Branton looked him in the eye. He spoke more severely,
"You sure about that?"
He held up the video again. Played just the first part. Jack shrugged,
"Yeah. I'm sure."
Branton was not impressed. He looked at the other two. Neither of them said anything. He looked back at Jack.
"The man killed was Constantine Alexandrovistch, son of Dmitri Alexandrovistch - one of the biggest gangsters in Russia. The two thugs are Boris Ivanov and Vadim Smirnov, two of his top hit men. You know the girl, Natasha Brown, all over the news."
Jack shrugged again. Branton continued,
"But I'm surprised you don’t recognize the shooter. Your former partner Brian Samuals."
Jack took a double take at the video, still being held up by Branton. He called out,
"What! No! You're kidding me". He stared at the video. "Well, fuck me, you're right. It's him. Haven't seen him for years. Didn’t recognize him. Who would ever have thought?"
He couldn’t tell whether they believed him or not. He tried to remain calm, indifferent. He was on thin ice. Should have been more careful. He asked,
"So what the fuck has Brian got to do with all of this?"
Branton replied,
"We don’t know. But I've got another picture to show you."
He selected the picture and held up the phone. The picture was a traffic cam shot of Brian Samuals, an overhead shot. Date and Time stamped - Hume Highway, at Gundagai. Saturday Nov 30, 2019, 12:03 PM. Branton then showed him another shot, also of Brian. Date and Time stamped - Hume Highway at Albury, Saturday Nov 30, 2019, 15:07 PM. Jack looked at the second picture. He was puzzled. This was four days before the Strip Club shooting. But what was the connection. He asked,
"So?"
Branton pointed out to him the obvious.
"It doesn’t take three hours to drive from Gundagai to Albury. Sometime around 1:00 PM there was an axe murder in Wagga Wagga. An elderly couple Mr. and Mrs. Williamson. All the times match up. He detoured through Wagga, did the job and then went on to Albury. Any idea why he would do that? Ring any bells?"
Jack couldn’t help himself. He burst out with,
"Fuck! The newsagents. The lottery. He was always going on about it. He was obsessed with it."
He filled them in on all the details. They didn’t seem surprised. They had already decided it was Brian, they just didn’t know why. Jack was thinking furiously. What was Brian up to? Could he have just gone nuts? Loco! Oh, that wasn’t good. If Brian was going around killing people Jack knew for sure that he was going to be a target. Top of the fucking list. Oh fuck! Could Brian have been the one that did the ambassador and the premier? Is that what these assholes thought too? Is that why they were here? But why would Brian do that? Jack decided to look into it - very carefully.
Branton stood up. Jack and the other two did also. Branton said,
"All right Jack. We're all very busy. Thanks for clearing that up. We'll talk again, soon."
They turned and left the office. As they did so the American adviser Chuck Miller gave him an odd sort of knowing smile, and quite deliberately. The little prick obviously knew a lot more but wasn’t saying anything yet. Well he wouldn’t would he. Fucking spooks. Jack detested them. All of them. Working in the shadows, unaccountable. Assholes could do anything they wanted, most of it even legally.
Jack knew he had to get back in contact with Svetlana and her gang, and those other two shit-heads. Give them something. Get them going. Wait a minute. Didn't Brian have an Uncle, Charlie Samuals? Lived here in Melbourne. Did some time, illegal weapons. He'd have to be in on this. Better check him out. Jack knew he had to kill Brian Samuals. Urgently. And for all sorts of reasons now other than just keeping Mr. Alexandrovistch happy. Protect his own job, stay out of jail. And for that most basic and personal of reasons - before the cunt killed him.
Outside the office Chuck Miller thanked them and hastened off to his next meeting with the Commander of the Anti-Terrorist division. The SOG Commander David Morton turned to Assistant Commissioner Branton, after looking at Miller walking off. He made the casual comment,
"I don't trust that prick."
Branton replied simply,
"Of course not."
They were both hard working men. As honest as they could be given the jobs they were in. Straight shooters. They'd been the best of mates for many years. Branton asked Morton,
"What do you think of Williams?"
