How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling

by Martin Chambers

  So with this movie deal we can distribute aid. Perhaps we can make it that people like Noroz won’t have to make those journeys and his father can look after his mother and not have to walk several hours each way every week, just to get food. When the money runs out I hope we can find a way to make sure all this work continues. Because that is what I think about. How have we achieved anything at all, if what we achieve is not sustainable? And let’s face it, what Spanner and I and the others were doing was good, but it wasn’t sustainable. Eventually it was going to come crashing down.

  21

  In the wet you see great black clouds with streaks of rain rolling in from the horizon. Either side there is bright sunlight, shafts of light that are like beacons from the heavens. But it is all so oppressively humid until the rains hit that you see neither the light or the dark, nor the beauty of it. The rain is a relief but the reality is, it is not God smiling on you but about to dump on you. Sometimes the storms build from nothing, come out of nowhere, but the deeper you get into the wet the more you see them. If you get caught out in one of those storms you might be stuck for a while, the roads become boggy and impassable and the 4WD slews and slides all over, digs great ruts that later dry into bone-shattering holes that fill with bulldust and you don’t see them until too late. When the wet arrives you have to submit to a force greater than yourself and live confined near to the station until it is over.

  Then the dry arrives. It comes about the time the wet seems to go on forever and you think the seasons are all wrong and the wet will never end. The Aborigines have six seasons in a year but we white folk can manage only the wet or the dry. With the arrival of the dry the oppressive heat goes, the humidity goes, the early mornings and late evenings are cool and wonderful and life is worth living again.

  With the arrival of our third dry came a big black 4WD, a massive Ford F250, a great threatening thing more like a ship than a car. It glided into the compound and five men got out. They were dressed as hunters, khaki greens and browns. It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to run. Or were we getting complacent?

  One of them came directly to the office where I had been watching and the others carried large duffel bags into the canteen as if they owned the place.

  ‘Where’s Palmenter?’

  ‘Up the coast. Can I help? I’m Nick, the station manager.’

  I might have appeared calm but inside I was shitting myself. This guy looked as if he could have eaten Palmenter for breakfast. I knew something serious was about to happen. They were obviously not the police, Immigration or Customs. Ever since we took over I had lived in fear of this moment, when whoever Palmenter had been dealing with arrived and started asking questions. Someone owned the two million dollars we took and perhaps it wasn’t Palmenter.

  To begin with, when the phone in Palmenter’s office rang it was easy to fob off callers. If it was to do with legitimate business I would explain that I was now the manager of the station, and as I had been dealing with the accounts these calls were simple to deal with. At first I had to forge Palmenter’s signature on cheques but later I set up the satellite dish for the internet and made direct transfers. The less legitimate side was also simple to deal with. All I had to say was that there was some difficulty with Customs, or the police, that we had to lie low for a while. A few calls each week became calls once in a while, less frequent but curt.

  ‘Palmenter.’

  ‘He’s not in. Can I be of assistance?’

  ‘When is he in?’

  ‘He doesn’t come to the station himself much anymore.’

  And the phone would go dead.

  Or someone would call and say: ‘Where is he?’ Demanding. No introductory niceties, I would know who the caller meant.

  ‘Melbourne I think.’

  But these calls were few. I had expected that eventually someone would ring and ask me directly, someone from the brothels would ask about a delivery, perhaps mention by name one of the places so that I would know, without them saying the exact nature of the call, that they were after more girls. But that never happened and the calls became rare and we continued importing and sending mixed loads south to their new future. I was happy not to supply girls for the brothels and hoped that when they arrived in the city, men and women, they would all have a better chance.

  I didn’t think anyone would turn up unannounced but just in case I kept a share of the money packaged in envelopes ready to pay off someone. I had it neatly folded in different amounts, from a thousand to ten thousand each in its own envelope. If it cost more than ten thousand to buy someone I’d be doing a runner. More than ten grand, that amount of money wouldn’t buy you out of trouble, you’d give them the money and then still be up shit creek.

  This bloke wasn’t interested in money.

  ‘I know who you are. Who else is here?’

  ‘No one. I’m in charge. How can I help?’

  ‘What about Newman, where is he?’

  How did this bloke know Newman?

  ‘Indonesia. He lives up there.’

  ‘Simms? Charles?’

  This bloke was serious. He must have had some connection to what had gone before because he was naming all of the people from Palmenter’s time. His buddies were probably outside talking to Cookie, so if I didn’t tell him straight he would find out anyway and know I was spinning shit. I was a different person now to the one who had been intimidated by Palmenter, but this bloke made Palmenter and his intimidation seem like amateur hour.

  ‘Simms is around somewhere. Charles is driving a tour, be back soon.’ The girls were down at the waterhole with Joseph and Chad, but I wasn’t going to volunteer that. I was going to ask why he wanted them, repeat that I was in charge, but this wasn’t a bloke you asked questions to and I was beginning to think admitting to being in charge might not have been such a good idea.

  ‘Okay. And Palmenter’s up the coast?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Get the chopper in. We have to go see him.’

