Double Bind

by Karen Bell

  At that moment, Ryan’s phone rang and he was obliged to answer. It was the head of the Marksman Reconnaissance Team informing him that the dealer – the one who’s address had been given up by Taz – had gone out and they were pretty sure the place was empty.

  ‘We’ve got a tail on him and a GPS tracker on the BMW in case we lose him. The place isn’t alarmed. What do you want us to do?’

  ‘Go in,’ answered Ryan without a second thought. ‘Get some listening devices in there and see what you can find. Don’t take anything that might tip them off or blow your cover okay?’

  ‘Got it.’

  He’d barely hung up when the phone rang again. It was Maritime services. The first of the cargo ships was an hour out from port.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ Ryan confirmed, hanging up and calling for the rest of the team.

  Ryan had brought Jack into the office in preparation of the cargo ships’ arrival. He might have been slow and past his prime, but Ryan knew he still had the best nose in the business. Besides, it wasn’t going to be a dangerous operation at this end and they needed all hands and paws on deck. The dogs selected for the case were all NDD - Narcotics Detection Dogs - fully trained in the discovery of common drugs, but like their handlers they had received a more specific brief for today and all had been taught to identify ephedrine in both powdered and liquid forms.

  Jack had been thrilled when his master had indicated that he was coming with him to work this morning and was ecstatic now as he got the nod to follow him somewhere else. Men were flooding in and he could sense the testosterone and adrenalin in the room. He knew they were up to something important. It made him feel young and virile again.

  ###

  The shipping yard looked like a scene out of a science fiction film, albeit more colourful, thanks to the four giant container ships and three tankers now docked and the many thousands of red, yellow, blue and green containers neatly lined and stacked in rows over the forty hectare lot.

  The quay cranes, stackers and gantries rose and fell, or swayed from side to side like giant, mechanical dinosaurs surveying their territory, while their smaller cousins – herds of forklifts and transfer vehicles darted industriously between them and across the vast landscape.

  A large team of Forensic Customs officers together with a dozen experienced members of the AFP and eight sniffer dogs with their drug squad handlers had assembled at the gangway to the cargo ship. It seemed ironic to Ryan that even in this fully computerised environment it would still come down to individuals, to search each and every container for the drugs. It was four in the afternoon and they had limited daylight hours before their job would become all the more difficult. They had organised themselves into shifts and had arranged for powerful head torches to make use of every minute available to them.

  Still, looking up at the first of the two huge ships to arrive, with its containers stacked six high and twelve across, down much of the length of the enormous boat, Ryan for the first time in his life understood what it meant to feel dwarfed.

  He swore under his breath. ‘Bloody hell, how are we going to get through all of those and then the second one when it comes in?’ He directed his question to the head of Container Terminal Operations who had been briefing Ryan and the team.

  ‘We’ve spent the last week with Customs and Border Protection examining the cargo reports and that’s allowed us to pretty confidently eliminate maybe one third of them, but it’s logistically impossible to offload all the others for x-ray, so it’s going to come down to a combination of luck and manpower. We’ve got the CEF working overtime and have instructed them that anything arriving for examination from either of the Tianjin ships take priority over any other containers.’

  Ryan was doing some quick calculations in his head. ‘How long does it take to get a container off the ship and through the x-ray facility?’

  ‘The imaging itself only takes a few minutes but they go through the machine on the back of the truck, which is about a thirty minute turnaround by the time they get back here, depending on how accessible the container is up there.’ He lifted his face to the lego-like construction above, towering over them.

  It didn’t take a Rhodes scholar to realise that even if they could line up the trucks at the rate of one every ten minutes and worked 24/7 for the next two days, they could still only get through less than three hundred containers. Even then, there was no guarantee that the drugs would be identifiable within whatever camouflaged them.

  The CTO officer continued. ‘All the containers on this list, not crossed out will need to be searched. We have another like it for the next ship that’s due in before dawn tomorrow.’

  Just flicking through the twenty-page list was disheartening but Ryan hadn’t come back to the drug squad to give up so easily and he wasted no time sorting the officers with and without dogs into teams. They were briefed yet again, and immediately, the operation got underway.

  ###

  Try as she might to stay positive, Mila couldn’t help beating herself up about the choices she’d made in the past week.

  She told herself that if Ryan had read the letter – which he’d now had the best part of three days to do, then he should have understood the limited options that had been forced upon her by the blackmailers and their ultimatum.

  A litany of what-ifs and maybes fought for attention in her already overwhelmed headspace as she tried to consider all possible reasons for his lack of response. As the benefit of the doubt slipped away, Mila could only conclude that Ryan hadn’t shared her opinion that her actions had been justified. That hurt enough, but what really crushed her, was that he clearly wasn’t even prepared to discuss it. Had their brief time together meant so little to him? And even if he was so hurt that he didn’t want to see her personally, she couldn’t help wondering why no one had contacted her from the police department to follow up on the home invasion and subsequent threats that she’d told him of in her letter.

  Mila allowed the thoughts to eat away at her, as the day progressed until her head throbbed and her stomach was sick with self-reproach.

