by Matt Hammond
Stacey Martin was older and a little wiser. She’d sacrificed her innocence in the service of her country and been rewarded with a posting to New Zealand, serving as Taylor Morgan’s personal assistant. Her brief was to ensure he stuck to the mission. If he overstepped the mark, jeopardised the project, or anything went wrong, he would be eliminated. This was the phone call she’d been expecting to receive one day.
She had one hour. Morgan left before dealing with David Turner. She’d have to do that as well.
Three 4,500 litre steel vats stood like a trio of discarded alien spaceships, props from a fifties sci-fi movie, quiet and stark in the New Zealand countryside. Vat number one was half full of fermenting grape juice. It would empty quicker than the others.
Stacey wrenched the handle allowing the pressure of 2,000 litres of half-fermented red grape juice to push the metal door open and flood out onto the ground around her.
* * *
David had just finished getting dressed when there was a knock at the door. He opened it to be greeted, not by breakfast, but an attractive young woman. “Follow me, Mr Turner. I’m here to save your life.”
David could smell wine as he walked across the wet concrete. “Mr Turner, we don’t have too much time. I’m Taylor Morgan’s personal assistant. Taylor has orders to kill you when he gets back. I need you to hide while I go get some help.” He looked around for somewhere suitable. Up a tree? Under a bush? They kept walking. “I need you to climb up there and get inside.”
The smooth steel vessel had a long metal ladder welded to the outside. “It’s perfectly safe. I’ve drained all the juice out. It’s completely empty. There’s another ladder inside. Make your way to the bottom and sit tight. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
David had never met this woman pushing him gently towards the foot of the ladder. She reminded him of a younger Katherine, confident, determined. Was that any reason to trust her? She prodded him harder. “I can hear a car. I think Taylor’s coming back. Hurry, up the ladder.”
Halfway up, David stopped. The ladder continued shaking. She was climbing up behind him. “I need to seal you in. If Taylor sees the lid open, he’ll suspect something. Now keep moving. Hurry!” The fresh morning breeze reminded him he hadn’t eaten and the wafting wine vapour only increased his appetite.
The ladder followed the bullet-shaped contour of the vat. David was nearly horizontal, clinging to the rungs. “Reach up, turn the handle and open the lid,” a voice called from beneath his feet. Wrapping one arm through the ladder, he let go with the other, pushed the lever, breaking the seal that held the steel cap in place, and flung it open, revealing the black hole it had covered. He pulled himself over the rim and dangled his legs until they caught the ladder on the inside. There were only five rungs visible before the ladder disappeared into the metallic void.
“What’s the problem now?”
“Are you sure it’s empty? It stinks in here.”
“There’s about a 3 foot drop from the ladder to the base of the vat. There’ll be a faint chink of light. I’ve left the drainage pipe seal open.”
David slowly made his way down the first few rungs. Stacey reached the lid and, without warning, daylight was shut out with a loud clang. A thick cloak of wine soaked blackness enveloped him. Disorientated, he gripped the cold wet metal ladder in momentary panic, desperately trying to focus on something. The only safe direction was down. He felt, rung by rung, as he took each careful step.
The next rung wasn’t there. The woman who claimed to be saving his life said there was a 3 foot drop. Edging down further until his hands were only one rung above his feet, David looked down and saw nothing. He crouched uncomfortably on the last rung of the ladder. He laughed. A strange echoing cackle reverberated around the huge empty tin can. Why did he feel so happy? Drunk on an empty stomach maybe but on fumes alone?
Holding tightly to the penultimate rung, he let his feet drop. Now he was suspended by his hands. Pointing his toes made no difference. There was no bottom to the vat. David giggled. What a stupid situation to be in, and before breakfast. One hand dropped to the bottom rung, then the other. There it was. Both feet were on the ground. He yelled a loud metallic, “Yes!”