  How did he know about the chopper?

  I objected. Couldn’t it wait until he got back, he didn’t like to be disturbed, I wasn’t exactly sure where he was, remote fishing, and so on, but they were having none of it.

  ‘Get the chopper or you’ll be out there at the pit with the others.’ He paused and considered me. It was the only time he said anything that he thought about beforehand. ‘The one that got away has been found. He left a notebook, wrote it all down. Now we’ve got to tidy up Palmenter’s mess.’

  He was testing me. If I didn’t react quickly to the seriousness of this news, it was as good as admitting I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and I’d be sprung as no right-hand man of the absent Palmenter. Who was this bloke? He knew about the pit. These guys meant business. Bad business.

  ‘Okay. The chopper will take about an hour to get here. You can wait in the canteen if you like, grab yourselves a beer.’ I hurried off as if I knew how urgent this was. What did he mean, the one that got away?

  While we waited, his four buddies set up cans on the fence posts and shot at them. It wasn’t practice. They didn’t need practice. They had high-powered rifles and each shot was a direct hit that completely obliterated the cans. They began using full beer cans, bottles of sauce from the barbecue and then watermelons from the garden. They shot at the targets even as one of them was setting up the next. Cookie and I sat in the canteen not talking. I was watching the cowboys through the window. I remembered I had seen at least one of them with Palmenter. We were a small town under siege in a wild west movie. Charles arrived from his tour with the empty bus but neither he nor Simms came to join us.

  When the chopper arrived, the ringleader demanded that I come with them to the coast. I walked as casually as I could over to the chopper while he yelled to his gang.

  ‘Finish up here,’ he shouted.

  The sound of the chopper drowned out the last of the gunfire and a few minutes later they marched over to us with their gu
ns and duffel bags. They climbed in next to me and I thought there was a nod of recognition between them and Rob the pilot. Rob had flown for us ever since the Palmenter days, he was the one who had stood guard over the chopper while I talked to Newman after that last Palmenter muster, he was the one who had been least pleased that I had taken over. He hardly ever spoke to me and he had never, ever, asked after Palmenter or when or if he was coming back.

  ‘All done. Not like the old days though,’ one of the four said to the leader.

  ‘A job to do boys. We do this job first, then maybe, just like the old days. One more time, who knows?’

  I only half heard him. My mind was racing ahead, trying to plan what I might say or do when we got to the camp and they discovered Palmenter wasn’t there. In the hour-long ride in sporadic conversation between them I gathered that a botanist had discovered the body of one of our refugees who had been hiding out in a cave. The botanist had been looking at plants on Palmenter Wildlife Conservancy and the way the head cowboy said ‘Palmenter Wildlife Conservancy’ left no doubt what he thought about the conserving of anything. The refugee had left a notebook.

  ‘They can write?’ asked one of the cowboys.

  ‘Monkey language,’ one of them said. The others laughed.

  ‘Enough to put us in the shit,’ said the boss.

  The chopper wasn’t due up at the coast for several days so Spanner came out to meet us, wondering what might have brought us out so early. Even before the chopper was on the ground the leader had jumped down and sprinted to Spanner but it was too noisy to speak. Spanner motioned us over to the tents.

  ‘Where’s Palmenter?’

  Spanner looked at me and in that look he betrayed to everyone that Palmenter wasn’t here, perhaps that he never was, that Spanner didn’t get what was going on. He might have been shot there and then if I hadn’t spoken up. The chopper motor was winding down and formed a high whine behind my words.

  ‘It’s okay, Wayne, these blokes know what’s going on. Is he out on one of the boats?’

  ‘Won’t be back till sunset. You blokes want a beer?’

  Fucking Spanner. The genius. That’s the benefit of working close with someone for several years. You can read each other’s minds, understand the messages hidden in your words. No one ever called him Wayne.

  ‘Stick ya fuckin’ beer up your arse. We wait. Get your kit, men, and deal with that.’ He motioned towards the chopper that was now silent. Rob was climbing down to come and join us. I turned my back on them all and was walking to the kitchen tent. I didn’t feel like a beer but I was going to get one because the less it looked like I was desperate to discuss anything with Spanner the better.

  I was in the tent opening a beer when a shot rang out. A single shot. Trigger-happy bastards, I thought.

  Spanner ran in.

  ‘Fuck! They shot Rob. Come! Before they get here. Quick!’ He led me out the back and along the path to the toilet tent, ducking quickly behind and then away, keeping the tents between us and where the men were dragging Rob’s body to the water’s edge.

  ‘We’re next if we don’t get outta here.’

  I had never seen Spanner so panicked. I had certainly never seen him run. Ever. Spanner was a great mechanic because he carefully and slowly did things. He considered things. He never rushed. His panic now put the fear in me and I ran too. I followed his short cuts as fast as I could but you can’t run in thongs. I kicked them off. Eventually he stopped behind a tree at the top of a rise where we could look back to see if they were following.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said between gasps for air. I looked at my scratched and bloody feet.