  You lied to him. He told you that his sticking point was honesty and you kept seeing him. You should have known better. You convinced yourself you were special. You imagined that he cared for you. Why would he? He’s only known you two weeks for God’s sake. Stupid, STUPID!

  Mila covered her ears as though doing so could somehow quiet the self-recriminations jeering in her head. Stop it, she yelled back at them. Stop it! But she couldn’t. The voices spiralled until they were out of control and the vortex threatened to suck her in. You’ve caused this by hoping for more than you deserve. You’re a nothing, no you’re less than nothing. Master told you that, but you wouldn’t believe him. Who did you think you were kidding?

  ‘Shut up!’ she screamed aloud, trying to silence them.

  She stumbled into the laundry and pulled out the medicine box from a high shelf. She lost hold of it as it came off the shelf and it fell, crashing to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere. At first she was looking for Paracetamol or maybe Valium that they’d prescribed for Robert but as she rifled among the scattered boxes, grabbing at the unopened packets of Panadeine Forte, Endone and other morphine based painkillers, she began to get other ideas.

  She was barely fifty kilos and there was enough there to take away her pain forever. The voices were encouraging her now and before she had time to question them, Mila was on her hands and knees, pressing the pills from their foil packets. She had a handful of them. Not enough, you have to do it properly. She tipped more cards from their boxes, before punching them out - Valium, Xanax, Nurofen Stillnox - another ten, twenty.

  She was indifferent as to what was going into the cocktail, so long as combined, they did the job properly. Sobbing, she pulled herself to her feet and turned on the tap. She forced the first handful of pills into her mouth then tipped her face under the stream of water. The first couple, hitting the back of her throat got caught a
nd she choked, coughing the balance of them into the wet laundry tub below. She scraped them up, their gel covers sticky and soft and tried again. This time she got them down and lifted her other hand to take the rest. Another gulp and she more or less got them down. She fleetingly caught sight of herself in the mirror and quickly looked away, because the eyes looking back at her, wild and desperate, were not her own. She stood up and turned around, intending to lie on her bed while the world went away, but then she caught sight of the little green swimsuit hanging over a drying rack. The swimsuit that Holly had tried on and then convinced her to buy.

  Holly, the only good thing to come out of twenty wasted years… Holly, who had no one else in the world but her... Holly, who would be the replacement target for those thugs if Mila was gone.

  She went into a panic of a different kind, turning back to the sink and sticking two fingers as far down her throat as possible. Nothing. She closed her eyes and visualised her stomach expelling the poisons as she tried again. This time she gagged but still couldn’t bring anything up. Finally, she forced her mind into the past, into the dungeon. She called on all her senses, not just the images that she’d tried so hard to repress, but the stench of body odour and alcoholic breath, the bite of the restraints into her flesh and the bitter taste of semen forced down her throat. She wretched twice before her throat opened and her stomach heaved, ejecting the pills at last. She did nothing to stop it, concentrating on the memories until all she could taste was bitter bile and she was satisfied that her stomach was finally empty.

  ###

  It felt like déjà vu when Mila’s mobile phone rang in the late afternoon and again she grabbed for it, hoping for Ryan but feeling that stab of disappointment on again seeing the name of the club.

  How long was she going to continue hoping for him to call? And was she hammering more nails into the coffin of their relationship if she continued to work as an escort? You might as well keep doing it now. It’s not like he’s coming back. It’s not like the debt is going away.

  Mila answered the phone, struggling to keep her voice from sounding flat.

  ‘Hi Mila, it’s Vivienne. It seems that you made a good impression last night.’

  ‘Did Edward call?’ Mila queried.

  ‘No, we called him. We always follow up with clients when they’ve taken out a new girl. I have to say he was quite gushy for a Brit.’

  ‘Did he want another date?’ Mila asked, hoping for any kind of temporary distraction.

  ‘No, he was at the airport headed for Melbourne, but I do have a job for you tonight. It’s a special request.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Mila was already one foot in bed where she’d planned to hole up for the next twenty-four hours at least. She wished these men could be a bit less spontaneous.

  ‘What do you mean by a special request?’ She imagined that could mean anything, but twisted and deviant were the first words that came to mind and she wasn’t in the headspace for either.

  ‘I just mean that he’s requested you by name. Well by character really. He saw you in the show as Marilyn and specifically asked for you.’

  ‘Really. Do you know him? I mean is he a regular?’

  ‘Well no, but he was very well spoken and offered two thousand dollars for the night, plus our commission of course. He’s staying at a nice hotel and he left his name and mobile number, so I’m not worried.’

  ‘I’d be especially worried that someone would offer such a ridiculous amount just for company and no sex,’ Mila replied. ‘I mean you did tell him that I wouldn’t sleep with him, didn’t you?’ She was more than just a little sceptical.

  ‘Yes, I told him loud and clear. But you do the maths. Our hourly rate for the girlfriend experience is one fifty and he wants you overnight, so there’s eighteen hundred bucks right there, unless you want me to offer him a discount. Anyway he wanted you to come in character so maybe he’s just a huge Marilyn fan. I wouldn’t bother with the whole outfit, just the wig and makeup and something reminiscent of the fifties or sixties era if you’ve got it.’