The climb, followed by the descent into the empty wine vat, left him breathless and tired. He stood listening for any noise outside. All he could hear were the softly tinkling bells in his head. Looking into the blackness, a million stars twinkled around him.
David slumped into a puddle of grape juice, stared into the void, smiled and closed his eyes.
* * *
Brent directed Cass up the drive towards the Lodge. They passed the cottage where he’d seen David the previous evening. The front door was open. “That’s not a good sign. Looks like our boy’s gone walkabout, Cass, drive round the back there.” A dark patch of evaporating grape juice indicated it had been released from one of the large steel tanks only a short time before. “That looks like a convenient accident to me, boss. No winery would spill that much juice intentionally.”
Brent banged hard on the side of the vat. “Stay with us, Dave. Don’t go to sleep. I’m getting you out.”
From deep inside the tank he heard a faint, “Whoohoo.”
“Is he pissed in there?”
“No. it’s more serious than that, he dying but he doesn’t know it. The atmosphere inside the vat is completely still. The fermentation process produces carbon dioxide. When the juice is drained away, the CO2 stays. It’s sitting at the bottom with Dave and suffocating him. He’s going through the euphoric stage, that’s why he sounds like he’s drunk. Get back in the truck and start the winch motor.”
Brent grabbed the hook, clipped it to his belt and climbed to the top of the vat. Opening the lid would not be enough the save David. The CO2 was heavier than air and sat, like a deep pool, drowning anyone under it. “Cass, when I tug, you winch, ok?”
Cass gave the thumbs up
With the lid open, he could see David lying face up in a pool of liquid. Brent could feel his face beginning to flush as he descended. His fingertips tingled as he fumbled to attach the winch hook to David’s belt. He tugged at the wire. David rose, face-up into the air, his arms hanging outstretched, angel-like.
Brent stared. Was he too late? Had he died? Was this his spirit rising up into the light towards heaven?
He watched, transfixed, as David rose higher and higher. He walked forward, banging his head on the outer wall of the tank.
Unable to focus clearly, he turned and headed for the centre, hoping to find the ladder.
David had reached the top and Cass turned off the winch, waiting for Brent to emerge behind him.
Brent felt tiny, trapped inside an empty red wine bottle. He couldn’t see properly through the smoked glass. How did he get in here? Why was he so small? He was getting that familiar nightmare sensation- legs feeling heavy, pinned to the floor, arms hung loosely at his side refusing to lift at his mental command. In the distance was an unfamiliar voice. “Climb the bloody ladder.”
Cold metal brushed his cheek, momentarily jolting his waning sensory powers. A hand reached up, then another, grasping the ladder. Training and a heightened sense of survival overcame the desperate need to sleep. Brent pulled with both hands, lifting his legs until they found the last rung on the ladder and took the unbearable weight his aching wrists threatened to let fall back into the stinking abyss.
But he was already dead.
A blinding light called him as he climbed towards it. His eyes refocussed, his strength began to return. The light became the way to cheat death, not accept it. It was his escape, the opening of the steel container he had lowered himself into only a few minutes before. Now he remembered.
Looking over the rim, David Turner replaced the image of St. Peter smiling down on him. “It’s the Co2 messing with your head. You’ll feel fine again in a minute. Keep climbing.”
* * *
Taylor Morgan drove slowly past, noting the police cordon around t
he post office building. He dialled the number on the satellite phone and a familiar voice immediately answered. “Tell me about the door, the steel door along from the main entrance.”
Taylor looked back along the street. “Well, it’s open and I can see some people with cases going in.”
“I thought so. It’s over, Morgan. Get back to the lodge and await my instructions.”
* * *
Stacey Martin answered her phone.
“He’s on his way back. Is everything prepared?
“Yes, I just have to get rid of some visitors who just turned up, then everything’s sweet.”
* * *
Cass looked at the other two leaning against the front of the truck. “If yous fellas are expecting a lift looking like you’ve pissed yourself, you can think again.”
