“Something interesting?” Charlie queried.
“It’s the satellite data from the tracker I put on Mickey Bird’s truck back out on the Strzelecki Track.”
Next, he studied the road map, running his finger across and then up the sheet, until it came to rest roughly at the point where they now stood. He explained to Mandu how satellites had been relaying the location of Mickey’s truck ever since he attached the tracking device. From early morning two days ago the line of arrows on Royle’s screen headed away from the Strzelecki Track, across the state border into Queensland, until they arrived late the previous evening below where they were standing.
Royle indicated the screen again. “You can see he’s already on his way back home, doubtless with a huge bundle of cash in his pocket.”
“You really think cash?”
“In this business it’s cash up front, Charlie. No cheques, no receipts and certainly no questions.”
Next, he opened a screen showing the locations of just one of the pink cockatoos he had attached a tracker to in Mickey’s abandoned building. They saw that it followed an identical route to the truck, though unlike the truck it remained below them still. He closed the computer and stowed it away again, at the same time removing four cold beers from the esky. Then, after checking there were no ants, he sat himself down against a forest tree.
“Let’s see if we agree where we’re going with this,” he suggested. “Any thoughts, Charlie?”
“If we believe Dot Alynski, then our man Reed down there is collecting wild-caught birds ready to ship them out to New Guinea. Which fits what we’re seeing. We also know that the longer he keeps the birds the more likely it is that some will die, and that costs him money.”
“So?” Royle prompted.
“You need to get in there and look around.”
He looked across at Madge. “Anything we’re missing here?”
Ever the practical one, Madge suggested that the sooner they stopped talking and got on with the job then so much the better.
“In which case we only have one option,” he suggested. “We sit here until Reed disappears somewhere, and then I get myself in there.”
He asked where Reed might normally go and Mandu pointed north up the highway.
“There’s a gas station half an hour’s drive that way. He might need fuel, plus they do food and booze. And he’ll need cigarettes.” Then he indicated the road south. “There are some shops about an hour that way.”
Royle let out a sigh of resignation. “Well, I guess that settles it; we wait here patiently until Reed decides to go somewhere. We’ll take it in turns; Charlie and me for the first hour while Madge and Mandu get some rest.”
He then set about sorting through the various tracking devices and other communication gadgets they had brought with them all the way from Florida, putting into his rucksack everything he might need in the event that he managed to get inside the sheep station.
Fourteen
Royle was stretched out in the shade of the vehicle, only half awake and with Charlie’s head on his stomach, when he felt a boot nudging his ribs. He looked up to see Madge standing over them.
“Reed came out a few minutes ago and put something into the four-by-four. Mandu’s mate left a couple of hours ago.”
As he got to his feet Royle noted the sun was already disappearing over the trees beyond the buildings. He crossed to where Mandu was watching through the field glasses, seeing the puff of diesel smoke as the vehicle began moving towards the road. The question now of course was which way would Reed turn – north up the highway for perhaps an hour, or south for hopefully longer? There was a moment’s suspense as Reed stopped to attend to the rear doors, but he was soon moving again, and turning north.
“Okay, so we’ve got an hour,” Royle confirmed. “Charlie will stay up here with a radio and keep a check on what’s happening, while Mandu and I go in with the equipment. Madge will drop us off near the driveway entrance.”
He next did a quick recheck of the rucksack’s contents before handing a radio to each of the two women. Then finally he reached under the driver’s seat, extracting the Browning and checking it was loaded.
“Let’s go,” he instructed. “After you drop us, Madge, back the vehicle into the scrub a kilometre or so to the north and give me a call when Reed comes past.” He looked around at his small team. “Anyone see a fault in any of that?” Hearing no response, he placed a hand on Mandu’s shoulder. “Time to see if the dogs remember you.”
A single vehicle passed in the opposite direction as Madge drove north up the highway towards the sheep station entrance. In seconds Royle and Mandu were out of the vehicle, quickly disappearing into the trees surrounding the buildings. Royle’s immediate concern was whether the dogs were free, and if so then how to handle that little problem. He had considered using a drugged bait, but realised Reed might guess something was wrong if he returned to find both dogs asleep. Or even dead. Clearly, though, he was not the only one giving this some consideration.
“It would be best, boss, if you let me deal with the dogs,” Mandu suggested quietly. “They should know me, but they might not like you. I’ll try getting them back into the shed.”
Even here inside the forest in the fading light Royle could see the grinning teeth. He was also interested in his apparent elevation to ‘boss’ status.
“Give me a whistle once the problem’s sorted,” he instructed, though even as he spoke he had already spotted the plan’s potential weakness: someone still had to let the dogs out again once they were done here.
As so often happens, all Royle’s concerns came to nothing. Mandu disappeared for a couple of minutes while Royle stood motionless in the quiet of the trees, until he heard a low whistle up ahead. Moving forward he discovered Mandu grinning from ear-to-ear and pointing to a place in the perimeter fence where he could easily step over.