Morton sneered,
"That bastard! He's a slimy piece of shit. Guilty as sin."
Branton nodded.
"I'm sure you're right, but we don’t have enough evidence yet. We'll keep him under surveillance."
Morton grinned.
"When the time comes. Can I be the one to take him down? I'll lead the squad myself. He might get a smack or two in the back of the head, or something worse. Resisting arrest."
Branton knew Morton wouldn’t do that, well ... probably not. He laughed.
"Sure thing. He'll be all yours."
------------------------------------------------
On Saturday afternoon, I drove out to Essendon to kill Russel Goodman. It occurred to me that I’d made a big mistake using the Mazda RX-5 to drive to Uncle Charlies and then to the hit in Federation Square. The plates would have been recorded when I drove into the Hotel car park. It was an easy link for the cops to follow if they got any images of the car at the scene. They’d know where I was staying. Nothing I could do about that now. Except from now on I would steal cars when going out on a job. I had to buy a smaller bag for my shotgun. Couldn’t carry it openly when I was walking to the nearest suburb, South Melbourne, looking for the right car to steal. I needed the shotgun. I’d keep it under the front seat. You never know when you’re going to run into a tailgater. For this job, I also took along my Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Stealing a car isn’t as easy as it used to be. You used to be able to break in, cross the ignition wires and drive off. Now you needed the unique electronic key with the right codes to open the door and to start the engine. Well, not really. There are several ways around this. You can use a device to sniff codes sent from drivers when they enter and exit their cars - that is when they open and lock their doors. Basically, it’s the same as standing around at a car park and collecting keys. You still need to hot wire the ignition but now you can emit the right code to disable security and enable engine ignition. The disadvantage is that you need to stand around car parks - too easy to get made. A better choice is to use relay devices which pick up the very weak signal from an electronic key and amplify it. This only works if the real key is nearby, within thirty meters or so. But this works OK if for example the owner is inside his house and the car is parked outside. The best devices don’t rely on sniffing the codes, or on being close enough to a real electronic key. They rapidly cycle through a restricted set of possible codes having partially or completely broken the encryption being used. These are built from stolen design specs and in some cases stolen master key codes. It’s an arms race but one the manufacturers don’t take seriously enough - lack of culpability gives them insufficient motivation - and so they are easily defeated. Charlie had given me a couple of these devices, put out recently and likely to work on most cars of the given models. All of this is highly illegal of course. But so is stealing cars. I could cite the specific models and manufacturers but that would be illegal also. Libel or something. And I’m already in enough fucking trouble.
Russel Goodman was the prick who stabbed me while I was in prison. About half way through my term I was walking along the corridor from the mess hall back to the cells when he raced up behind me and jabbed me with a shiv. He'd made it out of some broken glass wrapped around and tied onto a wooden handle. No idea where he got the glass. It went in deep. Lucky for me he didn’t get any vital organs. I managed to spin around as I started dropping. The blade fell out of his hand. I punched him in the balls as hard as I could. He squealed and sta
rted dropping to the ground too. Then the guards were all over us. I was bleeding badly. They rushed me off to the infirmary. I was there for a few weeks. I got an infection from the dirty glass. The doctor there told me that I was very lucky. I could easily have died. Goodman got a couple of weeks in solitary and no doubt something added to his sentence. I never found out how much. I never found out why he did it. But what I did know is that he was now out on parole. Been out for a few months, living in Donaldson Street in Essendon. But not for very much longer.
For this hit I opted for the Kalashnikov assault rifle - the AK-47, well technically the AKM, a more modern version. It fires 7.62 mm rounds in semi-automatic mode - or on full auto. A burst of fire from up close and there's fuck all left of the target, just shredded meat. I really wanted to make a point with this one. I pulled up to his house. A quick phone call earlier had established that he was home. I think he thought that I was his dealer. I grabbed the assault rifle from the boot, double checked it was loaded and casually strolled across his lawn and started banging on the front door. Someone opened the door for me. Didn't ask or check who I was. Whoever it was went back into the living room. I followed him in, slowly and carefully.
