Desert Demon (Foley & Rose Book 7)

by Gary Gregor

  “Is she going to make it?” Foley asked worriedly.

  “According to Moose, it is touch-and-go at this stage. The doctors will know more after they have operated.”

  “Fuckin’ arsehole!” Foley exclaimed. “We gotta find this dude.”

  “The sooner the better,” Barker nodded.

  “Where is Moose’s 2IC?” Sam asked.

  “Colin’s up at the roadhouse with two of our blokes—Taylor and Smith,” Barker replied. “He and Moose were attending a road accident down the track and came back here as soon as the Highway Patrol chaps arrived at the scene. Colin’s helping Taylor and Smith, taking statements from the roadhouse manager and his wife, as well as the aboriginal woman employed here as a general cleaner—she cleans the station building, the cells, and does any light, odd jobs around the station and the two houses. She was here in the kitchen when Lara was shot. Heard a vehicle speed away from the side road running alongside the two houses. Apparently, she did not get a look at the shooter or his vehicle.”

  “CCTV?” Sam asked.

  “Not here at the station,” Barker answered with a shake of the head. “Something I’ve been complaining about to the powers-that-be for years. I suppose this might motivate them to spend a few bucks and update station security. There is a camera on the front of the roadhouse, aimed at the fuel apron, targeting ‘runners’ who fill up and drive off without paying. Unfortunately, it doesn’t cover the main public vehicle parking area.”

  “What now?” Foley asked.

  “I was about to head back to the Alice just before you arrived. I have updated HQ in both Alice Springs and Darwin and all patrols in Southern Command, uniform and plainclothes, as well as all bush stations. Our BOLO has been reinforced and we are gonna piss off a lot of people stopping anyone who looks like they could be a suspect, but I don’t care how many people we piss off, we need to catch the bastard. Lara was one of our own. Any member of a police officer’s family is as much a part of the overall police family as the police officer himself or herself.”

  “What do you want Sam and I to do?”

  “Make your way slowly back to Alice Springs. Take your time. Take as many back roads as you can find. The suspect is going to stay out of sight as much as possible. Call into aboriginal settlements. Ask the administrators to advise their residents to be aware and report any suspicious vehicles or people who might come into their community. Don’t worry about overtime or any accommodation expenses. I’ll authorise any reasonable associated expenses. Keep me updated regularly.”

  19

  Desert Demon Strikes Again!!

  Police baffled as Elusive Desert-Roaming Killer Shoots Cop’s Wife

  Adalhard Jaeger re-read the headline blazoned across the front page of the NT News, the Northern Territory’s major daily newspaper. He smiled to himself, folded the newspaper, and placed it on the passenger seat of his vehicle. They were calling him a “demon”. He’d learned long ago— thanks to his devoted mother—that the ancient Germanic interpretation of his name was Brave Hunter, but Adalhard had never been one to put a lot of significance in such things. He did, however, prefer the ancient interpretation of his name rather than the Australian media’s label. The label “demon”, however, carried with it a certain thought process that might instil in some people a sense of awe, perhaps even dread, and in that regard he would take it.

  Adalhard’s grasp of English was somewhat limited but he was able to read the whole news article, as long as he took his time and read slowly. If the front-page article was accurate, the police were no closer to catching up with him than they were following the first killings. In fact, without actually committing it to print, the media seemed to insinuate that the police were a bunch of bumbling fools.

  Shooting the cop’s wife was, in hindsight, perhaps not the smartest thing to do. But from the first time he saw her walking back to her home from the roadhouse a few days earlier, he regretted he had not taken the opportunity when it first presented itself. It would have been risky had he acted then. There was a good chance that, had he done so, he might have been seen. This time however, it was much easier.

  What he knew now that he didn’t know then was that the woman was the wife of the local police officer. The roadhouse lady said the two police officers posted to Kulgera were out of town and that by all accounts the woman was home alone. What a coup it would be. Shoot a cop’s wife. Dangerous, and challenging, but worthy of his talents, he fervently thought.

