AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Unhappily Ever After is a long, novel-length story that relates the story of a veteran who returns to civilian life and pursues a career path begun before joining the Australian Defence Force. He is forced to resurrect his ‘stay alive’ skills when he is betrayed by his wife, whose lover puts a hit order out on him.
—oooBJSooo—
As with many of my stories, this one started out as an idea for a short story. Unfortunately, the characters took control, and it became my version of War and Peace. In an attempt to encourage those with an aversion to long stories to read it, I have broken it up into two books. This submission is Book One.
Book Two has been written and is currently in the editing stage. Each book tells its own story, but I’d recommend reading Book One first to get a handle on some of the characters.
Hopefully, those who didn’t like the absence of gratuitous retribution in my previous submission, Happenstance, will find Unhappily Ever After more explicit. Doncha hate it when you’ve got to work things out for yourself?
Be warned, however. If you start this journey, be prepared for a long ride. Book One contains ten chapters, which will be submitted in seven parts. All seven parts have been submitted simultaneously, with a request to the moderator that they be published on consecutive days.
I trust you will enjoy my offering, but I will be happy to receive your comments either way. It should be noted, however, that I have blocked anonymous comments. I know that might inconvenience a few of you, but my philosophy is that ‘better one commenter be inconvenienced than ten trolls be allowed to spew their vitriol’.
Please Note: The right of Black Jack Steele to be identified as the author of this work – Unhappily Ever After – Book One – is asserted under worldwide copyright laws. All rights are reserved.
UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER
BOOK ONE
Copyright © Black Jack Steele 2022
CHAPTER SIX
Thursday, December 21, 2017 – Saturday, December 23, 2017
Everyone Has A Plan…
“Put someone on Brad,” I instructed Tommy. We’d poured a coffee and were sitting back in a couple of comfortable leather wing-backed chairs in his office shortly after I’d arrived at his compound. He called them his thinking chairs.
“It needs to be someone with teeth,” I continued. “Not a PI. And tell whoever you send that they should pack for an extended stay. I’ve sent him and my sister up to my hinterland cottage with instruction to stay until this is over.”
“It’s already arranged,” Tommy replied. “There’ll be a two-man team on them until you tell me to pull them off.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t have so many friends that I can afford to lose a single one.”
“You have more friends than you know,” Tommy responded. “People are coming out of the woodwork to offer you whatever assistance they can; some of them, men and women you don’t even know. But they’re all people you have helped over the years. Most of them are ex-military, but a few civilians are among them.
“You’d be surprised how much paying forward you’ve done during your life.”
“But you’re not here to hear about your adoring public. You want to know about tonight’s little interlude.”
He stopped to gather his thoughts before proceeding.
“You were dead right about both the ambush and the intended target,” he said. “They were after your friend. And for the reasons you thought. When you refused to go down on Charlie’s cum-filled pussy, you rejected Manyweather’s dominance of you.
“The final straw came, however, when you threw her off your property in the same way you’d done with Sam. In his eyes, that meant you’d disrespected him exactly as you’d thumbed your nose at Kingston.
“Unlike Kingston – who’s a pragmatist and was happy to simply take you out of the equation with a hit order – this bloke, as you correctly pointed out, is a psychopath. He wanted you to suffer. I have no doubt that, after Brad, he would have gone after your sister, followed by your brother and mother and anyone else who is close to you.
“Oh, just as an aside, I’ve got people watching your mother and brother and have also put someone of Shirly and her family, so you don’t need to worry about any of them.
“Through Charlie, he will know about me, and the lads out on your property. But he’ll be in for a few surprises if he tries anything. We’ve already added to our defences, so we’re ready for any attack he might attempt; either on my compound or yours.”
“Any frontal attack he might make will only be a diversion,” I said after spending a few minutes discussing his preparations. “Don’t forget he is a Defence Force Academy graduate. He’s been trained in tactical warfare. Admittedly, he’s had very little actual combat experience, but he still knows the theory. So we shouldn’t underestimate him.
“Added to that, he also has Charlie, who has been inside both our camps.
“While we need to be prepared to defend against his attacks, the only way we’re going to beat him is by turning the tables on him; just as we’re doing with Kingston.
“How’s that progressing, by the way?”
“Stage one was successful,” Tommy answered. “Ten suspects – including you – were pulled in. Nine of them were found to have drugs in their possession and have been charged. Each of those who were arrested called their significant others to come to their aid.
“While everyone was running around like headless chickens, the stage was being set for Act Two. By the time everyone heads home, the props will be in place for the major raids to commence. Those raids will happen tomorrow… well, today, actually.
“As a result of information obtained during the interviews that have already been conducted, magistrates and JPs have been pulled from their beds and warrants are being issued to conduct searches on the homes, offices and vehicles belonging to anyone with only the slightest connection to those arrested during the night.
“If the police do their jobs properly, evidence relating to prostitution, bribery and corruption will be discovered as a by-product of their drug distribution enquiry. As I understand it, the drug squad will be operating under the Ethical Standards Command’s watchful eye.
“Of course, information leaked to the investigative television show, Focus, and the journalist you told me about, will guarantee that nothing is swept under the carpet. That journalist and Focus have also received anonymous tip-offs about the SCC investigation into the police use of lawyers as confidential informants.
“Both groups have also been provided with snippets of film footage from the retreats and cruises, showing the orgiastic activities and clearly identifying the participants. Among the lawyers, judges, politicians and senior policemen, four people stand out.
“One of them – a male – is the head of the drug squad, which might give the investigators a clue to the source of the drugs seized in last night’s raids. Another male is a member of the state’s Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee. The third male is a senior politician, a close friend of the PCCC member. The fourth is a woman who just happens to be a member of the State Crime Commission. Coincidentally, she’s on the task force conducting the police CI inquiry.
“Assuming it’s ever allowed to see the light of day, this whole thing has the potential of eclipsing the Fitzgerald Police Corruption Inquiry of the late nineteen-eighties.”
I sat back, thinking it was good that I’d been too busy to watch the video recording of my wife’s activities. The fact that I know what she’s been getting up to is enough for the moment. I might take the time to look at some of the footage when this whole thing is over.
“It sounds like it is rolling along nicely,” I said. “I think we can let it run along at its own pace for a while, maybe giving it a nudge if it starts to slow down. Still, I believe you’ve outdone yourself, Prancer, my tin-legged friend.
“Someone suggested last night that I should write a book. But I think your achievement trumps anything I might have to write about. After this is over, it should be you who sits down to put together a full-blown exposé. You could call it “Fuck You! – Or, How to Destroy the Man Who Stole My Mate’s Wife in Less Than a Week”.
“But let’s not start counting our chickens yet. As my dear sainted mother often says, ‘There’s many a slip ‘tween cup and lip’.
“Now, what about this morning’s little operation?”
During the next thirty minutes, Tommy filled me in on what had gone down in the two-block section of the street between the pub and Brad’s office. It turned out my assumptions had been correct; not the least of which being that both the shooter and driver were members of my own security unit. They were both ex-military.
While they had both been infantrymen, neither had ever served overseas. This would be their first kill. That probably contributed to Brad’s survival. They had both been nervous and unsure of themselves. Donk and Spearman were convinced that neither man knew why the hit had been ordered.
They did give up the location of their training camp, however, and the interrogators came away from the interviews with a list of those members of the group known to the would-be assassins. When Tommy showed me that list, I recognised all but a few of the people named.
Of the people I recognised, those who weren’t security unit members were employees who worked in my company’s stores area. That explained the smirks I had received when I’d gone down to retrieve my truck the previous afternoon. It would be interesting to see how many of those on the list turned up for work that morning.
Amongst the other information gleaned from the wannabe Nazi stormtroopers was their platoon-strength cell’s hierarchy and structure. Apparently, either Donk or Spearman had inferred that the one who talked the loudest would live the longest. They lied, of course. But it achieved the desired result.
“I’m afraid I had to break into your personnel records to obtain the addresses of those members of this coven who work for you,” Tommy said. “I hope you don’t mind. But I needed to know where they live so I could put trackers on their vehicles.”
“I would have been surprised if you hadn’t,” I responded.
“By the way,” Tommy added. “Did you know you have someone digging around in your financial records?”
I explained to him about my arrangement with Manny.
“In addition to finding out who the unidentified people are,” I said, “the two people I’m most interested in are Manyweather and his right-hand man, former military police warrant officer, Helmut Kroenig.
“Kroenig has been with Manyweather since his time in Iraq and is the closest thing to a ‘friend’ he has; that’s assuming psychopaths have friends. Given his planned assassination of my closest friend, Kroenig will be my first target.
“Just one other thing before we break,” I continued, “well, two things, really. First, I need you to lock Manyweather out of my servers while still allowing Manny to conduct his audit. Second, I need you to block access to the surveillance cameras he has installed to everyone but you and me. I don’t want him or any of his crew to know what’s going on. And I want to be able to turn the internal surveillance off with the flick of a switch.
“Of course, all the external surveillance cameras will have to continue to operate so the new security team can do its job.
“And speaking of Manny, I want someone watching his back. He’s not only a good accountant, but he’s also a Jew. Manyweather has been targeting him for quite a while. I wouldn’t put it past the little Führer to pay him some special attention.”
With that, we headed off to bed. I needed to get an hour of shuteye before heading off to work. Someone needed to be there to open up the compound so the work crews could get themselves organised. It would be interesting to see who turned up and who didn’t. My HR manager and her team were going to have a big day ahead of them working out the severance packages for all those who didn’t clock on this morning; and even one or two who did.
—oooBJSooo—
On my way to my company’s compound the next morning, I received a text from Tommy telling me that I would be met at the gate by my new head of security and his day shift unit. They shouldn’t be under too much pressure. All work would stop, and the whole operation would shut down for the Christmas break at mid-day on Friday. No one would be on any of the job sites or in the compound after the traditional break-up party.
That triggered a thought. I pulled over and called my one-legged friend.
“Please arrange for the security team to bring in an explosives sniffer dog,” I said as soon as he answered. “Manyweather knows that all my staff, their families and many of my clients and suppliers will be gathered together in the compound for our Christmas party on Friday afternoon. It would be an ideal opportunity for him to make a statement.
