by Tim Ayliffe
‘He’s your mate, then?’
‘Something like that,’ Bailey said. ‘What the hell happened here?’
The cop looked like he hadn’t been wearing the uniform for long. One hook on his shoulder, a rattled expression on his face, and a nametag that read ‘Constable Jones’.
‘A guy with a knife went after Mr Summers, slashed the shoulder of one of ours too.’
They were standing on the sloping driveway of the underground carpark and Bailey could see exactly where the attack had taken place because of the pool of blood. There was so much of it that it had formed a little red stream, like a bloody teardrop.
Staring at the blood, Bailey felt an overflow of panic inside. Bailey had lost one brother when he was barely a man. He couldn’t lose another.
Gerald was the sensible guy who’d always been there for him, who’d helped to rebuild Bailey’s broken self, more times than he could remember. The guy who’d watched over his daughter when Bailey was off covering some war. Who had never judged him for falling down, for being human. Gerald understood the frailty of life and the loyalty of friendship. He couldn’t die. Not now.
‘Sir, I’m sorry but we need to close off this area.’ Constable Jones was tapping him on the shoulder.
‘Okay, okay,’ Bailey said, waving his hand without looking around. ‘Just give me a minute.’
Bailey wiped his eyes. When he turned around he noticed the crowd of people looking at him like he was some sideshow. Mouths open, heads shaking, wondering about the violence that had sullied their city. The postcard paradise of fireworks and water views brought to heel by fear.
A little prick was filming him with his phone.
Bailey charged towards the crowd. ‘You!’ He was pointing at the teenager with the phone. The cheeky bastard still hadn’t stopped filming.
Bailey pushed aside the tape and lunged at him, grabbing his phone.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Bailey had him by the scruff of his shirt. ‘Making your little fucking videos. What are you going to do with it? Tell me! What are you going to do?’
The boy stared at him, blankly, like he’d done nothing wrong.
‘Answer me, kid!’ Bailey screamed at him.
‘I . . . I . . . don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Share it, I guess.’
Bailey let go of the kid’s shirt and rammed his finger into his chest. ‘You want to be a star, is that it? Get people you don’t even know to like you? This is real life, not a fucking game.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the boy said, sounding like he meant it. ‘I’m sorry.’
Bailey handed him his phone and just as he was calming down he noticed another guy pointing his phone at Bailey. He was so close that Bailey was able to grab it out of his hand. He smashed it on the ground, stamping his heel into the screen, just to make sure.
‘Hey! You can’t do that!’
‘I just did.’
The guy was older, pushing thirty. Old enough to know better. He stepped towards Bailey and took a swing, connecting with Bailey’s left cheek.
Bailey tackled him to the ground, pinning him on his back with his forearm across his neck. ‘You pathetic fucking voyeur. Get a life.’
Within seconds the police were pulling the two men apart, rolling them over onto their stomachs, their arms pulled behind their backs.
Some cop had his knee pressed into the burn on Bailey’s back so that he could slip handcuffs on his wrists. There was nothing Bailey could do about it.
Lying on the concrete, Bailey stared at the pool of blood. Gerald’s blood. Wondering if he was going to survive.
Eye for an eye.
CHAPTER 32
Dexter
Police were used to deploying quickly. But nothing made cops move faster than an attack on one of their own.
And this time, luck was on their side.
The PolAir 4 was already in the sky above Sydney Harbour when the call went out that a female police officer had been stabbed, and a man badly wounded, in the heart of the city.
The police helicopter had a top speed of more than 220 kilometres per hour. When it locked on a vehicle below, the target didn’t stand a chance of getting away. Especially in broad daylight.
The injured police officer had called in the licence plate on the van while she was bleeding and waiting for an ambulance. It was the same van involved in the abduction of Tariq Haneef earlier that morning.
Fifteen minutes later, the PolAir 4 had located the van on Anzac Bridge, heading west.
By the time it was speeding along the City West Link past Iron Cove Creek at Five Dock, the helicopter was hovering above, directing police cars on the ground.
