by Annie Seaton
Rocky Cardella was making his way quickly down the hill just to his left. He shouldn’t be out here, Connor thought; Cardella was definitely not rostered on this shift.
Carruthers and Cardella were on the eight o’clock start in the morning, and he’d assumed they’d gone back to their rooms after the game. This top level of security that Robinson had assured him was in place at Matsu seemed to be full of holes wherever he looked.
As he kept the man in his line of sight, there was a sudden loud, long drawn-out metallic screech from the processing plant behind them and then silence. Connor sat still and watched. The moonlight was getting brighter as the moon rose and it was easy to see Cardella picking his way between the scrub and the mounds at the base of the hill. As Connor observed his progress there was a movement about fifty metres ahead. Dru Porter was bent over in front of a high mound and her back was facing Cardella.
She turned around just before he reached her, and snatches of conversation drifted up the hill to Connor. Her voice sounded agitated and for a moment Connor considered following him down, but thought better of it.
No rush. Slow and steady.
‘You . . . What . . . shouldn’t be here . . .?’
For a moment before a cloud obscured the moon and the light dimmed Connor could read her agitation from her gestures. She had dropped whatever it was she’d been carrying and her hands were on her hips as she towered over the shorter man.
She moved her hands to her chest, and stepped closer to Cardella. Connor sat down at the top of the hill, waiting to see what would happen.
Chapter 8
‘Sorry, love. Didn’t mean to give you a fright.’
‘I thought you were on day shift. You scared me, creeping around like that.’ Dru narrowed her eyes and stared at Rocky with her hands on her hips. ‘And you’ve been drinking too! I can smell it. Do you want to lose your bloody job?’
‘May not be any jobs here soon.’ He tapped the side of his nose and Dru frowned.
‘What do you mean?’
‘End of the mining boom, maybe.’ He shrugged casually.
She lifted her head and turned towards the processing building. ‘Did you hear that screech? The conveyors have stopped running.’
The only sound was the eerie whistle of the wind; the constant hum that ran from the processing plant twenty-four hours a day had ceased. Clouds scudded across the sky as the wind picked up and a whirlwind of gritty dust filled the air around them.
‘Must have been a breakdown.’ Rocky folded his arms and his teeth flashed in the dim light as Dru coughed.
She covered her mouth with her hand to block the swirling dust. ‘That’s unusual. I wonder what happened.’ Unease snaked through her chest and the familiar fear that was always close to the surface began to flicker through her veins. She shook her hands in front of her and took a deep breath. It had been a peculiar day and it didn’t seem as though she was going to have the peaceful nightshift she’d anticipated. ‘It’s never quiet like that. First time it’s shut down since I’ve been at the mine.’
Rocky shrugged again as he moved past her. ‘I dunno. Really. Anyway, nothing we can do about it. Have you noticed there’s been a lot going wrong on this place lately? Breakdowns, tools getting pinched, workers getting hurt, and a lot of the new staff aren’t staying as long. Strange times.’ But despite his words, he didn’t seem unduly concerned. ‘Rumour is the mine will be closed down within a couple of years.’
Dru chose not to pass on Jennifer’s gossip about the new drilling tunnel she’d heard was being proposed. She would be interested to hear if that gossip had reached the local Aboriginal community, but she’d wait for the meeting at Wipporing later in the week to suss that out. ‘I hadn’t noticed anything different. I did hear that one of the night foremen in the processing plant suffered a hand injury a couple of days ago.’ Dru stared at him. ‘What else has happened?’
‘One of the truck drivers broke his leg this morning. Pretty nasty break. Didn’t you hear the chopper come in?’
‘No, must have been when I was asleep. Maybe that’s why that new guy’s here. To investigate the accidents,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Could be. The medico has been busy here all right. Anyway, I’m off. Places to go, people to visit, I’ll see ya later.’ Rocky lifted a hand and turned away.
‘What places? Where are you going now?’ Dru brushed the dust from her face with the back of her gloved hand as her breathing settled to a normal rate.
‘Got some business down near the dam.’
‘Rocky, what the hell are you up to? You know you’re not supposed to be out on site if you’re not working.’
‘On site?’ His voice was sharp. ‘Nothing you need to worry about, love. I’m just making sure that things are as they should be. I’ve got a meeting over by the dam in a while. And as well as being “the site” it’s my place. My land.’
‘A meeting! At this time of night? Who with?’ Dru screwed her nose up as she stared at him. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘Nothing you need worry about. Some of my people have come down to see me, and because I’m working in the daytime we’re going to have a meeting over the other side of the dam tonight.’ He grinned and his teeth flashed in his dark face. ‘It’s nice what you’ve done over there, with the trees and the grass. They’ll be pleased to see it. And I do know you understand. I see how you care for our land. We’re just making sure things are put back the way they should be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just what I said. Things haven’t been done right by us here, and we’re making sure that the traditional owners of the land get what they are entitled to.’
‘Meaning?’