“It would also be a good idea to have the construction sites sniffed. I wouldn’t put it past the bastard to blow up the partially completed buildings just to put a bit of extra icing on his cake.
“If possible, retrieve any explosives found on the work sites. Anything found at the compound should be reported to the police via your friend’s friend. I’d like to find an alternative location for our break-up party, but it’s probably too late for that. The whole thing might have to be cancelled if anything is found.”
Tommy agreed to arrange for the dog.
—oooBJSooo—
It was just gone five-thirty when I arrived at my company’s base of operations. The place was as quiet as a graveyard. The fact that there was no security at the gate – which would usually be open at this time – told me that my guess about Manyweather’s departure had been correct.
As I was unlocking the gate to let myself into my compound, however, a crew-cab truck pulled in behind mine, and four men alighted, all of them of military bearing. One of them carried himself as only an officer could. He introduced himself as Frank O’Reilly. After introducing his three companions and explaining that they were part of my new security team, I opened the wide double gates and invited them in.
Once our vehicles were inside the compound, I closed and locked the gate behind me, and we drove around to the rear of the large building.
Using my grand master key, I opened up the rear entrance and led them through to the security suite. It was a grouping of rooms that Manyweather had set up to maintain distance between his people and mine. It contained his office, a meeting room and a lunchroom. It even had its own change room, which contained personal lockers and a cluster of individual shower cubicles. Along one wall was a bank of secure gun lockers.
While my master key could open every standard lock anywhere in the building, its one limitation was that it couldn’t open the personal lockers or the gun safes as they had been fitted with digital combination locks.
The personal lockers weren’t critical, but I needed to get into those gun safes to confirm that the weapons had been stolen. They shouldn’t leave the premises unless the person issued with the weapon was on duty.
Before worrying about that, however, I printed off two lists containing the names of all my employees and, with their leader’s nod, instructed two of the relieving security people to head out to the gate and check the names of everyone entering the place off against the names on the lists. I was pleased to see that Matt White’s name had already been added to the list.
I went with them to unlock the gate and open up the office section of the building.
One of the jobs on my ‘To-Do’ list for today was to change the locks. That had now been given top priority. It was going to be an expensive exercise. The leader instructed his people to stow their gear on the benches until the lockers could be opened. He dropped his own duffle bag in Manyweather’s office.
As soon as I got a free moment, I called the locksmith who had installed the original lock system. He promised to come around as soon as he had sent his people off to their jobs.
By the time my crews left the yard, I had a fair idea of who were members of Manyweather’s gang. All but a couple of the absentees were named on the assassin’s list. In addition to a new security team, it appeared I would have to replace a couple of storemen, which I had already suspected would be the case.
A check with HR later in the morning cleared a couple of absent building crew members. They had applied for early leave to get a head start on their holiday journeys. I was pleased to see that, contrary to my earlier fears, none of my construction people appeared to be tied in with the black-shirts.
As was the case with most building firms, we would be closing our construction section for two weeks over the Christmas-New Year break. That would make things easier for the temporary security crew. The administration and sales staff would be the only non-security people on-site during that two-week period as the office would only be closed from immediately after the Christmas party to the first week in January.
The locksmith arrived just after eight o’clock and opened the lockers and the gun safes. As expected, they were empty. A check of the locked ammunition storage magazine in Manyweather’s office showed that it, too, was empty.
I immediately called Alan McGregor to advise him of the thefts. He thanked me for letting him know and advised me to go through normal channels. He assured me that he would keep an eye on things from his end to ensure that everything was done by the book.
I did as he had suggested, and we were soon inundated with detectives from the Criminal Investigation Branch and forensics specialists. While awaiting their arrival, I asked my HR manager to provide me with the personnel records for each of the absentees; excluding those on approved leave, of course.
With Tommy’s assistance, I had provided the leader of the temporary security unit with a new laptop and had given him access to Manyweather’s files on the company server. He was then able to download all the information relating to the missing firearms and to whom they had been issued. All this information was provided to the police when they arrived.
In the meantime, the sniffer dog had arrived and was doing his job. It took him a couple of hours, but he eventually found a large improvised explosive device tucked away under the old truck I had fitted with a cold room for use at company picnics and other functions, such as our annual Christmas party. Another bomb had been set under the thirteen-metre (forty-foot) mobile home I used as my accommodation unit when working on large remote projects.
The discovery of explosives on the premises resulted in the evacuation of the compound and its buildings. The whole place was now a crime scene.
Immediately after the discovery of the IED, Frank loaded the dog and its handler into his truck. Using the addresses I’d given him, they went to check out the five operational construction sites. He was fully aware of his instructions to disarm and keep any explosives he found; but only if that was possible without endangering lives.
Nothing was found at the three make-work sites that were inspected. The projects those crews had been working on had been completed, and the finished homes handed over to their new owners. The crews that had worked on the finished homes were undertaking groundwork on new construction sites so they would be ready to start when they returned after the holidays.
It was a different story on the two sites where the houses were about eighty per cent complete. Those homes had reached a lock-up stage, and the work was now focused on the internal fit-out. The explosives found at these two sites were anything but IEDs. They were structural explosives designed to completely destroy the almost complete homes.
Like the explosives the lads at my home property had found, these were blocks of C4 set to be triggered by a mobile phone. They would have been time-consuming to set up but were fairly easy to disarm. Once the detonators and phones had been disconnected, the explosives were packed away, and the work crew was told they could go back to work. So far as they knew, this was merely a security training exercise.
To be on the safe side, Frank and his team also checked out the homes that had been handed over to their new owners but found nothing. It appeared that the only place where human injury was intended was at the company’s operational headquarters. And, with upwards of one hundred people attending the Christmas function, the death and injury would have been enough to give the Nazi terrorists worldwide notoriety.
Of course, discovering an IED big enough to kill or maim dozens of people in a builder’s yard on the city’s outskirts was enough to bring in the Australian Federal Police and the Army’s Bomb Disposal Team. That made it big news. For the second time in three days, news crews arrived to shoot footage of police crawling all over my compound.
As it was clear that we weren’t going to get any work done, I sent all the office staff home. I also started looking for an alternative location for our Christmas function.
That was when I discovered just how many friends I had. I received a call from one of my major competitors; a man I’d helped out with men and materials – and even a bit of cash – a couple of times over the past few years. He’d heard about what was going on at my place, so he invited my staff, my guests and me to join him and his people at his yard the following afternoon.
As the day dragged on, I asked Shirley and Kathy – both of whom had refused to leave – to call all the administration, sales and design staff and advise them of the change of venue for the break-up party. I also asked them to tell the people they spoke to that they needn’t come in the following morning. I really didn’t expect that the police would be finished with the place before the weekend.
I called each of the supervisors and told them to pack up their gear and head off home. I suggested that, unless they or their crew members had something in their personal vehicles they needed, they should take their work trucks home with them and swap them over the next day when they came in for the party.
“The police have locked the place down, anyway,” I told them. “Even if you drove back in, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t release your vehicles as they’re part of the crime scene.”
In addition to the disruption to my business that day, two marriages were destroyed when a couple of my work crew members arrived home early to discover their partners in bed with their boyfriends. One of them was my first female tradesperson. She had no idea her husband swung both ways.
—oooBJSooo—
While my compound was swarming with people wearing a variety of uniforms, the drug squad, under the supervision of a detective superintendent from CIB and the oversight of the Ethical Standards Unit, was conducting raids on the homes, offices and vehicles of the MCL partners. I – along with thousands of television news viewers that night – was astonished to hear that they found exactly what they were looking for; and much, much more.
Unlike the drug squad raid on my compound a couple of days earlier, the police had to work to find where each partner had hidden their stash. But it wasn’t just Methamphetamine powder that was found. During their searches, they discovered other drugs, including Ecstasy and Cocaine. And in a few locations, they also found the date-rape drugs, Rohypnol and GHB.
In Kingston’s office safe, the searchers also found his stash of video recordings of the goings-on at all the seminars, late-night meetings, training retreats and cruises. Many of them dated back to long before Sam and I first met.
The DVDs were only the tip of the iceberg, however. They also found evidence relating to several other matters currently under investigation by various law enforcement organisations.
I later learned that the metadata on the videos provided conclusive proof that Sam had been involved in the prostitution, corruption and bribery activities for some time before we started dating. It also proved that her involvement didn’t ever stop; neither during the time we were courting nor during our marriage.
Not all the videos were focused on the group activities. Some of them recorded a series of one-on-one sessions between a female member of the MCL slut pool – which, it appeared, included Sam – and individual male and female partners.
By the time the corruption aspect of the case eventually made it to the courtroom, these individuals would have been identified. They included politicians from all three levels, senior police officers, corporate and banking leaders, senior members of the criminal underworld, several judges and magistrates, and a few senior public servants from all three tiers of government.
—oooBJSooo—
But that was all in the future. Amid the current turmoil in my company’s compound, I received a call from Tommy telling me there was a contingent of police camped at the front gate to my farm trying to gain access to my property. Unfortunately, with my car being parked in the middle of what was now a crime scene, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I was stuck here without transport.
That situation changed a few minutes after talking with him, however. A marked police car arrived. Constable Buchanan exited the vehicle and, after speaking to the officer in charge of the investigation, came looking for me.
“You need to come with me, Mr Bourke,” she said in her official voice.
Passing my master key to my new head of security with the admonition that he should offer the law enforcement people every assistance, I joined the pretty constable and Senior Constable Moyston in their car. As was becoming our normal practice, I was bundled into the back seat.
At least this time, I hadn’t been cautioned and wasn’t wearing cuffs. I have to admit, though, that I was a bit disappointed about not being patted down by Constable Buchanan.
“Would you mind telling me where we’re going?” I asked.
“We’ve been instructed to take you out to your place to help a few of our fellow officers with their enquiries,” the senior of the two responded. “It appears that your wife has become a person of interest in a current investigation, and a warrant has been issued to search her residence.
“She told the investigators that she didn’t have access to the property as she no longer lives there. They have searched her current residence – a condominium owned by the firm for which she works – and they have asked us to meet them at the entrance to your property to save them from having to force their way in. Apparently, your wife has told them that you have some fairly tight security in place, which has made them a tad nervous.”