  The only negative he could find in shooting the cop’s wife was that the media was reporting that the woman was still alive. How could that be? He’d shot her in the head, just like all the others. How could she survive a .45 calibre to the head? It was enough to bring down one of the famous Northern Territory buffalos.

  She was in Intensive Care, the paper reported. In an induced coma. If she lived, she could identify him. She saw his face, albeit only briefly. Long enough though, he supposed, to identify him if she ever saw him again. Not that seeing him again was likely to happen, but she could, at the very least, give a pretty good description of him.

  So far, the police had no idea who they were looking for. It would be nice if that situation continued. Adalhard felt he was not finished yet. The killings had emboldened him. He was venturing into “high-risk” territory. The cop’s wife, and the young couple at Kings Canyon were examples of his preparedness to take risks. The afterglow of a risky kill was a real buzz for him. He was happy with his efforts at Chambers Pillar and the family in the car, but they were his first kills here in this country and the thrill, although substantial, did not come close to the last two. It was a matter of learning on the job, he guessed. He could only get better the longer he continued. His next kill would be even more thrilling than anything that preceded it, he promised himself.

  He glanced at the discarded newspaper, smiled again, and then climbed out of his vehicle. He had parked deep in the bush, several kilometres off a narrow winding, dirt track that ran deep into the desert behind Stuarts Well roadhouse, approximately 100 kilometres south of Alice Springs.

  He turned off the highway onto the barely visible track running west, a few kilometres north of the roadhouse. The track—and “track” was perhaps too generous a name for the apparently disused road—followed a dry, narrow creek bed which looked like it had not flowed with water for many years. In places, spinifex grass and stunted native bushes protruded stubbornly through the soft sand of the creek bed.

  It was an ideal place to set up camp, Adalhard thought. He had sufficient food and water to last for at least a week, longer if he was frugal. His food supply was hardly laden with nutrition; instant soups and noodles were once-in-awhile dietary staples at best, but it was food nonetheless and without food and water, the Outback would sap the very life from your parched and weathered body before it eventually took you down to an inglorious death on the equally parched and weathered desert floor.

  He covered his vehicle with a large camouflage net he always carried with him, and small branches he hacked from surrounding shrubs and bushes. It wasn’t the perfect camouflage, but it would serve the purpose. His vehicle would be difficult to spot from the air, should there be any aircraft searching for him, and he very much doubted that anyone would come along the track he had taken to his current location. Before he chose to take the track, he decided it was so remote and apparently unused, no one would even think to take it.

  He was hungry and, while he was satisfied he had ample food and water, if the unforeseen happened, and he was forced into hiding for longer than a week, his food reserves would run out before his water did. Deciding not to eat lunch, he fired up his small, single burner gas-fuelled stove and boiled enough water to make coffee.

  The pressure of being a hunted man had never given rise to any real concern for Adalhard. He was good with pressure. He supposed a certain amount of self-control was inherited from his father, who faced plenty of pressure almost daily in the high-octane world of internat
ional finance. The military, however, the Kommando Spezialkräfte in particular, taught him more about dealing with pressure situations than he could learn from any other source. He was an undisciplined soldier, but an efficient commando, nonetheless.

  The pressure was on him from the first kill and had been building every day since. However, regardless of how telling the pressure was up to this point, it had to be ten-fold now. Shooting a cop’s wife was going to grab the police’s attention like none before.

  He was on his own. If the police caught up with him, there were no re-enforcement troops to call on. There was no camaraderie, no mateship like that he’d found in the military. No one would come to back him up. Whatever the future might hold, Adalhard would face it alone, and that had to be more than enough pressure to weaken and perhaps even overpower the resolve of the toughest of men … but not Adalhard Jaeger.

