Fire Eye

by Peter d’Plesse

  Dumping his bedroll and blanket, he kneels in front of her. Jed slips his knife out of the scabbard and cuts two wide strips off the blanket he used before and two narrow strips. As he takes her foot in his hands, he cradles it for a little longer than necessary enjoying the brief physical contact, before tying the strips of blanket around her boot. He repeats the process with her other foot.

  She notices the way he lingers when holding her foot but says nothing.

  “We are going to be ghosts, or at least try to be. The wrapping will hide your footprints from anything but a careful inspection. We’re out of here and going for the coast and your plane. Bloody Decker can wait his turn!”

  “What were you up to back there?”

  “I let the air out of some tyres, disabled the pump and slashed some other tyres but left enough wheels to fit one vehicle. I hid one of the wheels so they can’t get mobile. I also slashed their water containers and hid some boxes of ammunition. I was tempted to burn the lot but we may get a chance to use the vehicle.”

  “He’s going to be really pissed off! You’d better stay out of his way or he’ll really make you pay.”

  “That’s the plan. We’ve evened up the odds a bit. You did well Alex.” The compliment is genuine. Nothing more needs to be said on that point. They have meshed as a team, strengthened by mutual respect. “We’re going to work our way northwest to the coast, forty-five degrees to the setting sun. We’ll leave dealing with the swamp until we get a bit closer. There’s still almost a full day ahead of us. Nothing like being woken early. Let’s go!”

  They move out with Jed in the lead. Alex copies Jed’s walk, stepping carefully to avoid sticks and tussocks. Out of the blue he hears a command. “Stop!”

  He stops and turns to see her standing legs apart, hands on hips and eyes peering out from behind the blonde strands falling over her forehead. “Is there any particular reason why you took point?”

  Jed has no good answer for that. He took the lead automatically.

  She watches him stand there, legs apart, bedroll and blanket slung over his shoulder, right hand resting on his hip above the pommel of his knife, thinking, Why not Alex? She is standing in a similar pose, facing him, looking very much in command, unbrushed blonde hair falling down over her eyes half hiding an expression he cannot ignore.

  “You know the way as well as I do I guess! Point is yours!” he concedes. He watches her step to the front, look up at the sun and back at the hill to get her bearings and walk off to the northwest with no comment. He follows without a word but double checks the direction using his watch as a compass. He isn’t surprised to find that she is spot on.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  When Decker and Joe arrive at the fire, smoke still billows up into the morning air. There is no sign of anyone. Decker rages and swears and at one stage Joe is worried he will blast him senselessly with the shotgun. He stays still and quiet until Decker’s rage works itself out. His eyes scan the ground around the fire, noting the faint footprints, disturbed ground where firewood has been gathered and the faint imprint of a knee where someone knelt by the fire to coax it into life.

  Decker finally comes to a standstill, shotgun by his side with the barrels pointing down and Joe senses the time is right to open his mouth. “One person, woman, came from over there,” he says, pointing. “Gathered timber to light fire then went walkabout, over there to the hill,” pointing once again. He has said his piece, not daring to move.

  The words sink slowly into Decker’s brain and reason overpowers emotion. The black fella can read the story in the ground without even moving. Having to rely on a black fella makes his guts crawl but reason kicks in and takes over. “That’s good Joe,” he praises. “I like that! You’re making yourself useful. Perhaps you and Brad can go back home after this is over with no hard feelings.”

  Decker goes over to the fire and kicks it to vent the last of his frustration then heads back to meet up with Jesse.

  Joe follows. He has no choice if he wants to help Brad.

  They work their way back with Jesse in the lead cradling the rifle in his arms, Decker strides along impatiently with Joe tagging behind to help Brad as he shuffles along in pain. They arrive back at the vehicles and it doesn’t take long to notice something is amiss.

  “The fucking tyres are slashed!” Jesse calls out.