“I wish you’d stop referring to that woman as ‘my wife’,” I said.
“How would you like us to refer to her?” Constable Buchannan asked.
“Slut. Whore. Corporate bike,” I answered. “Anything except ‘wife’.
“But enough name-calling. Would I be correct in assuming your colleagues didn’t find what they were looking for in her apartment?” I enquired.
“I couldn’t possibly say,” Moyston replied. “But my understanding is that they are looking for ‘additional’ evidence.”
“Would you mind if I made a phone call?” I asked.
After receiving permission to do so, I called Brad.
“I need legal representation,” I said without preamble. “And I need it urgently.”
“I’ll come straight down,” he responded.
“No!” I said. “I want you to stay where you are. It’s still too risky for you to return. Just get someone to come out to my place. And they’ll need to be pretty damn quick. My senses are on full alert, and I need someone with teeth to watch my back.”
“I know just the man,” Brad answered. “He’s the fellow I told you about. I’ll call you back in five.” We both disconnected at the same time.
“I don’t know how much your boss has shared with you about what is going on in my life, but I’m smelling rat shit here,” I said to my escorts. “You would be doing me – and you and your boss, for that matter – a huge favour if you took the long way round to get to my place.
“I don’t want to sound overly dramatic, but this really could be a matter of life or death.”
The two police officers looked at each other briefly. I saw them share a nod before Senior Constable Moyston steered the car to the left at the next intersection. He drove into a fast-food outlet and ordered three burgers and three large coffees. I dug into my wallet and passed a fifty-dollar note to him to pay for our meals. I was pleasantly surprised when he refused the police discount offered by the young lady at the service window.
After exiting the drive-through, he pulled his car in at a small local park, where we left the vehicle and walked over to a shaded picnic table.
My phone rang with Brad’s tone just as we were about to sit. I excused myself and walked away to take the call.
“That was my lawyer,” I said as I returned and sat opposite the two officers. “He’s arranged for someone to meet us at the entrance to my property in about forty-five minutes.”
Moyston walked back to his car and spoke on his radio for a few minutes.
“I’ve sent a message to the crew waiting to get into your place telling them not to attempt to enter the property until we get there,” he said as he resumed his seat. “I’ve also told them we’ve been delayed and are about half an hour away. An additional fifteen minutes won’t matter in the overall scheme of things.”
He then explained who they really were and what they were about.
“Chief Superintendent McGregor told us that you were one of the good guys and that we should trust you. As you have probably guessed, we are part of a special unit within the service. We work independently and have no affiliation with any other department or branch. We’re commonly referred to as Special Branch.
“Our job today is to provide you with a shield against those who want to use you to either protect themselves or pursue their own agendas. If it looks like they want to take you into custody on some trumped-up charge, we have been told to watch over you.
“Now, what about your story?”
I gave them the dot-point version of events leading up to today, leaving out the incriminating parts.
“I believe I know what they are after,” I said between bites of my burger. I didn’t realise just how hungry I was.
“After the slut and Leadbottom retrieved the discs from our safe, they left behind a surveillance camera. What they didn’t know was that I had already set a camera up on the other side of the room. My device Provided me with video evidence that, along with Sam’s jewellery, they had removed a number of compact discs from the safe; not just the single one he recorded on his receipt form.
“When, later, I did a surreptitious sweep of the room and discovered their planted cube, I made a production of checking my own camera.
“I’d been a pretty good magician as a kid and had had the art of deception down fairly well. From their camera, they would have seen me remove the card to confirm they hadn’t found it and taken it, then put it back into the cube. That’s what I wanted them to see. In fact, I had swapped it out with a new blank one.
“Not long after that, I made out that I had found their planted camera and destroyed it. That didn’t really matter to them because it had already transmitted its contents to whoever was watching at the other end.
“Irrespective of what may be on any warrant they might present me with, it’s that data card they want.”
“I can assure you that any drugs they might find on my property will have been planted during their so-called search.”
“Remote One to Car Fifty-Four,” came a call as we cleaned up our lunch site in preparation for leaving.
“Car Fifty-Four,” Moyston responded.
“Where the fuck are you, you useless fuckwit?” I recognised the sound of a bully immediately. “And why did you let the perp contact his lawyer? “The bastard’s here jumping up and down, wanting to know where he is.”
“Remote One, you’re breaking up,” Moyston responded. “We’re about ten minutes out. We had a bit of car trouble, but the ‘perp’ helped us fix it. Fifty-Four, out.
“It sounds very much like your spidey senses are spot on,” Constable Buchanan said as we settled back into the car.
“What the hell are spidey senses?” I asked. “You’re the second woman to use that term to describe my ‘stay alive warning signals’ in the last few days. She turned in her seat and smiled at me.
“Maybe I’ll explain it to you one day,” she said. “But it certainly looks like someone has you in their sights. You have gone from a ‘person of interest’ to a ‘perp’ in less than an hour. They’ll probably just take you out the back and string you up to the nearest tree before the afternoon is out.”
—oooBJSooo—
“Why is that man not wearing handcuffs?” A large fat man asked as we exited the patrol car after turning off the road and into my property’s entrance.
Moyston had been lucky to find a place to park as the layby was filled with marked and unmarked police vehicles. I saw Sam sitting in the back seat of one of the former. The other side of the road was lined with television news vans.
“Because he’s not under arrest,” Senior Constable Moyston answered. “And who might be asking the question?”
“I’m Detective Sergeant David Fuchs of the Drug Squad, smart arse. And who are you?
“I’m the senior constable you recently referred to as fuckwit, Detective Sergeant. Would you mind providing me with some form of identification, please? I’ve copped enough bullshit for one day.”
The detective passed his identification over to Moyston to examine. Moyston passed the warrant card over to Constable Buchanan with instructions to record the details and note that this was the person who had referred to him as a fuckwit over the police radio network and as a smart arse in front of numerous witnesses.
When she’d finished – and she wrote very slowly – Moyston handed the card wallet back to the detective sergeant. The fat man was ready to blow a gasket.
Knowing what we were heading into, I turned on my phone’s recording function before stepping out of the car. I then placed it in my inside jacket pocket.
“Now, arrest this man and place him in cuffs,” Fuchs instructed, Moyston.
“And what is the charge, DS Fuchs?” Moyston asked. He pronounced his name as ‘Fucks’.
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you charge him with,” the sergeant said, once again becoming apoplectic. “Just charge him with something and get a set of cuffs on him. And the name is Fuchs, pronounced Fooks.”
As they were battling over what groundless charge they could lay against me, I looked around and spotted a gentleman in his late forties wearing a beautifully tailored suit. He looked to be Italian – perhaps Sicilian – and seemed to be as amused as I was at what was going on. I raised an eyebrow and lifted my chin, acknowledging his presence. He was so out of place, he had to be my lawyer. He nodded, affirming my assumption.
He didn’t move, however. But seemed happy to sit back and let things play themselves out.
“Is there some reason that I have been dragged out here?” I asked, interrupting the battle of wills. “If not, I might just as well head back to town with my lawyer.”
“You’re not going anywhere, boyo,” the detective sergeant said. “You’re going to open that fucking gate so we can search your and your wife’s home.”
“And what is it you’ll be searching for?” I asked.
“That’s none of your business,” he answered, reverting to his bullying tone.
“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “My home. My business.
“I hope you’ve brought a search warrant with you this time. Not like the idiot – also a drug squad detective, by the way – who tried to steal my car from my company’s compound the other day. I have no idea what sort of resistance he thought he would face that necessitated bringing a SWAT unit with him.
“I notice that you don’t appear to have brought one with you today, Detective Sergeant… Fucks, is it?”
“It’s pronounced Fooks, You fucking moron. And that’s all I needed to arrest you. Showing disrespect to a police officer while in the performance of his lawful duty is a serious offence. Put the cuffs on him, Senior Constable,” he shouted.
“And the charge, Detective Sergeant?” Moyston enquired. “I’m not really sure that disrespecting a police officer, bla, bla, bla, by mispronouncing his name is going to hold up.”
“I don’t care if it holds up or not,” the red-faced policeman yelled. “Just put the fucking cuffs on him!”
Senior Constable Moyston signalled for Constable Buchanan to come over and do the honours. No one said a word as she placed the cuffs on me, but Moyston and Buchanan were both smiling.
“Now, you fucking little worm, get over there and open the fucking gate.”
“I might consider doing that as soon as I see something that tells me you have the authority to do so,” I said. That’s the trouble with bullies. Whenever they think they have the upper hand, they believe that normal rules no longer apply to them. I wondered how long it would take him to realise that he’d blown this whole operation.
The fat man waddled over to his car and returned with a business compendium from which he extracted a sheaf of papers. After flicking through them, he separated what appeared to be a complete set and handed them to me. It was at that point that I was joined by the man I believed to be my lawyer. He introduced himself as Tony Marino.
“A lovely performance,” he said quietly. “Now, nothing he does or finds – or plants – will have any standing in court. Well done.”
He read quickly through the document before telling me that, while it appeared to be in order, it had a very narrow latitude. They were looking specifically for drugs and nothing else. They have limited their search to the house; no mention is made of outbuildings. And, based on the way the warrant is written, they will have a hard time justifying the seizure of anything else they find. That was when I explained to him what I believed was the real reason for the raid.
“They badly want to get their hands on that data card,” I told him. “It won’t do them any good when they do because I turned the camera off after I’d destroyed their surveillance equipment. There’ll be nothing of any value to them on it.
“That doesn’t mean I want to make it easy for them to get their hands on it, though.”
The question I put to Tony was whether I should allow them to access the house?
“I don’t see how you can stop them,” he said.
“Oh, I can certainly stop them,” I said, “You see, I own three properties along this road. They’ve obviously done a computer search and have come up with an address to put on the warrant. The trouble is that it’s the wrong address.
“The address they’ve put on this warrant is the one, two entrances further down the road. The funny thing is that they’d probably have more chance of finding drugs down there than they would here. The house on the property is occupied by my young stockman.”
Neither of us smiled, but I saw a twinkle in his eye.
“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” I asked.
