Dark Country (39 page)

Kris came and stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder. She’d found another T-shirt, discarded her jacket somewhere along
the line.

‘How’s Mark?’ he asked.

‘They’re taking him to Birraga for X-rays and monitoring. The rescue helicopter can only take one – they’ll come back to Birraga
for Mark if he needs it.’

She heaved in a deep breath, her fingers tightening on his arm. ‘They were organised, Gil. A planned operation. The phone
line and power were cut. They stormed in, heavily armed,
and one of them at least knew the operation of the security system, took out the battery backup. They rounded them all up,
held them at gunpoint, and collected up their mobiles and smashed them.’

That matched the few phrases Liam had muttered, in between apologies for failing Megan and Deb, as he wavered in and out of
consciousness.

Four unarmed people, against almost a dozen, some with semi-automatic weapons. Liam – bright, too-young, too-loyal Liam –
could die, doing what Gil thought he should have been there to do: protect them. Deb would take the same risks. The thought
of what they’d been through – of what still might be happening to Megan and Deb, wherever they were – snapped his control.

He spun away from Kris, belted his fist against a tree.

‘We shouldn’t have left them here,’ he raged. ‘It’s my fucking fault for leaving them here, unprotected.’

‘You think I feel any better about it?’ she snapped back, her own temper flaring. ‘This wasn’t a few thugs. They could have
dealt with that. It was a bloody paramilitary-style extraction, planned with inside information. So it’s no good either of
us blaming ourselves, no matter how much we damned well want to.’

Lights suddenly came on, bright compared to the flickering torch beams, a security light shining into his eyes so that he
had to blink.

‘Good – power’s back.’ Her voice was brisk, focused again after that outburst. ‘We’ll meet in Mark’s office, get the search
for them underway. I want your input, Gillespie. It’s probably
more useful than thumping things,’ she added dryly, before she turned and walked away.

He took a short time to calm down, then found the water tank and washed Liam’s blood off his hands. When he stood in the doorway
of Mark’s office a few minutes later, Kris was well underway, rolling off instructions to the ten or so cops in the room.

‘Jake, get on to Harry at Birraga Air Charter, see what he knows about helicopter pilots in the district, and any choppers
or pilots visiting. And then check with the properties around the region that use choppers for mustering. Adam, phone around
the local graziers, see if you can get a path on the chopper. They’ll likely have heard it, might be able to give us a better
idea of direction. And find out if they know if Mark’s had any visitors the past two days. Kate and Todd, check the manager’s
cottage, the outbuildings, and the old shearers’ quarters down by the woolshed for anyone there, or signs that anyone’s been
watching the place. Trisha – the security firm at Moree – find out everything they’ve logged over the past two days around
this place. I don’t think the full system was running, but find out what was.’

She would cover it all, he knew. She’d efficiently go through all the possible sources of information, pull together every
fact, keep searching and asking and hunting as long as she needed. Because she was a damned good cop and a dedicated one,
who cared about the people she’d sworn to serve.

But she couldn’t do the one thing he could do. The one thing that might have a chance of getting Megan and Deb released, unharmed.

He turned and left the house.

He could hear the rescue helicopter preparing to take off behind the house, but he didn’t go that way. He dialled directory
assistance while he walked down the drive and received the number by text just as he reached the bike.

The moon shone in a clear sky overhead, dimming out half the stars. Waiting for the phone to pick up, he searched for the
constellations he’d watched as a kid, alone in the dark.

‘Flanagan, it’s Gillespie. Tell the Russos that I have the will. They can have me and it in exchange for the women. Use this
number to arrange a time and place. No cops, because I know you’ve got a mole. Just me and the will.’

He disconnected as soon as he finished. Leaving Kris’s bag by the road, he drove away into the darkness.

The bastard had left, and he wasn’t answering her calls. Every hour, she left a message – first angry, then worried, then
pleading – and her heart leapt every time her phone rang, but he didn’t respond.

The only thing she had was the note he’d left in her jacket pocket:
Look for the informant. I’ll be in touch. G
. Look for the informant. A whole lot easier said than done. Look for an informant, while at the same time trying to locate
a helicopter and two abducted women, with a small force of police in a huge regional area where she wasn’t sure who she could
trust.

Adam’s enquiries traced the noise of the chopper to an area southwest of Birraga, but there the trail ended. Whether that
meant it had landed in the area, or flown further on, they had no way of knowing. In the interview room in the Dungirri station,
she and Adam studied maps spread on the table, trying
to match scraps of information that might or might not be relevant to find some sort – any sort – of pattern.

Steve had emailed scanned copies of Gil’s maps from years ago, and the photos and notes, and she looked through the printed
pages, identifying properties on the larger survey maps, comparing them with the lists she had of current Flanagan-owned properties.
There were at least fifteen of the latter, and she didn’t know if the list was complete. It was also likely that not everything
they had an interest in was directly registered under the Flanagan Agricultural Company.

Properties in the outback areas beyond Birraga tended to be huge, and a few landholders used helicopters for mustering and
other work. Harry at Birraga Air Charter gave them a list of the ones he knew, but they were all smaller aircraft, not large
enough to carry four people. Still, she cross-matched that data against the Flanagan properties … and came up with nothing.