  Decker looks up as he comes into the campsite and scans the vehicles. He storms over to the Patrol with its flat tyres, opens the tail gate and sees the remains of the water sloshing among the baggage and the smashed laptop. Ice-cold calm grips him as he walks around the Patrol. He notes the missing spare wheel, then goes over to the Toyota to count the flat tyres. The vehicles aren’t going anywhere.

  Instead of rage, he feels an overpowering calm, a state he has never felt before. The calmness holds him in a vice-like grip, reining in his anger but not his growing desire to kill—to kill slowly and wash away the humiliation burning deep inside him.

  Joe watches him waiting for the explosion, but it doesn’t come. He drops his head to avoid eye contact, watching with his peripheral vision, mesmerised by the transformation he witnesses taking place before his eyes. He has known some bad men in his time but they were easy to read, pent-up anger loosened by alcohol lashing out in predictable ways. Here he is watching a bad man cross an unseen line, taking badness to a new level. He is afraid—afraid for Brad, afraid for himself and afraid for whoever is being hunted out there.

  He watches Decker break the shotgun to look at the two rounds in the chambers. “Jesse,” Decker calls, “How many rounds you got?”

  Jesse is feeling lost. Things are not turning out the way he expected. “Six,” he calls back. “Five in the mag, one up the spout!”

  Decker stands in silence with his head bowed, thinking. He blames the headmaster and the bitch for making a fool of him. He decides he is going to enjoy the challenge. They think they are smart but haven’t seen anything yet. The hunt is going to be good and the satisfaction well earned.

  He sits on a log, considering what he has at his disposal and what he wants to achieve. He also thinks about the bitch and her headmaster and what they want to do. He stands and reaches into the Patrol to take out the map he stole from the headmaster’s house. On it are the coloured areas, the most likely locations of the plane. Two of the locations are close to where they are now. Whatever they do, he decides, they have to come back here. The bastard hid a wheel so he hopes to use a vehicle as a way out because it’ll be a long walk otherwise.

  He gets up and reaches into the portable fridge for a beer to help him think. Bastard didn’t think of taking a beer did he? He’s a no hoper who just got lucky, he consoles himself. They’ll be out there with some muddy water to drink if they’re lucky and I’m back here sipping a cold beer! A beer for breakfast, what a luxury! “Jesse! Get the fire going and get us a decent breakfast. We got a big day!”

  Jesse pushes Brad down against the Troopie but doesn’t bother tying him. He can’t go anywhere and Joe certainly isn’t going anywhere without him. “Sure Pa, what do you want? We got eggs, steak and bread.” He tosses some kindling onto the smouldering coals.

  “Sounds good, just get it going!” Decker yells as he sips the beer. A plan is forming in his mind, as it always does. He has to think of everything as usual. Since the beer helps him think, he cracks another one.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Alex sets a cracking pace in spite of the pieces of blanket around their boots. Jed finally calls a halt and removes the coverings, keeping them for future use.

  “We’ve gone far enough to break the trail,” he says as he sits down and twists the cap off the coke bottle. “Have a drink. Not the best drink to have on a walk, but we can use the bottle for water when we find some. At least it’s diet coke!”

  Alex understands the need for liquid and takes the bottle, drinking in small sips. While she does so, Jed stands up and starts to empty his pockets, throwing everything on the ground ne
xt to the billy and the nut bars. Knife, matches, a small ball of string, a compass, steel for sharpening his knife and some water purifying tablets.

  “What are you doing?” Alex asks as she continues sipping.

  “It’s time to see what resources we have. When you’re ready, I want you do the same,” he commands.

  Alex understands what he is doing. She opens her small travel bag and starts to throw things out onto the pile. Lip gloss, packets of pepper and sugar picked up from cafés, nail file and scissors, band aids, a wallet for cards and money, some paper clips, old receipts, lip stick, some loose tampons, a tube of sun cream… then her hand stops as her fingers feel something in the bag.

  Jed notices the hesitation. “We need everything, Alex,” he encourages.