Russel Goodman and three of his mates, including the one who answered the door, were sprawled around the living room smoking pot using a bong. Goodman had just taken a large smoke, sucking it down deep, and then passed it on to the man next to him. They were already high. Goodman looked at me, trying to figure out who I was. None of them seemed to notice the assault rifle, or at least they were pretending not to. Goodman still looked puzzled. I helped him out. Stood in front of him. I spoke to him very steadily, and somewhat harshly,
"Brian Samuals. Remember me fuck-head?"
His face lit up. He replied,
"Brian. Bro. Yeah. We did time together at Barwon. How are you Bro? Grab a seat. Have a smoke. Good to see you Bro."
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I snapped at him,
"You stabbed me you fucking asshole."
He looked confused.
"Did I? No, I wouldn't do that Bro." He seemed to think about it. "Oh yeah, that one time. You got me in the nuts real good. We'll call it even. OK. Bro."
His mates were watching on, amused, without much comprehension. They were all too far gone. Lucky for them. They would not be able to function as witnesses, so I wouldn’t have to kill them too.
I stared angrily at Russel Goodman.
"I'm not your fucking Bro, asshole. Why did you try to kill me?"
Russel looked back at me forlornly. I think he was beginning to understand the gravity of his situation. He seemed to have finally noticed the assault rifle. He started blubbering a little.
"I don’t remember. Oh, come on Bro. We can sort this out."
I shook my head. I spoke to him icily,
"I don’t think so."
Then I opened fire. Five short bursts. Only a Muppet fires on full auto. But the effect is the same. Multiple bursts of high velocity, high caliber rounds, at short range. Some for the head, some for the central body mass. One in the nuts. Literally blew him apart. The sound was deafening. His pot-head mates covered their ears and shrunk away in fear and dismay. Fucking retards. I noticed a large bag of weed just sitting on a bench so I grabbed it on the way out. Then I strolled out of the house, down to my car and drove off. After years of hostility and hatred I felt vindicated. You fuck with me and I'll fuck you over. Ten times harder and you'll never fucking get up again afterwards.
I got a couple of tailgaters on the way back. Shouldn't have done it really, too risky. But it was just so tempting and I was in a bad, bad mood. I was refining my technique and my timing. The first one. He got behind me. Too close. Much too close for the speed we were doing. And just stuck there. Obnoxiously. Dangerously. I slammed on the brakes. He smashed into the back of me. Before he could react, I got out, grabbed my shotgun from under the seat and stormed back towards him. A couple of shotgun blasts, the first shot taking out the closed window, and that was that.
For the second tailgater, only ten minutes later, when I got back to him the window was already open. He was a young bloke, didn’t really seem that aggressive. They often aren't most of the time. But get them behind the wheel. Different story. I think they feel they’re not accountable, that they can afford to be indifferent or even hostile. Today, not a good lifestyle choice. He saw me coming. He started begging me,
"Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me."
I growled at him,
"Well you shouldn’t fucking tailgate mate, it's illegal."
Then I blew his fucking head off. Brains and muck got splattered all over the inside of the car. There was a woman in the passenger seat beside him - wife, girlfriend, co-worker, friend, yoga instructor ... whatever. She was lucky she wasn't killed too. She was covered in brains and blood, screaming out, shaking in terror, which was very fucking annoying. Being in the car made her complicit, but she wasn't actually driving so I let her off. I did have a code, like Dexter. I wasn’t going to deliberately kill any innocents. Course, once you start down this path you need to allow for a degree of unintended collateral damage. If you get too squeamish about that you'd never be able to fucking kill anyone.
I ditched the car in North Melbourne. Walked back to the hotel. I got back to my suite early in the evening. Natasha was waiting for me. She was wearing the skimpiest of soft, white negligees. She looked unhappy. She said to me,
"Brian. I'm bored. Can't go anywhere. How long do we have to stay like this?"
I thought to myself,
“You must have at least gone down to one of the stores to buy the negligee.”
But I wasn’t going to object to that. I replied to her,
"Not too much longer."