“I think we should let sleeping dogs lie,” Tony said. “We’ve already got enough to have this whole thing thrown out of court. He won’t fall for that a second time. Let’s keep this one to ourselves and hold it as a wild card, just in case it’s needed in the future.”
“Okay,” I agreed. His logic was sound. “But I want you to keep a tight rein on whoever goes into the master bedroom. The cube I set up overlooks the bed from the side. It gives a ninety-degree view across the front of the safe, which is how I could count the number of discs they removed that day. The copies I took of the discs before they accessed the safe and that data card are part of my deadman’s switch.
“Brad has been instructed to release those and several other files to the media and stick them on the Internet if anything happens to me. Some of their content has already been released to certain people who are investigating my wife’s law firm and other matters.”
Leaving my copy of the search warrant with Tony, I adopted a hangdog posture and walked over to Moyston and Buchanan.
“Would one of you please retrieve my keys from my pocket?” I asked. “It appears I have no alternative but to comply with the search warrant.”
Moyston looked over at Constable Buchanan, indicating that she should do it.
“Well, I’m not going to dig around in another bloke’s pockets,” he said when she looked back at him. “You never know what you’re going to find.”
As Kate – well, you can’t refer to a woman who is going to dig around in your trousers, Constable Buchanan – stepped forward, I indicated that she’d find them in my right-hand pocket. Despite the incongruity of the situation, I felt my penis begin to chub up as she rubbed her hand against it.
I heard a sharp intake of breath as she realised what was happening. With her back to her superior, she smiled at me as she handed me the keyring. It was a smile filled with promise.
As I walked towards the gate, Detective Sergeant Fuchs stepped in front of me and stretched out his hand. He mistakenly believed I was going to surrender the keys to him.
“Fuck off, Bargearse,” I said. The warrant demands that I give you access to my house. It says nothing about surrendering my keys or giving you access to any other part of my property.
Before unlocking the gate, I turned to face the assembled bevy of police and media people. I hoped the TV crews had their cameras at the ready.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said in the parade ground voice I had only used once since leaving the army. “I have been served with a warrant that entitles these police officers to enter my property and search my home. Apparently, they hope to find my place awash with drugs. This is their second attempt to fit me up on such a charge. It appears I can’t stop this intrusion, but I can assure you that any drugs found on my property will not be mine. I do not dabble in such filth.
“Sadly, the same cannot be said of my soon-to-be-former wife and her lovers at Moreton City Law, all of whom use a variety of drugs to enhance their orgies….”
At that point, I was flattened by three large drug squad detectives, which brought an end to my speechifying. I was surprised it had taken them so long to react.
They grabbed the keys from my hand and attempted to open the gate. They failed. I’d had a couple of extra steps programmed into the gate’s remote to prevent just such a thing from happening.
“You’ve only got three chances,” I said from where I lay with my face pressed into the gravel of my property entrance. “If you waste them, you’ll have to wait twenty-four hours before you get another chance. You’ve already wasted one.”
I was talking complete bullshit, of course. But none of them seemed overly bright. If they had been, they would have simply cut the fences and bypassed the gate altogether.
My warning must have struck a chord because I was dragged to my feet and frog-marched over to the gate. It beggared belief that they felt they could get away with treating a suspect the way they were treating me; especially with the media in attendance.
While standing in front of the lock, I saw that they had been trying to open the gate without unlocking the chains. Even if they’d managed to get the lock to work, the gate would have jammed.
What they didn’t know – and I wasn’t about to tell them – was that, when fitted, the two chains-locks electronically synched with the gate lock. Each system component had to be unlocked in the correct order before the gate lock would function. Without indicating any particular sequence, I first unlocked the chain at the gate’s hinge end, ensuring that the lock was closed on the hanging chain before moving over to the latch end of the gate.
I then repeated the process with the chain at that end before activating the gate lock itself. The gate swung open and locked back into a socket, preventing it from closing until the remote opener was activated a second time.
With the gate opened, the entourage – led by my lawyer – charged towards the house like a herd of shoppers through the department store doors on sale day. Before being bundled back into Moyston and Buchanan’s car, I called over a television news reporter from the public broadcaster and invited her and her crew to follow us in.
“Tell the others you will be their pool representative,” I told her. “And when you get back to the office, tell the Focus producers that this is part of the story they’re currently working on. Do your job well, and you might pick up a Walkley Award.
The two uniformed officers left to guard the gate raised an eyebrow at Senior Constable Moyston.
“Mr Bourke has invited them onto his property,” he said to them. “As far as I know, it hasn’t been declared a crime scene, which means he’s free to invite whoever he pleases onto the place.”
On the way down the driveway, I told Moyston and Buchanan about my fears that Fuchs would plant evidence. I asked them to keep an eye on the activities of his people during the search. I also explained that the warrant only covered the house and not the detached outbuildings.
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” I said. “But I’m not about to make his life easy.”
When we arrived at the house, my lawyer was standing with his back to the door, holding back the intruders like Moses held back the Red Sea. A couple of hefty uniformed constables were preparing to bash the door down. Fuchs was standing toe-to-toe with Tony, trying to bulldoze his way past him, but my lawyer wasn’t giving him an inch.
Sam was standing among the group waiting on the porch. She looked as though her whole world had collapsed; which, of course, it had.
As soon as I opened the door, Fuchs pushed me inside. He then dragged me through the foyer and dumped me into one of my reclining armchairs in the living room. In an attempt to immobilise me, he tipped the chair back into the reclined position.
As the crowd bustled through the foyer, I heard a loud shattering sound as the second of my fake Ching Dynasty vases crashed onto the tiled floor. Almost immediately afterwards, Sam was herded into the living room, where she was assisted to a sitting position on the settee. She was probably pissed off to find that the vase she thought had been destroyed by Charlie a couple of nights earlier was still intact and decided to rectify that situation. If I needed proof that I was being set up, that was it.
The sad, dejected look I had seen earlier had been an act. As she sat facing me, her self-satisfied smirk told me she was part of the set-up. Without words, she was saying, “Gotcha, you bastard!”. She thought she was playing a winning hand.
Her confident grin faded a little when I smiled back at her, however. I believe that was when she finally realised that, rather than having a compliant wittol by the balls, she and Kingston had latched onto the tail of a very angry tiger.
Not long after Sam had settled onto the settee, Tony Marino entered the room. He was patting his pocket. I hoped that meant he had obtained video footage of the deliberate destruction of what, in Sam’s mind, might have been a million-dollar artifact. He didn’t stay but went looking for the search crews.
In the end, it was all for nothing. The drug squad people weren’t novices at planting evidence. They found fifty grams of methamphetamine hidden under some folded clothing in the back of my walk-in wardrobe. They found nothing tying Sam to drugs.
During their search, they also found a small surveillance cube in the master bedroom, which they confiscated under the ‘Chance Discovery Rule’. The records relating to the search later tendered to the court would indicate that the recording device contained no data card.
Detective Sergeant Fuchs took great delight in outlining the charges that would be laid against me.
“You will be charged with being in possession of a large quantity of a proscribed substance for sale and distribution purposes,” he said, a self-satisfied smirk spreading across his face. When I glanced over at her, I saw that same smirk pasted on Sam’s face.
“I remind you that you are still under caution,” Fuchs said as he handed me over to one of his uniformed minions, who he instructed to load me into a car for transportation to the watchhouse.
“And make sure it’s a car with all the bells and whistles,” he instructed the young constable. “I want those media clowns out there to see what a drug lord looks like.
“Now,” he said, “let’s see what we can find out in your garage.”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, Detective Sergeant,” Tony said. “The conditions of your warrant limit your search to my client’s house and nothing else. Were you to enter any of the outbuildings, you would be in breach of the parameters set out in your current warrant, thus voiding your whole search and tainting your evidence.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fuchs responded. “I’ve already got enough to send him away for a long time. Based on what I already have, I won’t have a hard time getting an expanded warrant. We’ll come back and continue our search tomorrow if necessary. But I can’t see any point in wasting our time with such niceties. I’m sure a judge will approve our expansion of the existing crime scene in light of what we have already found. You can fight out the technicalities in court.”
While the search crew was packing their gear in preparation for a change of locations, Tony came over to tell me he’d be right behind me. I reached out of the car’s open window to shake his hand as we talked. I passed him my keys in the process. In a whispered voice, I told him the lockup sequences for the house and the gate.
I then asked him to get onto Brad and ask him to let Tommy know what was going on. That reminded me to pass over my two burner phones for safekeeping. I also gave him my personal phone. It was the one I’d used to record my arrest – or non-arrest – and I didn’t want the evidence of that interaction with DS Fuchs erased or deleted.
“I’d like you to get a copy of that recording to Detective Chief Superintendent Alan McGregor ASAP, I said, giving him my phone’s PIN code. “Take a copy for your and Brad’s records, too, if you don’t mind.
“I know I sound paranoid, but it now appears I’ve got three groups out for my blood, and I’m becoming a little concerned for my safety. When you talk to Brad, tell him to stay where he is. If they find him, they’ll use him to get to me.”
The final jobs I gave him to do were to let my new head of security know that I’d been detained and probably wouldn’t be back to pick up my car tonight. And to let my PA know that she would have to represent me at the break-up party tomorrow.
I also asked him to inform my neighbours of the police raid, just in case they twigged to their address error and decided to raid them.
With what I hoped were all my bases covered, I settled back into the seat of the police car to wait for the trip back to town. I’d just closed my eyes to think everything through when my door was opened, and I was helped to my feet.
“We’ve just come over to retrieve Constable Buchanan’s handcuffs, Mitch Moyston said in his official senior constable tone. The young female constable reached forward and took my hands in hers as he spoke. She had a concerned look in her eyes.
“I wouldn’t be too worried,” Mitch said quietly. “I’ve already spoken to the boss about what has happened, and he’s instructed us to follow you into town. We’ll have eyes on you for the whole trip, just in case anyone has something other than a simple arrest planned.”
Just then, the constable responsible for driving me into town came around to supervise the exchange of handcuffs. As she removed her set of restraints, I felt her drop something into my hand.
“Just in case,” she whispered.