‘My people have had our power taken away by the legal talk and the big money. Along with the loss of access to our land we’ve lost our spiritual connection to our country.’ He lifted his hand and pointed and Dru tracked the direction of his raised hand, but she couldn’t see anyone.
‘What are you pointing at?’
‘Some of the women from my clan are already over there.’
‘Are they allowed here?’ Her voice was soft. ‘It’s Matsu land.’
‘It won’t be if we get our way. The flat on the other side of the dam is a sacred women’s site so they have the freedom to come and go.’
Dru shook her head. ‘No, it’s not. I’ve met with your people and I’ve seen the site maps. There’s no mention of sacred sites anywhere near the mine.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean by making sure things are set right.’ His voice was full of determination. ‘We have some serious business to talk about, and you’ll hear about it soon enough. So you go on counting termite mounds and we’ll get on with the important stuff. See ya later, love.’
Dru narrowed her eyes as Rocky strode towards the dam. As far as she could see there was no one else over there to meet with him as he claimed. There was nothing out there apart from the new trees that they’d planted last month. Beyond that was a vast expanse of desert to the horizon.
In the nine months she’d been at the mine, Rocky had looked out for her. It was not what you could call a friendship but they’d definitely established a mutual respect. Dru had always felt comfortable with him, probably because he reminded her of Bill Jarragah, Dad’s workman back on the farm when she’d been growing up in the Territory.
Now she bit her lip as curiosity tugged at her. Surely if it was a sacred women’s site, she’d know about it—and Rocky wouldn’t be allowed there. He was definitely up to something.
For a fleeting moment she was tempted to follow him, but she shrugged and picked up her shovel.
*
Watching Dru make her way from termite mound to termite mound was mind-numbingly boring. There’d been no sign of Rocky Cardella after he’d disappeared into the hills on the other side of the tailings dam and Connor decided he was wasting time that could be spent better elsewhere. He gave up shortly after 3.00 am. He was hot, ti
red, and sick of sitting on the side of a hill peering through his binoculars.
As he drove back to the staff village, the loud noise from the processing plant could be heard through the closed windows of the ute. Whatever the problem had been had been fixed. He looked up as he drove past; the conveyor belt was in action.
Connor unlocked the door of his donga and put his binoculars and keys on the table. He made a coffee and pulled out his laptop, bypassed the wi-fi provided to mine staff, and logged on with his secure dongle through his company. There was an email from Greg.
Found stuff. Call some useful me
Connor grunted. The smiley face at the end of the message didn’t temper his frustration one bit. If there was information, he wanted it now, but he’d have to be patient. He trusted Greg and if he wanted him to call there would be a reason. Since they’d left the force and Connor had started his business, Greg had been more than happy to use his skills to retrieve a variety of information for him. They always used email or phone to communicate, and occasionally courier for the more sensitive items.
A quick check of the rest of his email provided nothing of interest so he turned to the printed staff files that John Robinson had provided. Dru’s file only had a few pages; those of the male staff were far bulkier as they had been employed by the mine for a longer period of time. He put them aside and focused on hers, ignoring the certainty that was building. He was sure she was involved but he had no evidence yet apart from the Dubai connection. It could be purely circumstantial but there was a tingling at the back of his neck that told him to keep digging.
Motivation. Opportunity. Proof. He needed to establish all three, and in that order.
Motivation—the diamonds and the wealth that came with their sale to the right person.
Opportunity—he had a bit more work to do there but he already had identified some gaps in the security.
In the investigations Connor had been involved in since he’d left the Federal Police, money had almost always been the prime motivator, with the exception of one white-collar crime in Sydney that had been motivated by revenge after a marriage breakdown.
It was usually the simplest mistake that set him on the path to finding who he was after and that’s what he was hoping for here. From experience he knew that extreme confidence—like Dru had displayed—and the almost delusional belief in one’s ability to escape detection were characteristic of the criminal mind. Connor was proud of his work and he knew he’d made a difference to the quantities of drugs coming into the country from South-East Asia over the past few years. This investigation should be easier than that work; all he had to do here was work systematically through the evidence until he found the flaw in the security of the mine.
Proof. That was going to be the hard part, unless he caught someone with the diamonds in their hand. But that was unlikely. A crime of this magnitude wouldn’t be an opportune, spur of the moment incident. Hopefully Greg had found something for him in his computer search.
There was nothing of interest in the printed staff file so Connor turned back to his laptop. He clicked the mouse and scrolled to the next screen, his frustration building. The lack of information on Dru was fanning the flames of his suspicion, and he had to make a conscious effort to pull his thoughts back into a logical order.
He could trace her digital footprint right up until she left university and moved to Dubai, and he only knew about that position from the files that John Robinson had given him. There was no record of her in any of the public databases and no connection with Dubai at all. He pulled up the social pages of some Arabian newspapers and magazines and ran a search on her name, but there was nothing documented.