  He sat on the lowered tailgate of his four-wheel-drive and sipped his steaming hot coffee. He stared along the length of the dry creek bed and then glanced around at the country in the immediate vicinity. As harsh and threatening as this place was, there was something about the Australian Outback that fascinated him. He never got to serve in places like Afghanistan, and Iraq before that, like some of his fellow commandos, but he had trained long and hard with the specialist unit in the mountains of Germany in the middle of a hot, dry summer, and this was different. The heat was hotter, the sense of isolation more intense, the freezing nights like nothing he had experienced before, and the cloudless star-filled night sky mesmerizing.

  And then there were the snakes. He had a copy of Lonely Planet and had read over and over the entries referring to Australia and, in particular, the Outback. The Outback was host to an alarming number of deadly reptiles. He read that of the world’s ten most venomous snakes, seven could be found in Australia—including the Inland Taipan, the Desert Death Adder, and the Western Brown snake. Reputed to be the deadliest snake in the world, the Inland Taipan was estimated to hold in one bite, enough toxicity to kill up to one hundred fully grown humans. Snakes were one of the few things that Adalhard was afraid of and having not encountered any so far had to be a sign of continuing good fortune, he reasoned.

  The feeling of power at surviving both the Outback elements and the creatures hell-bent on killing him was profound. It gave him confidence and determination to continue with his quest to kill, randomly and efficiently, as many people as opportunity presented, and all while eluding capture by the hunting police. Having shot a cop’s wife, perhaps the hunters were now a bigger threat to him than the snakes of the Outback. If that were the case, it was not a threat that frightened him but one that enhanced his confidence and determination. Despite the pressure, it was exciting.

  “Life is full of challenges” was a mantra the senior Jaeger, Gerhard, reminded his son of often. It was his way of imprinting his own personal work ethic upon the developing mind of a young Adalhard. Gerhard pushed his son hard through his early childhood years and continued until he was well into his teens. Gerhard had expectations of his son that he believed would serve him well as he passed through the challenging years of his youth and onwards to adulthood. The world of international finance was not a game. It carried with it risks and challenges that if not confronted with a strong, determined, disciplined mind, could very quickly end in financial ruin.

  In his younger years, Adalhard hated the strict, mind-numbing teachings administered by his father but, now, all these years later, those teachings were serving him well. He was fixated on succeeding and meeting any challenges that confronted him. Sometimes, as he lay awake at night in the rear of his vehicle, he believed he could hear his father’s voice. The monotonous verbal vomit detailing exactly what his father expected of him, and how his life would be enhanced if he followed the principles and life lessons constantly drummed into him, filled his mind giving him both a dull throbbing headache and another sleepless night.

  He swallowed the last of his coffee, tossed the dregs onto the parched ground, and jumped off the tailgate. He walked a few paces from the vehicle to relieve himself, accompanied by the voice of his father. The bastard wouldn’t leave him alone! Even when he was taking a piss, his father was right there alongside him! Probably making sure his son did it right.

  He zipped up and stepped back to the vehicle. Despite the mental images and his father’s voice in his head, he had to admit he held a grudging respect for Gerhard. Adalhard was a man now. He had a stint in the military behind him, albeit a short-lived stint, and the military, hand-in-hand with his father’s persistent lecturing, had given him the belief that success at anything did not come without a focused commitment to overcoming any challenges life threw at him.

  Adalhard was never going to see his father again; that was a decision he’d made before he left Germany. His first real commitment in life. Perhaps.

  20

  Cameron Yap Yap Barker folded the newspaper in half and, with the front-page headlines clearly visible, he dropped it onto his desk and pushed it forward towards Lucas “Butch” Cassidy, seated opposite. “What the fuck is this?”

  Cassidy, the Alice Springs editor of the NT News, glanced briefly at the paper and then looked up at Barker. “That’s today’s edition of the newspaper, Cam,” he answered with an indifferent shrug, his voice gravelly and permanently fractured by way too many cigarettes over way too many years.

