by P. A. Fenton
Jim frowned. ‘They’ll listen to you?’
Nero nodded once. ‘They will.’
‘OK … so where is this armoury?’
‘Bangalow,’ Nero said.
Jim smiled again. Bangalow. Just a slight detour from Byron. ‘I think we can arrange something,’ he said.
Chapter 43
Blinky eased off the throttle as he approached the highway exit and glanced in his wing mirrors to check that he was still being followed.
He’d done well to resist joining in the looting and bedlam in Surfers Paradise. When they reached the old clubhouse in the Hinterland to top up their petrol tanks and their stomachs, a few of them wanted to charge right into the action. Staffo in particular had been keen as mustard to just shovel down a few raw sausages, shotgun a beer and show all the kids tearing up the streets just how it was done. Blinky could sympathise. It was a little bit like taking a kid to Disneyland and setting up a tent in the car-park for the night, before continuing on to some gypsy fairground in the morning. But still, when the little fucker got lippy with him he’d had to signal to Hammo and Rudolpho to hold him still while he gave him half a dozen shots to the gut. He didn’t want to hurt him too badly, he’d need all the men he could manage for the trip to Bangalow — while the boys at the clubhouse on the coast had been welcoming enough, he knew Big Red would be another story. The hairy fat fucker.
They peeled off onto the exit in a thunder of low-gear grunt. They’d had to drive most of the way in the breakdown lane if there was one, or on the shoulder if there wasn’t. It was slow going, what would normally be a fifty minute trip dragging out to over two hours, but that was still a massive improvement over what the brainless wonders stuck in their cars had to deal with.
Once they were off the highway, the road opened up, and he couldn’t help but throttle back and test the bike’s limits on the much smaller but clearer road. It looped around to cut beneath the highway before climbing uphill to join an older section of the road, a strip of frayed blacktop which unrolled into dense bushland beneath the glare of his bike’s headlamp. When they reached the peak of the hill the road began to drop away sharply, zig-zagging down the slope in tight switchbacks which forced the riders to drop into low gear, and they soon turned off that small road onto a single-lane dirt track. Speed was not an option here, as the loose and uneven surface could quickly deliver a reckless rider into the firm embrace of one of the many broad-trunked trees which lined the track.
After about ten minutes of driving along that unsealed track, what was essentially a very long driveway, the headlights picked out a seven-foot high steel gate, the kind you might see guarding the entrance to a warehouse. They could drive around it, but Blinky knew it would be foolish to try. Mines were dotted around the perimeter, some pressure-sensitive and some hooked up to tripwires. The blast pattern for the things was more or less straight up; you’d be spread amongst the high branches if you stepped on one.
A further deterrent stood up on the other side of the gate, a two-metre giant with sun-bleached hair, brown at the roots, often damp and messy to the point where you couldn’t be sure whether it was matted with blood or just long overdue for a wash. His name was O’Neil, one of Big Red’s hard men. He held an assault rifle loosely in his grip, and Blinky had to wonder whether his huge fingers would fit inside the trigger guard.
‘Fuck off,’ O’Neill said.
‘We’re here to see Red,’ Blinky said.
‘Red says fuck off,’ O’Neill said without pause.
A very different reception from the one they’d received on the Gold Coast. Blinky had a feeling it would be like this with Red, he and Nero went back some.
He looked back at his men, twelve in all. They were exhausted to a man, Blinky was exhausted. He felt like he’d been on that fucking bike for days, the road spooling out behind his wheels and dragging his stamina back with it.
Everyone had their own preferences for a chemical wake-up. Some went for blow, some for speed, some merely for high quantities of caffeine and/or ephedrine. Blinky’s preference was straight caffeine — he’d hit the blow pretty hard up north, sucking down three long lines before confronting Nero. That had gotten out of hand. Then again in Brisbane, with Lily. The comedown was a killer. With every cocaine recharge, he grew less rational, less smart, he knew that from experience even if he didn’t recognise it at the time. No, he did not want to be a blow-head when he met Red. For now, the caffeine did the trick. He could rest later.