I immediately had a coughing fit and raised my hand to cover my mouth. When I lowered it, my hand was empty. The driver replaced my cuffs with his own and pushed me back into the rear of his car.
“He certainly had me fooled,” Senior Constable Moyston said to his partner as they walked away. “I really thought he was one of the good guys.” Constable Buchanan nodded her head in agreement.
“Yeah, me too,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder and giving me a wink.
Ten minutes later, one of Fuchs’ detectives came out of the house and told the constable to take me back into police headquarters and have me processed and sitting in an interview room by the time they got back after finishing up out here.
—oooBJSooo—
That’s exactly where I was when Fuchs and his squad returned to police headquarters two hours later.
Not that the interview room’s allocation to a drug squad case didn’t cause considerable inconvenience. The period leading up to Christmas is apparently a very busy time on the police calendar, so the interview rooms were in constant use.
But it wasn’t just the commandeering of a valuable resource such as an interview room that caused problems. Those started as soon as I arrived, and the constable steered me towards the charge room. The main issue was that the constable hadn’t been given any information about the charges I was facing. When the custody sergeant asked me about them, all I could do was shrug and tell him that I had apparently offended Detective Sergeant Fucks’ sensitive nature when I’d suggested he could lose a bit of weight.
As the constable had not mentioned them, I left the subject of drugs alone.
“So, was Mr Bourke formally arrested?” the custody officer asked the constable.
“I have no idea, Sergeant,” the constable answered. “I was just told to bring him in and have him processed and sitting in an interview room when Detective Sergeant Fuchs returned.”
The custody officer then turned his attention back to me.
“Were you arrested, Mr Bourke?” he asked.
“Not as far as I’m aware,” I answered truthfully. “To the best of my knowledge, I was invited to assist the police with their enquiries.”
“So why are you here in the custody of a gormless newly-minted constable wearing handcuffs?” he asked.
“You’ll have to ask Detective Sergeant Fucks about that,” I answered. “But if you want my opinion, it’s what bullies do when their victims don’t surrender to their demands. You’ll have known him longer than I have. What do you think?
“I think you’re probably right,” he muttered, more to himself than to the world at large.
“As you don’t appear to be under arrest, I can’t process you,” the sergeant said. He then instructed the constable to take me to a vacant interview room. Once you’ve got him settled, remove the cuffs and get him something to eat and drink.
“If Detective Sergeant Fucks …sorry, Fuchs is true to form, he’ll make him wait for a couple of hours before interviewing him.
“Oh, and see if you can rustle up a newspaper for Mr Bourke to read while he’s waiting. He could be there for a while. You’d best let him have a toilet break while waiting for a room to become vacant.”
While the custody charade was playing out, I’d seen Moyston and Buchanan enter the room. As I was being pushed out, I stumbled against Constable Buchanan, passing her key back to her.
“Sorry about the slobber,” I mumbled as I disentangled myself from her.
“Sorry, Miss,” I said more loudly as I righted myself. “Gammy leg. Old war wound, doncha know.”
“It was my pleasure,” Kate mumbled back at me as I was led away. I wasn’t sure if she was talking about lending me her key or my bumping into her.
After my toilet break, I was led to a wide hallway, which was lined with interview rooms along one side and a long, wooden bench along the other. I recognised a few of the faces of some of my fellow perps. They were those of my wife’s co-workers. Some were partners – both senior and junior – and some were paralegals. I particularly recognised the face of Sam’s friend and fellow gang-banger, ‘Hell-on-Wheels’.
“If this were a movie,” I said to myself but loud enough for everyone to hear, “we’d be wanting to know who had ‘grassed’ on us. In such cases, the finger would be pointed at those who were most conspicuous by their absence.”
“Shut the fuck up,” a voice ordered from the other end of the hallway. “No talking.”
“Sorry, Sir,” I responded. “But I was just sayin’.”
I don’t know how long the others had been waiting, but it appeared I had priority. I was steered into the next available room. To my great delight, it was at the opposite end of the hallway from where I’d been seated. The glares of those sitting on the bench as I walked down the hallway were met by my Cheshire cat-like smile as my constable led me to the room. I wanted them to know – or at least suspect – that I’d had something to do with their downfall.
It must have irked them to see my constable wandering in and out of my room with newspapers and bottled water while awaiting the arrival of my interviewers. It would have really pissed them off to see him enter the room carrying a large McDonalds bag and a cup tray upon which were perched two large coffees.
As I sat in my room waiting for Detective Sergeant Fuchs and his sidekick to return from turning over my home, I surmised that the length of time they were taking indicated that they had gone beyond the brief of the warrant and had conducted a search of my garage and other outbuildings.
It didn’t really matter. I was confident they wouldn’t find my armoury. And I already knew the drugs they ‘found’ were what the legal fraternity referred to as ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’.
‘The really amazing thing,’ I thought as I sat meditating in my solitary interview room, ‘is that, for the second time in as many days, I’ve been taken into custody without my personal possessions being taken from me.’ I was half regretting that I hadn’t kept my personal phone; but only half. I knew that once I was formally arrested – which I fully expected would happen – they would be legally entitled to access it.
The interview, when it eventually happened, went as expected. Fuchs and his number two came charging in like a cyclone out of the Coral Sea and attempted to bulldoze me into a confession. I refused to contribute to the conversation until after speaking to my lawyer. Fuchs and his minion packed up their gear and left. It was another hour before Tony was shown into the room.
This was all part of the game, of course. But I wouldn’t have been a half-decent sniper if I was an impatient man. The same cannot be said for my lawyer, however. As soon as he walked into the room, I could tell he was seething.
After ensuring that our conversation wasn’t being recorded – before leaving the farm, I’d asked Tony to bring Charlie’s magic wand in with him – I brought him up to date with what was going on and what it was all about. I left the mechanics of my response out of my story, as I would have done if I were talking to Brad. I’m sure he managed to get the gist of things, though.
During our discussion, he told me that, despite his warning, Fuchs had gone ahead and conducted a search of the outbuildings. During that search, they had allegedly found a second stash of Meth, along with other recreational drugs in distribution quantities.
Before inviting the drug squad detectives back to continue their interview, I asked Tony to use his phone to take a few photographs of my face and hands. In both sets of photos, I used the newspaper supplied by the police to establish the current date.
I also asked him to use my unnumbered burner phone to send a text to the person listed as JF. I had written the message out on a piece of the newspaper. It said: “Expect remand. Also expect contract to be extended to that venue. Need back protection. YKW”.
I told Tony I didn’t need to receive a response as I had every confidence my request for protection while on remand would be met. I did ask him to delete both my message and any response before shutting the phone down.
For his part, Tony advised me to stick to the old military POW tactic of name, rank and serial number during the interview. And that’s how we played it.
At the end of the interrogation, my constable was called in, and I was handcuffed and led down to the watchhouse. That was when I was formally charged with having distribution quantities of illegal substances in my possession. It was at that point I was relieved of my possessions and escorted to a cell. During the charging process, I received my first caution. That was a piece of information I kept to myself.
The following morning, I was loaded into a police van and taken to an adjoining city to be brought before a magistrate. She was as surprised as I was that I’d been brought such a distance for what was effectively a remand hearing.
When the charges were read out, she asked me if I was represented.
“I am, Ma’am,” I answered. “But it appears that my lawyer was not informed of the change of venue. I can only respectfully request that this hearing be adjourned until I can advise him of the police shenanigans?”
She turned her attention to the police prosecutor, a uniformed senior constable.
“Is there any substance to Mr Bourke’s accusation, Senior Constable Bishop?” the magistrate asked the police prosecutor.
“Of course not, Your Honour,” he responded. “This is an open and shut case of drug possession for the purposes of distribution. I believe Mr Bourke is merely trying to delay the inevitable. I am sure his lawyer would have been informed of the change of venue due to the crowded court calendar in Moreton City, Your Honour.”
“Nevertheless, Mr Prosecutor, Mr Bourke is entitled to proper representation,” the magistrate said. “This is not the first time this has happened – particularly with drug-related matters. I’m adjourning this hearing until next Wednesday morning, when I expect to see a lawyer standing beside the accused.
“As Your Honour pleases,” the senior constable said. He wasn’t happy.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” I said.
I admit that I was tempted to ask for the case to be dismissed but decided to bide my time. I certainly had the grounds to make the request but felt I would be better served to have them trotted out in a more public forum. If I understood the system correctly, the magistrate would commit me – either with or without bail – to a higher court.
I told myself to be patient. I’d spent more days hunkered down in less comfortable nests while waiting for a target to pop his head up than I would be experiencing locked away in a jail cell.
‘Note to self,’ I thought as I was being led out of the courtroom. ‘Ask Tony to bring me a couple of books to read while I’m awaiting my next court appearance.’
When I was returned to my accommodations in the city watchhouse, I found that my one-person cell had become a two-person cell. A mattress had been thrown on the floor, and a skinny, young, tattooed man was lying on my bunk. His glazed eyes and the toothless smirk he gave me as I stepped into my temporary home told me he was a methhead and was as high as a kite.
“You do realise you’re on my bunk?” I asked calmly.
“What if I am, old man?” he asked, not denying his knowledge. “What are you going to do about it?”
I immediately recognised I had another set-up on my hands. That was proven when I saw him look up towards the CCTV camera that was a permanent fixture in each cell.
“Not a thing,” I answered. “I wouldn’t put my head on that pillow or sleep on that mattress after you’ve had your nit-infested head and pox-ridden body on them. At least I know the new mattress and blanket are clean and the pillow is freshly decontaminated.
“I’d suggest, however, that you warn me if you want to move off that bed for any reason. I’m a very light sleeper, and I suffer from PTSD. I also suffer from blackouts and sometimes do things in my sleep that I don’t remember doing.
“There was one time when I was in Afghanistan that I almost choked my roommate to death in my sleep; or so I’m told. They let me sleep alone after that. He and I are still mates, but he speaks with a croaky voice. That’s how he got the nickname, ‘Froggy’.
“That was a long time ago, though. I don’t believe I’ve ever done it again. But then, I’ve never had to share a room with anyone since… except for my wife. And she liked a bit of choking as part of our lovemaking. She actually liked me to choke her to the point of passing out.