“Can I help you, guys?”
The woman who’d helped David hide appeared beside them, brushing wisps of hair from her eyes with one hand and carrying a phone in the other. “Oh I see you found Mr Turner. That’s good. I’m Stacey, by the way, Mr Morgan’s personal assistant”
Brent only had a moment to assess the situation. She works at the lodge, she knows Turner. She must know why he’s here. She knows Taylor Morgan, She know why he’s here too.
“Get back in and meet me by the gate,” he breathed to Cass as he walked towards the woman. Placing a hand gently on her elbow, Brent turned and walked her away from the truck.
“Not sure who you are, love. The accent kind of gives you away, though. So this is what I’m thinking right now. SIS, by the way. I’m armed and not in the mood for any shit. You somehow got Turner into that death trap back there. He doesn’t realise; thought you were protecting him. Right now all I’m interested in is Morgan’s head on a stick, so I need you to help me get it. “
A voice faintly called, “Hello, hello?” Someone else was trapped in the tank! Surely they would be dead by now. How did he miss them when he was in there?
Stacey offered him the phone. “He wants to speak to you.”
Brent put the phone to his ear as if he’d never done so before.
“Who am I speaking with, please? This is Captain Brent Piri of the New Zealand Army, who’s this?”
“Aah, Piri, the man who tried to save his country with his own birthday. Ingenious. The man who staked out Heathrow Airport for a month, got his partner killed, then travelled halfway around the world in one of our jumbo trunks to save an innocent Brit.”
“Who are you?”
“Piri, I’m the man trying to bring wealth, prosperity, and a future to your Godforsaken little Hobbit holes down there. You’re being offered the chance to lead the future of this entire planet and all you can do is run innocent Americans off the road with a logging truck.” No Southern drawl. This wasn’t the President.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the man responsible for the future of six billion people. The global economy moves on my command. I have it in my power to decide who eats and who starves, who has shelter and who sleeps in the gutter, who works and who begs for a living. Who lives and who dies. Right now that tiny split-in-two country, with a navy of half a dozen boats, an army of a few thousand overweight peace keepers, and a shiny new borrowed helicopter for an air force are all that stand between my country and the determination and will of the American people. Don’t take me for a schmuck, Piri. I could have a stealth bomber out of Guam and in your airspace by sundown. You could wake up tomorrow with your entire infrastructure wiped out overnight easier than wiping my ass.”
Schmuck clinched it. “Senator Elmerstein, I presume. You overestimate your own importance, sir, and underestimate the New Zealand people. This country sacrificed ten per cent of its population in The First World War fighting for your freedom on the other side of the world. Ninety years later, you send your young men halfway round the world fighting for the control of oil. Or is that all just an obscene distraction to mask what’s going on here? We split the atom. You developed nuclear weapons. We conquered the highest mountain in the world with two men and some rope. You took ten years and billions of dollars trying to prove a point and get to the moon first. In so many ways, we’re so much better than you’ll ever be. This small country punches way above its weight in the world, Senator. We can smell a bully in the school yard at ten paces and right now the bully is blinkered by his own sense of importance, drunk on power and blind to the real strength of his enemies. Your Migration Manipulation Program is no such thing. It’s an uncontrollable social experiment wrapped around some crazy untested science. If my people ever find the truth of what’s going on here, believe me it's easier for a bee to annoy an eagle than it is for an eagle to annoy a bee.”
“Not sure where you’re going with that, Captain, but I think you’re right. We need to take a step back, re-evaluate, look at the long term effect of what we’re trying to achieve here, use the proper channels to engage with the people of New Zealand and the wider global community.”
“Shit, Senator. Basically all I’m saying here is get off my fucking land.”
“Well said, soldier, but do me a favour and get off mine first. Stacey has some business to attend to. Put her back on, please.”
Brent handed the phone back. “Stacey Martin?” He recalled the name from the press reports of Patrick O’Sullivan’s infidelity years ago. Like many New Zealanders, he never thought she actually existed.
