Holy Orders

by Angus McLean

  Kyle had burned me tailing him but didn’t realise it was me. They had conspired together to distract us from the investigation by blowing up Dearlove’s house. Chappy was adamant that nobody was supposed to get hurt. Whether he was naïve or an idiot, I didn’t know, but I was sure that he actually believed that. He was too immersed in the whole deal by that stage to see the wood for the trees. He believed he had 100k coming his way, which would be a huge help in digging him out of his financial hole.

  Chappy had detailed how Kyle had the car stashed on a farm outside Ngatea. He had never been there and didn’t know the address. All he knew was that it belonged to Kyle’s uncle.

  The power of the internet had come into play again and Molly had taken all of ten minutes to pin it down for us. Kyle had an uncle who had lived on a 250 hectare dairy farm outside Ngatea. He no longer lived there, being as how he was in jail awaiting trial for cultivating cannabis. A substantial crop had been found on his farm, along with the remains of a meth lab, and Uncle Steve had gone inside. The farm had been seized by the cops’ Asset Recovery Unit, with a view to selling it.

  It didn’t appear to have been sold yet, so would make an ideal hideaway for the criminal nephew and his mates.

  That said, the smart money was on the car not being there. Chappy had had plenty of time to give his mates a heads-up, and there was always the chance they were storing the car elsewhere anyway. That would be the logical thing to do, but I had a nagging in my gut that we were going to hit the jackpot today.

  We had no legal power to go onto the farm, but I figured that if we found the car then all would be forgiven. And if we didn’t then no harm, no foul.

  The biggest challenge would be in getting on the ground in the first place.

  Uncle Google showed us the layout of the area and we split up. Mike took a circuitous route to get round the far side of the farm and approached from the north, doing a lap before moving away and parking up. My phone rang on the hands-free a few moments later.

  ‘Flat as,’ he reported, ‘but enough cover to get in and have a recce. Even for you.’

  I remained professional and ignored the jibe, because that’s how I roll. I got Mike to run me through the layout of the farm as best he could. The house itself was closer to our location on the southern side, accessed by a long driveway. Beyond that were a standalone garage and a couple of small outbuildings, a few paddocks and a barn. More paddocks, a milking shed, and more paddocks.

  The paddocks were interspersed with hedges and ditches, but there was a distinct lack of cattle.

  ‘What kind of dairy farm doesn’t have cows?’ Molly wondered aloud. ‘Isn’t the kind of the point of having a dairy farm? The dairy bit?’

  ‘They wouldn’t be able to work it while it’s seized, would they?’ Mike said. ‘Not a very productive sort of farm though.’

  ‘Maybe the sort of farm that’s used for criminal activity,’ I said, giving her my best Roger Moore-patented eyebrow raise. ‘Best we find out.’

  ‘Riiigght,’ she drawled.

  ‘You stay with the car.’ I gave her a poker face. ‘I’ll go and do the dangerous stuff in the most dashing manner possible.’

  She rolled her eyes and I could hear Mike groan through the speakers.

  I laid out a plan to them, keeping it simple. The simpler the better; less room for mistakes. The aim was simply to get in there, have a recce of any likely hiding places, and get out. Quick and quiet and nobody the wiser.

  The likeliest places for the car to be stashed were the barn, the milking shed, and the outbuildings and garage near the house. I would cross the paddocks and go from one building to the next as unobtrusively as possible, before returning to the car. Molly would wait behind the wheel in case things went wrong, and Mike would stand by the next road over.

  ‘Any dogs?’ I asked.

  ‘Didn’t see any,’ Mike said.

  I turned to Molly. ‘Wish me luck,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t need luck,’ she said. ‘You’re a debonair international playboy, remember?’

  I grinned and opened the door.

  Fourteen

  The grey of dawn was being steadily beaten into submission by the rising sun. It was still dark enough to limit visibility to a couple of paddocks when I started off, but I knew that wouldn’t last long and I needed to get a shift on.