“It’s probably not a good idea to try climbing into bed with me. I might be unable to stop while I’m fucking you up the arse. She liked that, too. If I had my phone in here with me, I could show you just how much.
“Better still, why don’t we wait until after lights out, and I’ll show you first-hand?”
When we got to that part of my explanation about why I didn’t intend to do anything about his commandeering my bed, he was banging on the door, begging to be put into another cell. When they came to get him, I insisted they take the bedding he’d been lying on with them. I then made up my bunk using the clean bedding and demanded that they provide me with a new toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. Heaven only knew what he’d done with my old one.
Later that afternoon, I received a visit from Tony Marino, who confirmed what I’d thought had happened that morning.
“I hear you acquitted yourself well,” he said. “Well done. Brad told me you were light on your feet. But even after seeing you in action yesterday, I didn’t realise how well you could dance.
“You’ve also got the luck of the devil on your side. If it had been any other magistrate, you’d probably be on remand by now. Margaret Johnston is a stickler for the rule of law, though, and won’t allow those brought before her to be railroaded. Mind you, if she thinks you’re guilty after hearing the evidence – particularly if the case involves the abuse of women or children – she will hang you from the yardarm herself.
“If we get her again on Wednesday, there’s a chance that you might even manage bail. Of course, we could shut the whole thing down before it even begins. Oh, I know you want to turn it into a public spectacle, but you’ve also got to consider the damage this case is doing to your reputation. The longer we hold off with the shutdown, the greater that damage will be.”
“My reputation is already buggered,” I answered. “It was turned to shit when the bastards raided my company’s compound and attempted to impound my car. That damage was further aggravated when one of their number invited the media along to watch the circus. The fact that it backfired on them was purely due to their own incompetence.
“The destruction of my reputation was further compounded yesterday when, once again, they invited the media along to witness and report on the downfall of a previously respectable businessman. My building business may never recover from the damage they’ve done to my name. That’s going to cost them.
“To misquote Shakespeare, “He who steals my money, steals nothing. But he who steals from me my good name makes me poor”. I’m sure he meant to add to that, “…and he shall pay dearly for it”.
“We both know mud sticks. The only way to minimise the damage is to go the full fifteen rounds. It’s not enough that I walk away with a technical knockout. I’ve got to put these bastards down for the count.
“There will be no plea deals, and there will be no negotiated out-of-court settlements. This will be a fight to the death. Either they will win, or I will win. Whatever the outcome, it’s going to be a public spectacle the likes of which the people of this state have never seen.
“What you are seeing here, Tony,” I said, “is merely the tip of the iceberg. There is a great deal more happening beneath the surface. I suggest you get your hands on a copy of Saturday’s newspapers and watch the next Focus program. Although that might be a couple of weeks away, with next Monday being Christmas Day. I probably won’t get to see any of it, locked away in here – or in the remand centre – but I’d appreciate it if you’d get a copy of the paper to me whenever you can.”
“I will,” Tony responded. “With a bit of luck, you’ll get to watch it from home when it’s aired. If not, I’ll record it and bring it to you wherever you are.
“And speaking of reading material, I brought you a couple of books to keep you occupied until your next hearing. I hope you like Tom Clancy.”
“I do. And thank you. You must have been reading my mind. I was going to ask you to bring something in for me.
“If you want to see what the big picture looks like,” I said as Tony stood to leave, “talk to Brad. He can fill you in on some of what you can expect to read and see in the media in the next few days and weeks. And please tell him to stay where he is until this is over and done with. His life won’t be worth a plug nickel if he comes back too soon.”
“Oh, before I forget,” he said before knocking to have the door opened. “I received a reply to the text I sent yesterday. It simply said, “Done”.”
A constable came to take me back to my cell only a minute or two after he left. I was surprised that, following a brief inspection, I was allowed to keep the books and a copy of that morning’s newspaper that Tony had also brought in for me. I thought they might take them off me just as an act of bastardry.
—oooBJSooo—
“LOCAL BUILDER ARRESTED IN DRUG RAID”, was the headline on the page-three story about the raid on my home reported in the paper.
After reading the article, I realised that whoever had written it hadn’t even been there. It was based on a media release put out by the police. It contained very little fact but a great deal of supposition and innuendo.
The story included my name and mentioned the attempted seizure of my car a couple of days earlier. While it didn’t actually say I was guilty, it left no doubt in the readers’ minds that I was a criminal mastermind who was heavily involved in the drug trade.
It then went on to describe the damage that drugs such as Methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and recreational drugs like ecstasy did to the people addicted to them and to the state’s economy.
While it didn’t specify the types of drugs found on my property, that one short paragraph inferred the drugs mentioned were found during the raid. This was a big hole they were digging for me.
But as I had told Tony a little earlier, ‘They don’t realise how much this little exercise is going to cost them.’
I knew exactly what they were trying to achieve. If I managed to survive Kingston’s hit orders, my word would carry no weight should I be called as a witness against them. I would be seen as the disgruntled and disgraced husband of the woman who, as a result of her discovery of my drug connections, had distanced herself from me. She would plead that her romantic involvement with Kingston – should it come to light – occurred after that separation.
Strangely – to me, at least – there was no mention of the arrest of MCL partners. I would have thought the arrest on drugs charges of the prime movers in one of the city’s most prestigious law firms would have been big news. Apparently not. Either that or Kingston had a much wider circle of friends than I had realised.
Sitting on my bunk, I wondered whether Kingston and Co knew about Manyweather. I’d be willing to bet that neither Sam nor her boss-cum-lover would know. The trouble is that Charlie knew about them. And she might – probably would – put Manyweather in touch with them to fill the gap left when their failed contractors had disappeared. He wanted to kill me anyway, so why not make some money from the exercise.
The only difference between the two parties was that Kingston wanted me gone as quickly as possible, and Manyweather wanted to draw it out. In the end, Kingston wouldn’t argue. Just so long as he received a guarantee that I would be out of the picture before I could do them any more harm.
I acknowledged that I could do nothing about anything while locked in the cell, so I set the newspaper aside and got started on one of the books Tony had given me.
‘The one thing I do know,’ I told myself as I opened the first book, ‘is that Prancer won’t be sitting idle. He’ll be doing everything in his power to ensure I come out of this in one piece.’
And he was.
What I didn’t know until later was that while I had been fighting dragons in town, Tommy had sent a team out to my property and had filled my home and outbuildings with surveillance equipment. Every nook and cranny was observable. The result was that the whole search and fit-up had been recorded; as was Sam’s deliberate destruction of the second of my Ching vases. That, in itself, proved an element of collusion between her and members of the drug squad.
I was dragged in for two more interviews on Saturday, both of which proved to be a waste of time because the detectives conducting the interviews had failed to advise my lawyer. We sat there in silence for an hour each time. In the end, they returned me to my cell.
—oooBJSooo—
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Freedom And Sanctuary
On Sunday morning, I was ordered to shave and shower and was given a clean set of coveralls before being led out to the watchhouse courtyard and handed over to a pair of uniformed officers for transportation. Neither they nor I displayed any recognition. I was just pleased that wherever I was being taken, I would be travelling in a car rather than in the back of a cramped van.
“Well, you look to be holding up well,” Constable Buchanan said from the front passenger seat after we’d left the watchhouse compound. “It appears you have been able to keep yourself out of trouble.”
“It wasn’t for want of trying,” I answered with a smile. God, it was good to see a couple of friendly faces for a change. “They tried to set me up for a fight in my cell. But I managed to sweet-talk my way out of that.”
“What happened?” Mitch Moyston asked, not sounding overly surprised.
I told them about the crackhead being put in my cell on Friday and how I’d persuaded him that he’d probably have a much longer and more enjoyable life if he asked the custody officer to move him to another cell. They both laughed.
“Typical drug squad,” Mitch said. “Get you involved in a minor fracas, then take you outside and beat the living daylights out of you. They probably hoped they could cause you enough damage to be sure you’d be in the hospital long enough for you to miss your next hearing.
“In your absence, they’d tell the magistrate that you were too dangerous to be allowed out on bail and that you should remain in custody for the safety of the public.”
It was during that journey that I learned about Tommy’s installation of surveillance cameras in my home. Apparently, Alan McGregor had received a copy of the video footage, which – amongst other things – showed the planting of evidence in the house and the garage.
“It appears that, after discussions with your lawyer, Chief Superintendent McGregor has decided to hold off using the evidence he has been given until after your matter has run its course. Your lawyer apparently wants all the evidence to be put on public record so it can be used to address several other matters that are in the pipeline.”
“So, where are you taking me?” I asked as they appeared to be heading west, away from the city.
“We’re heading out to Bremmer City. You’re due in court,” Mitch answered. “It appears that lawyer of yours carries a bit of clout. He’s arranged for a special sitting before Her Honour Ms Margaret Johnston.”
—oooBJSooo—
“With respect, Your Honour,” Tony said after the police prosecutor had presented the bones of his case, “I request that Your Honour sees this case for that fairy tale it is and dismiss the charges against my client.”
“What are your grounds for making such a request, Mr Marino?” the magistrate asked. “It seems that drugs were found at your client’s place of residence.”
“As I have not yet been provided with the evidence the prosecution intends to use against my client, may I ask my learned colleague two or three questions, Your Honour?”
“Yes, but make it brief,” the magistrate responded.
“Senior Constable Bishop,” Tony said, turning his attention to the police prosecutor, “may I ask what was the trigger for the drug squad’s raid on my client’s home?”
After asking the magistrate’s permission, the prosecutor conferred with a man sitting in the courtroom’s spectator section’s first row. Tony recognised him as the detective who had purportedly found the stash of drugs in my walk-in wardrobe.
“The police apparently acted on a tip-off about the prisoner’s drug distribution activities,” the prosecutor answered.
“Was that tip-off from a confidential informant or from an anonymous source,” Tony asked.
“From an anonymous source,” the prosecutor answered after once again talking with the drug squad detective.
“And would that be the same anonymous source that triggered the combined drug squad-SWAT unit raid on my client’s business premises two days earlier, Mr Prosecutor?”
“That’s impossible to say,” the prosecutor said after speaking with his plain-clothed colleague. “It appears the informant’s voice was disguised on both occasions.”
