|
1845hrs Wednesday December 19, 2012 RAAF Base Pearce, Perth, Western Australia |
The C-17 Globemaster sat warming up on the tarmac. Four Pratt and Whitney turbofan engines sucked air and reached all the right temperatures. Live flight tracker engaged, engine management systems cleared to go, fuel systems full and operational. The hulking construction was one of the biggest military aircrafts in the world, capable of fitting over a hundred soldiers, tanks, and other combat vehicles. For this particular evening the steel bird was reserved for a small section of elite war-dogs. A team of eight soldiers all cut from the same cloth. All had clustered around the rear of the empty cargo hold to play hacky sack with a small soccer ball. Passing the time while they waited out Nutty and his special guest. They could have been playing full court basketball the cavernous space was that big.
Once Nutty arrived, it was game on. A static-line parachute jump. A standard airborne exercise which basically ticked another box in their training. Each soldier needed a certain number of jumps throughout the year to maintain qualifications. Training privileges like this didn’t get much better. The men were half kitted up. Their body armour and webbing kits were strapped and rigged to their chests. On the front of those rigs were black unit patches. Hard-earned insignia. A dagger with wings and a banner that read Who Dares Wins. The Australian SAS. The other half of their gear – the parachute packs – laid on the fold-down seats across the fuselage wall. Port side. A static-line jump was different to skydiving. As the soldier left the aircraft the parachute would deploy immediately, rather than freefalling before pulling the cord yourself.
Nutty boarded the craft first, checking in on the boys. He counted heads, counted seats, counted packs. There were eight heads, nine seats and nine packs. One spare waiting for Mackay. Things were in order, timing was okay. It had just hit 1832 hours. Two minutes late. Poor by soldiering standards, but not too bad considering the extra effort in organising their guest.
The enormity of the space inside the metallic construction made the boys look small and insignificant. Like midgets. Or special forces hobbits. Nutty turned and looked back down the boarding stairs to see Mackay and Cross waiting on the tarmac. He nodded once and gave the thumbs up. Good to board. Mackay turned to Cross. The rushing wind forced into the engines drew a trickle of water from her eye. She wiped it away.
‘I’m not fucking crying don’t you worry, Horse Killer,’ Cross yelled above the jet whine.
Mackay half smiled. ‘You know about that one?’
‘It’s the Army. Everybody talks.’
‘I still feel bad for that horse.’
‘So you should. Everyone loves horses. But a war story is what makes our lives memorable. I like Tin Man better.’
The sun sank further, sitting just above the horizon, dimming the sky to a light shade of marigold. Mackay considered bending down and kissing her. Cross couldn’t stand, so it would be up to him if he was going to reach her lips. But then, Cross made his mind up for him. She grabbed him softly between the pants. Underhand. Palms up. Squeezing gingerly. Forcing Mackay to bend down.
‘You stay alive and keep me posted,’ she said. ‘Ten minutes after your jump, then on the hour, every hour.’ She held her lips against his. A moment passed. She let him go.
Mackay slung Nutty’s backpack on one shoulder, complete with two jacked Glocks, knuckle dusters, bayonet, seal knife and all the rest from Andy’s supply store. He slung the Kevlar vest with the ballistics plate on the other shoulder and boarded the plane.
Nutty met Mackay at the top of the stairs. ‘You’re jumping first,’ he said. ‘The rest of the guys are off to Albany. Or some-fucking-where, I’m not a hundred per cent sure. I’ve notified the pilots and jumpmaster of your grid reference for Frans & Hoek winery. The jumpmaster will tell you when you’re up. Just be ready. Once you jump, I’ll get notified by the pilot. Nobody knows why you’re jumping, they just know you’re out the door first. But your landing won’t be exact. Never is, so here…’
Nutty handed Mackay a folded sheet of paper with a set of coordinates.
‘Once you land, wherever you land, punch this into the GPS tracker. It’ll get you within a hundred metres of the winery. We’ll be back here to support, but once you’re in the air, you’re on your own.’
‘On me tod. Thanks, Corporal.’ Mackay stashed the coordinates into his pocket.
Nutty said, ‘Cross will stay in the air-route control centre. There are beds in there, plus a kitchen and television for guys who stay during long-haul exercises. She’ll be comfortable. I’ll be hanging about part-time, checking in. You have three days before I start to sweat and send a search party. Seventy-two hours.’
Nutty put his hand out, Mackay shook it. Mackay turned to look outside at Cross waiting on the tarmac. She gave him one final nod.
‘She really seems to like you,’ said Nutty. ‘All the best.’
Once Nutty exited the craft, the jumpmaster drew the boarding stairs up and sealed the entry. Mackay looked over at the rear cargo space noting the eight soldiers. He then noted nine seats folded along the port side and nine parachute deployment packs. One of the men walked forward to greet him.
‘You need a hand getting rigged up?’ said the soldier. Mackay couldn’t see a name badge on his uniform, or any rank. Anonymity for special forces was everything. At a fingernail below Mackay’s eye level, he was the shortest member of the team. A great fighting height for hand-to-hand combat.
‘That’d be great,’ said Mackay.
‘Irish?’
‘Aye.’
‘We look after our own.’
‘I’m not SAS. And I haven’t jumped for years.’
‘No one gives half a fuck. If you’re jumping out this shell with us, then you’re one of us. Simple. Like Forrest fucking Gump.’
Mackay smiled. Mostly on the inside. Some soldiers had a way with words. At the same time, some soldiers also got leery if you smiled at them the wrong way. The soldier got to strapping in Mackay’s vest and plate – front, back and sides. Mackay removed the night vision from his backpack, then fixed the backpack to his front. The soldier checked and double-checked every strap and harness point, then grabbed Mackay’s wrists.
‘Your altimeter, where is it?’ he asked.
Mackay opened the top zipper of the backpack, took out the altimeter and fastened it to his right wrist.
‘Buttoned up and sorted,’ said the soldier, and whacked Mackay across the shoulder. ‘Don’t say we mutts never do anything for you.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Mackay.
‘Let’s put your D-bag on.’
They walked over to the furthest grey deployment pack waiting first in line to the exit door. More straps were tightened and secured, checked, then double-checked. Being fully kitted out in tactical felt good. Made Mackay feel like part of the team again, which was something he hadn’t felt in almost a year. Not since the explosion. The finishing touch to the whole get-up was face paint. Should cameras or patrolling security be watching him, as a milky-white Irishman he’d stand out like a stripper in a monastery. Especially in the moonlight. Mackay patted his pants till he felt the small flat box in his pocket from the supply store. He opened the pack, dug three fingers into the green, black, and brown, then lathered up. From neck to ears to the top of the hairline. Hands and eyelids too. The whole nine yards.
A voice came through an invisible speaker somewhere inside the aircraft.
‘Take your seats, chaps, this is your captain speaking. Airborne op with a chalk of nine. Evening exercise for Operation Sand Digger. We’re out of here.’
The Globemaster moved, slow and steady like a giant glob of molasses. Taxiing along the curving runway towards the main straight. The eight others began checking each other’s gear, fitting and adjusting their own deployment packs, tightening straps, checking and double-checking. The raucous drone of the engines increased, this time pushing the aircraft with pace and thrust. The fat tyres pressed deep into the tarmac for almost two and a half kilometres as the giant bird hustled on. Then the nose spiked upwards, and the wings hooked the air – two hundred tonnes of steel resisting gravity like it was nothing.
|
1845hrs Wednesday December 19, 2012 Frans & Hoek Winery, Western Australia |
Van Breeman made his way across the winery grounds to look for Wynand at the main gallery. Hoping he was inside the admin room waiting for orders like a good dog. Which was where Bryson was. He needed Wynand to run a few errands. Derek and Taylor were uncontactable, which meant he had to bite the bullet and send Wynand to look for them. He couldn’t send Bryson or Kimbala as both were already engaged: Kimbala in the hotbox terrifying the journalist, Bryson looking after the CCTV.