‘Where’s the BearCat?’ Dexter yelled into the radio receiver.
Nugget was sitting beside her, behind the wheel of their unmarked turbo Holden, siren blazing, lights flashing. There was another cop car up ahead and two behind. Dexter wasn’t taking any risks, she’d called in resources from wherever she could find them.
They had taken off from Bankstown Police Station the minute they’d heard about the stabbings outside The Journal. Dexter had been trying to get through to Bailey, but he wasn’t answering his phone. She hoped to god that it wasn’t him.
Dexter tried to put the possibility out of her mind. With the van heading west, they were on track to meet these guys head-on within minutes at the Bunnings junction on Parramatta Road.
‘The BearCat!’ Dexter yelled into the receiver again. ‘I need an exact location on the BearCat!’
‘Just passing Glebe on Parramatta Road,’ a voice crackled back.
Dexter turned to Nugget. ‘It’s too far away. Looks like it’s us.’
She leaned into the back seat, grabbing a vest for herself and one for Nugget.
‘I’m stashing this here.’ She pointed at the space next to his legs. ‘It goes on before you get out of the vehicle. Got it?’
‘This isn’t my first rodeo, boss.’
Nugget was speaking without looking at Dexter. Travelling at more than one hundred kilometres an hour, it was probably a good thing.
The voice in the helicopter told them the van was three hundred metres out from the junction.
Dexter could see the Bunnings tower up ahead. They might just make it.
She was back on the radio telling the cop behind them in the Landcruiser to pass and hammer it for the junction. To take out the van, if they saw an opportunity.
‘Stay back,’ she told Nugget.
Dexter recognised the driver of the four-wheel drive as it overtook them. A young buck from Ashfield station. She hoped to hell that he could drive. There were three cops inside, all of them in vests. The guy in the back was slapping the seat telling them to go for it.
As they arrived at the junction, Dexter saw the roof of the van pop over the hill on her left. Just in time.
‘There they are.’
The van was travelling in the far left lane. Cars were backed up at the red light meaning the van wouldn’t get an easy run across Parramatta Road. The driver had no option other than to take a hard left onto the slip road, and head back towards the city.
The driver of the Landcruiser spotted the move. He sped across the intersection, ramming into the side of the van, bouncing it sideways and up onto the kerb. The force of the collision dented the van driver’s door and punctured a tyre. These guys weren’t going anywhere.
Within seconds, four police vehicles were parked across the road, blocking the traffic, surrounding the van. Police knew the terrorist suspects inside were at least armed with knives because of the attack back in the city. But they couldn’t rule out firearms. Not yet.
‘Here.’
Dexter handed Nugget the vest, and he slipped it on while climbing out of the car. They’d parked across two lanes about twenty metres from the van. Nugget scooted around the back of the car beside Dexter. They’d use the vehicle as a shield in case the guys in the van started shooting.
�
�There! There! There!’
Dexter was waving her arms at the other cops, directing two of them to stop traffic on both sides of the road. The rest were deployed into defensive positions that could switch to offence at any moment.
Within seconds, Parramatta Road was a parking lot and Dexter could see occupants inside nearby cars cowering below the window line, wondering if they were about to get caught in a shoot-out in the middle of a major road. Drivers further away were opening their doors and stepping out onto the bitumen, their heads poking above the traffic like meerkats in long grass.
‘Get back in your vehicles!’
Dexter already had her Glock out and it was trained on the van. The guy in the front seat hadn’t moved. He looked like he may have been knocked out by the Landcruiser.
‘Looks like they’re down one already,’ she said.
The side door of the van slid open. The first person to climb out was the kid. Tariq. He had his hands in the air and a look of sheer terror on his face. He was standing in the door of the van, one foot on the pavement, a tattooed forearm wrapped around his neck.
‘Get out!’ Dexter yelled across the roof of the car.
Tariq was shaking his head, talking to the guy with the arm across his throat, his face concealed behind the door of the van.
