The Big Score

by Peter Corris

  Three off-road vehicles were there when I arrived and two sedans. A covered truck pulled up soon after. I sat tight, preferring to have St James seek me out rather than the other way around. After a bit of confab between the various drivers, a man jumped down from the truck and came towards me. No mistaking him, although he wasn’t as tall as he’d looked in the photo. As he drew nearer, I could see why he hadn’t wanted a clearer photo—hair that had looked white-blonde was actually grey and the flinty eyes were surrounded by lines and wrinkles. If his birth certificate said he was sixty I still wouldn’t have believed it—he was at least ten years older. Still, he moved well, with a long, balanced stride, and looked trim inside dark pants and shirt and a tight down vest. I got out of the car.

  ‘Mr Hardy, I presume,’ he said, the voice strongly accented. ‘Welcome.’

  ‘Thank you.’ We shook hands. His grip was strong but not aggressive. ‘Cliff ’ll do it, Mr St James.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he shook his head. ‘We insist on some formality in this exercise. I’m simply known as Leader and what you might call our NCOs are called numbers one to five respectively. The trainees answer to code names, which will be stencilled onto the back of their clothing.’

  ‘Got it,’ I said. ‘Very efficient arrangement. Where are we bound?’

  ‘All in good time, Mr Hardy, all in good time. If you’ll just fall in to the middle of the convoy we’ll be on our way.’

  I nodded and got back behind the wheel. 0630 hours, Leader, NCOs, convoy—military stuff, but there was nothing of that about the vehicles. The 4WDs were of various makes, sizes and colours and the truck was red with a blue covering. The lettering on its side read DTS but, with the sedans positioned between the truck and the 4WDs, a casual observer would see nothing alarming about us as we pulled on to the road and took off at a modest pace. Traffic was light and a grey, overcast day was building. Before too long at least our intended direction was evident—west.

  Clay had provided me with a batch of CDs not to my taste—classical and jazz instrumentals, not even an aria or two. Music needs words to my mind, but I tried a few before switching off and tuning in to Radio National at news time. A congestion tax for the CBD was being debated—okay by me. Anyone who takes a car to within a couple of clicks of the city deserves to pay.

  It wasn’t a problem here where we picked up the Great Western Highway and followed it to the Bathurst Road exit. The land rose, the air cooled and I was grateful for the Pajero’s heating system. We ran into a brief but severe rainstorm and the wipers coped well: heating and effective wipers both needed urgent attention on my Falcon.

  I was impressed by the discipline of my co-drivers. No macho stuff. When cowboys wanted to pass they were permitted, and when the truck laboured a bit on the hills it was allowed to fall behind and then the convoy slowed almost imperceptibly to let it catch up. Give him his due, St James apparently had no need to be at the head of his troops. I was happy to stay more or less in the middle position. I amused myself by memorising the registration plates of the truck and several of the other vehicles—for no good reason, just staying in practice.

  After we bypassed Bathurst my Clay-supplied mobile rang. It was St James, who’d evidently been given the number by Clay, something he hadn’t told me.

  ‘Any bladder pressure, Mr Hardy?’

  ‘I went before I came.’

  He didn’t laugh. ‘Is that a no?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a no.’

  I heard him draw in an exasperated breath, but he maintained control. ‘Good man!’

  He rang off. A concerned commander, or testing my mettle? I shouldn’t have needled him but I couldn’t help it. Serious soldiering has my respect; play-actors should have a sense of humour.

  We went off the paved road onto gravel and then to a dirt track winding through thick bush. Climbing and getting colder. A brief stop for a gate to be opened, and then it was over a cattle grid and onto a track that was wider than the previous one and had recently been graded. The bush was still thick, but I could see open patches through the trees. A bridge over a moderately large stream appeared to be new and solid. Then the convoy slowed, took a bend, and I came in sight of what St James probably referred to as HQ, or perhaps the operational base, with an electronically operated gate.