He needed to send Wynand back to Perth to check on the three places he figured Taylor and Derek would most logically be. The police station, their family home, and floor forty-seven of the Swan Quay Tower. Which was the first place Wynand needed to look.
Failing that, if the men weren’t found, Wynand would return immediately to help Bryson with vineyard security. If Wynand did end up finding the two cops, Van Breeman was considering giving him the night off in Perth. Let him off the leash in the city. Hit the pubs and clubs. A small token of thanks for his efforts. Acknowledgement for not hampering the kidnap of the journalist and doing his job properly.
Wynand was not at the main gallery. His phone however, was. Left on the long wine-tasting bench next to a can of Fanta he’d just consumed. Because it was hot. Because it was a West Australian summer. Which now meant he was in a lot of trouble. With Wynand uncontactable, the job had to be given to Bryson: drive to Perth, find Taylor and Derek, retrieve the two torture devices. Which also meant Bryson was unhappy and would have it in for Wynand when he returned.
Wynand, for dumb reasons regarding potential accolades from the boss, was in the main wine cellar. Doing a job of his own initiative. The wine cellar was the underground storage room, about halfway down the property line between the hotbox and the front of house. He figured his boss was under a high level of stress, which he was, which was also a dangerous position to be in as an employee. He knew Van Breeman needed all cogs and chains to be in place, turning, working, getting things done. So Wynand took it upon himself to get busy. Something he thought the boss would appreciate. Raise his standing in the food chain. He figured he’d take care of the empty wine barrels. Transfer them down to the lower end of the winery into the maintenance cabin. But it wasn’t a priority task. The job wasn’t necessary. He’d already proved himself competent with the kidnapping, and this would effectively bring that job back down to irrelevant. Now, he couldn’t be contacted. Leaving his mobile phone back in the gallery was an amateur move. Possibly fatal.
Irrespective of his title as a vineyard operator, Wynand was basically a lowly, entry-level farmhand. A run-around. There to perform rudimentary labouring tasks. Part of his duties, however, did involve moving empty wine barrels from the cellar to the maintenance cabin, and from the wine-press facility to the cellar. Both of which he considered himself quite good at. Using a tractor and trailer, he would regularly move the empty casks to the maintenance cabin’s rear wall – where all the wooden barrels went to die. Stacked in two rows, one on top of the other. Waiting for an ashen death. Or maybe reused as ottomans, wall art or bar tables. The maintenance cabin was a large structure built fifty metres in front of the hotbox and horse stables with a wide dusty courtyard separating them in the middle. The cabin was built specifically for property maintenance, laid with a huge patch of concrete worn smooth and spoiled with stains of oil. Namely used for storage. Barrels, tractors, gardening equipment. It might only have been fifty metres from where Lydia sat fighting for her soul, but it was exactly where Lincoln was hiding.
|
1920hrs Wednesday December 19, 2012 Somewhere over Margaret River, Western Australia |
It took about fifteen minutes before the captain was on his comms, informing Mackay of their location. They were approaching Margaret River, and in two minutes would be flying over his grid reference. His jump was coming up. The jumpmaster motioned to him with hand signals he’d seen before: stand, walk over, gear check, ready to jump.
The jumpmaster moved to the side exit where a red light was illuminated on a panel above the door. Red for ‘hold’. He hooked himself up to a safety line then hauled the side door open. A whistling rush of wind blew in, then vanished. Mackay stood steady on his feet. Relaxed, and ready. No need to anchor himself into the moment by psyching up with self-talk or taking deep breaths. His only wish was to be out the door and on the ground. Hunting. He looked out the exit to the world beyond. The horizon was lit with birthing tones of pinks, purples, and oranges. The colours materialising from nowhere, like an invisible artist sweeping a watery brush across the sky. Minute by minute the sun disappeared against the edge of the Earth and the colours became deeper and more vivid. Filtered gloriously between scattered clouds wisping by like soft lazy sheep. In the moment, he wished Cross could see it with him.
The soldier who’d helped Mackay check his straps also stood. He motioned a twirl figuration with his finger, gesturing for Mackay to turn around. He looked him over with a final visual sweep and gave a thumbs up. For the second time he slapped Mackay hard across the shoulder.
‘You got this shit,’ he said. ‘See you when I’m looking at you.’
Mackay strapped the night-vision goggles over his head, leaving it switched off with the lens above his eyes. No use draining the battery yet, there was nothing much to see jumping from ten thousand feet. He pulled the folded sheet of paper with the winery coordinates Nutty had given him, set the numbers into his GPS and placed it back in his front vest pocket. The jumpmaster checked in with the captain through his headset and ushered Mackay forward to the exit. Both men stood waiting, staring at nothing, saying nothing. The jumpmaster didn’t move. Five seconds passed, then ten. Mackay watched and listened to the wind push its way inside and play around with the chains and tie-downs. Finally, the jumpmaster raised an arm as the red light flicked on above the exit. He held out three fingers, then two, then one. The red light switched off, the green light switched on. The jumpmaster pointed out the door.
Mackay jumped and left the craft.
Ten thousand feet.
The wind screamed and ripped Mackay backwards while gravity sucked him down. He fell twenty feet before the static line snatched straight and detached, spitting him out at forty-five degrees past the aircraft’s tail. The last of the evening’s fiery orange vanished, slowly drawing the infinite space outside into shadows of cool grey. The land below was set for a mild, dry night. No chance of showers. Maybe some scattered clouds and dusting of stars, and the beam from a half-lit moon if he was lucky.
Once the parachute exploded it was steady sailing. Over the darkening land below, Mackay was still able to make out the basic forms and undulations in the terrain. Most of which was farmland, forest, and estates with wineries. Roads and houses spread and scattered in every direction. Street and building lights were minimal. Occasionally blinking here and there, but mostly it was indistinct.
Eight thousand feet.
Mackay’s memory of parachute training at Aldershot was partly blurred. A three-week block of training going years back. Short days that were fun and easy: deploying the parachute, exiting the craft, safe landing techniques. The nights were half filled with rugby training while the other half was filled with booze. Basically, a holiday camp. From the training, the most difficult aspect was controlling the steering toggles for a safe landing. Adjustment and alignment was everything. And if winds were high, you’d really want to be paying attention, or your legs and back were gone.
Five thousand feet.
Mackay now had a clearer picture of what was a safe landing area and what wasn’t. The dusky patterns of land below varied in formation and size. As gravity pulled him closer, a clearing between the dark forest head became obvious. He chartered his course towards it, adjusting the chute’s steering lines to a lighter patch of land next to a perimeter of forest growth. Nothing else was prominently visible. Landing along the forest perimeter meant he was more likely to touch down with ideal concealment. If the landing was satisfactory, he could easily go to ground and hunker down unnoticed. Mackay checked his altimeter.
Three thousand feet.
Mackay could still make out the horizon in the darkness, which would add greater reference on his height when slowing his descent rate. Guiding the canopy to the landing zone meant constantly adjusting the toggles. A small pull here, a hard tug there. Finesse was key, as was continuously controlled movement. And experience. Which Mackay didn’t have much of.
