by Jaye Ford
‘I’ve spent some time with military people. You don’t get kicked out easily. Did he hurt someone else?’ Louise asked.
‘His crimes were more sophisticated in the army. He got in on a big weapons racket,’ Matt said.
She lifted her head a little, winced as she did it. ‘The one out of the training bases?’
He frowned. ‘Yeah.’
‘I did a freelance job on that story. My old paper was investigating missing weapons and called me in because of my military contacts from Afghanistan. It was a massive cover-up, we couldn’t get anyone to talk on record.’ She stopped, licked her lips. ‘It was rifles, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah. About a hundred and fifty of them.’
She nodded. ‘About ten grand a pop on the black market. The guys just drove them off the bases in their cars, one or two at a time, handed them over to the officer running the scam for a wad of cash. The brass was scared shitless some terrorist group had them. I thought they all got sentenced.’
‘There wasn’t enough evidence against Travis.’
Lou closed her eyes, shifted awkwardly. ‘He seems to be good at that.’
Oh, Jesus, Jodie thought. She looked at her friends, at Matt. They’d all seen Travis and Kane, knew who they were. ‘We’re evidence.’
No one said anything. They didn’t have to. She wanted to yell and scream for help, pound her fists against the door. Then she heard a noise that made her thoughts stop dead.
Thunk.
Since the crashing sounds had ceased, there had been irregular distant thuds. But this one was close. Probably from the lounge room. Not as loud as before but loud enough to let them know Kane and Travis were close by.
Jodie’s head snapped up. Someone gasped. Lou groaned quietly.
You already knew they could kill, Jodie told herself. Nothing she’d heard had changed that. The clock was still running. She didn’t know how long they had left to play but the game wasn’t over yet.
‘Okay, listen,’ she said. ‘There are five of us and only two of them. And they only have one gun. They can’t hold it on all five of us all the time. So if you get a chance to run, do it. Take the first exit out of the house and run like hell to the bush. Stay down, don’t go out in the open and don’t come back inside. Not for anything. Okay?’ She waited until all three of the girls nodded. ‘If you think you can make it to the front of the barn and down the hill without using the track, go to the house at the bottom and phone the police. And don’t come back until they get here. Okay?’ As they nodded again, there was another thud from the lounge room. She got to her feet, leaned against the door to keep the light on, clutched Corrine’s boot in one hand, the metal rod in the other. There was still nothing to do but she couldn’t sit any longer.
She looked around the small room. Corrine was in the back corner, furthest from the doors, knees pulled to her chest. Hannah was propped in the other corner, Louise curled up on the floor between them. Matt was on his feet too, leaning on the door. If she couldn’t see his eyes, she’d think he was lounging. His arms were folded across his chest, the other metal bar hanging loosely from his fingers but his eyes were alert, watching the way she stood there, the clothing rail in her hand, the boot, her face.
‘Jodie,’ he said. His voice was low. He dipped his head for a private kind of chat. She stepped over and leaned close, felt the warmth of his cheek where it almost touched her face. ‘Don’t try anything in here.’
She looked up at him. The brown flecks in his green eyes glowed under the light from the bare bulb. ‘I’m going to take whatever chance I can get,’ she said.
Outside the room, something banged against a wall. Jodie flinched. The sound was closer than before. Not in the bedroom. Maybe the hallway.
He grabbed her arm. ‘But not in here. There’s not enough room to swing a cat here, let alone that rod in your hand. And if a gun goes off, there’s going to be a lot more blood on the floor.’
She glanced quickly around again. He was right. There was barely enough room to walk between the bodies huddled on the floor.
Footsteps in the hall.
‘Jodie,’ Matt said. ‘If you do anything, do it somewhere else. And make sure they don’t get up.’
She nodded, her heart in her throat. Then someone was at the doors. Whatever was holding them closed was being moved about. Matt jerked away and the light went out. Corrine let out a terrified sob.
Matt pulled Jodie against him. It wasn’t a tender, protective move. It was fierce and urgent and insistent. His hand was tight around her upper arm, his torso hard against hers and in the pitch darkness, she could sense the way he loomed forcefully over her. ‘Take your own advice, Jodie. Run if you can. Get the hell out of here. Don’t wait for anyone.’