  The farmhouse in the middle of the enclosed space was sandstone and old with a bullnose verandah running around three sides. It was long and low and three chimneys were smoking. There was a cement parking space for the vehicles to one side and four old-style Nissan huts arranged in a square around a gravel area with a flagpole in its centre. No grass, no garden except a small patch around the base of the flagpole. Nothing frivolous.

  Uh-oh, I thought, square bashing and hard beds in unheated huts. Took me back and not to where I wanted to go. I determined to insist on my civilian status. I fancied being inside the house, nestled up to a fire with a drink in hand.

  I parked the Pajero as far as I could from the other vehicles, got out and used Clay’s camera to take a few pictures of the scene. All of a sudden the site had assumed a military aspect despite the disparate character of the vehicles—the Australian flag, flying bravely above another carrying a DTS logo, in a light, chilly breeze, and the fatigues and berets being worn by the personnel did the trick.

  St James approached me. ‘Should have asked permission, Hardy,’ he said.

  He was annoyed enough to drop the Mister. ‘Sorry, Leader,’ I said. ‘I meant no harm.’

  ‘Hope not. Ask next time. You’ll be quartered in the house. Take your gear in and one of my chaps’ll show you to your room.’

  Suited me. I almost saluted. I gathered together the stuff Clay had provided and my own equipment and organised it into a portable load. I spent longer at the task than needed, and used the time to inspect the NCOs and trainees as they got organised. I was more than fifty metres away and couldn’t be quite sure I’d spotted Gary Pearson. The code names were simply colours with a numeral, red 1, blue 2, yellow, etc. Pearson could’ve been one of three big blokes with a similar build.

  As expected, the trainees looked young—early twenties or younger—and the NCOs were older. To my surprise, two of them had dark faces. Three or four of the trainees didn’t look like Anglo-Celts either, but they all seemed dead keen. They fell in smartly and were marched off towards the Nissan huts with duffel bags on their square shoulders.

  I took my stuff to the house—laptop slung from one shoulder, overnight bag from the other, carrying other items. Just before I mounted the steps to the verandah, I looked around and experienced an odd sensation that stayed with me, although it meant nothing at all—I was the only man in sight not wearing headgear. Seriously undressed in military terms.

  The big man who met me on the verandah wore a beret and a buttoned-up white Nehru-type jacket, with black trousers tucked into combat boots. Not quite a steward, not quite a soldier, but not far off either.

  Over the next three days I spent some time participating in the trainees’ activities. I had a comfortable bed in a warm room while they slept in bunks in the huts with kerosene heaters that didn’t do much against the cold. I ate the same nutritious food as them but served motel-style in my room. I attended without encouragement one of St James’s lectures on courage and character, and that was enough.

  I went on a couple of the route marches and didn’t fall behind, although I was carrying only a light backpack while they were heavily laden. A couple of trainees who finished well behind were given mild kitchen punishment duties. I passed on fording the waist-deep stream with equipment held up high above my head. Two trainees who fell into the water were roundly abused by the NCOs.

  On the fourth day the trainees were mustered for shooting practice and I went along. I’d been permitted to take photographs up to then, but St James banned the camera for this exercise.

  ‘Might give your readers the wrong idea,’ he said. ‘You can write whatever you like, but pictures speak louder and sometimes mo
re ambiguously than words.’

  Nicely put. They marched, I walked, to a shooting site that had been constructed by bulldozers. A chute with sides about six metres high had been built with a solid earth wall at least twice that height fifty or sixty metres distant. Targets were arranged on the wall that sloped back slightly so that ricochets and deflections would be directed away from the shooters. There were six shooting stalls, all equipped with benches holding earmuffs, ammunition and semiautomatic rifles.

  It had taken a while to identify Gary Pearson. The trainees wore their hats pulled down and seemed to delight in keeping their combat camouflage paint on, but I had him now and watched him closely. He appeared to be one of the keenest and most accomplished of the trainees— smartly turned out at all times, an early finisher in the marches, first or second man across the stream, beating a couple of the NCOs who’d had a head start. Now he was selected as one of the first batch of shooters.