  The ground underfoot was uneven and soft and I caught my jeans on a fence as I climbed over, but aside from that I was away. Birds were chirping in the trees and I saw a grey bunny streak across ahead of me, jinking like a sevens player as it made for cover. I had a torch, my phone and the keen intuition of a detective. Within a few minutes I had shadowed a hedge to within thirty metres of the milking shed.

  I hunkered down near a large clump of trees and thick undergrowth, looking and listening. No dogs. Not a peep of anything but birds and the odd cow and the rustling of trees in the light breeze.

  I reached the milking shed in a doubled-over crouch, getting down again to look and listen. Again nothing, and a quick scan showed the shed to be empty of anything but disused milking equipment.

  I caught my breath and plotted my next move before making it. Another few minutes of careful manoeuvring got me to the side of the hay barn. This was it, for sure. The ideal place to stash a stolen car out in the boonies.

  The big door creaked and groaned as I eased it open. I slid sideways through the gap, the smell of hay hitting me in the face as I entered. I scanned the torch around.

  Bales of hay were stacked on either side almost to the ceiling, leaving a U-shaped empty space in the middle.

  Empty. No car.

  My heart sank. Damnit, I’d been sure it would be here.

  I got myself together and slipped outside again. The early morning sun was coming up properly now and it would only be a matter of minutes before the day was really upon us. If anyone was here they were likely to be armed – drugs and guns go together like ham and cheese. Or hookers and crooks. With it being so flat the visibility would be good, and I’d be a sitting duck.

  I dug the small binos out of my pocket and ran them across the house and the outbuildings near it. The outbuildings were more garden sheds, too small to fit a car, but the garage needed a closer look. The house didn’t appear to be occupied; there was no smoke coming from the chimney and no condensation on the windows that I could see. I doubled over and followed the car-wide track towards the house, hugging the post-and-rail fence line for some form of cover.

  I was about half a paddock from the garage when the back door of the house opened and a guy emerged with a cigarette in his mouth. I made like a pancake and watched as he sparked up the cancer stick and blew a cloud of smoke into the crisp morning air.

  He stepped off the back porch and ambled in my direction.

  Uh-oh. This was not good.

  I was face down in the grass, dew soaking through my clothes, and feeling horribly exposed. The guy was getting closer, sucking on his fag and kicking stones as he ambled along. Tats up his exposed arms. His Metallica T-shirt, ripped jeans and scruffy Chucks told me that he was no kind of a farmer. Presumably a knucklehead who’d been tasked with babysitting the place.

  I pressed myself down as flat as I could go, praying that the guy was either too dopey or too distracted with his smoke to see me. I was breathing slow and deep, oxygenating my blood and getting ready to fight or flee.

  The guy was almost level with me when he tossed his smoke aside and cut to his left, stepping off the track to open a gate into a paddock. He was now heading in the direction I’d entered the farm from, following a fence-line towards the large stand of trees and scrub at the corner of the paddock.

  I raised up and watched as he reached the trees and disappeared into the shadows of the branches and undergrowth.

  I could see movement among the branches and dug the binos out.

  The guy was pulling away camouflage netting, exposing a shed of some sort buried deep in the trees. A perfect hiding pl
ace, and I’d walked right past it on the way in.

  A few moments later there was the revving of an engine and a white car emerged from the shadows, bumping gently across the undulating ground towards the gate. As it pulled up at the gate I saw it properly for the first time and felt an undeniable kick in my chest.

  A white 1962 Volvo P1800 in mint condition. This was celluloid gold right here, a TV legend just metres away from me.

  And the key was in my pocket.

  Presumably the baddies had got a replacement key made somehow, unless they had hotwired the thing. Either way the car was right there in front of me, with only one guy in the way. I started to ease the phone from my pocket to give the others a heads-up, hoping I could get them before he disappeared off up the road to who knew where.

  The car eased to a stop once it was through the gate and the guy got out, leaving the engine running. His phone rang as he went to close the gate and I pricked my ears up. He closed the gate and leaned on it with his back to me. I carefully pushed myself up.

  ‘Oh yeah…did he?…what a loser, too late anyway…’ The guy snickered. ‘They should be here soon anyway, so all good mate…yup…laters.’