‘Let me go. Please.’ Dexter couldn’t hear Tariq but she could read the words on his lips. ‘Please. Please.’
‘Let the kid go!’ Nugget called out. ‘Hands where I can see them!’
Dexter counted six guns pointed at the van. The guy holding Tariq would only take them on if he had a death wish. That wasn’t out of the question.
The driver was still out cold, halving the trouble.
The next few minutes were crucial. It was Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Dexter’s play, she was the senior officer.
The helicopter was still hovering in the sky above. Its job now was to keep the television cameras away. Whatever happened on the ground, the police hierarchy wouldn’t want the commercial networks filming them on a job where they couldn’t guarantee the outcome. The politics of law enforcement.
The traffic was building all around. If this thing went south, the likelihood of a stray bullet hitting an innocent bystander was high. Dexter didn’t like it. They had to make a move.
‘Stay here, Nugget. Keep talking to him.’
Head down, Dexter was moving towards the front of the car where she’d get a different angle, if this guy came out shooting.
‘This is your last chance,’ Nugget yelled at the van, keeping the gunman’s attention on him. ‘Let the kid go and come out with your hands up!’
They were coming out.
Dexter had a clear look at the guy holding Tariq. It was Sammy Raymond. His tattooed arm tight across the kid’s neck, a gun pointed at his temple.
‘We’re leaving!’ Raymond screamed.
‘Don’t do anything stupid here, Sammy,’ Nugget called back. ‘Let the kid go.’
Raymond wasn’t much taller than Tariq, so the kid was making a good shield. Sammy stepped onto the road, back to the van, walking sideways. Looking around, sizing up his options.
‘A car! Get me a car!’ He ordered. ‘Do you want this kid to die?’
Tariq had water on his cheeks. A look of horror on his face.
‘You know that’s not happening, Sammy.’
‘Just put down the gun!’ Nugget called back.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Raymond fired three rounds at Nugget’s position at the back end of the car, the bullets embedding in the metal.
‘Nugget!’
Nugget ducked onto one knee, looking across at Dexter, who was kneeling beside the bonnet of the car. ‘Got a better idea?’
‘Let’s at least try not to piss him off again.’
You don’t antagonise a guy when he’s holding a gun to a kid’s head, thought Dexter. You give him hope. Show him a way out. Then do your best to slam it shut.
Nugget poked his head up again. ‘Okay, Sammy. We’ll work on that car! But you’ve got to let the kid go!’
‘He’s coming with me!’
Raymond fired his weapon again. Two more rounds. A typical Glock pistol held fifteen bullets. Raymond had ten shots left.
‘Sammy!’ Nugget yelled, trying to get Raymond to focus on the back of the car without getting shot. ‘Don’t do anything stupid here, he’s just a kid!’
Dexter moved further around the car. She had a side-on view of Raymond and the gunman hadn’t clocked her.
Bang! Bang!
Raymond fired at Nugget’s position again. Two more bullets buried in the car.
Tariq spotted Dexter beside the headlights at the front of the car, their eyes meeting. She nodded, reassuring him that there was a way out. He was terrified. Wearing a pair of shorts and a baggy t-shirt, he was dressed for a kick at the park, not a gunfight with a terrorist.
Tariq’s eyes looked up at Raymond and then he took his chance, ramming his elbow into Raymond’s gut, slipping out of his headlock and diving on the ground.
Dexter fired two rounds. One bullet burying itself in Raymond’s chest, the other incapacitating his shoulder. His gun arm.
Raymond stumbled back, struggling to raise his weapon.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The other cops opened up, their bullets making red splotch marks on Raymond’s torso. Some hitting the van.
He hit the ground.
Dexter sprinted over to the van, kicking the gun away from Sammy Raymond’s dead hand. She knelt on the ground beside Tariq, who was lying face-down, in shock.
‘Tariq. It’s over, now. You’re safe.’
He wasn’t responding.
Dexter rolled him over.
