the tables in Darwin’s sister casino, Mindil Beach Casino Resort. This was going to set him up for the rest of his life in his beloved Fiji.
Cornwell had been in politics for over thirty years and while his government pension scheme was generous, to a fault many non-political citizens would declare, it was never going to absolve him of his current financial woes and the ever-increasing wrath, and menacing threats, of his debtors. Besides, paying debts was not what he envisioned his pension would be used for: that was for a lifetime of red wine and dusky, smiling girls from the Fijian islands.
He knew it was only a matter of time before his many years of reckless philandering and guiltless spending of tax-payer funds caught up with him. He also knew he was growing increasingly unpopular with the electorate and, indeed, most of his colleagues. With the Territory Government elections rapidly approaching, together with the very real likelihood of him losing his seat, he had already announced his intention not to stand for re-election and to retire from public life.
Two years earlier, Cornwell purchased a villa located on five acres of lush, green, volcanic-soil flats at the foot of the ancient, extinct volcano, Mount Tomanivi on Viti Levu Island in Fiji. With the benefit of some deft fiddling of figures and clever re-assignment of funds allocated to build a new school in a rural area outside the capital city, Suva, on the island’s south-east coast, Cornwell’s luxurious new home was purchased with Australian tax-payers’ money. Under the Federal Government’s Foreign Investment scheme, the school was built and handed over to the Fijian people amid much fanfare and with the approval and the congratulations of the blind-sided, none-the-wiser Foreign Investment Review Board. And, Education Minister, Peter Cornwell became the new hero of the Fijian people.
Now, in the bag at his feet he had all the money he would ever need. No more would he have to cover his tracks and be constantly on the lookout for intrusive, muck-raking journalists whenever he felt the ever-increasing urge for female company; overpriced and un-satisfying as such company was. Now he would have beautiful, brown-skinned, Fijian damsels at his beck-and-call, anytime, day or night. He would have a cellar filled with the finest wines sourced from all corners of the world. It was not that he wanted the world to know of his proposed new life, he craved solitude now that his past life in the glow of Australian politics was nearing an end. The wine, and the girls, were for his consumption only; fuck the stuffed-shirt dignitaries and the ministers of the Crown who, after all, were not all that much more distinguished than he. Peter Cornwell was going to die a happy man; his sexual appetite for beautiful young ladies sated and his thirst for only the best wines appeased.
Cameron ‘Yap Yap’ Barker closed his phone, moved across the room, and stood next to Russell Foley. “Okay, chaps,” he said addressing everyone in the room. “I have an update from Alice Springs.”
“Good news, or bad?” Foley asked.
“It’s news,” Barker answered. “Not necessarily good or bad.”
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Foley encouraged.
“The money’s gone,” Barker announced.
“Gone?” Foley said.
“Our chaps sent a drone over the drop site about half an hour ago,” Barker continued. “The ransom is gone.”
“No information on who picked it up?” Sam asked.
“Nothing,” Barker said. “Whoever picked it up must have did so very early. There was no sign of any vehicles in the area.”
“Maybe it is good news,” David Sparrow suggested. “If they’ve got the ransom money, they will release the hostages.”
Barker looked at Sparrow. “Let’s hope so, Spog,” he said. “There is more,” he continued. “We have enlarged driver’s license photos of both the vehicle accident victims.” He opened his phone and found the photos. “This is the passenger,” at least we think he was the passenger; the bodies were so badly scrambled it was hard to tell. Thirty-four-year-old Mark Gregory Thomas.” He held the phone up so everyone could see the photo. “Does he look familiar to anyone? Spog? Max?”
“No, I don’t recognise him,” Sparrow said.
“No,” Smart said.
Barker opened the next photo and held it up. “What about this bloke? Thirty-eight years old, Liam O’Hara Frayne? We think he was the driver.”
Richard Smart leaned in closer to the phone and focused intently on the photo. He held out his hand. “May I?” he asked Barker.
Barker handed Smart the phone and watched as he stared at the photograph of Liam Frayne. “That’s him!” he declared finally. “That’s the dude who was at Haasts Bluff erecting the bus shelter. “It’s the same bloke.”
“Are you sure?” Barker asked.
“Yeah,” Smart nodded. “One hundred percent. It’s the same bloke.”
“Well done, Max,” Barker congratulated. “Now the pieces are starting to come together. How well did you get to know him?”
“Not well at all,” Smart answered. I went to the school to see Tracy and he and the two guys working with him were just finishing up for the day. I spoke briefly to all three of them about the job they were doing and then school ended and Tracy and I left. I never saw any of them again.”
“Either of those two have form, boss?” Sam asked, indicating Barker’s phone.
“So far, nothing found on either of them in our data base,” Barker said. “We are waiting to hear back from our interstate counterparts. However, the driver, Frayne did have a single dog-tag in his wallet confirming his military connection. We are checking with the Army to find out what more we can on both of them, but it might take a while to get any result.”