  He disconnected and turned towards the car when his phone rang again. He stayed where he was.

  ‘Yeah?...sweet, go right there, minute up the road…yup…laters.’

  He disconnected again and was putting his phone away as he started to turn. He got halfway through the turn before I hit him, a cheap shot that would have blindsided him if he hadn’t been faster than he looked.

  The jab skated across his ear instead of his jaw and he stepped back, grabbing at me as I came in. He landed a decent hook to my ribs and pushed me away. As I stumbled forward I caught a glimpse of him from the corner of my eye, lifting the front of his Metallica T-shirt.

  I saw the handgrip of a pistol in the front of his waistband.

  I lashed out with a wild backwards kick, all power and no finesse whatsoever. It didn’t matter though, because it got him straight in the guts and knocked him backwards. I spun and was on him fast, charging low and hard, driving my shoulder into his gut and trapping his gun hand between us as I slammed him backwards against the gate. I needed to get control of that gun and fast.

  The guy let out a whoof of air and flapped at me with his free hand. I pushed up, seizing hold of his right hand with my left, wrenching it backwards. He squealed and flailed at me with his left. I ducked it, set myself and put my whole body into a right hook.

  It connected solidly with his jaw and it was lights out for him. I let him slide to the ground and shook the pain out of my hand. The jaw is a big solid bone and it hurts when you hit it. I took the pistol from him before putting him in the recovery position. The last thing I needed right now was some idiot dying on me. The gun was a Glock 9mm, just like I had used in the cops. I checked the load. Full magazine and one up the spout, ready to go.

  These guys meant business.

  I tossed the gun in the car and got behind the wheel. I speed-dialled Molly and Mike on a conference call as I got going. It took all of ten seconds to tell them what was going on. I was bumping past the house when Molly said, ‘A truck’s just gone past me towards you.’

  ‘I’m on the way,’ Mike said, and I could hear the roar of his Ranger in the background.

  ‘I’m back behind it,’ Molly was saying, ‘it’s a grey and white truck, like a moving company has. Slowing down.’

  I could see it now, over to my right. I was halfway down the driveway, only seconds away from reaching the road and some kind of safety. There were two guys in the cab of the truck and they had locked onto me. I reached the road at the same time as they reached the driveway, and I saw their eyes widen with surprise when they realised I was not their contact.

  I spun wooden steering wheel to the left, giving it some gas as I took off. The truck’s engine roared as they started to give chase, but I was pretty confident I could outrun them in this beast. I let out a whoop of triumph and chopped up the gears. The car responded immediately and for a moment there it felt like I really was Simon Templar, escaping from the bad guys in some nefarious scheme.

  That was until I saw the other car overtaking the truck and flying up behind me. In the background I could hear Molly’s voice over the phone.

  ‘…some clown in a big car just went past at a million miles an hour.’

  ‘We’ve got company,’ I shouted, ‘this must be the heavies.’

  ‘I see you,’ Mike was saying. ‘I’ll block them, you go past.’

  I zeroed in on him, the other car maybe fifty metres behind me. Mike swung his truck around across the road, blocking one lane completely and most of the other. He eased back, just enough for me to sail through the gap, then rocked forward again to completely block the road.

  The other car locked up and skidded, smoke pouring from its tyres as it slid along the asphalt towards him. I hit the picks and slapped it into reverse.

  The other car, which I recognised now as the dark coloured Mercedes that took me for a roof surf in Avondale, slid towards the ditch on the left hand side of the road. Mike nudged it with his bullbars to help it on its way, sending it nose-first into the ditch.

  I stopped and jumped out, shoving the seized pistol into the back of my waistband.

  The moving truck arrived on the scene and the two guys leaped down from it. One carried a tire iron, the other a baseball bat. Both looked like career hoods. That dispelled any doubts about their intentions.

  Mike and I came round the front of the Ranger together. The Merc’s doors opened and two more dudes climbed out. One was Kyle, the other was cut from the same cloth but chunkier than Kyle.