There was blood on the side of his face from a wound on the top of his head.
‘He’s hit!’ Dexter yelled. ‘The kid’s been shot!’
CHAPTER 33
‘I see you’ve got a friend in the force.’
Constable Jones unlocked the cuffs on Bailey’s wrists and helped him to his feet. He’d been sitting on the driveway with his back to the crowd, still staring at Gerald’s blood.
‘Where’s the other guy?’ Bailey said.
‘We’re going to keep him a bit longer.’ Jones was pointing at the back of the police car parked on the footpath. ‘Fucking arsehole with his phone. He’s a grown man, should know better.’
‘And the kid?’ Bailey said. ‘I don’t particularly want that movie online.’
‘Nothing we can do, mate.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘If we tried to stop this shit we’d need to triple the size of the force. It’s the world we live in.’
‘The world’s fucked.’
‘Detective Dexter said to tell you she’d call you shortly.’
‘What do you know about what happened?’ Bailey asked Jones.
‘Mr Summers came outside to meet someone. The van was parked here in the driveway and a guy jumped out and went straight for him with a knife.’
‘And the cop?’
‘She was driving past. Pure chance. She jumps out and tackles him to the ground just as he was laying into Mr Summers. The guy then stabs her in the shoulder and jumps into the van he had waiting on the road. She’s lucky to be alive. So’s your mate.’
‘Yeah. Lucky.’
Bailey could feel his shirt sticking to his back. The other cop must have messed up the dressing on his burn when he shoved his knee into him. He didn’t blame him, he was only doing his job. But the pain in his back was getting worse, throbbing with each beat of his heart, reminding him about Gerald and all the blood that he’d lost. He’d be at the North Shore by now. Bailey wanted to get there too.
The crowd had started to thin as the voyeurs and pedestrians either returned to work, or got on with their day. There must have been a dozen police officers on the scene. Most of them interviewing witnesses or out on the street directing traffic.
Bailey noticed a familiar face above the crowd
. Ronnie Johnson. The big Oklahoman was never far away. He lifted the police tape, saying something to the cop who tried to stop him, and kept walking towards Bailey.
‘You okay, bubba?’
Ronnie had an unlit cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth.
‘Gerald’s in hospital,’ Bailey said. ‘It’s bad. Attacked by some nut job with a knife.’
‘I know.’ Ronnie put his big hand on the back of Bailey’s neck and squeezed. It was the closest they would get to a hug. ‘I’m hearing the police stopped a van in the west.’
Bailey’s phone was vibrating. Dexter. Maybe she knew something.
‘Sharon.’
‘Are you okay, Bailey?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I know about Gerald. I’ve checked in with the hospital, he’s got a fight on his hands but he’s doing okay.’
Bailey was relieved but he didn’t want to talk about it. He was closing up, shutting down. It was the only way he knew how to deal.
‘Did you get them?’
‘We got them, Bailey,’ she said.
‘Was Tariq with them?’
‘Yeah, he was.’
Dexter sounded distracted.
‘Where are you?’
‘Still here,’ she said. ‘I’ll be here for a while.’
‘Are you okay?’ Bailey could tell that something was wrong. ‘What’s Tariq told you about his sister?’
‘Tariq’s . . . Tariq’s not talking, yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘He got shot, Bailey. A bullet ricocheted off the van.’
‘Is he alive?’ Bailey said. ‘How the bloody hell could that happen?’
Dexter was talking to someone near her, giving orders. ‘Tariq’s alive, that’s all I can tell you.’
Bailey wanted more. ‘The others?’
‘Sammy Raymond’s dead. We’ve taken a guy called Bilal Suleman into custody. Another shitbag mate of the Salma brothers.’ She was talking like a cop again. Cool head. The boss of the JCTT.
‘Do you think this was it?’ Bailey said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The bomb, me . . . and Gerald.’ Bailey coughed to get rid of the lump in his throat, pretending it wasn’t there. ‘Think this was the plan all along?’