  She withdraws her hand, drops the packet of hard sweets onto the pile then tosses out the Chupa Chups lollipops, one by one. “I’d forgotten about them,” Alex excuses herself.

  Jed looks down at them, realising the iron maiden has some weaknesses after all. “I prefer peppermint Kit Kats and Jersey Caramels,” he responds, enjoying her discomfort. “I guess they’ll come in handy for a sugar boost.”

  She gives him a look as she keeps her hand in the travel bag. Finally she withdraws her hand, cupped around a long thin shape and tosses it onto the pile.

  Jed looks down at it stunned, then reaches to hold it between his fingertips. Drawing the knife from its battered metal scabbard, he inspects it closely. The blade is under two centimetres wide at the base and thirteen centimetres long. It tapers to a point with the first four centimetres sharpened to an edge. It is attached to a wooden hilt with nine rough grooves cut on each side. The scabbard has a leaf spring arrangement so it can be clipped to a belt or uniform jacket. He recognises it as a World War I German fighting knife.

  “Have you been carrying this all the time I’ve known you?” he asks warily.

  She hesitates for a few seconds and then nods. “No one will ever brutalise me again!” The expression on her face is determined.

  He has no doubt she means it. Although he has heard parts of her story and seen Decker in action, seeing her produce that deadly piece of historical weaponry drives home the reality of their predicament.

  “Anything else you want to declare?” he asks, only half in jest.

  “Not right now,” she answers, the hint of a tight, fathomless smile leaving the question open.

  Jed wonders about her avoidance. He has a brief vision of her with a rocket launcher in the boot of her car, but skips to another thought.

  “We saw Decker try to do something with his laptop,” he says as he bends down to sift through their meagre possessions. “I don’t see much chance that he planted another back-up transmitter on us.” Looking over himself, Jed takes his watch off and inspects it before putting it back on. “The only time this has been off is when I was in the shower.” He fingers his belt buckle but rules that out. He looks over at her and runs his eyes over her body. “What about you?”

  Her head tilts to one side and he can see her taking the question seriously.

  “I don’t want to be paranoid but we should strip and have a close look at everything,” he suggests, missing the double meaning.

  “Not likely,” she shoots back. “Not here. I’ve got nudity issues!”

  Don’t know why? he thinks, as his eye runs involuntarily down her attractive body and strong shapely legs. He has a vision of those legs wrapped around him but keeps his expression cool. Looking up, Jed knows she can guess his thoughts but she makes no comment. Both know they have more important things to deal with. “How about you go behind the bush over there and I’ll go behind the tree and we have a good feel.” Damn! That didn’t come out right, he winces as he stumbles on to cover his discomfort. A case of the subconscious overriding the conscious! “You’ll be looking for something small, like a capsule. It could be sewn into a lining or anything. If he placed one, he’d pick something he was pretty sure we would have on us when we went bush. The latest ones are miniature transmitters that can be preset or activated with a coded message.”

  Knowing how serious the situation is she nods before moving off into the scrub, further away than he intended. He does the same, stepping behind a bush to strip everything off. He fingers his T-shirt, jeans, underclothes, socks and necklace, not with the expectation of finding anything but making sure he is thorough. He dresses and steps across to a log to brush off his feet and put his socks and boots on. He looks down at the boot in his hands and sees the flaw in the rubber at the back of the heel. An expensive pair of boots shouldn’t have such a flaw.

  Slipping his knife out of its scabbard, Jed slices a ‘V’ into the heel, inserting the point into the rubber and flicking it up. He can see where a hole has been drilled into the heel and sealed with black boot repair glue. A capsule lies partly hidden by rubber and glue. Jed strips it away, leaving the capsule in the palm of his hand.

  “Alex, over here!”

  “Give me a minute! Have to get dressed!”

  He contemplates the scene taking place in the scrub behind him and, while immersed in his thoughts, she appears at his side. To his great disappointment, fully dressed.

  “Take a look,” holding out his hand. “The bastard had more time in my house than I thought!” he says angrily, remembering the night in question. “The man is good!”