Two thousand feet.
The swirling breeze grew stronger the faster the ground leapt up at him. Bad news. The fluttering gusts pulling at his clothes, hooked under the canopy briefly, then died. Strengthening for a moment then tapering away. On repeat. Mackay needed to modify his flight path in order to reach his landing zone: a field of wild grass further up the forest perimeter. He pulled gently on the left toggle for a flat turn and angled parallel along an outer edging of trees.
One thousand feet.
Mackay was able to slow the canopy’s drag through the air – pulling evenly on both toggles to ready his alignment next to the tree line. Then a second current of breeze broke his line of descent. More bad news. The surge of air lifted and pulled him away from the open field and above the forest instead. The clearing was too far. If he didn’t whip his canopy back to the clearing, he’d be caught up in a tonne of branches. Ripping through his legs and torso. Slashing and scarring his body worse than it already was. At worst, he’d hit a branch or trunk thick enough to finish him for good. Instantly.
Five hundred feet.
Mackay pulled a hard left on the toggle, tipping him back towards the open field. But gravity rules, and he was descending faster than expected. A flash of forgotten memory jolted in his head. Something from his training course. The lower you are to Earth, the faster everything accelerates at you. Let nothing hinder your landing or the ground will end you. The field was too far away and Mackay was too low. It would be a tidy miracle if he cleared the expanse of trees in time. By a wing and a prayer. Otherwise, the vastness of looming forest would swallow him like a volcanic mouth.
Mackay maintained a strong pull on the left toggle, but it wasn’t enough. The trees kept rushing. He kept drifting over, and at three hundred feet, he began hitting leaves. Then branches. Reaching and mauling at his legs. There was nothing he could do. He tucked his legs up and flared the canopy, pulling both toggles down as hard as he could. One last attempt at gliding towards the clearing. His body kept dropping. Coursing through the thick growth.
Mackay let go of the toggles and covered his face with his arms. If he was to make it, even if his body was broken, he still wanted to be able to see. Suddenly he felt a passage of air around his legs. No leaves, no branches. Nothing but breeze. His body jerked hard. Once, then twice. His canopy had stopped. Caught and tangled somewhere in the growth above. Good news. His body bounced around a couple times, then slowed to a gentle bob and sway, dancing in mid-air like a marionet. He did a quick mental check for any injuries. Legs, feet, and vitals. All intact. Nothing sliced open, just a few bruises. Easily managed. He breathed deep with an exhaled sigh of relief then looked down. He was closer to the ground than he thought. A two-metre drop at best. Three metres at worst. He double-checked the height with his night vision. Better than using the altimeter, which was useless this close to the ground.
Mackay fitted the night vision which had enough clarity to pick up individual strands of wild grass below. Which made him feel better in terms of his height. A clean drop without injury. He opened the top of the backpack, grabbed the seal pup knife and sliced himself free from the tangled mess of cords. As he dropped, he immediately fell sideways to distribute the landing blow evenly. Another tip for amateurs he’d learned. Better to let the body take an impact horizontally than sending jarring shockwaves through bone, joints and ligaments.
The landing was soft enough, namely due to the abundance of wild grass cushioning Mackay’s body. And the ground consistency was firm, not marshy, which was a plus. The thirsty heat and lack of rain had kept everything nice and dry. Mackay stood, refocused his night vision and rotated three-sixty degrees. A slow pirouette, taking in observations and sound. He noted a wide-open clearing only a few paces away, and as for sound, it was quiet as a church. Whatever nocturnal animals were about were either taking it easy or waiting to start their night-time routine: hunting food, discussing ambush plans or finishing off their basic housekeeping. The only sound came from a small crew of cicadas doing their thing, but other than that, everything was at camping volume.
Mackay took out the GPS and stepped off. According to the coordinates, the clearing he could see through the trees was in a north-westerly direction. After twenty-two paces, just before the forest’s edge, two large, dark boulders began to shape-shift and elongate in front of him. Hulking figures rising to over six-feet tall. They ran straight at him. Moving fast. Bounding and weaving through the shrubbery. Mackay had no weapon in hand, so he went to ground. Leopard-crawling on his guts back behind the closest tree. He rummaged in his backpack for one of the Glocks, found it, then slowly raised on his elbows to aim and observe. The figures kept coming. Without warning, the figures changed course. Dodged right and cut away. As they faded, the moon’s silver glimmer lit up their true form. Mackay let out a chestful of humiliated air. Two kangaroos. Nothing overly threatening. Big ones. Likely male, having a feed. Night-time routine. Or maybe they were male and female, mating. Either way they were probably annoyed. Disturbed in their natural habitat, doing their thing.
Mackay regained his composure.
‘Fucking kangaroos,’ he said.
He stood and walked back to the clearing. At that point, Mackay thought humans might just be easier to deal with.
|
1920hrs Wednesday December 19, 2012 Frans & Hoek Winery, Western Australia |
Kimbala bunched a second wad of Lydia’s hair in his fist and hacked at the lengths with the shears. Nice and close to the base of her neck. He expected her to cower and scream, but she just let him do it. Which bothered him. Every other woman he’d ever played with either retaliated, or cowered, sobbed and wailed. Which he liked. The show he was currently putting on was lacking in excitement. He couldn’t continue the proceedings this quiet. He wanted a response. His inner sadist needed some kind of reaction, which would also help in the sexual gratification he got out of it. Otherwise, there was no point. And the ultimate effect of his voodoo wouldn’t work. Without the screams and wailing, the restless spirits Kimbala attempted to summon would remain distant and passive – passing over her body unnoticed and ignored. In order to possess a body, a demonic entity needed a show of fear. The unseen thrived off their host’s terror.
Kimbala took the pestle and poured the remaining ashen liquid of burnt hair and blood into his mouth. He swallowed part of it, then walked over to the rear wall and stood in front of the relic. With outstretched arms he sprayed what was in his mouth over its entire face: the whites of the skull, the hollowed teeth, the sprawling hair of leather and yarn. Misting it all in red. The contrast of ash, blood and bone above the flickering candles almost brought the face to life. Enticing its host to release her spirit and permit her body to die.
Kimbala stood behind Lydia and resumed the chanting. Incoherent words, low, mumbled and deep. Gibberish to any listening ear. Words he himself probably didn’t understand. He then raised his voice and called out to the relic: Damballa. Repeating its name. His vocal pace quickening, his volume amplifying. He stretched out his arms above Lydia’s body, bouncing rhythmically on his heels to his own dolorous beat. Lydia remained silent. Kimbala wasn’t reaching the full demands of the craft. The voodoo demon would remain idle without a display of terror from its conduit. Kimbala had to up his method to a physical level.
He moved around to face Lydia at her front. He knelt at her feet and scooped up more liquid filth from the tub. He trickled it over Lydia’s head, then through her sweaty, mangled mop of hair. It ran down the base of her neck and spine, her collarbone and cleavage, then seeped into the back of her dress in a widening blotch. Then he wiped the remaining burnt crimson down her pale white face. For the final show – his last resort to gain the spirits’ attention – he picked up the grinder from the floor in one hand, grabbed Lydia’s jaw in the other, lifted her face and slogged it. Lydia’s head snapped across her shoulders then flopped lazily back onto her thighs. She coughed and moaned, then eventually began lifting her head. The hit had woken her up, bringing her back to some level of obscure consciousness. Her upper body was loose and sagged, but her lower body was strapped to the stool which made the rebound to her spine brutal. Stretching and tearing at her abdomen and lower back as her torso whipped about. All part of the method. Van Breeman’s idea. Old-school African POW tactics.