  St James took me aside. ‘In case you’re wondering, Hardy, DTS is registered as a gun club. In any case, this is private property.’

  ‘Really? I meant to ask. How many acres?’

  ‘About a hundred and fifty hectares.’

  One for him.

  A volley of shots sounded.

  ‘I hope you’re not a pacifist.’

  ‘Not me,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have the courage.’

  One for me, maybe.

  The shooting continued and there are few more boring things to watch and listen to—motor racing, perhaps. The targets were human silhouettes of various shapes, sizes and colours. After a while the bullets had shredded them into unrecognisable tatters. One of the dark NCOs, still known to me only as number three, announced that Pearson had scored more direct and well-placed hits than any of the others. He clapped the young man on the back and had to reach up to do it, being ten centimetres shorter.

  ‘Who’s that NCO?’ I asked St James, who’d watched the shooting with his head tilted back in his Viking pose.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He stands out—one of your best.’

  ‘True. Sirdar Assad. He should be. He fought in places you’ve heard of and places you haven’t heard of.’

  ‘He’s a mercenary?’

  St James ignored the question. ‘Promising lad, that Pearson,’ he said.

  ‘What do you imagine all this fits them for especially?’

  ‘The future.’

  I took an appraising look at the trainees being instructed in the maintenance of their weapons. ‘Kids look like suburban types to me—office workers, keyboard jockeys. How will this kind of training help?’

  St James appeared to be pleased to get the question. He adjusted his beret. ‘Do you think this country’s safe, Hardy?’

  ‘Safe enough.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘I reckon it’s safe from all but a handful of religious maniacs who’ll go out of fashion as soon as the US elects an intelligent president and the media stops beating the terrorism drum.’

  He spun on his heel. ‘There are none so blind that cannot see.’

  I thought, but didn’t say, a misquote, and cliche is the last resort of the obsessive. It wasn’t much but I was beginning to get a closer focus on what St James and DTS were all about, beyond what was in the literature.

  To my surprise, St James invited me to give a talk to the trainees that night on the subject of journalism as a profession. ‘You seemed to have some definite views on the matter and its relation to the present crisis when we talked earlier,’ he said. ‘We want these lads to have active minds as well as bodies, so I’d be glad if you’d give them the benefit of your experience and be willing to field whatever questions they might throw at you.’

  I couldn’t refuse and I muddled through it on the basis of whatever I’d picked up from the few journalist friends I had. Two adjoining rooms in the house with the connecting doors drawn apart served as the lecture theatre. Fires were burning in both rooms and the trainees seemed happy to be there, whatever the subject, instead of in their huts. In years past I’d given talks on the private enquiry business to TAFE students doing the PEA qualifying course, and this wasn’t so different, until Gary Pearson got to his feet in question time.

  ‘What would you say, Mr Hardy, to the idea that journalists are liars who write whatever their bosses tell them to write no matter what the facts are?’

  ‘I’d say that’s bullshit.’

  ‘We don’t permit bad language here, Hardy,’ St James said.

  ‘That’s bullshit, too.’

  Two of the NCOs, Assad and another, moved in efficiently. Assad blocked me off from the audience while the other one pinioned my arms and eased me out through a side door. I heard St James raise his voice slightly above the murmuring as he brought the trainees to order.

  Standing in the corridor, we were joined by the man who’d met me on the verandah on day one—same beret, same jacket, same pants and boots but a different mood. ‘Go through to your room,’ he said. ‘Leader will speak to you when he’s ready.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ I said.

