Dark Country (38 page)

She was quiet in the lift going down, subdued.

It was too risky to discuss Vince and their predicament in a public lift, even if they were alone, and even riskier to put
his arms around her, for the same and other reasons.

‘Do you see your family often?’ he asked.

She shook herself out of her thoughts. ‘Not a lot. They never come out bush – can’t understand why I live there – and I’ve
been a bit busy the past few years to spend much time here.’ She made an attempt at a grin. ‘Definitely not a city chick any
more.’

‘Are your siblings here?’

‘Yes. Royce is a financial analyst, he works a block or so from here, and Stephanie’s a fashion editor for a glossy mag.’

‘In one of the family photos, there was another brother. He looked like you.’

Her face clouded, and he regretted asking, but she answered the question, her voice flat. ‘That’s Hugh. He died. He saw a
woman being assaulted outside a pub, went to help her, and was shot by the assailant. Hugh was twenty-one.’

And she’d have been maybe nineteen or twenty, he guessed, and very close to her brother. ‘Is that why you became a cop?’

‘Partly.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘Partly to annoy my father, who wanted Hugh and me to go into law. Dad and I haven’t always
seen eye-to-eye on what constitutes justice. But mostly because I wanted to do something positive for the world, which didn’t
involve sitting behind a desk all day.’

The lift pinged to announce the ground floor, and the doors slid open.

‘Where to now?’ she asked.

‘Back to the bike, then straight to Dungirri,’ he decided.

The uneasiness that had dogged him since reading Vince’s will ratcheted up further. They had to stand a better chance away
from the city, where Tony and Sergio didn’t have the same resources, and didn’t know the environment as well. Tony wouldn’t
rest until he had the will; if he wasn’t already on his way to the Dungirri district to join Sergio, he would be as soon as
word got back from the police that Gil had it.

It was just on noon now. He and Kris could be back there this evening. He could move Megan and the others to somewhere more
distant – maybe enlist Mark’s help to do so.

And then he’d prepare to face Tony and Sergio.

It was well past dark when they rode through Dungirri. The town was quiet, only a few regulars’ cars in front of the pub,
no-one out on the streets. They didn’t stop. Kris took the Birraga road out of town, heading to Mark’s place.

The moon, two days past full, was rising behind them, casting shadows that mixed, among the trees at the side of the road,
with those from the headlight. She wanted to crawl into a bed, curl up beside Gil, and sleep for at least ten hours. They’d
taken it in turns driving, but there was little rest in being a passenger on the bike, and she knew they were both on the
edge of exhaustion. A couple of brief stops for fuel and food had kept them going, but she counted now the remaining distance
to Mark’s place – twenty kilometres on the Birraga side of Dungirri.

Seventeen, when she passed the turn to Gil’s father’s place. Fifteen, when she passed Delphi O’Connell’s farm, a light still
on in the front room. Five, when she approached the turn onto the dirt road leading to Mark’s.

Ahead, two vehicles swung out of the road, turned towards Birraga, tail lights disappearing into the darkness. She idly wondered
which property they’d come from – there were three or four down the fifteen-kilometre road.

As she decelerated for the turn, a flash of light in the sky beyond the trees caught her attention. She slowed right down,
trying to catch it again. A shooting star? A plane? A few properties around here had airstrips – Mark’s included – but planes
rarely landed at night out here, except in an emergency. The light in the sky swung around, too manoeuvrable for a plane,
more the motion of a helicopter – and from the direction of Mark’s place. Helicopters only flew around here at night in an
emergency, too.

She rounded the corner, took the speed up as far as she dared on the dirt, and raced to Mark’s.

The steel gates at the entrance to the property dragged crookedly on their hinges, bent and twisted, and the intercom unit
set into the brick gatepost hung by a wire, the others cut, the metal smashed by something heavy.

Kris killed the bike’s engine, coasting in to the shadow of nearby trees.

When they’d left Sydney, she’d taken her police weapon from her backpack and tucked it into the back of her jeans, as a precaution.
Now she drew it, waving Gil into the cover of the old pine trees lining the long drive. They moved quickly but with caution
up the drive, staying in the shadows of the trees, Gil, unarmed, close behind Kris.

There were no lights on in the house, and no vehicles outside it. While the possibility that the chopper had been at some
other property had occurred to her, it didn’t explain the busted gates, the lack of lights – or the open front door.

‘If the emergency chopper had picked up someone, there’d be at least an ambulance, and probably police vehicles here,’ she
whispered to Gil. He nodded in agreement, his eyes hard and cold.

As they came in sight of the multi-car garage beside the house, her suspicions of something sinister were realised. The doors
were open, the cars – hers, Liam’s, Mark’s – riddled with bullet holes, windows shattered, tyres blown apart.

A voice came from the house, and she caught Gil’s arm as he surged forward, but let go when Mark stumbled out on to the veranda,
torch in one hand, propping himself up against a post for steadiness, his head bleeding as he yelled into a phone.

They raced to him as he demanded ambulance and police, reached him as he shook the phone in disgust. Dazed and not quite with
it, he slid down the post to the wooden floor. ‘This phone’s not working. Old one – they smashed the others.’

She had her phone out, cursing the time it took to turn on, at the same time trying to examine his head wound and check his
responses.

Gil went straight inside, calling for Megan, Deb and Liam. Kris didn’t hear any answering calls.

‘What happened, Mark? Where are the others?’