Kimbala hit her again, and again. Knocking nothing but air and guttural sounds from her lungs. There was nothing vocal. No screams. No wails. Lydia took it all. Took the beating without reaction, internally shutting down her pain responses and bottling it. Nothing escaped her lips but carbon dioxide. Either she was messed up from the burnt toxic vapours, or her internal genetics were hardwired for extreme resilience. Whatever the reason, Lydia was unwavering, angering Kimbala even further.
|
1930hrs Wednesday December 19, 2012 Jarrahwood State Forest, outskirts of Frans & Hoek Winery, Western Australia |
Out in the clearing, the dome of moonlight over the fields helped Mackay set himself up. He took the backpack from his chest, knelt down and unzipped it wide open. He grabbed the knuckle dusters and slid it inside his pants’ pocket, then sheathed the bayonet and seal pup knife inside a belt attachment either side of his waist. One of the Glocks went in the front holster of the vest, the other went inside the rear. He took the altimeter from his wrist, dropped it in the bag and took out the GPS. He found the pocket normally allocated for a thirty-round magazine and slipped it in. A perfect fit. Thanks, Andy.
The next thing he saw glinting inside were three foil medication packets sandwiched with the map of Frans & Hoek winery from the travel centre. All were bundled and tied with a woman’s hairband. Two were immunosuppressants, one was his Phragazom bone marrow preserver. Mackay shook his head in disbelief. Good work, Renee, he thought. He popped one of each into his mouth, waited for the saliva to build, then swallowed them down.
The time had just clicked over 1900hrs. Phase two was now well underway, which also meant productivity needed to remain on point with little wasted time. An intelligent approach with intelligent responses, all left on Mackay’s shoulders. Something he had to bear whichever way the cookie crumbled. He took out the burner phone, switched it on, dialled in the number for Cross’s burner and sent her a text:
TOUCHED DOWN. PERFECT LANDING. PREPARING TO MOVE. THANKS FOR THE MEDS.
Mackay slid the phone into a side pocket on the bag then secured the pack to his back. A more comfortable position now the deployment bag was obsolete. Mackay’s final detail was his night vision. He positioned the lens back over his eyes, adjusted the focus and double-checked the headwear mounting straps. He pulled the GPS from the front pouch, punched in the coordinates for Frans & Hoek winery, then set sail for a three-kilometre hike.
The terrain was easy to begin with. From the open field flanking the bordering forest, Mackay scaled back in a southern direction for six hundred metres. The topography was flat, and the vegetation was the same wild grass he dropped into when falling out of the parachute. After six hundred metres he took a quarter turn to the left. Directly east for four hundred metres. The vegetation stayed the same, but the land began to rise slightly. Then came a vast change. Instead of wild grass he met a wall of dense forest. Acres of prehistoric timber and undergrowth. According to the GPS, he had approximately nineteen hundred metres of it to work through before getting to the winery. Good thing he was wearing night vision.
The canopy of branches and leaves in the forest crowded over, eliminating any light to peek in from the moon above. Forcing the image inside the night vision to darken to a deep clover. Thousands of behemoth trunks hugged together tightly, doing their best to keep out anything or anyone who didn’t belong. Good for hiding, not good for moving.
Mackay trundled slow and steady. The shallow depth of field inside the night vision meant he constantly needed to scan his head; left to right, right to left, picking up as much of his surroundings as he could so he didn’t trip or bump into anything. There were tonnes of debris all over the ground. Fallen logs, prickly shrubs, decaying bones. At head and chest height, there were low-lying branches and metres of sprawling spiderwebs, not to mention jagged ends of snapped wood everywhere. Like walking through a land of spears. Beyond the trees and scrub there was nothing to see, only inky blackness. Mackay crept on. Goose-stepping, sidestepping, ducking and weaving all things pointy, all things sticky. He didn’t cross any more kangaroos which was a bonus, and the crickets and cicadas continued to perform which helped reference his position. On numerous occasions bats flew and clipped around his head, possums crawled and observed him curiously, while sugar gliders jumped from branch to branch keeping tabs on his movements. The occasional owl swooped and hooted, claiming territory and alerting the night crew of an alien form wandering about like a lost sheep. Beware, friends, this strange species knows not what it does.
Mackay ascended the land for nearly two kilometres until the infrared vision picked up lighter tones breaching out towards an open space. To another clearing. He’d reached the end of the forest density and was about to exit. Escaping what seemed like a never-ending loop of the same sequence of trees, through the same thickets of shrubbery. The dense Australian bushland finally releasing its grasp and granting Mackay his freedom.
|
2000hrs Wednesday December 19, 2012 Jarrahwood State Forest, Western Australia |
At the eastern edge of the forest perimeter, Mackay stopped. His GPS had him pinned two hundred metres short of Frans & Hoek winery. He checked his watch. 2000hrs. It’d been a hard-going thirty minutes through slow-rising terrain of broken, Jurassic vegetation untouched for the last millennia. The lay of the land in front continued at a steady incline, only the trees were less crowded, and there wasn’t much variation in undulation. It sloped upwards to a point, reached its pinnacle, then flattened out to open ground a hundred metres ahead. He used the GPS to note which direction he was facing. Whether the winery was due east, north-east or south-east. The only options. Anything further north, west or south was back inside the minefield of trees. Where gangs of bats and owls had already given him a pass. A second time through would mean he’d really have to explain himself.
Mackay sidled up against the last tree at the forest’s edge and took out the travel centre’s map. He peered out into the dark, scanning the distance, looking for any distinguishable structures resembling the map’s bird’s-eye view of two large buildings. Which, according to his position, should be the first features to appear. And appear they did. The infrared picked up two barn-like structures lit with sharp rows of light like lightsaber beams along the front facades. The light shone out towards the front of the winery, rather than back towards the forest. There were no signboards, advertisements or logos stating the vineyard’s name. Which made sense, really. Advertising should be exclusively seen by the masses, out front where visitors travel by car and tour bus on the road. Not out back with the wildlife. He knew he was in the right place.
Mackay had only been to a handful of wineries in his lifetime, and the only area he’d ever set foot in was the front gallery. To him, all other vineyard constructions, for all intents and purposes, looked the same: large storage constructions made of brick, wood and steel. Any extra buildings probably existed as part of a wider, universal winery package: managed gardens, rolling hills, random machinery, random livestock, as well as water tanks and water bodies. All commonplace, all complementing each other.
Mackay moved up the gentle rise of the embankment, visually taking in what he could. The grass and shrubs petered out as he closed in on an approaching fence line. The buildings now one hundred metres away. His peripherals constantly monitored movement. Animal or human. Taking special note of whether he could identify possible security cameras fixed to either of the two cabins. The long, snaking border of wire and pickets shot off for hundreds of metres left and right, then enclosed around acres of grapevines and fields. Beyond the fence, the land revealed a property as big as the day is long. Another four buildings came into view further off in the distance. Six buildings in total scattered the acreage. The growing sheen of a three-quarter moon making them reasonably visible through the night vision.
