Chapter 42

The building site was just under a kilometre from the Dreadnorts’ clubhouse. The place was meant to be for a new hotel with speciality shops underneath, before the global financial crisis sank it. Now it was just a concrete skeleton, surrounded by a collapsing temporary fence, scaffolding and broken streamers of faded caution tape.

Harry parked at the back of a run-down row of shops. He was barely there, operating on automatic while Rob looked after the finer points. Harry was exhausted, and he felt bad leaving Bill behind waiting for the cops. But Rob still had work to do. He got out, grabbed his knapsack, pulled the case out of the boot and walked towards the building site. He kept an eye out for watchers in his peripheral vision, but only stopped to check properly once he was standing in the shadow of one of the graffiti-scarred concrete pylons.

He scanned the surroundings. Cars passed by on the main road but there was a screen of bushes between the road and the building site. The stench of urine rose up from somewhere further back in the gloom, mixing with the more appetising aroma of roast chicken, coming from the shops over the way. Satisfied no-one was watching, he moved towards the back of the building site. The ground was covered in litter: beer bottles, chip and lolly packets, a bong fashioned out of a plastic orange-juice bottle, a used condom.

He found the disused scaffolding he’d spied from the road. Harry hefted the case, pushed it onto the lowest level. Then jumped and pulled himself up, his muscles bulging as he clambered onto the platform. It was a feat he would not have been able to accomplish a few weeks earlier. Rob had given him strength, and knowledge. That was the upside. The downside…

He picked up the case, pushed the thought away. Visualised Crow lying on the side of the road, shivering. Heathy, pulling his hand away, black with blood.

There’s only one language these people understand.

I would say that this magic would require blood to satisfy it.

From the scaffolding he climbed onto the building, took the stairs to the second-highest level, then laid down the case and opened it. Assembled the gun while looking out across the mix of shops, suburbia and industrial estate. The clubhouse was a low-set brick building off in the middle distance.

As the light drained from the sky, Harry spread out a blanket and set up the gun. He opened the ammo case and chose a round with light-blue paint on the tip. He lay down, shifted his body weight until he was comfortable, and stared through the sight. His back throbbed. He focused on what he could see through the scope.

Tile roofs. Blur. Tin sheds. Blur. A low-set brick building. Dreadnorts MC sign over the double door.

The M82’s round would go through that door from this distance, but that wasn’t what Harry and Rob were interested in. The windows on the front of the building were screened on the outside, thick curtains on the inside. A round through the door or window would serve no purpose.

Other than the throbbing in his back, the wait was quite pleasant. There was a steady breeze up here, and unlike at road level, it was relatively cool and didn’t stink of petrol and urine. In a nearby tree, noisy mynahs hassled a murder of crows until the big black birds got the hint and took flight, cawing at the indignity of it all.

Harry took another look through the sight, then rolled his neck to loosen it. He looked away. Saw a dead bird, tucked behind a concrete pylon. Its flesh was gone. All that remained was bleached bone and a few feathers.

An ant wandered across the concrete wall. Do you want to cut, or dig? Harry wondered how long it had taken it to climb this high. Whether it had come all the way from the ground, or whether the ants managed to survive on the seventh floor. What would they eat? There were tags up here – there were tags on the roof no doubt – but these were the tags of adventurers. There weren’t as many as on the ground floor. So it’s unlikely a colony of ants would survive on the meagre scraps brought by adventurous taggers.

Movement. Harry pressed his eye to the scope. The Harleys announced their presence as they came down the highway, and then Harry watched as they pulled up at the clubhouse in ones and twos. It was Church. All full members had to attend. That meant Heathy. That meant Crow. And, to be frank, Harry wanted to destroy the culture that had allowed these two scumbags to thrive. The culture that had facilitated Cardinal’s rise to power.

The front gate opened. The Harleys pulled in and parked next to the LPG tanks lined up against the side of the building. The guys climbed off their hogs; they seemed to be laughing about something. They filed into the building.

When Heathy climbed off his bike, the white bandage wrapped around his torso glowed in the gloom. And Harry was glad to see Crow still walking with a pronounced limp. He wondered what they would tell their mates.

Harry flexed his fingers. Crow and Heathy lit up cigarettes, stood there smoking for a while. Harry settled the reticle on Heathy’s forehead, caressed the trigger. But no, that wasn’t quite what he was looking for. Harry wanted to give them something else to worry about.

Crow followed as Heathy sauntered around the side of the building. Harry followed them with the scope, then shifted his focus. Harry started his breathing routine. A small plume of smoke came out of Crow’s mouth.

The M82 barked and kicked against his shoulder. The incendiary round covered the distance between Harry and the club­house in just over a second. There was a fraction of a second before the round ignited the gas in the LPG tanks at the side of the building.

There was a blinding flash, followed by a loud crack and whump as the fireball blasted into the sky, engulfing everything in a fifty-metre radius. The force of the blast threw Crow and Heathy across the forecourt. Harry watched them through the scope. At first he thought they were dead, but then they stirred, clawing their way along the ground with their backs on fire. Harry fancied he could hear their screams.

The side of the clubhouse was flaming rubble. The gum tree at the back of the compound ignited. The front doors burst open and Dreadnorts rushed out, one of them carrying a shotgun. The intensity of the heat pushed them back towards where Heathy and Crow were crawling.

Secondary explosions tore the air as more of the tanks cooked off. Crow was out the gates now. Heathy crawled after him, still on fire. One of the other bikies dragged him across the concrete, while another smothered the flames with a leather jacket. Other Dreadnorts, some injured, staggered out after them.

Sirens warbled through the streets below, from behind Harry on the main road. There was no reason for anyone to think this was anything other than a tragic accident. They would review the video footage from the security system. Unless it was a very good system, and unless they knew exactly what to look for, they would see nothing suspicious. No sign of forced entry. It would look as though one of the tanks had spontaneously ignited.

The fire brigade arrived first, red lights pulsing through the darkness. Through the scope Harry watched them assessing the danger, unravelling hoses and spraying the fire from a safe distance. An ambulance arrived, paramedics checking over Heathy and Crow, and the other injured bikies. The big man pushed them away, clambering to his feet and gesticulating. They shifted Heathy onto a stretcher, loaded him into the ambulance and took him away. Two police cars arrived next. Detectives would follow.

Harry’s legs quivered. The sensation ran up his body. He pulled himself to his feet, turned away from the blanket. He made it a few steps across the concrete and then vomited. He stood, heaving, eyes watering, nose burning. His legs sagged and he dropped to the concrete as the world swam out of focus.

Harry’s hands shook uncontrollably. He held them between his knees, rolled onto his back. The breeze that had felt nice half an hour ago now felt Arctic. His teeth chattered.

His body convulsed again, but nothing came up this time. A steady throb built in the centre of his head. He crawled to his knapsack, pulled out a water bottle. The drink tasted metallic and warm and it was an effort to keep it down. He walked closer to the edge, then sat down leaning against a concrete pylon.

An unmarked police car pulled up and parked across the road from the Dreadnorts’ clubhouse. The firies were dousing the last of the blaze. Through the smoke, Harry could see two detectives talking to a Dreadnort on the far side of the compound. One had his notebook out. The other had his hands on his hips. Harry doubted either of them would shed a tear about the accident.

Harry drifted. He was back under the house, staring at the crack in the concrete. He was under the slab, cocooned by the cold, dark earth. He was lying on the ground, while Crow and Heathy decided who was going to cut and who was going to dig.