Then the doors opened and light flooded the room.
‘Get back from the door.’ It was Travis. He had the gun in his hand, raised and ready to fire.
Jodie took two small steps back. That was all there was room for. She felt Hannah try to shuffle out of the way behind her. Matt stepped in beside her, his arm out like a tollgate in front of her, the elbow locked straight.
‘Planning a sword fight, huh? Guess what? Gun beats pissy piece of pole, you fucks. Drop them,’ Travis said, waving the gun at their clothing rails. Jodie tossed hers to the floor and it clattered against the timber boards with Matt’s. Travis looked around. ‘You got anything else in here you want to try against a gun?’ His eyes stopped on Jodie. ‘You, tough bitch?’
She felt the heel of Corrine’s boot in her hand behind her back, shook her head, let it fall to the floor.
‘How ’bout you, Wiseman, you want to be a hero?’
The muscles in his arm flexed before he answered. ‘No.’
Travis moved the gun about in his hand, scanned the room. He was sweating, she could smell it, see it damp on the short strands of hair around his face and the wet stains under his armpits. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows and his forearms were specked with dark grains of dirt. His eyes stopped on Corrine. ‘You. Blondie. Get up.’ Corrine whimpered and shrank further into the corner. ‘Get up!’ She slid slowly up the wall, her mascara-smudged eyes brimming with tears again. ‘Throw them into the other room,’ he ordered, indicating the metal rods. Corrine did as he said, limping on her sprained ankle, then backing up into her corner again. ‘Not so fast,’ he told her. ‘You’re coming with me.’
Corrine clasped her hands across her chest. ‘No. Please, no.’
‘And you, too,’ Travis said, pointing the muzzle of the gun at Matt. Travis swung his head back at Corrine, who was frozen in the corner. ‘Now. Move.’
One loud beat of Jodie’s heart drove movement to her legs. She stepped forward, into the path of the gun. ‘No.’
‘Get out of the way.’
‘No.’
‘Move, Blondie.’
‘No,’ Jodie said again. She could hear Corrine sobbing behind her. A hand was on the back of her calf, she guessed Hannah had reached out across the space between them. Jodie wasn’t sure if she was holding her back or pushing her on. ‘She can’t. She’s hurt her ankle. She can’t walk far.’
Travis’s dark eyes shifted slowly to Jodie. The gun followed them. ‘You then.’
She took a deep breath. ‘No. We stay together.’
His mouth turned up in a nasty grin. ‘Nu-uh. Two of you come with me. Him,’ he cocked his head at Matt, ‘and one of you.’
Fear gripped her chest. She looked at the pistol, licked her lips. No one stays behind, Jodie. ‘We stay together. All of us or none of us.’
The grin disappeared. ‘Him and one of you. You choose or we see who’s left standing after I let off a couple of rounds.’ He inched the gun to Jodie’s left, angled it down, pulled back the cock. Hannah’s hand fell away from the back of her leg.
‘No, wait!’ Oh Jesus, no. Blood pounded in her veins. They had to stay together.
‘Who is it?’ Travis said.
‘Wait. Wait.’ Panic rose
in her throat.
‘Just take me.’ Matt stepped up to Travis, got in his face, pushed the gun away from Hannah with his body. ‘Leave the women here. You’ve got no business with them. This is between us now.’
No, Matt, don’t. They needed to stay together. All of them.
‘Fuck off, Wiseman.’ Travis stepped sideways, aimed the gun at Corrine and roared. ‘Choose now or I will!’
There was no choice in the end. Corrine was a mess, Louise was injured and Hannah needed to stay with her. ‘Me.’ Jodie pushed the word out as forcefully as she could. ‘I’ll go. Leave them alone. Take me.’