Mackay removed the lens and head wear, stuffed them into his backpack and allowed his eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness. He walked thirty paces closer and stopped. The colour illuminating from the two buildings was a dull yellow. Incandescent. Hot light. Yellow like egg yolk, arcing around the edges of the walls in a semi-circle out front. The buildings were old single-storey brick. Built during a time of British growth and rural prosperity after the colonisation of Perth. Sometime in the mid-1800s. On closer inspection, the nearest two cabins seemed to be part of one plot of land, separated with a wide space in the middle. A clearing of sorts, or a courtyard or paddock. Both were warehouse in size, or mini mansion. Both similar in length and width, only that the one in front was built to a taller scale and had a single chimney sticking out the top. Like it was built for a farming family’s cottage back in the day. The structure at the back was pitched lower and built with a long extension. A possible storage facility for feed, or a stable for horses considering the scatterings of hay on the ground. Aside from differences in height, the two were built to the same exact dimensions in length and width. In the very centre was a small, gated prism which looked like a hand-operated water pump inside. Old school. Self-supply from the earth.
Mackay dropped to his guts on the rise just outside the forest. From where he lay, the yellow light pooling around the building helped expose the old family cottage for what it was: a wide-open shed with huge storage space. Tailor-made for parking ploughing machinery and modern vineyard tools. All the hardware needed for maintaining a winery to its opportune best. The shed had no doors or gates or securing fittings of any kind. It was simply an open space built into the structure of the cabin. No other buildings were lit on the property. There was no movement anywhere from what he could tell, but he needed to get even closer for a clearer assessment. The casting light had to be either work lights, security lights or motion sensors. And as caution goes, if they were on, they were on for a reason. Mackay had to assume something, or someone, was moving or operating in the area. Animal or human.
Mackay duck-walked fifty metres to the edge of a knoll where the land levelled horizontally along the fence line. Far enough away not to be picked up by any motion sensors, close enough to better gauge any movement around both buildings, front and rear. A minute passed. No movement. Nothing observed, nothing heard. He got back on his guts and leopard-crawled another fifteen metres, tracing the arcing curve of the fence line towards the rear building’s side wall. Still concealed, now with a clearer view of the horse stable and the open space between the two structures: the dirt courtyard. He waited behind a thicket of shrubs and grass for ten whole minutes. Nice and low, pressed into the ground. Invisible. Observing on an angle, propped on his forearms. Assessing as much information as he could on the vineyard’s security. Patience was key for any recon, an effort in itself. Nobody is born with the natural ability, or tempered care, to wait. Babies, children, even adults, throw tantrums simply because they cannot wait for their next feed, new toy, or computer program to load. It takes practice and nobody learns it better than the military. Hurry-up-and-wait was part of the job. From where he lay in the thicket, Mackay was committed to the evening’s activities for the long game. People were relying on him, which meant nothing needed to be rushed. Rushed actions often ended an operation. In the middle of summer in the West Australian heat, lying low and waiting was a breeze.
Scanning his sights to the furthest left and right of the fence line, Mackay passed another five minutes on his guts. Still no movement. Nothing doing except for the local insects and wildlife. Crickets and cicadas chirped away. A few lonely frogs croaked near a pool or dam singing in their froggy choirs, and then there were the bats. Hundreds of them. Flying low. Screeching, fighting. After another minute, Mackay deemed his observation satisfactory. He got up and traced the fence line for twenty more paces to a position directly behind the closest building. Ten metres from the back wall on the forest side. Twelve at most. He dropped back to his stomach, obscured by darkness, away from the cabin’s pool of light.
Part of the cabin’s illumination lit up a small security camera fixed into the top of the corner awning. From Mackay’s position it was only just noticeable. Like a small triangular smudge, angled diagonally to pick up a wide field of vision. A basic closed-circuit set-up. It was the only one he could spot. Time to get even closer. Mackay got up and scanned the wiring to see if it was electrified. It wasn’t. He bent, squatted and twisted his way through, got back on his guts and leopard-crawled ten more metres to the corner edge of the rear wall. Close enough that his left shoulder was touching the brick. A position where the camera’s range couldn’t pick him up. He poked his head around the corner like a snake, examining and checking for threats. So far so good. He needed another portion of time to evaluate why the lights were on. Whether someone was inside working, whether there were animals about setting off the sensors, or whether they were on as part of night-time protocol. He waited, watched and listened. Two minutes. Still nothing. No movement.
But there was sound.
A low murmur. Like a baby calf calling its mother. Only softer. Faint, like whatever it was, was in pain. Mackay couldn’t tell whether it came from his left or right, but he was certain he hadn’t seen any cows on the property. A large animal like a cow would have stood out. Easily picked up by his night vision regardless of colour. A thing that big and warm would emit a tonne of heat, the thermal imaging picking it up like blobs of lava. Mackay stood, rounded the corner and paced silently to the cabin’s front edge. He tilted his head and listened. The sound came again. Low and long. This time ending in more of a grizzled cry. It came from his left. The wall side. The sound was no animal. It was human, and it was hurting. As much as he wanted to identify the sound and release it from its pain, he couldn’t. No good soldier rushes about in a frenzy. There were numerous things to consider. Was the noise some kind of trap? A beckoning call made to throw him into an ambush? Was there more than one person in trouble, or in pain? How many? Would there be innocent bystanders? Was someone inducing the pain? Did they have weapons? Could he take them on? The British military operate at a three-to-one ratio for an attack on an enemy. Mackay was only one man. His best odds for a fight were a one-to-one ratio as a minimum. Lots to think about and even less time to think about it.
|
2010hrs Outside the Hotbox |
None of it mattered in the end. Any and all considerations were lost in a flicker. Before Mackay took another step he was met by a fast-moving shadowy mass. A large black form ascended upon him from out of nowhere. All he saw coming were the whites of two large ovals: pearl-white eyes, rushing at him like synced fireflies dive-bombing for his face. No time for a considered response. Zero time to pull a weapon. Mackay’s senses were abruptly assaulted with a toxic odour. A smoky haze clouded him, penetrating his eyes and lungs. A smell like an overcooked desert carcass. Whatever it was restricted his vision and made him feel sick immediately. Curdling a torrent of bile from his gut, up into his mouth. Before he had time to think or clear his vision, two massive hands attached themselves around his throat, crushing his windpipe. One of the most basic, coldest ways to kill a man. All Mackay could do was resort to instinct, grabbing at the wrists to try and wrench them away. He went to peel at the fingers but all he could think about was air, which he needed immediately. The oxygen supply to his brain was slowing down. Panic was weaselling its way into his system, taking hold. This was it. A bigger, stronger force had him. It was taking him down and there was nothing he could do about it.
Mackay’s internal fight responses finally responded. He tried lifting his legs, knees to chest to try and kick himself away. But whatever, or whoever, it was that had him was too close. All over him like a squid, and devastatingly strong. The fingers around his neck sunk in deeper, shutting off every artery and vein. He could feel himself choking out, his lungs fading, everything getting colder inside. His head pounded under immense pressurised blood. He tried kicking out again. No use. The mass was in too close, its hot breath all over Mackay’s face. The same awful scent of decay annihilating his senses.
Mackay lifted his body and raised his legs around the mass’s waist. He tried moving his hips higher, shuffling his thighs over the mass’s shoulders. If he could get one leg in front of its face, he might be able to pry the arms and hands from his throat with his body length. Like a lever. That was no use either. Another failed attempt. The mass lifted, then dropped Mackay into the ground, expelling more wind from his lungs. Mackay started to pulse and shake and kick. Involuntarily. He was convulsing. Shutting down because of lack of blood and oxygen to the brain. Properly going under. Everything he and Cross had planned was now in vain. He had maybe ten, twenty seconds left at the most. If he was to remain in this position, he would certainly die. Lincoln would die. Malvin, Neve, Angus and who knows how many others also dead, all for nothing.