  Alex picks up the capsule between her fingers. “It looks pretty harmless, but I know otherwise.”

  “Let’s have a look at your boots,” he replies, beckoning her to sit down on the log. Alex slips them off for inspection. They are a light but sturdy Scarpa bushwalking shoe with good inbuilt ventilation.

  Jed picks them up one by one and turns them over in his hands, inspecting them carefully. “Like almost everyone else, we both have one favourite pair of outdoor boots. Look here,” he says, pointing to the back of one of her heels. “He did a better job on yours than mine. More time I guess! I’m out of my depth here but these seem to be miniature RFIDs, radio frequency identification units. They don’t have a battery but use energy from a radio signal to send a response. Good enough for close-range work.”

  Alex watches as Jed picks up his knife and slices a ‘V’ into the heel of her shoe, levering out the piece and placing it in her hand.

  “The man is bloody good, I’ll give him that! He got us both. But he hasn’t been able to use it so far. Maybe he couldn’t get a signal or a satellite or maybe they’re broken, who knows? Let’s count ourselves grateful for small mercies.” He puts both capsules on the ground, picks up a rock and smashes them both. “Whatever problems he may have had, at least now we know for sure they don’t work.”

  They sit together in silence for a while.

  Finally, Jed says, “Going forward is our only option at the moment. It’s a lot further back to the homestead! Going forward also means we have a fair idea where he is—behind us! I just don’t like the idea of not knowing where the bastard might be. Apart from that, I’ve got a stubborn streak and I want to get to that plane.” He picks up the covers he made for their boots and fits them once again.

  She doesn’t doubt the distance back to the homestead, remembering the jolting journey of the day before. “We keep going,” she confirms with determination. “I’m just as stubborn!”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Decker has decided on a plan and is determined to make it work. He lets Joe off the leash and sends him to find the bitch’s tracks. Joe has no choice if he wants to give Brad the faintest chance of staying alive. Decker even relents just a little, weighing up whether to let the black fellas go if he can lay his hands on the bitch and the headmaster. The thought doesn’t last long.

  The chances of getting caught out here are slim and he has put the effort into designing a rock solid alibi. If it comes to it, he can show that he and Jesse are a long way from here. He learnt his lesson the last time when the bitch paid off his mate and sent him to prison. Some mate! Now dead and buried and
no one is the wiser, just another missing person. A back hoe can work wonders in the Tasmanian bush!

  He has set Jesse up with everything he needs and given him clear instructions. Brad is tied to a tree within rifle shot so Jess can finish him any time he likes. Joe has no idea where he is and has to produce the goods. If he does, anything is possible.

  Decker has to admit he is getting a bit wiser as he gets older. Maybe he doesn’t have to do everyone who gets in his way. Hope gives people motivation and if he gets what he wants, maybe he can afford to be generous. After all, Decker consoles himself, he is really a pretty good person. It’s just that life has been hard. He’s had to do tough things to survive. He and the bitch could have had a good life if she had done as she was told. All he wants is a good meal every night and a good screw whenever he needs it, but she had to be difficult. So be it, but she will pay, then life can go on. It is too late to find a woman to be a mother to Jesse but he is getting a bit past that, anyway. Maybe he’ll just find a woman who’ll be a good wife to him. Decker waits patiently for Joe to return, confident everything is back under his control.

  Joe heads out to the fire that led them astray earlier in the day. It is easy to follow the tracks between the bluff and the site of the fire. He finds where Alex and Jed slept for the night, shallow depressions in the sand outlining the shape of their bodies. He also finds the cleft where they climbed onto the bluff and the slight marks where their boots and belts scarred the surface of the rock. From there he finds tracks heading to the site of the fire, the imprint of smaller shoes and a lighter footprint, a woman, crossing the country with most of her weight on her toes, moving fast but carefully. She turns no stones and breaks few twigs, the only sign of her passing being the marks of her feet where they touch the softer ground. She is good, far better than many others he has tracked in the bush.