Matt kept himself between Jodie and the gun as Travis hustled them through the hallway. A cold wind blew down the narrow corridor from the lounge room. Through the door, he could see furniture had been shunted around. Two sofas were butted against each other at odd angles in front of the fireplace. What the hell had they been doing out there? And where was Kane? If he was waiting to jump them on the other side of the door, Matt wanted to be the first through. But he was limping and Jodie had marched ahead, back straight, arms stiff, like she was making a statement – you want me out here, then get on with it. Guts of steel.
She took a single pace through the door to the main room and propped. The way she did it, like she’d been halted in her tracks, made his heart beat faster. He reached the door, stepped quickly around her, looking for Kane. Then stopped and stared.
There was a huge hole in the floor. Boards had been smashed, ripped up, tossed aside. It explained the crashing sounds. Bearers and joists had been chopped out, leaving a jagged-edged, rectangular gash big enough to drop one of the sofas through. It was about halfway between the front door and the kitchen, just to the left of one of the old tree trunks supporting the ceiling.
‘Get over there,’ Travis said.
He shoved Matt between the shoulderblades with the pistol, kept on his heels until Matt was on the edge of the hole beside Jodie, looking down on bare earth. It was dark as pitch down there and the smell of dirt and damp wafted up like cold, foul breath. Jodie’s arm shuddered against his. Yeah, I’m with you there, he thought. He put an arm across her shoulders, pulled her to him. Her body was rigid with tension but she leaned into him a tad – not letting go of her fear, just taking comfort.
‘Climb down,’ Travis said.
He was standing opposite them now on the other side of the hole, gun pointed at their midsections. It was the first chance Matt had had to take a good look at the older Anderson. He’d forgotten how much he was like Kane. Except for the hair and eyes, they were cut from the same chunky slab of rock, heads like boulders, all rough lines and angles. Both as tough and hard as they looked. But Travis wasn’t crazy like his brother. He was no brain surgeon either but he was calculating and cold. Seven years ago he was somehow involved in the disappearance of that girl and he’d kept his cool, kept his brother in line, stayed out of prison, joined the army when it was time to get out of the way. He’d made corporal, worked in the armoury. He didn’t have the smarts to organise that weapons racket and the lack of evidence against him suggested he was only a low-level grunt on the job – but he was cunning enough to be involved. Whatever he’d done with his cut of the proceeds, he hadn’t attracted undue police attention since then. He’d been getting work and making like an average Joe.
Back there in the wardrobe, he’d barked out orders like a drill sergeant on a power trip. Out here, the smugness was gone. Now he just seemed ticked off. And Matt was acutely aware that standing over a hole at the messy end of Travis Anderson’s gun was not a comfortable place to be.
‘Move it, for Christ’s sake. Are you both fucking deaf?’
Matt dropped his eyes to the hole. He didn’t want to get down there. Instinct and training were in sync on that. It was probably the only way in and out. Why bother smashing through the floor if they could get under the barn any other way? It must be why they checked the garden earlier, for a way in under the verandah. Which meant any chance of escape would have to be through a well-lit hole in the middle of the floor. It was the wrong way to go but Travis had the gun and Matt didn’t.
He moved first, dropped his legs into the hole, lowered himself down. He ducked under the timber boards and felt the drop in temperature as he took a quick look around. He thought there’d be some sort of lighting – a gas lamp or an electric bulb strung up – and Kane waiting for them. He thought wrong. Light from the room above illuminated a circle of earth directly under the hole. The rest was a solid mass of blackness.
He stood up again, his head and shoulders above floor height. ‘Come on,’ he said to Jodie and held out a hand.
She squatted on the edge and sucked in a deep breath like she was planning to swim underwater. Her fingers were icy and shaking, and as she dropped into the hole, she kept a hold on his hand – not a lightweight finger grip but a solid, full-fisted grasp. It seemed to settle the shaking. It didn’t hurt him, either.
As Travis climbed down, Matt ducked under the floor again, pulling Jodie into the darkness with him. He wished she wasn’t there. Wished she was somewhere safe. The moment they’d stepped into the hole, Jodie and her friends’ chances had taken a dive. The hostages were separated and that made getting them all out a whole lot more complicated. Doing it from under the barn with a gun to his back and Kane God knows where, was a major setback. Worse still, if Travis had brought them down here to kill them, or if he just lost his cool and killed them anyway, the hostages’ chances were zero. And Matt would have failed four more innocent victims.