Mackay could do one thing only. He went for the eyes. Pressing both his thumbs in as hard as possible into those pearl-white balls. The mass’s eyelids closed immediately. Unfortunately, Mackay’s thumbnail was short and couldn’t cut into the skin, but his right thumb had wiggled into the cornea enough to dig behind the eyeball and try and pop it from its socket. Which he succeeded with. The left eyeball left the mass’s skull. Which was when he let go of Mackay’s throat and cried out.
The mass stood, growling like a wild dog. The end of the eyeball hung from inside his head and dangled at the cheek. Mackay sucked air like a newborn. Like he’d never had oxygen in his life. His diaphragm struggled to take it at first, then like a backdraft it flooded in. The rush of air, however, brought his sense of taste back, which made him convulse. He had to stop, keel over, retch and empty his bowels. Ejecting the lingering burnt rubber so he could gather himself and reset. Ready for round two. His round.
Mackay got back on his feet to reclaim some sense of stability. He took a moment, forcing himself to think and reset. Some dizziness remained, but it didn’t hinder his thought processes. He knew he had a Glock at the front and rear of his vest, and that he needed to use one immediately. He pulled the one from the front and got a shot off, targeting the mass’s upper body before it rushed in again, knocking the weapon out of his hand with a meaty swipe. The mass didn’t go down. Didn’t change his forward assault one bit, he just kept swiping. Luckily Mackay had enough returned blood and oxygen to gauge his peripheral judgement. He stepped away, dodging the blows, drawing the mass further into the light to see what he was really up against. On clearer inspection, the hulk of the thing was immense. Not the biggest Mackay had ever seen, but a good head taller and a barn door wider than he was. Thick with fat and muscle, and skin so dark he was near invisible in the night. A genetic colour inherited from African tribes going back thousands of years. His shirt, pants and beard were black too which didn’t help. The only thing that made him stand out were his partially white sneakers and the whites of his eyes, which was now down to one, staring hellishly at Mackay.
The mass was at a disadvantage. One eye hanging from its socket and a bullet hole somewhere in his chest or stomach. Mackay had the upper hand. He was still breathing, had no bullet holes, and both eyes were intact. Plus, he had a second Glock holstered on his back. He tried to draw it but fumbled – a second failed attempt. He hadn’t rehearsed the movement well enough for a smooth reach, draw, fire. The mass kept at him with good form. Closing distance. He rocketed forward with double hooks at Mackay’s head. One fist connected, cracking the bridge of Mackay’s nose. A single knuckle splitting the skin and breaking cartilage. Mackay kept his ground, but the hulk’s huge black paws just kept swiping. He never slowed and never stopped. The big guy had to work hard though, shuffling his weight to match Mackay’s change in direction as he dodged the blows. Defence and stepping were all Mackay really learned back at the red ant’s gym, and not much in terms of punching as an attacking tool. With the size difference between them, even if he was a skilled boxer, Mackay would still fare poorly. Not that he couldn’t give it a red-hot go. He never had much technical mastery, but he usually got the job done. His Irish fists, if well timed, could do plenty of damage even if it didn’t look pretty. Against this heavyweight though, even if contact was good, it would most likely bounce off his sheer bulk like a blowfly hitting glass. The fight would go on and on. Mackay could easily get gone and hide, but it wouldn’t help. Wherever he ran to, the mass would still be out there. Mackay had to fight. So, he kept fending the blows, dodging and waiting for the right time. For a split-second opening to react.
Mackay’s hands stayed high with his legs bent, like the red ant had taught him. Toed on the balls of his feet. If an opening arose, he needed to be ready. In and out in an instant. The swiping motion from the black mass, though fast, wasn’t lightning quick. Wasn’t practised. Aggression without control. His weight transfer was his weak point, which Mackay needed to use to his full advantage. Use his agility to feign the mass toward one direction, then deliver his blow in another, while he was off balance. After two consecutive swipes, Mackay went in for a fake hook to the left jaw. It didn’t work. The hulk didn’t take the bait, he just kept swinging. Seething with tunnel vision. Mackay changed tactics. He needed to physically move the mountain, which he was quite sure he was capable of. The mass was big, but not the biggest human he’d ever seen. He’d lifted and tackled men twice as big on the rugby field. All of them props. Gargantuan men used to prevent the opposition from breaking through the defence. And most of the time those men were literally running at him, not dancing in circles.
After four more swipes Mackay ducked a right hook, sidestepped and moved under the blow, missing the fist within an inch of his life. Just enough to find himself facing the mass’s backside – right where he needed to be. The man’s blockhead and frayed beard were aimed directly at the side wall of the building. Mackay moved immediately. He gave one hard shove against the back of the mass’s arm, just below the shoulder, putting the crazed animal off balance into a perfect tackle position.
Mackay went for it.
Nice and Low. Shoulder up under the mass’s backside, both arms wrapped around the upper thighs. Mackay lifted the man then ran at the wall with the hulk’s head leading in front. All up it took ten strides. A moderate jog was the best Mackay could do for the distance, but even at jogging pace, the mass’s head hit the wall hard enough to shake the foundations. The noise clearly audible like a boot slugging a football. Even the horses next door kicked up a whinny. Any normal man would have been killed on impact. Or put into a deep concussion. That said, the mass just got back on his feet and turned around.
The turn, however, was slow. The impact to the wall obviously shook the guy up, triggering a lack of gait control which allowed Mackay time to realise two things: it would either take a lot of bullets to put this guy down, or he would have to repeat the tackle into the wall. Maybe a second or even third time if it was going to do any proper damage.
Before the hulk rotated enough to face Mackay, Mackay went instinctive. Reacting with a third option. A dogged primeval attack aimed right for the cervical spine. The soft tissue at the back of the neck. The impact needed to be strong enough to penetrate the mass’s neck fat. A protective layer, rubbery and dense like a walrus. From feet to fist, the well-timed strike needed to happen immediately. It was the only thing Mackay could think of that might drop the guy.
With the mass half turned and the back of his neck exposed, Mackay drove home the blow. A hook from the soles of his shoes to the knuckles of his fist. The elasticity in his new ribs aiding the kinetic rotation like a loaded spring. Complete range of motion into the base of the skull. Mackay broke through the mass’s spine.
Not much was heard as his fist connected. A single whap was all it was. A dull clap of the hand. It took two seconds before the mass began to stumble. His feet hobbled, trying to maintain balance but he failed. His legs turned to jelly, then he dropped. Vertically to the knees first like he was praying, then slumping horizontally to the ground. His legs twitched, jerking the knees and flapping the feet with a weak pulsating spasm. Normal considering the kinetic impact of Mackay’s fist displacing the vertebrae. The twitching lasted maybe five or ten seconds, then he stopped moving altogether.
‘May the cat eat you,’ Mackay said aloud. ‘And may the devil eat the cat.’