  ‘I’ve met those blokes before. They came in with Palmenter around the time of each muster. The short fat one brought money in. Then they’d arrive by chopper and take the vans out. Shit.’

  ‘I thought Rob knew them. They shot him? Why?’

  ‘Because he knew them. Knew too much. We’re next.’

  ‘But, why?’

  Spanner looked at me, kindly, incredulous, like an older brother.

  ‘You still don’t know, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The hunting. The pit was only for the old ones. The old and the weak, those who wouldn’t be any sport.’ He said this out of breath, between breaths, both from our running and the effort to voice the unspeakable.

  I still didn’t get it. I did. But didn’t want to.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s what this is about and that is why now that they have found us, they won’t stop until they get us. This is sport for them. And we know too much.’

  ‘Hunting?’

  ‘More like target practice. The women went to Melbourne to be put to work, to pay off a debt they would never get rid of. The men who could run. Those who could put up a bit of a challenge.’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  He looked at me to see if I understood. He was leaning down as if short of breath, his hands on his knees to get deeper gasps, but it was as much in fear as with exhaustion.

  ‘C’mon.’

  He was running again, leading the way through the rough scrub and rocks. I was thankful he knew every path and track.

  I followed close behind but it was too difficult to talk, to run and talk and to contemplate what he had just said. I felt so stupid. An idiot who uses this to avoid having to see the truth. The old and weak, the rest a bit of sport. Why had I not seen the obvious? That bloke had said the one that got away. Someone got away, left a notebook. Tying up loose ends. Gunshots back at the station before we got on the chopper. And now here, us. They would never stop chasing us, too much was at stake. And worse, now we were their sport.

  I thought that Palmenter had changed over time. He had become ruder, angrier, short-tempered at everyone and more cagey about things. I remember saying something like that to Spanner once. We had been sitting under the tamarisk tree out behind his room. A hot wind was blowing and it echoed through the tree and all through the settlement. He had a beer but lately I had noticed he was drinking less, was more thoughtful of late and I said so. I said things seemed to be changing, Palmenter was more difficult and Spanner was drinking less. Perhaps nothing had changed and it had always been like this, that my first impression of the place was wrong. First impressions are like that, often wrong but difficult to move. I said it like that, as conversation.

  ‘When I first met you I thought you drank too much, that you were a drunk, that that was why you never left here. He was an arrogant businessman and you were a drunk. Now it seems you are drinking less and he is getting more angry. He is angry all the time.’

  Actually I had thought it might have been something to do with the shooting of Arif. Ever since then Palmenter had been unapproachable. You stayed out of his way and he only ever spoke to you if he wanted something directly.

  ‘There’s something,’ Spanner had said. He had thought for a while before he responded to me and then waited before he added, ‘They don’t go to Sydney.’

  ‘Where to then? Brisbane? Alice? Makes sense to make it a shorter journey.’ Funny how we could discuss the business in a third party abstract way, as if it were not the illegal trafficking of people but the legitimate operation of a cattle station, as if the reality of it was nothing to do with us and all the things we knew about: the rip-offs; charging them every last dollar for an old car that we would take back; the bodies buried at the pit; Arif. Arif. Spanner didn’t know about Arif. I had never told him, it was too shocking and the way to deal with that was to never think or talk or go there. Pretend it never happened and never think about it and eventually it would go away, sink deep into the thick mud that was the bottom of the mind, the thick ooze that hid all that was Palmenter Station.

  ‘They were coming back too soon. The vans. I thought it was too quick, the vans coming back after one week. Can’t get to Sydney and back in a week. So I thought Brisbane. But something else was wrong. I dunno, it just felt wrong. So I checked. I
wrote down the odometers. They only go fifty, hundred klicks. Don’t even leave the station.’

  ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘Beats me. Something’s not right.’

  The whole place was wrong and we both knew it and we both, to survive, knew not to talk about it. To do so was to stir the mud and this was the closest we had ever come to saying outright how bad things were.

  It was some time after that, maybe a month or so, that Spanner told me something so shocking that at first I didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t joke about it, but he must be mistaken. Palmenter had told him to fill in the pit and dig a new one.

  ‘I didn’t understand why, I thought there was still plenty of room in the pit, could bury our rubbish there for years and so why bother to dig a new one? When I got out there it was mostly filled in already, roughly, dirt just pushed in from the sides. I started to tidy it up, scrape the dozer blade over the surface to flatten it so it could all grow over.’ He looked at me, assessing me, seeing if he should say something.

  ‘There’s bodies. The dozer blade pushed up something and I got out to look. It was an arm. There was more. Several bodies.’

  ‘Those five from out on the south track.’ I knew it wasn’t. We burned them inside their van. It wasn’t Arif either. That was long ago.

  ‘No, more. Recent. Several. Buried, like not properly, just sand pushed over the top.’

  ‘People die on the boat trips. I guess they have to be buried somewhere.’ I sounded more at ease than I was.

  ‘Why fly them up here? If people die on the boat, just throw the bodies overboard. No, the fucker has been killing them and when he sent me out there to hide the evidence he knew I’d find them. He must have known I’d see them.’