I had given some thought to catching the two Russian hit-men but I had no way of finding them - unless I contacted someone in the Police Force. But right now, that would be pretty fucking stupid, wouldn’t it?
She pouted. A uniquely sexy expression for her, which always drove me instantly wild with desire. She said,
"I've been reading some more of the Kama Sutra. The Holy Cow position and the Randy Three-Legged Dog. Want to try them?"
I sighed, a deep sigh of happiness and anticipation. I replied simply,
"Oh yeah."
The Dog reference was obvious. As for the Cow, remember that in the Hindu tradition the Cow is a sacred animal, a sublime entity, and not just something big, fat and delicious to be cut up and enjoyed at a barbecue, with chips and beer.
I took Natasha into my arms and kissed her. I gently stroked her lower back and then started caressing her bottom, pulling her in more tightly. I was amazed. I was always amazed by her. I cried out,
"What in the world did I ever do to deserve you?"
She looked back at me, playfully. She giggled.
"Don’t know. Just lucky I guess."
She took me by the hand and led me back into the bedroom. She spoke to me eagerly, encouraging me,
"Let's do it baby."
I didn’t reply, just grunted enthusiastically.
Chapter 11. The Bank Job.
One thing as certain in this world as death and taxes is that all bankers are cunts. Always have been, always will be. When the economy is booming, if anybody remembers that, they're right up there sucking it all in. When the economy sours they're still there sucking it all in, though not as much. Their profits drop from $50 billion a year to $47 billion a year - that's their definition of a disaster. They remain blissfully indifferent to the real suffering in the middle and at the bottom levels. This is of no importance to them. They fucking feed on it. Have you ever added up the total you pay just in bank fees? Check it out. You're probably working a couple of days a year just to pay all the fees on your accounts. Accounts that supposedly are there to generate interest. They keep cutting that down - it becomes less and less every year. They say they need to do it, their profits are down. See the comment above a
bout that. What are the politicians doing in their role as regulators? Nothing. They're too busy kneeling at the bankers' feet licking their toes - and other parts, on demand. We all know who owns who.
When the Global Financial Crisis erupted, they all knew it was coming and were well prepared - after all they caused it. As it all started collapsing in on itself - here and around the world - countless homes and businesses were repossessed. Millions were driven into bankruptcy and poverty. Many took their own life simply unable to cope with their misery and their despair. What about the banks? Those fuckers were all bailed out. And then they gave themselves hefty bonuses - from the bailout funds! And let’s not forget that they ended up with all the homes and businesses as well. The fucking cunts got everything. Second biggest con job in all of history. With all the tamed, bought and paid for, politicians kneeling at their feet, or bending over for them, giving them anything they demanded. There was mild criticism for a short time. A few sharper critics. These were easily dismissed as loud-mouthed malcontents. Lefties. The bankers and their propagandists easily road over them. None of the bankers were ever charged with criminal offences. No laws were passed to prevent it all happening again. And now they're back at it. Same thing, different names for it. Building up to the next one. Why wouldn't they? The first one was such a stunning success for them. Fucking assholes.
It doesn't start or end there. It's thoroughly systemic. In Australia, the Reserve Bank prints the money and loans it to the government. This creates vast unpayable debt. What would the government repay them with? More printed money! It also creates the need for regular and substantial interest payments. The political parties, one more than the other, rant and rave about the national debt. Debt is bad! Well, not so good for you or me. But here's the thing. The Reserve Bank is owned by the Commonwealth. All this debt, or a large chunk of it, is money they owe themselves. Same thing for interest payments. What the fuck! I mean, if I owed myself $500 billion I really wouldn't be too concerned. I would simply say to myself 'OK, Brian. Let's call it even'. To which I would reply 'OK Brian, no worries. Oh, and in the meantime, don’t worry about the interest payments.' But if I held all this debt on your behalf and I did this then I would lose my ability to gouge you for your never-ending contributions and to constantly add more and more to your underlying fear and panic, thereby diminishing my control over you. Not fucking likely, is it? For them debt is a good thing. Absolutely fundamental and essential. When it’s you who owes it to them of course.
101 People to Kill Before I Die Page 10