Burning at the Boss (A Johnny Ravine Mystery)

by Martin Roth

  I spoke to Jonah, who was walking in front of me. “How are you feeling, mate?”

  “I’m all right.”

  That seemed to be the default response.

  “You must miss your mum.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not tired?”

  “No.”

  What was that poem Miriam had recited? Something about parents passing down their faults to their kids? Miriam, despite her claims to be a carefree, rebellious adventurer, had absorbed all her father’s lessons and was disciplined, conformist, polite and, much of the time, actually quite deferential. And she had passed on those traits to her boy. I wanted to ask why he hadn’t tried to escape. He must have had a myriad of chances, and he could probably outrun this old man. He was a wonderful kid, but he too was possibly just a little too passive and deferential. Though maybe he was just scared. Who knows what I would have done at his age?

  We rounded a corner and suddenly I heard voices.

  “Wait,” I whispered.

  I walked ahead cautiously. Through the trees I could see that we had reached a road. And there before us stood a police car. Two officers were standing under a tree chatting.

  Clearly the police had heard from Miriam the probable whereabouts of Grapper inside The Boss and they were blocking off all routes of escape.

  I walked back to Grapper. “Police. We have to go back.”

  Even as I said it I wondered if I was crazy. Why didn’t I just run straight up to the officers before Grapper became aware of my actions? This man was a killer; a wanted man. The police were almost certainly going to capture him. Yet somewhere, deep down, I wanted to help him. No, I wanted to protect him. Look after him. Whatever it took to become closer to him.

  “There’re only three tracks out,” growled Grapper. “Upriver. Downriver. The hill.”

  I took charge. “The police will be at all of them.” I thought fast. “The river. We have to find a crossing point. It’s pretty choppy just here, and anyway, the police might be able to see. Maybe further downstream.”

  I led them back down the track and around a bend. It was only slightly better. It was less than fifteen yards across, but, as best as I could tell, at least knee deep, and possibly a lot more.

  “We have to do it,” I said. Grapper did not reply. For the first time I could see that Jonah was nervous.

  “It’s summer,” I said. “There’s been so little rain. It’s not going to be too deep, and there’s hardly any current. I’m going to make a test crossing.”

  I took off my backpack and dumped it on the ground in front of Grapper, who still had his gun trained on me. Then I stepped into the water and began walking on the rocky bottom. It was refreshingly cool. At first it was only ankle-deep. But quickly it reached my knees. And then right in the middle of the river I found myself in a trough, with water swirling gently around my hips. But just a few paces later I was back at knee-height, and then quickly I reached the other side.

  I waded back and rejoined the other two. “Jonah. Get on my back, mate. I’m carrying you across.”

  I thought he might see this as something of an excitement. But he still looked nervous. However, when I knelt down he obediently put his arms around my neck and his legs around my stomach. With ease I conveyed him to the far bank and deposited him on a shoreline of grey pebbles.

  Then I returned for Grapper. “It’ll reach your hips,” I said. “But there’s almost no current and no dangerous holes or anything like that. No undercurrents, no rips.”

  “What about sharks?” A thin smile flashed across his face. It was the first time I had heard any humor from him. Despite his age and condition I felt he still relished the challenge of a new adventure.

  “We can shoot any we meet. And speaking of shooting, you should put the guns, yours and mine, in the backpack to make sure they stay dry. And your phone and anything else important.” To my surprise he obeyed without question.

  I slung the backpack over my shoulders. “I’ll go first. You follow. I’ll stay right next to you. Okay?”

  He said nothing, so I stepped into the water and he followed. I walked in an awkward sideways movement, ready to offer him a hand if necessary.

  Everything was going fine until we reached the portion of water that was knee-high. In the middle of the river was the trough, and as he stepped down he stumbled. For an instant it even appeared that he was about to plunge headfirst into the water. But I quickly grabbed an arm and held tight, allowing him to steady himself. I looked at him, but he said nothing. We continued without incident to join Jonah on the far bank.

  I put down the pack and took out the two guns, mine and his. I handed them back to him, with a wry smile, as if to say, “Look, I am not killing you.” But he just took them without comment, placed one in his pocket and gripped the other, as before.

  I think it was then that I realized something important. Somewhere, deep down, this man had lost most normal human feelings. Perhaps that’s what a career in gunrunning does to you. Perhaps it came from the trauma of a lost love. Perhaps he never had much feeling in the first place. Or maybe it was simply that—as I earlier suspected—he had become old and senile.

  Whatever it was, I could readily discern that he had no particular feelings towards Jonah and me. That he was our father was a matter of indifference.

  I suspected that he hated everyone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The river bank was about three feet high. I jumped up and Jonah clambered behind me. Grapper extended an arm, requesting assistance. I dragged him up.

  We were in wilderness. No paths were evident on this side of the river. But we couldn’t stay put. No one might approach, but we were still visible from the other shore. Knowing that the police were hunting us meant we had to move fast.

  “Come on,” I said, and pushed into the undergrowth, praying there were no snakes. We had walked for less than a couple of minutes when we came to a tiny natural glade of rocks and moss, surrounded by tall gum trees.