“And, were both tip-offs disguised in the same way?” the magistrate asked.
After looking back at the detective and receiving an affirmative nod, the prosecutor acknowledged they were.
“Would the gentleman to whom you are referring your questions please stand and identify himself.” the magistrate instructed the man sitting behind the police prosecutor.
“I’m Detective Senior Constable John Henry Case, Your Honour,” the man said after standing.
“And what is your involvement in this case, Detective?” Magistrate Johnston asked.
“I participated in the raids on both the accused’s business premises and home, Your Honour,” he answered.
“Thank you, Senior Constable Case,” the magistrate said. “You may now leave my courtroom. Any further contribution to this hearing will be done as a duly sworn witness.
“Your actions in my courtroom this morning have been highly irregular, Senior Constable Bishop,” the magistrate said to the police prosecutor. “In future, you will introduce those to whom you need to refer for clarification as witnesses so they may be cross-examined by the defence counsel. Am I clear, Senior Constable Bishop?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” the red-faced prosecutor answered. “My apologies, Ma’am.”
“So, am I to believe you are suggesting that the police have manufactured evidence, Mr Marino?” the magistrate enquired, turning her attention back to Tony.
“Heaven forbid, no,” he answered. “far be it for me to suggest that the prosecution would stoop so low as to support such a thing. But I am suggesting that someone – someone who has it in for my client – is doing their best to ruin his good reputation by planting evidence. They failed in their attempt to do so at his workplace on Tuesday, so they arranged a repeat performance at his home.
“The big question is how they manage to get into his residence to plant the drugs? As the detective senior constable who was sitting in the galley will attest, Mr Bourke’s property is probably more secure than the National Mint.”
After giving the matter some thought, Magistrate Johnston decided against dismissing the charges. However, she did ignore the prosecution’s request for a custodial remand and granted me bail on my own recognisance. She ordered that I surrender my passport within seventy-two hours, however, and that I report to my nearest police station weekly.
“I agree with Mr Marino’s assessment that this case has a bad smell about it,” she said, “and I’m not going to contribute to the destruction of an innocent man’s reputation and business – not that that may not have already happened – on evidence that might be tainted.
“Having said that, I can’t ignore the fact that evidence of a crime does exist.
“Mr Bourke,” she said after checking her calendar, “You will be required to appear before me at ten o’clock on the morning of Monday the fourteenth of January for a committal hearing. At that time, you will be required to enter a plea. Please talk to your lawyer about your options.”
“Thank you, Your Honour,” Tony said on my behalf.
“Senior Constable Bishop,” the magistrate said, turning her attention to the police prosecutor, “make sure you have all your ducks in a row. I’m not liking what I’m seeing here. I’m getting the distinct impression that you have not been fully briefed on this case. Despite that, you appear to have entered my courtroom today expecting a slam dunk.
“Please ensure that you’ve done your homework before this case comes before me in three weeks’ time,” she admonished him. “I will be asking questions.”
The magistrate then ended the hearing, and my two escorts drove me back to the central watchhouse to collect my gear and be formally released. It felt good to not be carrying the shameful burden of a set of handcuffs.
“I’m sure the boss will want to talk with you,” Moyston said. They were elated at my release. Kate Buchanan, in particular, couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.
—oooBJSooo—
Tony met me out the front of the watchhouse and offered to buy me a decent cup of coffee. I jumped at the offer. The only coffee I’d had since my arrest had been the cheap instant crap they’d served to the prisoners and the equally crappy takeaway stuff he had bought for me before my hearing that morning.
As we settled into his Audi, he handed me an envelope containing everything I’d given him before my arrest. The drug squad people had been so excited about finding their evidence that they hadn’t even queried the fact that I was carrying neither a set of keys nor a phone when taken into custody. The envelope also contained Charlie’s magic wand.
About half an hour after leaving the watchhouse, Tony pulled into a parking space near a combined coffee shop-book store in a riverside suburb on the opposite side of town to the Bremmer Courthouse. After taking a seat at one of the outside tables, he suggested that I might like to have a look at some of the books while he ordered our coffee.
“Take your time,” he said. “There’s a reading lounge right at the back. If you’re not back in a few minutes, I’ll assume you’ve found something interesting and will arrange to have your coffee brought to you back there. I won’t be offended. I rarely get the opportunity to simply sit and watch the world – and the pretty girls – go by.”
I did as suggested and found Alan McGregor already seated in the small reading lounge. He stood as I entered, and we greeted each other like old friends.
“So, this is what you meant when you said we might be going backwards?” he said, tapping his index finger on a thick folder sitting on the coffee table in front of him.
“It all depends upon what you have in the folder,” I answered. “If you’re talking about the drug squad’s manufacture of evidence, you’re well short of the mark. On the other hand, if you’ve conducted some research into what we spoke about the other night, you might be getting a better idea of what is coming at you.
“The fact that none of the newspapers has reported on the arrest of Kingston and his deviant band of merry men and women tells me that his influence also encompasses elements of the fourth estate. When you go through my former wife’s ‘happy snaps’, I suggest you add the media to the faces of the members of the other three powers you are trying to identify.
“I noticed that my arrest received good coverage on Saturday. But not a word was said about Kingston and his cohort. We’ll have to wait and see if anything comes out on Focus when it goes to air.”
Alan made a note on his pad as I was speaking.
“Have you had a chance to identify the source of the drugs found on the significant others of the firm’s partners?” I asked.
“I have,” he responded. “They came from a batch of drugs that were confiscated and impounded more than a year ago. They were being held pending the conviction of the cooks. I have no doubt that whatever remains in the evidence lockers is light by a few kilos. At least, I hope that’s the case. The original bust brought in ten kilograms of the stuff. That’s worth three million on today’s market.
“And before you ask, yes, the drugs found on the partners came from the same batch. The drugs found on the members of both groups only came to about two hundred grams. That’s bugger all in the scheme of things; leakage.”
“And the drugs found in the raid on my place?” I asked.
“Both stashes – the one found in your house and the one found in your garage – are from the same batch,” he responded.
“Knowing, as we do, that they were planted by members of the drug squad – and knowing they were stolen from the police drug impoundment facility – we now have a direct link between the drug squad and the stolen Meth.
“The big question is: ‘How did those drugs get into the hands of Kingston and Co’? Mind you, it wasn’t only Meth that was found during the searches of their homes, vehicle and offices. They also found large quantities of Cocaine, GHB, Ketamine and Ecstasy.
“What’s nagging me about this whole business is that those substances – while proscribed drugs – fall into the recreational drugs category. The Meth – particularly in the quantities found – stands out as being out of character.
“Perhaps I’m just overthinking it,” he concluded.
“Perhaps so,” I agreed innocently.
“Okay,” I said, steering our conversation onto the next subject. “What, if anything, have you discovered about the state police using lawyers as confidential informants?”
“While I’d like to be completely open and honest with you, Aaron,” Alan said, “that’s something I can’t discuss.”
A non-denial denial was good enough for me. As my late father would often say: ‘A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man’.
“So,” I continued, “that probably means you couldn’t confirm that Kingston and a few of his fellow partners have been passing on information about their clients to the police to help them secure convictions?”
“You might think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment,” Alan said, quoting British Prime Minister (Or US President) Francis Urquhart’s line from the television drama series, House of Cards.
We both smiled at the reference.
“And what about you?” Alan asked. “How do you intend to address your situation?”
“I could stop this farce at my next court appearance,” I said. “And I could do it without destroying your drug squad. But that only gets me off on a technicality.
“I need to have my name cleared. And I can only do that by having my day in either the District or Supreme court; the latter would be my preference, but that might have to wait. My personal reputation has already been damaged beyond repair, and it looks like I’ll probably have to shut my business down. But one way or another, I’ll survive.
“I don’t know that I can say the same for the people who work for me, though. “I’ve got forty-odd employees who depend on me for a livelihood. I’ll have to think about how to remedy that situation during our shutdown period. Maybe I can sell it to a competitor. Maybe I can get away with something as simple as rebranding. I don’t know.
“Any way you look at it, I can’t pull out of the race until we cross the finish line. And that line is somewhere well over the horizon from where I’m standing at the moment.
“The thing is that I need to keep the drug squad people in play until the very end.
“You’re in the same boat. If you spring your trap too early, you’ll scatter them. If we heed the message in the story of the old bull and the young bull and take our time, however, we’ll get them all. Patience is the key, Alan. Patience and keeping our sights on our targets.”
Alan nodded his head in agreement.
“Where you and I differ is that the drug squad is my secondary target. My primary target is MCL. And if my plan has any chance of success. It has to be done by the numbers. I’m still setting out the dominos. What has happened so far is only a tease designed to draw the audience to the show; the moths to the flame, if you like.
“Of course, I haven’t forgotten that we’re playing a deadly game. Poor Mr Reacher – remember, we spoke about him the other night? – still has two contracts out on him.
“Whatever the outcome of that confrontation, it will throw the switch that will push the first domino. What happens after that is in the lap of the gods.”
“Please tell me if I ever offend you, Stoney,” the detective chief superintendent said. “I’d hate to have you coming after me. Your bio is right. You are the fourth horseman. It would frighten the hell out of me to see you riding towards me on a pale horse.”
“Or driving a pearl-white Chrysler – as Brad Stokes pointed out on the night of our last meeting,” I said, laughing at the image in my head as I stood to leave. I knew he was holding something back. But then, so was I.
On the way back into town, I shared what I had learned from Alan with Tony; as much as I could, anyway. When he turned his attention to the increasingly busy afternoon traffic, I sent a text to Brad.
Tony had told me he’d kept my brother-in-law up to date with what had been going on and had been able to prevent his return to the city when he’d heard I’d been arrested. I wanted to let him know I was out on bail and for Lisa and him to stay where they were.
I told him that their safety was more important than their attendance at any family functions they might have planned. “Just sit back, relax and enjoy a well-deserved holiday. I need to be able to focus my full attention on the job at hand. And I can’t do that if I’m distracted.”
“Okay,” came back the answer. “Thanks for caring, Big Brother”.
“It’s my sister I care about,” I responded, smiling as I typed. “You? Not so much”.