“Thanks, honey.” She pressed a key, turning the speaker off. She’d heard it all. Stacey put the phone to her ear and turned her back on Brent. He stood awkwardly, their confrontation an international stand-off interrupted by a phone call. Brent thrust his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels and let out a loud impatient sigh.
“Is this going to take much longer?”
Stacey put the phone in her pocket.
“I’m done. Now, Captain Piri, I need your help.”
* * *
Taylor Morgan slid the black Toyota through the winding back-roads, desperate to get back, take his valuables and notes from his safe, and drive to the Sounds where he’d meet up with a US Marine unit that would spirit him away, deep under the Pacific.
Stacey ran to meet him as he lurched to a halt on the grass. “Taylor, there’s a problem with vat one.”
“Not now, Stacey. Something’s come up. I need to grab my stuff and get out of here.” She reached into her jacket pocket. For a second he hesitated before the phone on the passenger seat of the car called him back. He leant across the driver’s seat to retrieve it. Brent ran to the front of the vehicle, throwing his full weight against the open driver’s door. Morgan screamed, pinned by his legs. Brent pulled the door fully open before shouldering it hard against the crumpled trapped body now slumped sideways across the car seat.
After three sickeningly ferocious slams, Brent pulled the door open and let go. Morgan slid backwards onto the grass, whimpering, holding his legs. “They’re broken” He looked pleadingly at Stacey. She stared at him, holding his gaze. He never saw Brent running in from his right side. Morgan had no time to brace. His head snapped back, propelled by the full impact of the former Auckland Grammar School rugby captain’s boot as it caught him with brutal force under his chin.
He fell back onto the damp grass, jaw smashed, and trachea ruptured, gasping for air. With each involuntary gasp, the breath seeped through the ripped cartilage into the surrounding tissue. Morgan’s eyes grew wider as his chest bellowed his lungs, desperately trying to capture some air as he wheezed. He drooled, unable to swallow the blood and saliva in his shattered mouth.
Brent stared into the terrified, swelling face of a dying man and spoke a quiet Maori prayer. Morgan thrashed his arms. Was he reaching for help or trying to retaliate? Brent remained just out if reach. He turned to see Stacey’s reaction. She stood transfixed by the brutality she’d witnessed. “Give me your phone,” Brent commanded. He grabbed it from her limply outstretched hand and held it in front of him.
“I can’t watch t
his any more. I’m gonna call for an ambulance. What are you doing with the phone?”
“Too late for an ambulance. Another two minutes and he’ll be dead.”
Morgan writhed and gurgled, desperately trying to cough as the blood and mucus followed the air through the rip in his windpipe into his head cavity. “I’m taking some video to send your boss. Elmerstein wants him gone, right? Just making sure he knows I was here to witness it.”
Morgan’s breath rasped as his face began to swell, the air entering the surrounding tissue as the one element he craved destroyed him.
He fell silent, his dying breath replaced by the Stacey’s sobbing off-camera as Brent turned the lens towards the horizon, panning across the distant mountain ranges.
“This is what you wanted, Elmerstein,” he said before turning the camera back to Morgan’s corpse. “This is what you got.” Then pointing the lens at his own face. “Because you didn’t expect to have to deal with this.”
Brent contorted his features until his eyes bulged and the tip of his tongue touched his chin. A fearsome grimace of Maori defiance and a cry of “Ka mate! Ka mate!” lingered on the screen as he pressed send.
Chapter 26
The NH90 helicopter headed north, Captain Brent Piri in the co-pilot’s seat. Behind him sat Commander Dalton, David and Katherine Turner, with Ed and Anika Collington opposite.
It circled the marae before coming in to land as it had done three days previously. The dust settled and the rotor blades came to a halt. Maaka’s father stepped forward, greeting his guests as they stepped down before leading the party to his son’s tangihanga.