by Roland Perry
‘Why?’ he said, keeping vigil at the window.
‘We can’t fit four in the Porsche.’
Walters’ eyes flicked to me for the first time. He frowned at Danielle.
‘He’s not coming!’ he said.
‘You can’t leave him here,’ Danielle said, ‘they’ll find him. He’ll give information and . . .’
‘You’ve got to get rid of him then!’ Walters snapped. The idea irritated him. It was a nasty chore, killing.
There was a measured silence in which Cassie looked at me helplessly.
‘You’ve got to do it now!’ Walters said, slamming a fist down on the sink.
‘Someone will find the body,’ Danielle said.
This is pretty final! I’m already a body.
Walters sucked in his breath.
‘You’re the expert in this,’ Walters hissed.
‘You handled Martine fairly well,’ Danielle countered. I had an odd feeling that this remark was meant for Cassie and me.
‘I had to make it look like an accident!’ Walters said, his tone still indicating he was irked, rather like a having to clean up a lab experiment that had gone wrong. ‘But this is different. This is military work.’
‘We could drop him in the dam,’ Danielle said.
‘Do it then,’ Walters said, ‘don’t waste time.’
He glanced at his watch.
‘We still must leave at six thirty.’
‘We will,’ Danielle said. She waved the Utzi at me, indicating I should step out of the cottage. ‘Where’s the dam?’
‘I pointed it out when we arrived!’ Walters said.
‘It was dark!’ Danielle countered. ‘In any case, you come with me.’
‘Why?’
‘To make sure he doesn’t run! He got away from Cochard, didn’t he?’
Somewhere along the road from Melbourne, Danielle had gained more authority, even taken charge.
‘What happened to Cochard?’ Walters said to me.
‘A detective shot him,’ I said.
‘He’s dead?’ Danielle asked.
‘Very.’
Walters walked to the door and opened it.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said.
We trudged into a field.
A sound like a tractor from south of the homestead had all heads turning. The noise grew and lifted. It was a chopper.
‘Keep going!’ Danielle ordered. Walters hesitated. I stopped.
He hit me hard across the back with his rifle and I fell to my knees. My instincts were to go down fighting rather than be shot like an animal. But the chopper offered hope. I stood up and stumbled towards the dam.
The chopper circled high above us. Had it seen us? If I made a dash somewhere, would it see me?
We reached the dam. The chopper seemed to grow. It was dropping altitude. Its blurred markings became clearer. Police Air Services.
Then it veered off low over the fields towards the highway. Its rotors’ beat was muffled as it dropped out of sight over the horizon. Walters was watching it. He was two paces from me. A move had to be made because no help could come in time. I waited until Walters had taken his eyes off me, and threw my body under the rifle and cannoned him to the ground. The rifle went off. We struggled. I had my knee in his stomach.
Danielle’s bullet has to be coming . . .
I brought an elbow into the bicep of the arm that held the rifle. It loosened his grip and the rifle slipped out. Walters pushed up and threw me off. He clawed for the rifle. There was a staccato from the Utzi. My eyes shut tight, but I wasn’t hit.
She’s fired a warning round . . .
Cassie screamed. I opened my eyes. It hadn’t been a warning. Walters was at full stretch, and his fingers twitched centimetres from the rifle. But it was only a reflex. His head, neck, side and back had red holes.
I glanced up at Danielle. She watched me as she walked over to Walters. She flicked his body over. Expert hands ran over his wrist and heart pulse. I was a few metres from the rifle. I took a step towards it.
‘Don’t try anything,’ Danielle said, edging sideways to pick up the rifle.
‘Don’t shoot him, please,’ Cassie implored her.
‘That was never my intention,’ Danielle said, her eyes still on me, ‘Monsieur Hamilton has been most helpful in my assignment. We would never have found Michel and his drug-making plans without his help.’
‘Why did you kill Michel here?’ I said, as Danielle picked up the rifle. She hurled it into the dam.
‘I intended to wait and see who his contacts were in Sydney for getting out of Australia,’ Danielle said, ‘but you forced a change in plans.’
She backed away towards the cottage.
‘Don’t raise the alarm,’ she warned.
She marched into the cottage and Cassie ran to me.
‘We should run,’ she said, ‘she’ll be back for us!’
‘No,’ I said, restraining her, ‘I think he has been the only real target.’
We looked down at Walters. Moments later Danielle emerged from the cottage with a suitcase. She was in a hurry, but not a panic. She stepped into the makeshift garage and we heard a vehicle start up. A metallic-grey old Mercedes sedan reversed out without hurry and Danielle drove off. A couple of seconds after she went out of sight behind the hill with the waterfall, the chopper emerged from the horizon again.
EPILOGUE
THE POLICE never found Danielle Mernet, or more correctly, Australian Intelligence never wanted her found. In keeping with the clubbiness of the (Australian, French, British and American) intelligence community’s extra-governmental methods, ASIO and ASIS turned a blind eye to the fact that she was a OGSE officer sent by the French government to find and assassinate Michel/Walters. It was a case of ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’
Mernet was a doctor who would know how to investigate and track down somebody from that profession. She was also an experienced infiltrator who would have gained the confidence of maverick ex-DGSE agents Cochard and Maniguet. It was better for the French that she accomplish her mission and not get caught. It saved the French Government a great deal of embarrassment, for the last thing it wanted was another Rainbow Warrior-style incident making world headlines.
The Victoria police dropped both murder charges against me, but left the charge of unlawful disposal of a body. I was ordered to stand trial. Just two weeks before the trial was due to take place, this charge was also dropped, in a behind-the-scenes exchange where I abandoned a private action against the Welfare Department’s Office of Corrections, its remand security officers, and Benns and O’Dare.
A month after Walters’ death, Freddie May’s body was exhumed from his grave in the Meudon Forest and later a French coroner’s inquest found he had been murdered. Two hospital workers were charged with having conspired with Walters and Cochard to kill poor Freddie. The Vital hospital was closed and all patients were relocated to other Paris institutions for proper treatment of their illnesses.
Arrests were made of directors of Vital – a French company primarily involved in perfume and cosmetics manufacture – but charges were later dropped because of insufficient evidence linking them to Michel’s nefarious schemes for its drug-making and marketing arm. Back in Melbourne, charges were never laid against Tony Farrar for killing Cochard.
Two months after Walters’ death, Cassie Morris broke her freelance contract with the Magenta Institute and joined a new Benepharm subsidiary as Director of Cancer Research.
The company is expecting great things from her. And so am I.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
I would like to thank Tim Burstall, Diana Georgeff, Sue Hines, literary agent Colin Golvan, editor Sarah Brenan, and Dr Romaine Holmes, for their support.