Mackay watched the body for a whole minute. Just to be sure before checking for any rise and fall in the chest. There was nothing. All clear. Bish bash bosh.
|
2020hrs Inside the Hotbox |
Satisfied the mass was down and out, Mackay went and collected his Glock from the dirt. The one from the front pouch. He checked the working parts, holstered it, then moved towards the door of the cabin. The first door leading into the big square room on the left. The hotbox. No longer a guest house or bedroom from the good old farming days. The door was light, like it breathed open all on its own. As if it was being pulled inward by an invisible force. Inside, Mackay first noticed the sickening odour. The same musky stench the black mass had sprayed into his face, showering his senses with flavours of burnt rubber and rotting meat. Next, he noticed an ugly, maniacal image on the back wall. A relic of some type. An idol made to look like a face. And from what Mackay could tell, African tribal. The image was of a large demonic skull looming over the entirety of the room, taking up the top half of the rear wall. It had bone, leather and thick twisted thread with an open mouth and teeth black as ash. The hair on the skull’s head sprawled out in tufts of twig and fur. No matter where you stood, it was as if its malevolent focus was always on you.
Something was seriously wrong inside. Once again, the toxicity of the smell constricted Mackay’s breathing. And he was sweating profusely like in a sauna. All of his senses communicated the need to leave immediately. His focus was already drifting, dizziness and confusion shutting down the clarity of his spatial awareness. Mackay pulled up his undershirt and covered his mouth and nose as best he could. Even then, the smell was so powerful it was a struggle to stop retreating to clean, fresh air, but he had to stay. The sight of a slumped shape in the centre of the room required attention.
Beneath the relic, a line of candles lit up a shape seated on a stool, strapped at the legs. As Mackay stepped further inside the shape’s form became clearer, evolving into the petite structure of a woman. Alive and breathing. The finer, smaller features of her neck, back and arms rose and fell ever so slightly as she breathed the dank musk. Her head hung low over her knees, her hair short, chopped not cut – the straggly ends sticking together in wet tufts at the base of her neck. Her feet were immersed in a large tub filled with liquid and a black head bag lay on the floor behind her. Mackay knelt down. The stench near the tub was at its worst. On closer inspection, the liquid from the tub had spilled out onto the floor. It was thick. A mixture of blood and ashy chunks of what seemed to be the remains of her once well-managed locks. Bile covered the woman’s shirt and pants. Heaved out of her system and forced in only one direction.
Mackay placed a hand under her chin and rotated her head towards him. There was a small air of familiarity about her, like he’d seen her somewhere before, but he couldn’t place where. Not then and there. The woman was breathing, but he still needed to check her face. Observe her mouth and eyes, feel the pulse underneath her jaw, then assess her body for any major wounds. All part of basic battle first aid. Mackay peeled her eyelids back. There was no pupil. Nothing but the whites. But the white wasn’t normal. It was murky. Dirty-yellow and bloodshot to hell. He’d never seen anything like it. Made her look like an empty vessel. A blank canvass of a human stuck somewhere in time, leaving her diminished and stonewashed.
As he lowered her head back down, she let out a long, low groan. Discordant and hateful. Her primal pain responses wanting whoever had done this to her to stop. It was the same wounded sound he’d heard outside the cabin. The cry was reactive, the pain expressed vocally from a subconscious state. Most of her face was plump with blood. Like she’d been hit, and not just once. Mackay checked her pulse. It was fast, like she was in the midst of running a marathon. Fear had taken her senses for a ride and wasn’t letting go. The horrid scent invading her body had taken its toll. Mackay needed to move her outside into fresh air immediately. Getting her away from the toxic smell was the first best thing he could do for her.
Mackay checked the stool. It was bolted to the floor not going anywhere. So, he took his seal pup knife and cut through the four zip-ties keeping her legs together. He undid a leather belt keeping her lower half fastened to the stool, then raised her chest and stomach and did a vital organ check for any lacerations or punctures. He checked her back, limbs and neck. All okay. There was however, one big track mark on the inside of her arm. The soft inner side of the elbow. A hole made by a big syringe, drawing out her blood and then emptied into the tub. Or by a needle meant for wound irrigation, shooting medical adrenalin or kick-starting hearts. Why the woman’s feet were in a tub of her own blood was beyond Mackay. Although, from what he could piece together looking around the room, it was obvious. All part of a dark arts practice – the smell, the relic, the genetics of the dead mass. The setting and situation pointed to one thing. Voodoo. Why out here on a winery on the coast of Western Australia was anyone’s guess. From Mackay’s end, he wasn’t there to find out. There were higher priorities on his list.
Mackay cut through a fifth zip-tie binding the woman’s hands behind her back. Before her body slackened, Mackay wrapped one arm around her legs, the other around her back. He lifted her into his arms and walked outside. As her bloody face sheened in the night it suddenly came to him, he remembered where he’d seen her before. On the television in the bed and breakfast. The reporter, first on the scene. Breaking the news of the slaying.
With the stable only a few metres next door along the cabin, Mackay took it as the best and only option as a safe place. Lie her down, get her rested. He wasn’t experienced in farms or equine establishments, his knowledge base was limited to the basics learned in school; horses, horse accessories and hay were usually linked together. And hay was soft. At least if it was laid out in a spread. He could leave the woman inside the stable until an emergency response team arrived. Although unconscious and with no clear responses, her main concerns were satisfied. She was breathing and had no major wounds. Her blood loss, though substantial, wasn’t at dangerous levels. She wasn’t suffering because of blood loss, her symptoms had come about from something else entirely. Mackay had to move on. There was another urgent task he needed to attend to. He also needed to communicate back to Cross. On the hour, every hour. Or she might resolve to thinking there was a problem, and who knew what chain of events that would lead to.
|
2030hrs The Stable |
At the entrance to the stable was a wooden gate, built chest high for stable-hands, trainers and owners to easily peer in. It kept the interior space open, allowing the horses to see out without becoming claustrophobic, which horses tended to be naturally. There was an accessible spring-latch on the right, permitting the door to swing inwards. As Mackay carried the woman inside, he noted four individual horse stalls, but only two horses. One in each of the front stalls facing opposite each other, watching a stranger carry a woman into their quarters. As to what kind of horses they were, Mackay couldn’t tell. Both looked black in the dull security lights. They weren’t ponies or Clydesdales, that much he could ascertain. Even with what dingy light was available, Mackay could tell the place was low rent. Everything was basic and old with upkeep kept to a minimum. The bulk of the owner’s cash obviously spent elsewhere, which narrowed down Mackay’s final assessment: the beasts were ex-racehorses. Bought after their golden bookmaking years, now kept purely for sport and leisure.
They both started up as soon as Mackay’s hand flicked the latch, expressing their disapproval. Like the possums, owls and sugar gliders. They didn’t become overly dramatic though, Mackay guessed because they were a little older and wiser. Just a couple of old-timers who’d seen plenty of life. Been there, done that. Mostly they just stirred and shuffled their hoofs, with some added low-level snorting for good measure. All very understandable.
Mackay eyed the two empty stalls in the far back for mounds of hay, which were loaded with them. All in rectangular prisms in stacks of six, built up around the walls somewhere between seven and eight feet high. Whoever stacked them had to have done it by hand, which wasn’t an easy task, and likely achieved by a big, capable human. No machinery would have been small enough to fit inside to do it. Mackay wanted to assume it was the dead mass whose spine he snapped, but if it wasn’t him, then whoever loaded them in was probably even bigger. Mackay had dealt with some of the world’s biggest humans on the rugby field, but if he had to deal with another monstrosity, he wasn’t sure what the outcome would be a second time round.
Inside the rear stalls was enough hay to sleep a whole platoon on. Obviously, the central hub for storing the roughage. Mackay eased the woman against the inner stall wall for a moment, then tossed up a cushy bed of straw in the back corner. Furthest from any prying eyes. Concealed even from the two stroppy steeds at the front. He then laid her down on the spread in recovery position: head turned over an outstretched arm, mouth angled down, one leg bent to stop the body from rolling. First aid standard the world over. Same as for a soldier on the battlefield.