  “No one’s going to see us here,” I said. “We can rest for a while.”

  “My pants are soaking,” said Grapper. “This sun should dry them in about thirty minutes.” He stripped them off and hung them over a branch. I followed suit. And so did Jonah, even though his were barely wet.

  Then the three of us sat together on the rocks, bare-legged, experiencing a period of male family bonding—my dark, stout legs contrasting quite markedly with Jonah’s, white and skinny, and Grapper’s, which were red, leathery, veined and scarred.

  “What is your plan?” I asked Grapper. Did he actually have one?

  “We stay here until dark. Then we find a way out. After that we get the money. I’ll have to steal another car. I’m wondering whether to go back to Miriam’s house. I don’t think I can trust her. But you said she’s getting two hundred thousand.”

  “That’s what she said.” It was what she said. But then the police had become involved. They told her to pretend she had the money. I wasn’t sure if she went ahead with her plan to borrow it from the bank.

  I knew I didn’t have a plan either. I wanted to help him. But how? He was a murderer and kidnapper. And probably a lot more. The best I could do to help might be to visit him regularly in prison.

  But right now I had found my father, and still I wanted more time together. “How did you meet my mother?” I asked.

  He looked at me strangely, as if he hadn’t understood. He was tired. Perhaps he needed to sleep. I was about to repeat the question when he spoke. “You only get one true love in your life. Mine was Maria.”

  I looked at him in astonishment. I had not expected such sentimentality, quite at odds with his previous demeanor.

  “She was young and beautiful and pure. The most beautiful woman I had ever met. Always happy, always smiling. Generous. Kind. Loving. I can’t tell you how happy I was with her. I was hopelessly in love. And then they arrested me and sent me back to Australia. And I never found her again. I we
nt to pieces. I could never settle down. I still think of her.”

  I couldn’t believe that he was talking like this. I waited, hoping for more. But he lapsed into silence.

  “What about Pastor Reezall?” I asked. “How did you meet him?”

  He shrugged, as if he were not interested in the topic. But then he spoke. “I met him in a bar in Chiang Mai. It must have been more than twenty years ago. I was there to drink. He was there to evangelize. He was relentless. He wanted everyone to be saved. He had quite a style. He came straight up to me and commented on what a nice day it had been. When I agreed, he asked if I knew that it was the day the Lord made.”

  Quite a style, maybe, but it didn’t seem to have worked. Not with Grapper.

  “So we got talking about the war that was happening in East Timor,” he continued. “He kept telling me how angry he was that Christians had their country invaded. He said it was important to fight back, but most Christians in Australia and the West had become so weak and so in love with the good and easy life that they didn’t know how.”

  Jonah interrupted: “Can I play some more games on your phone?”

  Grapper retrieved his iPhone from the backpack and passed it over. “I wanted very much to help the people in East Timor. So at some point I revealed to Jim that I dealt in weapons, and that if he could raise the cash I would deliver a major assignment of up-to-date weaponry to the rebels. That’s how it all started. And it seems you’re the rebel leader I delivered the weapons to.”

  “If only I’d known you were my dad...” But I couldn’t help wondering if, even back then, he would have really cared about his son. “What other countries did you deliver weapons to, together with the pastor?”

  “Anywhere Christians were in trouble. Burma. Christians in Vietnam and Laos. And I think he was trying to find channels to help North Korean Christians who wanted to fight their government. Jim was passionate. Absolutely passionate about what he was doing. He never gave up. He was always looking for new ways to raise money so he could provide arms to Christians in need. He told me was going to start his own radio program, just to help raise more money.”

  From his backpack he took out cans of baked beans with ringtop openers. Without asking he handed one each, plus a plastic spoon, to me and Jonah. I’d forgotten that I was hungry. We ate.

  “Did you meet the pastor often?” I enquired.

  “All the time. Whenever he came to Asia we could usually arrange a meeting somewhere. I came to respect him. Except for when he was trying to convert me. He was pretty bull-headed about that. And he spent a lot of his time berating Western Christians. He kept saying that their life has become to easy, too cushy, that they’re all too much in love with material things. So they won’t stand behind their Christian brothers and sisters around the world who are fighting for their freedom. He kept telling me that if Christians don’t fight for their freedom they will lose it even in their own countries.”

  It was then that I heard a dog barking, somewhere not too far away.

  “Wait,” I said. I pulled on my now-dry trousers and trod my way cautiously back towards the river. From behind a tree I peered over. Several police officers were walking with a German Shepherd along the track on the other side.

  I reported back to Grapper. “We’re as safe here as anywhere,” he muttered. “Tonight we make a move.”

  I thought about it. Probably he was right. If the dogs caught our scent we wouldn’t get far at all. Might as well stay put.

  He resumed his reminiscences of the pastor: “He kept talking about other religions setting up bridgeheads in the West, and that Christians are too weak to do anything about it. He used to show me maps to prove how Islam is conquering the world. He had a map of Turkey…”

  “But Turkey’s been Muslim for years.”