  Everything else aside, no one in their right mind would pass up that kind of money. Mila took a pen and paper and wrote down all the details before hanging up. When Vivienne had spelled out the client’s surname, Mila had skipped a breath, immediately noticing that the initials R.B. were the same.

  Now she wished she’d asked how more particulars like how old he sounded, if he’d had a deep voice or an accent. A tiny part of her couldn’t help hoping that it was Ryan, though she tried to dismiss it. Think about it, a Marilyn ensemble is the last thing he’d want to see you in.

  She hadn’t eaten after throwing up, so she quickly poured a glass of milk and made some toast and vegemite to line her stomach in case she was offered alcohol later. Mila’s parents had always thought vegemite to be vile stuff but it made Mila feel like a true Aussie and it always seemed the right thing on a sensitive stomach.

  Mila’s mother had been born just a few years after Marilyn Monroe and the style icon had affected a whole generation, her mother included. There was particular dress that had hung in her Mum’s wardrobe well after she’d stopped wearing it. Mila had never actually seen her mother in it, but she’d tried it on after her parents had passed, and knew that it would fit.

  It was white silk, beautifully cut and fitted, with ruching over the bodice style bust and small cap sleeves. She’d longed to wear it, but Robert had never given her the approval, let alone the opportunity. She lamented now, that she’d never had the chance to wear it for Ryan either, who seemed to have a thing for all things retro. He had commented on the plastic and diamante sling backs, when she’d worn them previously and Mila thought of him again as she prepared them to go with the dress.

  She robotically tied her hair under the blond wig and applied the false eyelashes and lip-liner. Still, she found herself putting on her best underwear because try as she might, she could not banish the hope that maybe Ryan would be the one to open the door at the hotel tonight.

  The bus stop was several hundred metres down the road and despite her shoes being comfortable, Mila decided to catch a taxi. She still resembled Marilyn enough to look like she was headed for a fancy dress party and she was in no mood to attract conversation. The taxi pulled up not ten minutes after she called it and she ducked outside with a scarf over her head hoping that the neighbours wouldn’t choose that moment to take out their bins.

  Fifteen minutes later,she was in the foyer of the Cambridge Hotel, looking around for her date. When no-one arrived, she self consciously made her way to the reception desk, which was no mean feat in the unforgiving sheath-like dress.

  ‘I’m meant to be meeting a guest here. His name’s Ray Beresford.’

  The clerk looked through their bookings. ‘Yes we have a guest with that name. He’s left a message for you to go straight up. I’ll ask a bellboy to take you to the fourteenth floor.’

  Mila was both nervous and excited as she stepped out of the lift.

  ‘Would you like me to show you to the suite?’ asked the young man who had been ogling her out of the corner of his eye since they’d got in together.’

  ‘No thanks, I’ll be fine.’

  There was a Do not disturb sign hanging on the handle and Mila paused before knocking quietly.

  Seconds later the door opened and Mila had to disguise in her expression the let-down of not finding Ryan standing behind it. Instead, she was greeted by a stranger, maybe her age, wearing a smart suit, open shirt, no tie. He looked pleased with what he saw and invited her inside, motioning her to towards the seating area. She was barely past the door when she heard it close behind her and felt cold steel press into the small of her back. A hand clamped over her mouth as she tried to scream.

  ###

  Jack together with the other dogs had been worked two hours on, two hours off while their handlers, Ryan included, had continued searching containers in between. At 0200, a replacement team had taken over and Ryan had returned to the site
office for a well-earned rest. It already seemed like days since he’d last slept but he was far too amped up to actually drop off in a chair in the makeshift headquarters at Port Botany so instead, he wandered into the command and planning room.

  ‘Any updates?’ he enquired, knowing full well that he would have been contacted by radio if any major breakthroughs had taken place.

  No. Not as yet. We’ve already had sixty-four containers through the x-ray and nothing yet. But we did hear back from surveillance at that dealer’s house that there was more than enough artillery, ammo and drugs to put him behind bars for a good while, when the time comes.

  ‘What types of drugs?’

  ‘Ecckies, coke, steroids, MDMA. Oh and they’ve confiscated some pretty hard-core porn.’

  ‘Confiscated it, are you kidding me? I specifically told them to leave everything untouched. All we need is for them to work out we’ve been there. Damn!’ Ryan was pissed off. He thought he’d made that clear.

  ‘Apparently there were about fifty identical boxes right there in the garage. One was already open and a dozen or more of the same title removed so the guys thought they wouldn’t notice one more. Apparently they’ve been produced – if you can call it that – right here in Australia so they thought it best to find out what else these guys are up to, besides the drugs, and weapons before the evidence disappears.’

  Ryan calmed down and apologised. Of course they’d been right to take it. Child pornography and people smuggling were on the rise in Australia as they were all over the world. Much of it lined the internet, but new technologies for tracing the users and the content suppliers were making all parties more wary, and there was still a market for hard copy like these DVDs. There was a big overlap in the drug and porn industries and it would be a double coup if they could make a dent in both at once.

  ‘Has he come back to the house yet?’ Ryan was anxious to hear if the listening devices planted would reap them any additional information.