Mackay sat down next to her, unzipped his backpack and took out his water bottle. He took a small mouthful, swallowed, then opened the woman’s mouth just enough to tip a drizzle in. No response. If anything, she’d absorbed a few drops on the inside of the mouth. Two or three mills at best. At least she was in fresh air, albeit with the mixed aroma of tangy manure and earthy hay. Typical odours found in stables, but it wasn’t too bad considering where she’d come from.
Mackay took a second mouthful of water, capped it, then pulled out his night vision. He made one final check of the woman’s breathing and pulse, then exited the stable – leaving her with the two steeds for company. He moved twenty paces out past the yolky-yellow light of the cabin, past the hand-operated water pump, and stepped into shadow. Somewhere between the two buildings in an empty, dusty void.
The brick building in front was a hundred yards ahead. Dark at the rear, light at the front. He checked his immediate surrounds and noticed he was standing on a dirt courtyard with blooming patches of weeds as thick as tent pegs. Which was when he realised what he was standing on. Or at least what it used to be: an old horse paddock. A training field. It wasn’t big enough for racing by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, it was for breaking them in. Readying them to plough the fields back in the day. Only it wasn’t fenced off anymore and looked like it hadn’t been for a very long time. Before Mackay refocused his lens, or even thought about which direction of the darkness he’d move to next, the sound of a vehicle started up. Something slow, likely fuelled by diesel and propelled with big tyres. Ten seconds after that, from a two o’clock position, a set of headlights swung into view.
|
2045hrs Wednesday December 19, 2012 Frans & Hoek Winery, Western Australia |
Once the wine barrels were emptied, either decanted into bottles or transferred to new barrels, they were moved to the maintenance cabin for storage. Placed along the rear wall of the large shed behind all the machinery. If the barrels were in good condition, they were cleaned and taken apart, refabricated into tables, stools and artwork. If they were spoiled or broken, they were used as firewood. The shed was essentially set up as a parking bay for the forklifts, trailers, lawnmowers and tractors – all to help till the earth and haul large bits and pieces like the barrels or forest debris. And on the odd occasion, a dead animal or person.
As a vineyard operator, Wynand was usually tasked the menial jobs. The run-around stuff. The underground cellar where he’d been for the last twenty minutes – initiating his own menial task – had two empty hogshead barrels that needed to be moved. Transported down to the maintenance cabin. Which was far from a priority job, but Wynand wanted to prove himself. Show the boss he was self-motivated with a sense of pride in his employment. The two barrels Wynand was moving were of the larger oak variety. Three-hundred litre capacities. Normally Wynand would have Snowy helping him, but Snowy had been sent through the woodchipper and was now part of the compost fertilising the grapes. Moving the massive barrels from the cellar to the cabin would usually take about forty-five minutes – if there were two people on the job. But since Wynand was on his own, that time frame would easily stretch out closer to two hours. Both barrels had to be loaded onto a trailer with a pallet jack, winched out of the cellar with a tractor, and finally towed down to the machinery shed. The one with huge storage space built in front of the horse stables and hotbox. Where only minutes before Kimbala was beating their female hostage’s face in with a pestle grinder.
Wynand did well, completing the job in only an hour and a half. He’d reversed the trailer efficiently into the empty shed’s floor space, moving it fore and aft with minimal gear changes. One of his few skills. Once parked, he rolled the two barrels off, then danced them up and down like a seesaw until the kinetic motion tipped the edge of the barrel onto its flat bottom. Which was three-quarters of the job done. All he had to do then was raise the barrels with the forklift and stack them along the back wall with the rest of the spares. With the job done, there were now twenty-two empty barrels in total. A row of eleven on the bottom, eleven on the top.
What Wynand didn’t know, was that halfway along the two rows there was an old, concealed firepit in the brickwork. A hollow edifice built into the cabin’s wall, likely during its original construction back in the 1800s. Tucked away by the bottom row of barrels long before Wynand had been given a job there. As Wynand manoeuvred the forklift to place the second barrel on top of the first, he overshot the forklift’s motion, rolling a couple inches further than needed, ramming the barrel into the brickwork. The impact between wood and brick wasn’t especially loud, but considering the spacious flooring, the collision sent an echoing shockwave through the wall. The crunch of wood against brick splintered the side of the barrel, shuddering the walls enough for them to move. Still, it was loud enough to scare Van Breeman’s old racehorses into a whinny back in the stables, as well as a small boy curled up inside the obscured firepit.
At first, Wynand thought the separate shriek to the horse’s whinny was part of the oak scraping against brick. Or creaking from the metal bands that tie the wooden slats around the cask. The bilge loop. Metal, wood and brick together in a forced impact could potentially make all sorts of sounds. Except, that singular shriek lasted a fraction of a second longer than everything else. Which made Wynand second guess whether the sound had anything to do with the oak barrel at all, and whether there was some local wildlife stuck behind the bottom row of casks. The direction of the sound was unmistakeable – arising low from behind the middle of the two rows.
Wynand shut the forklift off, paused and listened. Then stepped out to take a look. He moved to the centre of the row where he figured the noise had come from. He could see the gapped fissure where the structure of the bricks hollowed inwards into a wide recess. Different from the uniform structure of the wall. There was a cubicle large enough to fit an office desk and a filing cabinet. An unmistakeable fireplace. The cabin’s centrepiece. Made grand and opulent back in the day when the cold nights brought the family together for warmth. To play cards, drink whiskey and smoke tobacco. A section of space Wynand had never seen before.
To climb over, Wynand needed to reach the top edge of the barrelhead for grip, then jam his feet inside the nooks between the stack for balance. The barrels still weighed a solid number even without the liquid grape, so clambering over was a non-issue. Before looking into the recess, Wynand braced in anticipation for a wild animal – a dingo, possum, goanna, or at worst a king brown or tiger snake, coiled up ready to attack. Take his face off. Maybe they were all in there, crouched, hiding out, teamed up. Planning a takeover. Weirder things have happened.
As he steadied himself and leaned over the top, Wynand’s hesitancy in shielding himself vanished. There was no motley crew of animals staging a guerrilla attack. There was nothing there. What he did notice though, was that the recess was deceptively wider in its breach. Wide enough to slide down into it himself, so he figured he’d drop in to take a proper look. Wynand reversed his clambering process, scrubbing his boots down the wall for support, then dropped inside the mouth of the hearth. Which was when he heard a shuffling noise from inside. A shimmying sound. Nice and close. Steadied with rubber and cloth. Wynand stepped back so his feet were flush with the main wall. Just in case whatever was inside did strike. He knelt down, tightly squeezed between brick and oak, then leaned in for a look inside the void. The light from the ceiling didn’t project very deep inside – creeping in only about a metre then cutting straight to black. Wynand squinted. To his best ability he could just make out the vague shape of a small pair of shoes. Emerging from the shoes were two small legs sprouting upwards to a pair of knees. He couldn’t make out anything else.
For Wynand’s intelligence, or lack thereof, he still had some fundamental wiring capacity in his head. It took a few moments before the synapses in the back of his brain clicked, concluding that those shoes and legs were of a small boy. The missing, runaway six-year-old from three days prior. A child who had holed himself inside an old, concealed fireplace for safety. In fear of his life. After three days he was certainly starved and dehydrated. Traumatised and in need of his mother and father, longing desperately for safety and comfort. Wynand smiled and reached in. The child cried out a second time.