Beside him, Jodie slid a hand inside his jacket and gripped the back of his shirt. She was cold and there was trepidation in the way she held him but there was also a fierceness about her. Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe he needed to for his own resolve. But he hoped he wasn’t because if they had even the faintest chance of getting out, they’d need every ounce of fierceness they could get. If she fell to pieces, neither of them would make it.
Travis reached into a well between the floor joists, pulled out a torch and flicked it on. The beam cut through the dark, revealing uneven bare earth that sloped away towards the back of the barn. Square towers of brick piers stood in rows all around them, at least four bricks too short for standing room.
‘Over there,’ Travis said. He had the gun in one hand, the torch in the other, lighting the path he wanted them to take.
Matt had to bend almost double to avoid knocking himself out on the overhead beams. He limped awkwardly, picking his way in the dark, following the light, only sure Jodie was at his back by the hand holding his jacket. ‘So where’s your low-life brother?’
‘Just shut up and walk.’ Travis was breathing hard. And not from exertion. The kind of breathing you do when you want to hurl something.
‘Left you to handle the hostages on your own, huh? Jesus, I don’t know how you put up with him. He’s an arsehole.’
‘Don’t get cocky, Wiseman. He’ll be back.’
‘Left you to clean up his shit again, right?’
The light swung around, hit Matt in the eyes. He couldn’t make out Travis in the dark behind it, could only see his hand on the end of the torch, but his reply came out loud and clear. ‘Keep your fucking mouth shut, Wiseman. And walk.’
Matt put a hand in front of his eyes. ‘Can’t see where to go with that thing in my face.’
Travis did some more heavy breathing, let the light hang on Matt for a couple of seconds, then pointed it ahead again.
They moved further into the darkness, grit and stones scuttling about as their feet slipped on the loose dirt. Behind him, Jodie’s breath sounded loud and forced.
‘Okay, stop,’ Travis said. The hole in the floor was twenty metres behind them. They were well under the centre of the barn, heading towards the back. Travis held the gun on them as he waved the torch left and right looking for something. Then the light illuminated a pile of dirt beside a freshly dug pit.
It was too dark to see Jodie, but Matt hea
rd her. Her feet scrunched on the dirt as she moved around him. She gasped. There was a thud on a beam overhead and she stumbled into him. It must have hurt but it wasn’t the whack on the head she reacted to.
‘No. No way.’ Her voice was loud, a yell. ‘If you want to put me in a damn hole, you can do it yourself, you bastard. I am not digging my own grave.’
29
Travis swung the torch around. ‘Not yet, tough bitch. I’ve got another job for you.’
Matt squinted at Jodie in the sudden glare. She was wild-eyed, breathing hard.
‘Get over there,’ Travis ordered and they were in darkness again, the torch pointing to the pit.
Even as Matt found Jodie in the dark and wrestled hold of her arm, his brain was ticking over. She tried to pull away but he held onto her. If she didn’t come with him, he’d never find her in the dark. And he wanted to see what was in that pit. Travis and Kane came here to dig it. They were either burying something or digging something up. And they’d gone to a lot of trouble to do it. More than a lot. They’d shot a woman, locked five people in a wardrobe and smashed a hole in the floor.
Why do that to bury something? The barn was surrounded by bush. They were in the middle of farming land. They could bury something anywhere out there.
He remembered Louise quoting them. We’ll get our stuff and get out of here. So they were digging something up? They’d lived here, they’d both been back in Bald Hill for a few years, they had plenty of opportunity to bury a bunch of stuff. If Matt was right, and Travis and Kane had killed John Kruger, what was important enough for them to hide from the cops for a day waiting for a chance to dig it up?
As he and Jodie moved past a brick pier, Matt saw where the torchlight extended beyond the pit. Saw there were two more freshly dug pits. They looked just like the first one – about the size of your average backyard barbecue, maybe knee-deep. He hesitated a moment. Cold fear stiffened his spine.