Brad replied with a kissing lips emoji. We’d known each other for too long for him to misunderstand my meaning. Nor me, his.
My next text was to Prancer.
“Breakout achieved,” I texted. “Released from hoosegow and heading over to pick up my car. Also need to pick up new keys. Will call in on way home.”
“Leave car,” came the immediate reply. “New keys here. Dump current ride and come straight here. Backdoor entry. DO NOT – I say again – DO NOT GO HOME. Need to talk.”
After explaining the situation to Tony, I thanked him and asked him to drop me off at the next intersection. I used three cabs to get me within walking distance of Prancer’s place. He must have been concerned about me because he, rather than Mother, met me at the tradesman’s entrance. A few minutes later, I was sitting in one of the thinking chairs in his office.
“You’ll be pleased to hear that the shitstorm has well and truly arrived, and Sam and her friends have all been arrested on drug-related charges. Of course, they and their significant others have all been bailed; most of them on their own recognisance. One or two of them – including Sam and Kingston – were caught with substantial quantities of drugs other than Meth in their possession, so they copped fairly hefty bail conditions. Each of them had to put up a ten-thousand-dollar surety.
“That’s not much in the scheme of things, but they had a magistrate who – how should I put it? – was sympathetic to their predicament. You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that that same magistrate appears a few times in some of Sam’s ‘Happy Snap’ videos.
“Most of the additional drugs – coke, X, GHB, among others – were found in the firm’s corporate condo, which has been Sam’s home since you threw her out. Kingston has been a regular resident at that same address since she moved in.”
Tommy then explained that while the state’s two major newspapers had blocked all reporting of the arrests and subsequent court appearances, the same was not true of the television news. He told me that while the spouses and spousal equivalents’ arrest and release were ignored, they gave the arrest of the senior and junior partners the full-court press.
With Brad’s freelance journalist friend and the Focus program producers each receiving a heads-up, Tommy explained, they recognised some of the names of those caught up in the first round of arrests. They were prepared for the second round when it occurred.
From what he was telling me, it was clear that while the other media organisations were still getting their acts together, our two attack dogs were already sitting in ringside seats. They used all their contacts within the police service, the government and the judicial system to gather the information they needed to put their stories together.
“We shouldn’t expect too much from the Focus program when it is eventually aired, though; maybe just a teaser, leaving a lot of questions to be answered in their full exposé. It will take a while for both parties to finalise their investigations, so we’ll have to be patient. Apparently, they are negotiating a joint release date for their stories.
“The one good thing about the raids on the partners’ homes, offices and vehicles was that, while they were performed under the drug squad’s auspices, they were conducted by the CIB and Ethical Standards Command, with Special Branch looking over their shoulders. The drug squad might have been in attendance, but they were told to sit on their thumbs in the corner while the searches were carried out.
“The other thing was that the warrants were written by people who knew what they were doing. They were of a sufficiently broad scope that they covered the collection of evidence into matters other than drugs. Those warrants allowed them to access the firm’s computer and manual filing systems, private and office safes and the partners’ safety deposit boxes.
“The only things they couldn’t access were their off-shore accounts. But they’ve got the Feds working on that.
“Among the seized items, they came across the original, unedited video camera data cards taken during the corporate gatherings and cruises. They were in the safe in Kingston’s office. But that wasn’t all they found in the safes of Kingston and a few other partners; both senior and junior.
“They also found evidence of their confidential informant activities. From what I have been able to find out, only four of the MCL partners are involved in the CI scheme, including Kingston, one other senior partner and two junior partners. It appears that the two junior partners are not as trusting as their bosses and have been building their own deadman switches. But all four of them — being the good little lawyers they are – have kept meticulous notes about their snitching activities, dating back to the time each of them was first recruited.
“From what I’ve been able to piece together, it appears that the recently-retired commissioner set up the scheme back when he was a chief superintendent and in charge of the Criminal Investigation Branch about twelve years ago. The responsibility for administering the program was passed down to his replacement when he was promoted to a deputy assistant commissioner role.
“That successor progressed through the ranks to become the present commissioner. The person he passed the baton to is now one of his assistant commissioners. And so it goes. The present head of CIB – a chief superintendent – is currently administering the scheme, but the day-to-day liaison with the lawyers – and MCL isn’t the only law firm involved – is done by a detective chief inspector and his bagman, a detective sergeant.
“While the files held at the police end are marked as Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information – and are therefore not easily accessed – the same isn’t true at the dog end of the chain. The informants have relied on the sanctity of their lawyer/client privilege to protect themselves.
“What I know, but the investigators are yet to find out, is that only a few of the lawyers being used as CIs have been registered as such. Oh, they all think they are. They’ve signed all the paperwork to be registered. But somewhere along the way, that paperwork has disappeared.
“So, even the small measure of protection they thought they might have doesn’t exist. When push comes to shove, the cops they thought they were helping will hang them out to dry. I can see a lot of gaps appearing in the legal ranks when this all comes out. And it won’t just be due to imprisonment and disbarment. I think there will be quite a few funerals, too. The crims will not be happy to find out that their lawyers helped the police convict them.
“Sure, many of them will end up being released and will receive substantial compensation packages. But they’ll want revenge.”
I thought about what Tommy was saying. And he was right. The only chance some of the CIs would have would be to turn on their bosses – the police – and offer themselves up as witnesses for the prosecution. In other words, turn state’s evidence.
That would only protect them from further prosecution, however. It wouldn’t protect them from those who mean to do them harm. The only way that could be achieved would be for the state government to authorise putting them into witness protection programs.
The problem with that solution, however, is that while Australia is a big place, most of it is desert. It has a relatively small population, most of which lives in a dozen major coastal centres. If the ‘six degrees of separation’ rule were applied to Australia’s twenty-five million people, it would probably be only four degrees. A family hiding away in one of those centres would be easily found. The only way to ensure their total anonymity would be to ship them off to another country; New Zealand, the UK or Canada, perhaps. That would be a very expensive exercise.
State and federal treasurers are, by nature, parsimonious, cold-blooded creatures, and I was in no doubt that our state treasurer would welcome a bit of ‘natural attrition’ should a few of the lawyers fall off their perches a little earlier than God intended. It would help her reduce the budgetary deficit during what was going to be a costly period in the life of the current government. I could see a very expensive and long-running Royal Commission steaming towards us.
“Those bugs you planted on her phone and in her handbags have been a godsend,” Tommy said, breaking my train of thought. “We’ve been able to keep tabs on her interactions with Kingston and her other lovers.
“As she never goes anywhere without her phone and is rarely far from her ‘Master’, we’ve also been able to maintain a listening watch over Kingston’s planning sessions; particularly as they relate to you. Sadly, she’s on board with his plans to remove you from the gene pool, even offering a few suggestions of her own about how it could be achieved.
“The really interesting piece of intelligence we picked up the other day was from a meeting that took place between Sam and Kingston and Manyweather and Charlie. Despite their ideological differences, it appears they have decided to join forces to address a common problem: you.
“During that meeting – which ran for more than two hours – the single item on the agenda was how to get rid of you. After tossing ideas around and trying to work out how you’d foiled their earlier, more subtle attempts, they finally decided that the only way they were going to be able to get you was to ambush you.
“It was decided that Kingston would pay Manyweather the fifty-thousand-dollar bounty he had put on your head to do the job. He has learned from his earlier mistakes, however, and has made Manyweather’s contract payable on completion. He wouldn’t even consider a ‘half up-front’ deal. It’s a case of success or nothing.
“Manyweather finally agreed to Kingston’s terms. He wants you dead, anyway, so he sees the money more as a performance bonus than a contract fee.
“They then talked strategies. In the end, Manyweather announced that he would set up a four-man ambush team in the section of forest that fronts both sides of the road before you get to your property boundary. They aim to get you in a crossfire as you head home.
“But Manyweather has also learned from past mistakes, so he’s not going to rely on a single-strike approach. He also intends to set up a second ambush at your front gate in case you manage to slip through his first line of defence. He figures that’s where you’ll be most vulnerable. Having seen the film footage taken on the day of your arrest, he knows you’ll have to get out of your car to unlock the chains.”
“I think he plans on fulfilling that part of his plan himself.”
From what Tommy was saying, I suspected that Manyweather only wanted to put the wind up me with the forest ambush. A few shots would be fired, but nothing too close. Just enough to get my heart racing. I’d then be coming down off an adrenalin rush when I turned into my entry lay-by, which is when he’d make his move. Knowing how much he hated me for the disrespect he believed I’d shown him, I knew he’d want to see the surprise on my face when he aimed and fired.
“The really interesting thing in all of this,” Tommy continued, “is that it looks like Charlie hasn’t said a word about my involvement in all of this. Nor, it appears, has she said anything about the lads who are camped on your place. Maybe she is working with us, after all. It would be nice to think so.”
‘Yes, it would be nice,’ I answered silently. ‘But, whatever her reasoning, she was still working against us. Betrayal can never be forgiven; regardless of whether it be against one’s country, one’s comrades or one’s intimate friends.’
If Charlie really had kept schtum about Prancer and the lads, though, we might be in with a chance. We spent the next few hours developing a plan of attack. I didn’t want to get only Manyweather. I wanted his whole crew. As with every other aspect of this operation, the timing would be critical. Timing, with a large portion of luck thrown in for good measure.
Before retiring that night, I called my mother and brother to let them know I was out of jail and was fit and healthy and that I’d catch up with them at some point over the holidays. I apologised for having to miss spending Christmas Day with them but explained that it was unavoidable. I asked Mum to call my sister to let her know that all was well. I didn’t want to call her myself in case someone was tracing my calls.
—oooBJSooo—
…Continues, Part Six.
Footnotes:
Queensland’s Fitzgerald Inquiry was an investigation into police and political corruption. It took two years to complete (finally being presented to State Parliament in 1989) and resulted in four politicians – all of them Ministers of the Crown – being charged with corruption and jailed. The state’s Premier was also charged with perjury, but a hung jury ensured he was not convicted. The state’s police commissioner was also convicted of corruption and forgery and was imprisoned for eleven years. The number of police officers who either lost their jobs or ended up behind bars as a result of the Inquiry was in the hundreds.