  “I know it’s the paper, Butch,” Barker said sourly. “What is that garbage all over the front page?”

  “Ease up a little, Cam. I’m in the newspaper business. Selling the news is what I do. Catchy headlines go a long way in helping us do that.”

  “The perpetrator of these crimes is not a demon, or a ghost, or a wandering, lost spirit, or any other fanciful name you give him. He’s flesh-and-blood, just like you and me. I want you to stop using such bullshit rhetoric in your paper.”

  Cassidy shrugged with indifference again. “It works, Cam. Newspaper sales are up by almost fifteen percent since this madman started on his killing spree.”

  “It’s blatant sensationalism, Butch,” Barker insisted.

  Cassidy picked up the newspaper, unfolded it, and studied the headlines. He re-folded it and placed it back on the desk, then regarded Barker intently. “Call it what you will, Cam. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. You know that we, as a newspaper, have been using catchy headlines for many years. It’s been proven they sell more papers.”

  “It’s bloody alarmist,” Barker said sternly. “People are locking themselves in their homes and pulling the shades.”

  “Now who’s using bullshit rhetoric, Cam?” Cassidy responded. “Our readers are not stupid. They know there are no demons or ghosts running around, killing people at random.” He tapped the newspaper. “Catchy, eye-grabbing headlines don’t have to be factual. They just have to sell more papers. I’m sure you’ve heard the reporter’s mantra ‘don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story’.”

  “You’re telling lies,” Barker insisted.

  “And you’re being overly dramatic. If what we report makes the public become more aware of their own personal security, that has to be a good thing.”

  Barker raised his hands in surrender. “I’m just asking that you go a little softer on the demon and ghost stuff.”

  “Are you any closer to catching the person responsible for these killings?”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation, Butch. You know I can’t comment on matters currently under investigation.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Cassidy said.

  “Look, mate,” Barker sighed. “All I’m asking is that you tone down all the demon and ghost bullshit. People are scared, mate.”

  “Of course, they’re scared, Cam. No one wants to be his next victim. There is a killer out there, somewhere, shooting innocent members of the public, seemingly at random, and you are no closer to catching him today than you were when he killed the Watson family almost a week ago. Scared people take
more precautions in their homes and when out in the public.”

  Cameron Barker rubbed his eyes. “I’m not going to win this argument, am I?”

  “It’s not about winning and losing. It’s about alerting the people to be aware that this man is still out there.”

  “Like scaring them half to death,” Barker said sarcastically.

  “They are not imbeciles,” Cassidy said, sounding angrier. “They don’t believe in ghosts any more than you or I do”

  “Then why use such outlandish rhetoric?” Barker asked.

  “Because it works, Cam! People see the headlines, they buy the paper, sales go through the roof … and I get another congratulatory email from my boss in Darwin,” he said cheekily.

  “How many years have you and I been friends, Butch?” Barker asked.

  “Long time, mate.”

  “That’s right. A long, long time. Does our friendship stand for nothing?”

  “Oh, don’t do that, Cam,” Cassidy groaned.

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t pull the friendship card, mate. This is not about our longstanding friendship.”

  Barker slumped back in his chair, sighed heavily, and eventually said, “I apologise. That was a low blow. It’s just that this case has got me so wound up I’m grasping at straws. Then, there’s Moose McKenzie’s wife. That hit all of us hard.”

  “How is she?” Cassidy asked.

  “Still in an induced coma. But it’s not looking good for a full recovery—if she recovers at all.”

  “How is Moose handling it?”

  “Moose is as tough as they come,” Barker stated. “Right now, however, he’s a mess. They have been married for a long time and thinking about losing her has crippled him emotionally.”

  “They got kids?”

  “Yeah, two. They are with Moose at the hospital. Taking turns watching over her. I understand they might fly her up to Darwin Hospital if there is no improvement in the next few days.”