Hammo looked at him blankly, waiting for direction, and the rest of the boys seemed to project the feeling that they’d expected open doors. What was O’Neill playing at? What was Red playing at? Didn’t they understand who Blinky was, now that Nero was out of the frame?
Blinky looked back at O’Neill, his mouth dry and his heart pounding, not all of it caused by the caffeine and the blow. O’Neill lifted the gun to an at-arms stance, and Blinky’s heart tripped over itself. Where was the handgun he’d brought with him? Tucked away uselessly in one of the bike’s panniers. O’Neill took his right hand off the gun and reached into one of the front pockets of his denim vest. He brought out a small black plastic rectangle and pressed a button on its centre. An electric motor started humming off to the side of the gate as it rolled open on recessed steel tracks.
‘Just fucken with ya,’ O’Neill said, completely deadpan. ‘Come on in.’ He turned and walked to his own bike parked at the side of the track, slung the rifle over his back and gunned the engine.
The driveway from the gate up to the house was more like a mountain road; it was no wonder that O’Neill had chosen to take his bike to man the post. Blinky tried to follow the path O’Neill was taking, a habitual swerve and dink in his motion taking him around the potholes and stones. The headlights from the bikes flooded the narrow track which was little more than two slender ruts worn though a treeless strip of bush.
They emerged from the trees into a wide open clearing, the weak edge of their headlights illuminating the fringes of what appeared to be a neatly-trimmed lawn running up to a timber bungalow with a wrap-around porch. About half a dozen hogs were lined up to the side of the footpath, which raised Blinky’s spirits somewhat. They might be physically exhausted, but at least they had arrived at the armoury in competitive numbers, if things turned ugly.
That small glimmer of promise was partially snuffed when Red stepped out of the front door and stood on the porch beneath the mosquito-clouded lights, a shoulder holster cradling some kind of portable cannon, and a sawn-off shotgun hanging loosely at his side. It reminded Blinky that while Red and his men might be currently outnumbered, they were not outgunned. Not by a long-shot.
‘Come on in,’ Red boomed from the porch, his voice impossibly carrying over the top of the chorus of Harleys. ‘Take a load off.’
He was not smiling even slightly when he said it. Despite his thick beard obscuring his expression, Blinky was sure he saw a snarl. Red looked down at one of the porch chairs, and Blinky’s eyes followed.
Noonan, the guy Blinky had promised a ten grand bonus for information on the details of the cache, was reclined with his head tilted to the left. He might have been sleeping if not for the wide gash in his throat and most of his blood soaked into his previously white t-shirt.
‘You two’ve met?’ Red said.
‘Ah, fuck.’
Chapter 44
Dave and Pia never did get around to taking a nap. When pizza number three landed on the table, they all decided it would be a shame to waste it. Dave and Tino were eyeing off the last piece of bacon and mushroom when the small radio clipped to Tino’s sleeve burst to life.
‘TB12 this is TB200. You there TB12?’
Tino forced down a half-chewed mouthful and keyed a button on the mic. ‘TB12 here,’ he said. ‘Go ahead Mark. Over.’
‘Tino, they’re coming down the road now. There’s, ah … There’s a few more of them than we thought there’d be. Over.’
‘How many more? Ove
r.’ Tino said.
‘Hundreds. Fucking hundreds of them. We’re not gunna be able to hold them, Tino. Over.’
Tino’s face went grey and he swore loudly before keying the mic again. ‘Mark, just hold them as long as you can, OK? Fire a few shots if you have to, just try to keep them high.’ Tino released the key for a second before adding, ‘Unless they’re wearing Broncos jerseys. Shoot to kill those guys. Over.’
‘Roger that, waste any Broncos supporters. And Queensland origin jerseys. Over.’
‘Goes without saying,’ Tino said. ‘Over.’ The cop on the other end, Mark, he laughed, but it was not a happy sound.
‘Oh, fucking great,’ Mark said. ‘Channel Nine chopper’s just dropped in off Ewingsdale. What do you want me to do with them? Over.’
