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 cliché 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 TAPE 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.’
I had seen a German Shepherd around a few times. It looked friendly enough and I said so.
‘He isn’t when he’s tethered at night near the electric control panel and instructed to bark blue murder if anyone approaches. But I’ve got matey with him and I can keep him quiet.’
‘I can’t see why you need me. A man with your resourcefulness should’ve been able to pinch a car key by now.’
He nodded seriously. ‘I probably could have but the thing is, I’ve got to cover nearly two hundred metres in thirty seconds in the dark. I’ve worked out that I could just about do it, but I couldn’t get my gear into a vehicle, get it started and reach the gate in time. That’s where you come in.’
‘I still can’t see the problem. If the gate locked my Pajero’d go straight through the fence.’
‘No it wouldn’t. The fence doesn’t look much but it’s electrified at a pretty high voltage. You hit it and it’d short out your electricals.’
‘A thousand bucks,’ I said. ‘And St James said something about patrols.’
‘Seven fifty. There aren’t any patrols. He says that just to make everything sound ... you know, military.’
‘Sure you won’t tell me why you need to do this?’
‘I’ll tell you when we’ve made it. How’s that?’
‘Have to do. When do we do the Steve McQueen bit?’
He looked at me blankly.
‘A movie,’ I said. ‘The Great Escape—you’ve never seen it?’
‘I don’t think so. Yeah, well, at 0300.’
He was hard to read—a gung-ho, dead shot, spit ‘n’ polish type who’d never seen one of the iconic war movies. The military lingo slid off his tongue but he wanted out. About an hour to wait. He said he had to sneak back to collect his gear and he nominated a meeting point.
‘What if one of your mates spots you?’
‘They’re knackered from today’s exercise. I’m fitter.’
Arrogant, too, I thought. I wanted to ask him about the NCOs, and particularly Sirdar Assad, but that would’ve aroused suspicion. It was all very odd but I reflected that my two jobs were to watch him and to find out what DTS was all about, and this was a perfect chance. I offered him another drink but he refused and took off in his socks. I poured another slug for myself and packed up my belongings. I was only going to have to travel twenty metres in the dark and start an engine. Piece of cake. I felt like Errol Flynn, except that there was no blonde in sight.
* * * *
It went like clockwork. We met at the appointed time. I took his duffel bag and scooted across to my car. Pearson disappeared into the semi-darkness at the edge of the floodlit area. I heard a low growl a few seconds later and I started the motor. The lights went out. Pearson sprinted towards me and threw himself into the seat.
‘Go!’
I gunned the engine, hit the lights and headed for the gate. Pearson jumped out while the car was still moving, operated the mechanism and swung the gate open. He got back in as we passed through. In the rear vision mirror I saw the area around the house light up like a football ground at night, and I heard the siren scream over the noise of the motor and the tyres on the gravel.
‘Yes!’ Pearson yelled.
We travelled about another hundred metres and then he leaned across and turned off the ignition. The Pajero bumped to a stop. I could see activity behind us, heard a yell and a dog bark.
‘What’re you doing?’ I shouted.
‘Fooled you, Hardy. We have to do an exercise to pass the course, and I chose to persuade you to get me out of the perimeter.’
Few things upset me more than being hoodwinked. His laugh was strangled when I hit him hard with an anger-fuelled short right to the temple. He was thrown sideways, bumped his head, and slumped down in the seat. I started the motor and drove on. I stopped at the cattle grid gate long enough to open it, pass through, close it again and roll a big rock in front to block it. Headlights appeared but I was well clear and drove steadily along the track, making the turns carefully, keeping up a respectable speed. There was a straight stretch before I hit the gravel road and if there was a vehicle following, it was well behind.
Adrenalin and exhilaration pushed me on until I reached the paved road, where I pulled over to take a look at Pearson. He was barely conscious—one of my better punches, aided by the hard interior parts of the car he’d bounced off. But then, many a knockout has been due as much to the head hitting the floor as the left hook. He was coming around, wasn’t bleeding from the ear—a mild concussion at worst. I strapped him firmly into his seatbelt, took a good swig of Johnnie Black and drove on with my right hand throbbing.
Pearson surfaced fully, after some muttering, about the time we met the highway.
He shook his head several times. ‘What happened?’
‘You bumped your head.’
‘You king-hit me, you bastard.’
‘You were fighting above your weight, son. I’ve been tricking people and being tricked for as long as you’ve been alive.’
‘Let me out!’
There was no traffic and I slowed. ‘Sure. Here?’
He stared out to the left and right. ‘Where are we?’
‘About fifty kilometres from Sydney. You could hop out, hitch back. Take you a while.’
‘I’d be a laughing-stock.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. You gave it a go and did pretty well, just didn’t quite wrap it up.’
‘My head hurts.’
‘Probably got a slight concussion. Want a hospital?’
‘I could sue you for assault and ... restraint or whatever they call it.’
‘You’d look pretty silly doing that.’
He went quiet but his breathing sounded normal and he seemed to be okay—physically. I reached down for the bottle of water I’d brought on the drive out and passed it to him. He unscrewed the top and swigged.
‘Where d’you want to go, Gary?’
He sounded young all of a sudden. ‘I dunno.’
‘Tell you what, why don’t we go and call on your old man.’
‘What?’ he said, sounding even younger.
I told him everything. He listened, occasionally turning his head to look at me. After I finished he stayed silent for quite a few minutes.
‘I didn’t think he gave a shit about me,’ he said.
‘He does. Probably has trouble showing it.’
‘I suppose so. It’s mutual, I guess. I used to look at a picture of him that Mum had, and I wished ... but we never ... He’s right that Sirdar got me interested in DTS, but he’s behind the times and way off-beam. Him and my mum were washed up a while back. They’re just friends now. Sirdar’s not a Muslim by the way, he’s a Christian. What do you think of DTS?’
‘How much did you pay to go on the course?’
‘Three thousand dollars. I took out a loan to pay it.’
‘I think it’s an exploitative play-acting operation. If you want to be a soldier, join the army, or the reservists.’
‘I might. What would my father think of that?’
‘I don’t know. He was a very good soldier himself, but he might have a different opinion
of the army these days, the way things are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Politics. Was it true what you said about the consequences of trying to get out of the place—the bastardisation, as it’s known?’
‘No. I made that up. Do you really mean what you said? We go and see him now, at this hour?’
‘Yes.’
Corris, Peter Page 18