“Dogs shut away and enjoying early dinner, mate. Food’s in a bin outside the door. I only gave them a little so they don’t leave any evidence.”
Royle realised the light was disappearing fast. He also knew they needed to work quickly and efficiently if they were to accomplish everything he had planned. Logically he had three, possibly four, tasks to perform. Firstly, he needed to check whether any cockatoos in the aviaries were the same ones he had marked down on the Strzelecki Track. Secondly, he needed to find and mark any birds trapped elsewhere; and thirdly get any transport containers fitted with tracking devices. His fourth objective, if time allowed, was to see whether there were any hatching eggs on the premises, and if so then hopefully also get them marked.
The first of these objectives was quickly achieved, as he went through the two aviaries in turn, catching a selection of cockatoos. The number of marked birds seemed to match his recollection of what had occurred a few days before. Next, Mandu led Royle to the two windowless tin-roofed sheds, and on the way heard something interesting. Sheep.
“Where are the sheep?”
Mandu indicated the far side of the house. “Sounds like they’re in the garden. If he already has the sheep then he should move the eggs soon.”
Unlike the cockatoos he had just checked, the parrots in the two sheds were smaller and in cages, making any handling simpler and quicker. Amongst them were some of the endangered golden-shouldered parrots he had shown Charlie the skins of back at the British Museum. Mandu handed Royle the tracking devices as he asked for them, and in what seemed no time they had marked what he thought were enough birds. Which just left the shipping containers to be found and dealt with.
The dogs barked momentarily as they passed the kennel, whereas inside the garage it had the feel of a professional workshop. In the centre stood a newly completed bird-shipping container, roughly three metres by two and about two metres high, designed to take five slide-in cage drawers. Royle did a quick calculation, deciding each drawer c
ould take up to fifty cockatoos, meaning this one container could transport two hundred and fifty medium-sized birds. Two more identical containers at the rear of the workshop suggested a total smuggling capacity of seven hundred and fifty parrots, with a minimum European street value of around £375,000. However, once allowance was made for the rarity of birds like the golden-shouldered parrots, the possible value went off the scale.
Royle’s next challenge was to fit at least one of these crates with a tracking device; and because the trackers communicate with satellites it was best they not be obscured. Ideally, they needed to go somewhere on top. But faced with three crates how could he know which would be on top, assuming they could be stacked? Logic then suggested attaching a device to each of the crates.
Fitting trackers to anything made of timber usually took seconds, but unfortunately these crates were aluminium. He allowed himself a moment to consider the matter, briefly inspecting the garage workbench, aware he and Charlie had come too far for them to fail now. Grabbing a convenient battery-operated drill and a box of self-tapping screws he attacked the crates, fitting a device to the underside of each of the three upper frames.
Even before he finished this Royle had noticed what looked like a fourth container, similar to the others but obviously designed to hold larger animals, like sheep. Examining the crate closely he saw that the base had been modified to take four portable egg incubator trays and their batteries, so this too he fitted with a transmitter.
It was now dark, so he felt confident of noticing the lights on any approaching vehicle. He shone his headtorch at Mandu.
“Where did Alynski put the parrot eggs you collected?”
The lad pointed over Royle’s shoulder. “Inside the house, in large…” he paused, struggling for the word he needed.
“Incubators?”
“Yeah, mate, incubators. Lots of them.”
“Will the house be locked?”
“Not sure there is a lock.”
Royle hesitated, aware that entering the house substantially increased the risk factor. The driveway came right past the only entrance door. If Reed came up the adjacent main highway while Royle was still inside, he’d have just seconds to get out of the door and over the fence into the forest. Plus the dogs would remain locked away. Yes, it was a risk, but hopefully one they could manage.
Taking out his radio he called the two women. “Time to concentrate. I’m going inside the house. I need as much warning as possible of Reed’s approach, well before he turns down the driveway.”
Both women acknowledged his message, though he had not forgotten the dog problem.
“I want you to stay by the kennel,” he instructed Mandu. “If I get a call from the girls I’ll be straight out and into the forest. I’ll give you a shout to release the dogs, then you get yourself back in there,” he pointed to the trees, “and find me.”
Inside, the place was a mess. Clothes were strewn around, and it smelt of stale food, cigarette ends and neglect. Royle made his way through to what was clearly the incubator room, aware that this was the furthest point from the only exit door. The good news was that the six large incubators were crammed full of eggs, which as expected were white and round, which he knew meant parrot eggs. But because the incubators were working, he also knew the biological clock must be ticking. These eggs were going to hatch in no more than twenty-five to thirty days. However, not all eggs would have been laid at the same time, so he might reasonably expect some to start hatching sooner. Whichever way you looked at it, any arrangements to transport these eggs to the other side of the world must surely already be in place.
Quickly he used a security pen to invisibly mark egg after egg with his initials and the date. Methodically working his way through the incubators, he had marked over a hundred eggs when he heard Madge on the radio.