  “Exactly. He had maps showing the Christian world of fifteen hundred years ago or whenever. When places like Turkey and North Africa were all Christian. He said they’ve all become Muslim. And now Christians are being persecuted and kicked out of places like Egypt and Iraq and Africa, and soon it will spread to the West. He said that’s why Christians must fight.”

  I changed the subject. “Miriam went over to Asia and she became pregnant.” I pointed towards Jonah. “That must have hurt your relationship with the pastor.”

  “He was furious. He wanted to end all our business dealings. He tried. But he’d become an important client for me. I couldn’t let him go. I had to point out to him that it wouldn’t look good if I revealed to Australian newspapers what he was really doing with all that orphanage money. And gradually our relationship got back on track again.”

  So you’re a blackmailer, as well as a murderer and kidnapper, I thought. “But something did go wrong with your relationship.”

  “All the pastor’s charity money went into a bank account, and then was transfered automatically to me. That was the arrangement. It was even in his will that this would continue after he died. Though he warned me that once he died the flow of money would start dropping, as so much of it was dependent on his fund-raising work around the world. Anyway, suddenly the money stopped and I could see there was a problem. Suddenly the money was going instead to a financial company.”

  “Go-Go Greene Financial.”

  “But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I made one big mistake. Just one. I’d been working with Jim for decades. He always paid. Money was always flowing in. It came to me automatically. He asked for a big shipment. Half a million dollars worth. He needed it urgently. Could he pay in a few weeks time? He had part of the money, but not all. Normally you pay in advance. I spoke to my suppliers, the Ukrainians. I’d always paid them, so they trusted me, as much as they trusted anyone. Which means, not at all. They knew that I knew the rules. If you don’t pay you die. And then Jim told me he couldn’t pay. I had to use one of my false passports to come here to Australia. I went to see him, and it was obvious that he’d lost a big amount of money. He couldn’t pay.”

  I didn’t want to ask the question, but it had to be asked. It was the starting point for this whole investigation. “So you killed him?”

  “I know the rules. He knew the rules. We got into a big argument and I ended up punching him hard. Now, when I punch someone they end up in a very, very bad way, and that was the case with Jim. I decided it was better to end things by siphoning some petrol from his car and burning the house.”

  Again I was shocked at the lack of feeling. My thoughts were interrupted as I realized that the smell of smoke was becoming stronger. The wind too seemed to be blowing harder than before.

  “Wait,” I said. I walked back down to the river. No one seemed to be over on the other side, and I did not feel the need to conceal myself. I walked right to the riverbank and stared downstream.

  I had a clear view of forest, stretching to the horizon.

  But I also had a clear view of something else, something frightening, about as frightening as anything I had ever seen before in my life. Way over in the distance was a massive fire front at least one hundred yards wide, stretching across both sides of the river. I could see flames leaping high to the tops of the tall trees, and thick smoke billowing into the sky.

  And from the strength and direction of the wind I could discern something more—it was almost certainly heading straight towards us.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “We have to move,” I told the other two. “Fire’s on the way. A big one. It looks like it’s heading straight for us.” Smoke seemed to be getting thicker as I spoke. “We need to go back across the river and head for the road.”

  “Except that we’re not going to do that,” said Grapper, coughing harshly as smoke suddenly hit his lungs. Throughout our time in the grove he had been holding onto his gun, placing it down only to eat baked beans, and even then checking regularly that it hadn’t moved. Now he patted it, possibly as some kind of ominous warning to me.

  “It looks like a huge fire front,” I protested
. “It could catch up with us in minutes.”

  “We’re not going to the river.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. I’d faced death innumerable times in my freedom fighting days. At times it had been with equanimity. I knew I was fighting for a cause. What could be nobler than to die for my country’s freedom?

  But what would I be dying for if the fires overtook us as we hid in the trees of Yarra Boss? The cause of helping a murderer and kidnapper to avoid justice? A pathetic gesture of solidarity with an uncaring and an unfeeling father?

  Grapper interrupted my thoughts. “Let’s move.”

  With his gun he gestured to the backpack. I slung it over my shoulders and started pushing my way through the wilderness. Jonah followed, and behind him Grapper. It was absurd. Even if we were in the open we would be trudging along at such a slow pace that the fire could sweep over us in minutes. And we were fighting our way through dense foliage.

  I knew we were walking parallel to the river. I wondered why I didn’t just flee. Grapper could never catch me, and with all the trees he’d be extremely lucky even to get off a shot at me. But what about Jonah? I couldn’t leave him.

  Of course I should have taken Jonah and fled when we were crossing the river and I briefly had possession of the two guns. I knew that now.

  I pushed at a branch and it snapped back sharply in my face. I felt some blood on my cheek. The wind seemed to be picking up and the smoke was becoming thicker. With a start I realized that sparks were also flying around. It meant the fire was nearer. And at any moment the embers could ignite new fires near us.

  Then through the trees I spotted a field over on our right, running up a slope towards another forest.

  “Look, open space,” I shouted. At that instant I heard the crackle of flames and realized that the fire was almost on us. “Come on. Quick.”

  We pushed through the trees—even Grapper seemed to be making better speed than before—and to the field. It was fenced, and probably part of a farm, although no animals were around.