  I’d blown it but I didn’t much care. I assumed the trainees were paying through the nose for their bivouac and the privilege of being insulted by their instructors. Looked to me as if St James had some kind of frustrated obsession about the military life and the decadence of society that he was turning into money. Let him. Gary Pearson was a big adult with certain skills and rather uncongenial ideas. I couldn’t see him coming to any physical harm, and if he chose to embrace St James’s view of the world, that was his lookout. I felt I’d fulfilled my commission for Clay Harrison and I didn’t want to hang around this overgrown schoolboy atmosphere any longer. I started packing.

  St James walked in without knocking.

  ‘Bad manners,’ I said. ‘Tsk, tsk.’

  ‘You’re a disgrace. I’m going to contact your editor and withdraw permission for you to write about us.’

  ‘Your privilege. I was never much good at writing comedy anyway.’

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Packing. I’m leaving.’

  ‘You are not. The perimeter is patrolled and protected. You will remain here until you are given permission to leave.’

  ‘And when will that be, dear Leader?’

  If he got the reference he didn’t react. ‘0800,’ he said.

  ‘Eight am, that’s fine. Goodnight.’

  He was adept at heel-turning; he did it again and left.

  I’d eaten, the room was warm, there was an ensuite and I had the scotch and a good biography of Paul Scott. No reason not to stay the night. I had the level in the bottle challenged and I was still reading a bit after one am when there was a faint knock on the door. I opened it to find Gary Pearson standing in the darkened passage in his socks, carrying his boots.

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ he whispered.

  ‘I thought the house was off limits at night for you guys.’

  ‘It is. They’d throw me out of the course if they knew. Let me in, Mr Hardy, please.’

  I let him in and quietly closed the door behind him. Stealth, whispering and politeness were all very well, but was this one of St James’s little gambits? I pointed to a chair. ‘Want a drink, Pearson?’

  ‘Sure, thanks. In case you hadn’t noticed, the camp is dry.’

  I poured some scotch over ice and added water. ‘I noticed. I could’ve used something to wash down those stews and pastas. So that’s another rule you’re breaking.’

  He took the drink in his meaty fist. ‘Thanks. Yeah. Sorry I got up your nose tonight. I had to find out where you were coming from.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yeah, you think this is all a lot of crap.’

  ‘There goes another rule.’

  ‘Here goes another one—I have to get out tonight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t say, I just do. It’s important.’

  ‘Why tell me?’ />
  ‘I want you to help me.’

  ‘Why would I do that. I’m just—’

  ‘If you’re a journalist then I’m John Howard. I’ve seen the way you move and look at things, how you hold yourself. You’re here for some other reason. I don’t know what it is and I don’t care, but since you’re on the way out anyway, I thought you might help me. I’m going no matter what, but it’d be easier as a two-man operation.’

  ‘If they caught you sneaking out, what would they do?’

  ‘Something pretty rough, psychological as well as physical. I don’t like to think about it. I heard of this kid who finished up with a broken leg …’

  ‘So you reckon with me along they wouldn’t try anything like that?’

  He emptied his glass. ‘I hadn’t thought about that, but yeah, I guess so. I can pay you.’

  He had me over a barrel although he didn’t know it. My brief from his father was to look after him, and if I didn’t go along with his plan and it came unstuck as a solo, it sounded as if he was in for a bad time. I didn’t mind putting a thumb in St James’s eye, but it wouldn’t do to appear too idealistic.

  ‘How much?’ I said.

  ‘Five hundred dollars.’

  ‘Chicken feed, but you’re on. How d’you see it working?’

  He told me that he’d located the control point for the sensor lights and the electronic gate. ‘I’m okay with that stuff,’ he said. ‘I can take them out long enough for us to get clear in your vehicle.’

  I didn’t fully believe him but I was willing to play along. What was the worst that could happen? The Pajero could certainly break through the fence beside the gate once we got rolling, and I hadn’t seen any guard towers around the perimeter.

  Pearson explained that he’d worked out a way to disable the lights and the gate for a maximum of thirty-five seconds. ‘Then a backup power source cuts in and the place is floodlit again, a siren goes off and the gate locks. And one more thing—the dog.’