Her university records were accessible—to him anyway. He accessed the server at James Cook University with a string of MS DOS commands Greg had taught him when they’d worked together in the AFP. Pulling up past student records from the archived files, he raised his eyebrows as he scanned through her results over the four years she attended. A high distinction average had guaranteed her the pick of the engineering jobs at the end of that year.
He pulled up the server of her last employer, but didn’t log in once he managed to reach the company’s log in screen. The Ain Dubai was a top secret project; state of the art engineering, and he didn’t want his illegal access to be traced as he was sure it would be. He’d have to use other means to find out why she left. He jotted down a note on the pad on the desk to call the company. Surprisingly the direct approach often revealed more information than he’d expected.
Resorting to a basic Google search, Connor retrieved a few newspaper articles that were over five years old. He read the screen, nodding slowly. Dru had been involved in a few sports clubs around Townsville. A series of photographs from her university days showed her hanging from cliffs, jumping from planes and scuba diving. No matter what she was doing, she looked serious and intense. That’s what he’d noticed about her tonight. She rarely smiled.
A few later photographs were of her abseiling, and the most recent one was of her receiving an award for completing her tenth sky dive with a North Queensland company.
And then it came to a dead end. Absolutely nothing. No hits in the search engines that were more recent than her university days. He’d have to get Greg to look even deeper than her financial records. When he could get hold of him.
He pulled up Facebook but the three Dru Porters who were listed bore no resemblance to her. He picked up her staff file again and looked for her full name.
Drusilla Maree Porter. He typed it in and searched again.
Bloody hell. Nothing.
Connor leaned forwards as Dru Porter, Engineer, came up on LinkedIn and a spurt of excitement fired briefly but it was another dead end. There were no details apart from her name and qualifications, which were useless. He already had those from the university search and the Matsu file.
Connor clicked his tongue in frustration; he was going in circles. He leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath, cleared his mind, and then let his thoughts come back randomly.
How were the diamonds being taken off site?
The likely scenario was that they were taken from the recovery room before they were registered in the Matsu computer system. But if that was the case there had to be involvement by one or more of the security staff.
Finlayson? Hennessey? Or someone else who had access to that part of the site and could tamper with the cameras? Or was there someone out on the plant pulling the rough diamonds from the conveyor belt?
He’d read up on the process; his next step was to go to the plant under the guise of checking their compliance with the policies and watch the process in action. What security was in place there, he wondered. According to the documents, there were more cameras in the recovery area than anywhere else on the site. All employees and visitors to recovery had to undergo a random search every time they left the building to ensure no diamonds were being smuggled out, but what did random mean? How could that guarantee security?
It had to be an inside job.
With all of the cameras around the site, it would be near impossible to just pick up a diamond at any point in the process.
Were any of those other staff members highlighted by Robinson likely to be able to do that?
Adam Hennessey could be a possibility, but there was no evidence of his involvement; he’d been upfront about the camera problem. He’d been at the mine for a few years and until now there’d been no problems. But Connor wasn’t going to discount him.
Don Finlayson had carte blanche access to the whole system too. Was it significant that he had chosen to take leave at precisely the time when there was such a security issue at stake?
Connor yawned and reached for his coffee cup, and grimaced as the cold strong liquid hit his tongue. He glanced at the time on the bottom of the screen. It was 5.00 am. No wonder he was making no headway.
As he prepared to shut down the laptop, the Arabian newspaper he’d searched earl
ier filled his screen. Reaching for the file that Robinson had given him, he flicked through the pages until he came to the information provided by the Belgian jeweller. How the diamonds were being removed from the mine was a problem he could explore later. He’d try working backwards for a while.
They had been presented to the jeweller in Antwerp by the personal assistant of a businessman . . . he turned the pages slowly, searching for the name that he had been given in Perth.
Zayed Al Tayer.
Connor turned back to his laptop and initiated another Google search. He let out a low whistle as he read the public information that filled the screen. Bingo! One of Al Tayer’s companies held the contract for the entertainment precinct on Bluewater Island where the Ain Dubai was located.
The Ain Dubai. Dru had worked there before she came to Matsu. He flicked from screen to screen and read Al Tayer’s background until a series of images filled the final screen.
Zayed Al Tayer was a lot younger than Connor had expected from the background biographical information. A tall dark man in a Western dress, he looked more like an Englishman than an Arab. He’d been educated in Dubai and then continued his studies in the United Kingdom where he graduated from Sandhurst and later studied economics at Cambridge University.
‘Fucking hell.’ Connor widened his eyes as he stared at the screen.
The caption read: ‘Zayed Al Tayer at the opening of the new aquarium at Atlantis, the Palm.’
A photograph of a social occasion in Dubai showed a group of people in evening dress surrounding the tall man. Beside him was an equally tall young woman in a close-fitting midnight blue dress, with her blonde hair pinned artfully to the top of her head. She towered over the rest of the women in the group as she smiled at the camera. Connor clicked on the top right of the browser and zoomed in. Al Tayer’s hand was just visible above the woman’s hip as he held her close to him but it would not have been obvious to the casual observer.