“Shit. Royle, you there?”
He extracted the phone. “What’s up?”
“Sorry, dropped my phone under the driver’s seat. Our man just passed me, going like hell.”
He realised Madge may have just put him under pressure, though having taken the precaution of wearing his rucksack as he worked, all he needed to do was turn off his headlamp, close the door behind him and step over the fence into the trees, giving Mandu a shout as he did so. Literally as he lifted his remaining leg over the wire and into the forest the vehicle’s lights swung in an arc, away from the road and up the driveway where he had just been standing. He stepped back into the protective darkness of the trees as he listened for Mandu’s approach.
Royle slipped away from the breakfast table the next morning while he arranged for reception to post an urgent small package for him. The day’s priorities included him and Charlie catching up with any text, telephone or email messages. He twice tried ringing Paula Howath and had been forced to leave a message. He was pouring himself another coffee when she finally called back. With the phone to his ear and the mug in his other hand he walked across the road to the water’s edge, where he talked for some time.
“Whitland’s still not good,” he announced, re-joining his companions.
Charlie looked at him, questioningly. “Is that it?”
“That’s it,” he responded.
Then his phone rang again, and he spent several minutes sitting next to Charlie and chatting to Angie Watts. She heard him discussing the likely timing of events in Cairns, also pointing out to Angie that whilst they still had no firm idea when the birds might leave Australia, the eggs would soon be accompanying a consignment of sheep out of Cairns – in a single crate. She understood Angie would check with Cairns Airport regarding livestock movements.
Phone calls completed, Royle opened his computer and went into the satellite tracking programme. He seemed pleased with what he found there, angling the screen so the two women could see.
“Mickey Bird’s well on his way back down to Sydney, though none of our crates from last night have gone anywhere yet.” Then his phone rang again, and it was Angie Watts returning his call.
“You picked a winner, Phil. There’s a crate of pedigree sheep leaving Cairns mid-morning tomorrow, in the name of Reed, direct to Los Angeles.”
Although not unexpected, it was still good to get confirmation. “Excellent,” he responded. “My guess is the birds and the eggs will both leave here around the same time.”
But he sensed Angie was still not wildly enthusiastic.
“I know what’s bugging you. You’d still like to nail these guys in possession of the birds. Suppose we were able to find out who’s doing the transporting but still let the shipment go, so you could round them up later?”
He could tell he might just have hit upon an agreeable compromise, though the problem was making it happen. What he needed now was time to work through all possibilities and firm up on their plans for the next few days. They now knew when and from where the eggs were leaving and could identify them at their destination. As for the birds, although they could both identify them as individuals and track the containers, they had only a rough idea when they might leave Australia and, more importantly, no idea where from. They could go by air or boat, in either case from one of numerous potential departure points.
Therefore, the single most important factor, Royle decided, was that if they intended following Reed to some airstrip or river mouth, they needed to know where he was. All the time. They needed to get a vehicle tracking device fitted. Two, in fact, because it was unclear whether Reed might use the four-by-four or the white van to transport the birds. Importantly, though, they knew that one of those two vehicles would be used to transport the crate with the sheep and its hidden eggs to Cairns Airport tomorrow morning, leaving the second vehicle back at the sheep station.
In which case the immediate plan seemed unexpectedly simple: discover the airport’s requirements for daily livestock deliveries – presumably there were set times – and have som
eone on hand to attach a device to whichever vehicle turned up with the sheep. While someone else attended to the second vehicle back at the sheep station. It seemed worryingly simple, though Royle could think of no obvious reason why it might not work, except perhaps if both vehicles left for different destinations at the same time. But that required a second driver, which argued against what they believed to be the situation.
It was approaching midday by the time Royle felt confident he had a workable plan. following which he made another call to Angie Watts, asking her to check Cairns Airport’s earliest and latest livestock delivery times.
Dinner over, it was Royle’s turn to suggest he and Charlie get some evening air. As before, they walked along the waterfront, and ten minutes into their stroll spotted what he described as a ‘serious birder’. Asked how he arrived at such a conclusion, he drew her attention to what even she could see was an expensive looking telescope and tripod.
“Only serious birders invest that sort of money in their equipment,” he suggested, gently steering her in the man’s direction. “Anything interesting about?” he enquired.
Recognising a fellow birder from Royle’s question the man mentioned a few species he had identified, most of the conversation meaning little to Charlie. The evening was warm and several other couples were out walking, so sensing her lack of interest Royle promised to catch her up shortly.
In less than five minutes he was by her side again.
“Feel any better for that?” she wondered.
“I do actually; it’s good catching up on the local bird information.”
“If I’m honest,” she admitted, leaning her head on his shoulder, “I have difficulty understanding what people get out of just looking at birds. Does he live in Australia?”
“Who, that birder? No, he’s from the States.”
The Consequences of Finding Daniel Morgan Page 16