  ‘Wait!’ Kyle barked at the two guys from the truck. ‘We’ll deal with this.’

  The two guys from the truck hung back, watching and waiting, hoping they’d get their turn.

  Mike looked at me, game face on. ‘Let’s rock’n’roll,’ he said.

  The driver of the Merc was a solid unit, a tad shorter than Mike but with big shoulders and arms. Tight black T-shirt and plenty of tats. I hoped he went for Mike rather than me. As if he’d read my mind, Mike tossed his chin at the big guy.

  ‘Fancy yourself?’ he said.

  The big guy was snorting like a bull, fists bunched and ready to go. Mike rolled his shoulders and put up his dukes. They closed up.

  Kyle eyed me as he approached. ‘Knew you were trouble,’ he said, ‘first time I saw you. Got cop written all over you.’

  ‘No you didn’t,’ I grinned. ‘You’re not that smart.’

  His smirk faltered for a moment. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Funny,’ I said, ‘because the first time I met you, I had you pegged as a nark.’ His face darkened and I grinned again. You can insult a guy’s mother all you want, but the worst you can do to a guy in his world is label him a nark. ‘I knew I was a good judge of character.’

  He scowled and his mate glanced at him. It was all the opportunity that Mike needed. In the nano-second that the big guy looked away Mike landed the first blow, a straight jab to the guy’s jaw. No point being polite.

  The shot bounced the guy’s head but he shook it off and launched into it, fists flying.

  Kyle came at me at the same time, jabbing at me like he knew what he was doing. I ducked and weaved, keeping my guard up and blocking a couple of his better shots. He snuck one past the keeper and got me on the temple, a good enough shot to make me stumble.

  ‘Huh.’ I grunted. ‘That the best you got?’

  He stepped in again, his early success making him cocky. He feinted with a jab at my face and went for the big haymaker. I side-stepped, let the haymaker sail past my nose and went straight in with a combo. Left hook to the ribs, he pulled to his right, and the right hook took him flush on the jaw. He staggered, his legs wobbled and I hit him again.

  Down in a heap and out of the game.

  Mike had a small cut on his cheek which I knew he wouldn’t be happy about, and
he was working hard on the big fella. The big guy was throwing good shots but he was breathing hard and his forehead was beaded with sweat. Mike was barely puffing at all, stepping around the guy and making him keep moving.

  As I watched, the big fella threw a fast left-right-left combo at Mike’s torso. Mike was faster.

  Step, block, left jab to the eye. The big guy turned away involuntarily as his eyebrow split and blood spilled into his eye, and that was the turning point.

  A solid uppercut to the gut knocked the wind out of him and he bent forward, allowing Mike to set a beautiful follow up to the chin that dropped him like a sack of spuds.

  Mike stood over the guy. ‘Too many weights, not enough cardio mate,’ he said. He glanced at me as he stepped back, sucking in a breath. ‘Alright, son?’

  I snorted and turned to see the two guys from the truck coming forward now, their weapons raised. They had seen their chance to join the party, but enough was enough.

  I pulled the Glock from my waistband and pointed it at them. They stopped in their tracks.

  ‘Stop right there,’ I said calmly, ‘put the weapons down.’

  The guy with the baseball bat narrowed his eyes. ‘You won’t shoot,’ he said.

  I locked eyes with him. ‘Try me,’ I said.

  He stepped forward, the bat still cocked over his shoulder, ready to swing. The gap between us was about five metres. He would cover that in a second, and I knew I would be justified in dropping him if he tried.

  I shifted the aim slightly to the side and squeezed the trigger.

  The shot was loud enough to make them both jump, and the bullet ploughed through the radiator of their truck. A trickle of steam drifted upwards.

  The guy with the tyre iron turned tail and ran. The guy with the bat gently put it down and raised his hands.

  ‘On your face,’ I said, ‘arms out to the sides.’

  The next second I heard the sound of a car engine from behind the truck, followed by a thump. Our car came into sight with Molly behind the wheel. The guy with the tyre iron was on the bonnet. She hit the anchors and the guy flew off, landing in a heap on the road.