‘Throw them in front of the looters? Over.’ Tino suggested.
A loud burst of static interrupted his joke, and Dave saw Pia sit up as rigid as a post. A second or so later Dave heard a loud sharp crack like tiny thunder.
‘Fuck,’ Mark said over the radio. ‘At least one of them has a firearm, and he just took a shot at us. Over.’
‘Christ,’ Tino said, and then to Mark said, ‘Keep behind the cars. Stay safe, OK? Over.’
‘I’ll sure as hell try. Over.’
Tino seemed to struggle with a question before keying the radio again. ‘Mark?’
‘Tino?’ Mark set after a brief pause. Maybe confused at the abandonment of protocol.
‘Any fucker you see with a gun, take them out if you can, OK? I don’t want any of those pricks coming into town. Over.’
‘Roger that. Over and out.’
Tino pushed himself back from the table and wiped his mouth on a napkin. Then he took a long drink of water before splashing the remaining contents of the glass into his face.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
He stood up from the table and walked towards the exit, pausing on the way to talk to their tattooed waiter, who shouted fuck before snatching his baseball bat from behind the counter and heading out the door. Dave and Pia stayed behind Tino as he strode out into the street and stopped in the middle of the road.
Shopkeepers, restauranteurs, waiters and bar staff all came outside and looked to Tino. There was a quiet in the street which reminded Dave so much of the crowd’s silence before a serve in a Grand Slam final, his hand twitched as if surprised to not find a racquet handle there. They’d all heard the shot, and would have made a collective guess at what had made the loud flat crack. What they didn’t know was who had fired it.
Tino cleared his throat, and everyone listened. ‘They’re here, folks. We have a barricade in place, but there are a lot of them. Hundreds.’
Not a word. Not a peep. Not a sound. Dave was suddenly very aware that he and Pia were standing next to Tino out in the middle of this impromptu stage, very visible and very exposed. He resisted the urge to back away to the relative cover of the footpath.
Tino turned in place, slowly, taking in the people around him one by one. ‘You know my position on this,’ he said. ‘My official position is, I’d like you all to go home, lock up, and wait until you know it’s safe before coming out again. My personal position, that’s something very different.’
The crowd broke its silence, deep mutters steamrolling over the empty road.
‘My personal position is, let’s stop these pricks at the train tracks. We won’t let them set foot in our town. You heard that gunshot a moment ago, it wasn’t from one of my boys. So we know that at least one of them has a firearm. But I have a feeling that’s not going frighten you all away from defending your town.’ The crowd rumbled in agreement.
Dave looked across the road and saw many faces he recognised wearing expressions he did not. Mary Killeen was one of them, she ran a bed and breakfast above a café owned by one of her friends. Dave and Jenny had stayed there a couple of times when work was being done on their house. The rooms were tastefully furnished with a lot of pale linen and beech furniture, and the breakfast served in the café below was one of Dave’s favourites, best poached eggs in town. Mary always welcomed her guests with a smile and a nod and a quiet enjoy your stay. Now her face was hardened by anger, and her hands weren’t filled with towels or welcome pastries, but with a can of capsicum spray and a Taser. It occurred to Dave that Tino might have deputised and armed the whole town. If that was the case, God help the looters.
‘Remember,’ Tino said, ‘for those of you with CS spray, wait until they’re at least ten feet away before you let fly, otherwise they’ll see it coming. If you’re using anything short and heavy, keep this in mind: knees are better than heads, and easier targets. Now let’s go and show these fuckers the way back out of town.’
The crowd’s rumble quickly grew to a roar, a war-cry, and just like that, they were striding towards the train tracks which crossed the road at the beginning of the town proper. Tino turned to Pia and placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘You know I should arrest you, right? If this was a normal day, I’d be calling for backup, and one way or another you’d be in the lockup. But this isn’t a normal day, and I have no intention of carrying on like I’m in charge of the situation.’
‘You’ve made that clear,’ she said. ‘I get it.’