She closed her eyes, bit her lip, trying to keep from howling like a little girl from exhaustion and despair. Megan was out
there … somewhere. Just seventeen years old, and vulnerable. Kris hoped she and Deb were together – Deb would do her best
to look after her.

But they were both reliant on her to find those responsible, locate the hiding place and organise a rescue. She’d failed before.
Little Jess Sutherland was lying in a grave, murdered. Tanya Wilson had survived, but no thanks to her.

Look for the informant, Gil had said.

But if she hadn’t recognised a murderer when she’d seen him in the street almost every day, how could she hope to identify
an informant when she had no evidence?

They waited until six-thirty in the morning to call him. The first rays of sunlight slanted through the timber gaps in the
deserted shearing shed he’d hidden in, not far outside Birraga, and he woke from his doze with a start when his phone rang.

‘It’s a deal, Gillespie,’ an accented voice said in his ear. ‘Ten o’clock this morning. On the Tarlinton Road, five kilometres
west of Dog Creek. Just you and the will. If we see even a hint of anyone else, we will shoot the hostages.’

The click of disconnection sounded in his ear.

Tarlinton Road. He pulled up the GPS maps on his phone, checked the location and distance. About twenty-five kilometres southwest
of Birraga, in an isolated area a long way from major roads, and with few properties around.

They weren’t planning on making anything easy, but he had some time to prepare. He slid open the back of his phone, removed
the SIM card, and replaced it with one of the ones he’d salvaged from the smashed phones at Mark’s house.

Megan’s, he discovered, when he switched the phone on again. She had Kris’s number programmed in already. And Liam’s, he noted,
with some surprise. Fast workers, these modern kids.

He selected Kris’s number, and hit the call button.

She answered immediately.
‘Megan
?’

‘No, Blue. It’s Gil. Using Megan’s card in case they’re tracing mine. Can you be on the Tarlinton Road, five k’s west of Dog
Creek, at ten-thirty? I’ll text you the coordinates. Just you, in an unmarked car.’

‘I know it,’ she said. ‘Where are you, Gil? Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. Any luck?’

‘Nothing definite. I can’t pin anything to anyone or any place. Steve interviewed Dan Flanagan, but he was at a function in
Birraga last night, with fifty witnesses, and swears he knows nothing. His sons are apparently pig shooting in Queensland.’

‘So he says.’

‘I can’t disprove it, yet. And I don’t know who knew Megan was at Mark’s.’ She sounded weary, had probably worked all night.
‘There’s no evidence of visitors, or staff near the homestead, and I won’t be able to talk to Mark until later today.’

‘Steve might have told them,’ he suggested. ‘Or Adam.’

He watched a spider walk across in front of him in the silence.

‘Not Adam,’ she eventually said, firmly.

She didn’t say, ‘Not Steve.’ He didn’t think it would be Steve either, but he couldn’t be sure. Steve had access to information,
was in touch with Petric and Macklin, had been involved in the investigations from the start, and knew where Kris had taken
Megan.

But most of the town probably knew Kris had gone to Mark’s, and it wouldn’t have been too hard to guess Megan was there, too.
It didn’t narrow the field down, much.

‘Why don’t you go through the information from Vince?’ he suggested. ‘See if there’s anything there that helps.’

‘I’ve just started on that.’

‘I’ll go through my copy. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything. Listen, Blue, gotta go. I’ll see you at ten-thirty.
Be on time, but not early. And don’t tell a soul – not until we’ve got this worked out.’

After disconnecting and turning the phone off, he let his head fall back against the wall. He wouldn’t see her at ten-thirty.
He’d either be with the Russos, or dead on the road. But all going well, she’d find Megan and Deb, and he’d have to trust
her to track him down, too.

He crossed the sandy causeway over Dog Creek in plenty of time, the rivergums along its banks creating a brief space of shade
before he was out on the sunlit road again. Here, an hour west of Dungirri and its scrub, the flat plains stretched into the
distance under a huge sky, the paddocks cleared for grazing.

Deep ridges ran along either side of the unsealed road, where graders and each passing vehicle had pushed the fine rust-red
sand. Down the middle of the road ran another ridge, maybe six inches high, guaranteed to send the bike skating or sliding,
if he veered into it.

He watched the odometer and stopped just on the five kilometres from the creek. There were no trees along the road here –
nothing to interrupt the view in all four directions. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. They’d chosen the place well.

He hung the helmet on the bike, left his jacket draped on the seat, and the key in the ignition. He took only his phone, and
the envelope with the will.

He caught a glint on the road ahead, and strolled towards it while he waited. A dead lizard was flipped over onto its back
in the sand, its light underbelly shining white in the sun. A few ants had already found it, and more would find it soon,
devour it, stripping away the flesh bite by bite. Or one of the larger birds, grateful for an easy lunch.

The sight of it found a small chink in his calmness, and he suppressed a shudder. He would do what he came to do and, if it
worked, Megan and Deb would get away safely. If it didn’t work … if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t feel the ants, and Kris would
be along to find him, soon enough.

A plume of dust appeared in the west, and he waited on the road, some distance from the bike.

They only brought one vehicle – the black Land Rover. It stopped thirty metres away, and Sergio got out, a pistol in his hand.