‘Cars. At least eight men, with weapons. Balaclavas – couldn’t see who they were. Then the helicopter landed. They took the
girls. Tried to stop them but …’ He indicated his head. ‘Rifle butt. Hard. Liam’s down – shot I think.’

Her phone beeped to announce its readiness – at last – and she dialled the emergency number as she took the torch, ordered
Mark to stay put, and ran inside, searching for Liam.

‘I’ll need both police and ambulance,’ she told the operator. ‘Two women have just been abducted from the home of Federal
MP Mark Strelitz, twenty kilometres west of Dungirri in northern New South Wales.’ She briskly gave the address, added when
the operator sought more details, ‘The Birraga police know where it is. I’m their sergeant. Tell them the abductors are in
a helicopter, which headed west or southwest about ten minutes ago. There are two casualties on the ground, so put me through
to the ambulance operator now.’

Finding the main rooms of the house empty, she stepped out on to the terrace, and in a sweep of the torch she caught sight
of Gil out in the paddock beyond, kneeling on the ground beside Liam.

‘Two males injured,’ she told the ambulance operator as she ran across the ground. ‘One with blunt force trauma to the head,
conscious and talking but dazed.’

Blood. Blood on Liam’s chest, and on his thigh. Blood all over Gil’s hands, as he pressed against the two wounds. Her brain
registered it, reeled from it, even as her training kicked in and she kept speaking clearly to the emergency operator.

‘One with multiple gunshot wounds to chest and upper leg, significant blood loss.’ She switched to speaker phone as she knelt
beside Liam, dropped the phone and the torch on the ground as she tore off her jacket and T-shirt, and bundled it against
the wound in the side of his chest. Gil’s large hand pressed down on it, and she reached for Liam’s wrist. ‘Pulse is weak,’
she said, loudly enough for the phone to pick up. ‘Patient is not conscious. We’ll need the rescue helicopter.’

His tone polite and calming, the operator started to ask more questions, but despairing at the delay, she spoke over him.
‘I’m a police sergeant. I know serious injuries when I see them. Just get that chopper in the air now, and ambulances on the
way, and then we can do the rest.’

Liam’s lips moved up a fraction, and his hand moved slightly under hers. When she glanced down, she saw he’d given her a thumbs-up
sign. Relief made her eyes blur, but it didn’t lessen her worry by much.

Grim-faced, Gil told Liam to ‘Hang in there, mate. We’ve got you.’

Kris continued reporting to the operator, responding to his questions, checking Liam’s leg wound. A bullet wound, blood loss,
but from what she could tell, no main artery hit. She knew damned well that this far from help, Liam wouldn’t have stood much
chance if that had been the case.

She heard car engines approaching, saw headlights arc across the garden. Worried it might be the abductors returning, she
quickly flicked the torch off, drew her gun, and with a signal to Gil to stay with Liam, she ducked around the side of the
house to check, yanking on her jacket as she went.

Two police cars pulled up in the driveway outside the house. The officer’s torch beams caught Mark, slumped against the post,
and one swung around and blinded her as she approached.

‘Kris!’ Adam exclaimed, dropping the light from her eyes.

‘One of you get a first-aid kit around to the back,’ she instructed. ‘Someone else see to Mr Strelitz. Ambulance and chopper
are coming.’

‘Yeah, we heard,’ Adam said, as the other officers hurried to act.

‘How did you get here so quickly?’ she asked. It could only be a few minutes since she’d called, nowhere near long enough
for two cars to come from either Dungirri or Birraga.

‘The security firm in Moree alerted us. An alarm went on very briefly, then stopped, and they couldn’t get on to anyone by
phone, or access the system. When you called, the operator relayed the call. We didn’t see any sign of the chopper, but we
came from north of here, we were attending a domestic. You weren’t here when it happened?’

‘No. Gil and I just arrived back from Sydney. We saw the chopper from the corner of the main road.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I wondered why you hadn’t returned my call this morning.’

‘Why? What happened?’ she demanded, dreading the answer. Adam wouldn’t call her on days off without good reason.

‘The magistrate released Sean Barrett and the other blokes on bail this morning.’

She closed her eyes briefly, silently cursed the magistrate. Mark had said there were about eight men in the vehicles, presumably
another couple in the helicopter. Sergio, the Flanagan sons, Clinton the truck driver, the two others who’d been with Sergio
at the old Gillespie place the other day – that made six they could reasonably suspect were already involved. Armed, prepared
to shoot, and definitely dangerous.

And now the magistrate had released four more men with a grudge against Gil – and Megan – some of whom had existing connections
to the Flanagans, all of whom had mates in the
wilder, rougher parts of the community, bored and disillusioned by long-term underemployment and lack of money. Chances were,
Sergio and Tony would have plenty of potential recruits, keen to see some excitement.

Paramedics bustled around Liam, examining him, setting up a drip, getting a briefing from the senior constable who’d joined
Gil in looking after him.

Seething with anger, frustrated by their collective helplessness – there was no news, yet, on where the helicopter might have
landed – Gil gritted his teeth and watched the paramedics work on Liam.

More police arrived, including Steve Fraser, and Gil heard Kris giving him a brief summary. One of the ambulances left again,
with Mark, its siren wailing in the night. As it dimmed down the road, Gil heard the
thwack
of rotors in the distance, and before long the rescue chopper landed in the paddock, bringing with it another flurry of lights
and activity.