‘What I’m saying is, I’m not above asking for help. And we could really use some help. Those trouble heading towards town now? They have us way outnumbered, and they’ve been up to all kinds of nasty mischief, all day. I don’t think they’re going to hesitate to escalate if we stand against them.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’ Pia said. ‘Stand in the middle of the road and Rambo things up?’
‘I was hoping for more of a Jason Bourne approach. Maybe some overwatch?’
Frown lines rippled across Pia’s face. ‘It’s not in my brief,’ she said.
‘What you did back there, on the highway. Was that in your brief?’
‘I was protecting him. That was in my brief.’
‘So protect me,’ Dave said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I’m going to join them. I’m going to stand right at the very front.’
Pia grabbed Dave by the shirt with her spare hand and pulled him towards her. ‘No you’re fucking not,’ she hissed.
‘Yes I fucking am,’ he said.
‘No you’re fucking not. What do you think you’re doing?’
Dave thought about it, and found that he lacked a good answer. He really had no idea what he was doing. But he knew he couldn’t arrive in Byron Bay, his second home, and run away and hide from trouble when the rest of the town stood against it. He wanted to get out of there, but that would people think? Once the story leaked of James Cain’s assisted leap from his balcony, he was going to need every bit of positive press he could get to stick to him.
He didn’t really believe he could redeem his decision to let Cain jump by standing up to the gang of looters, but he still hoped he could.
Dave glanced across at Tino. He didn’t have his hand on his gun, but it was in the neighbourhood. He felt the stares of his sometime neighbours as they locked up their shops and residences and began to make their way to the northern approach to the town.
Pia saw his glance, knew what it meant. ‘You gonna tell me it’s a free country now?’ Pia said.
Dave shrugged. ‘Maybe. It is though, isn’t it?’
‘So you’re saying I can’t stop you? Couldn’t if I wanted to?’
‘You’d probably encounter some resistance if you did try,’ Tino said, and Pia flicked an eye-dagger at him. ‘Hey, just saying, OK? It’s my job.’
‘It’s also your job to arrest me,’ Pia said. ‘Not deputise me.’
‘My job is to protect this town, to keep the peace. And I’m not handing out any badges.’
Pia squeezed her eyes shut and started to vibrate. She made a sound like a grunt and stamped her feet on the ground twice. ‘Fine,’ she said to Dave through clenched teeth. ‘You wanna get yourself killed, go right ahead
. But when your brother wants to know why it happened, I’ll have no hesitation in telling him you’re a fucken idiot.’
‘And what if I don’t get myself killed?’
Pia shrugged. ‘Not all chickens lay eggs. Doesn’t make ‘em any less chicken.’
‘For someone trying to make me be cautious? Really bad analogy.’
‘Whatever.’ She heaved her bag up over her shoulder and turned to Tino. ‘Fine. You’ve got your overwatch. Where’s a good vantage point?’
‘Motel just past the tracks, near the hospital. Only a couple of levels but it should do.’
Pia nodded.
‘Thanks,’ Tino said, touching her again on the shoulder. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘I haven’t done anything yet,’ Pia said.
Tino shrugged. ‘I’m an optimist.’
He began walking up the street, with the shopkeepers and restaurateurs and residents of Byron Bay. Dave moved to join them, but Pia wrapped a hand around his arm. Her grip was wound tight by springs and cogs. She started walking him the other way.
‘Hey,’ Dave said, ‘you’re flip-flopping?’
‘You can still go,’ she said. ‘But you gotta put on your winter coat first.’ She dragged him all the way to the Everest and popped the boot open. She let go of his arm as she rummaged around in the back, lifted out a lump of camouflage and pushed it into Dave’s chest. ‘Put it back on,’ she said.
Dave had slipped the ballistic vest off when they swapped cars, and he hoped he was rid of it. It was so bloody hot.
‘Yuck,’ Dave said.
‘Just put it on. That’s my condition for letting you play with your friends.’
Dave put it on the way he might put on a suit of armour, or a pile of bricks with Velcro straps. ‘All the other kids are going to laugh at me.’
‘You’re taking this too,’ she said, and held out a handgun. ‘That should stop them laughing.’