Crystal Coffin (38 page)

He'd already tried it once, but thanks to Gertrude Wilhelm at the Brisbane employment agency, they had a witness and cheque details to prove otherwise.

Burkett saw Sergeant Underwood walk away from his desk towards the coffee machine and decided to drop the cheque details in for him on his way.

‘Proof Fletcher wasn't in Sydney,' he wrote on a post-it note for Underwood to read when he got back. He wrote the cheque details below that with a postscript to call him if he wanted to know more and dropped the pad of post-its onto his keyboard so the note wouldn't get lost among the other paperwork.

A key depressed and the spiral patterned screen-saver on the sergeant's computer screen refreshed. Burkett read the document on screen and called Lieutenant Charlston over so he could read it too.

‘Tell me,' Burkett asked. ‘Am I still on Queensland time, or has that interview report with Aaron Fletcher been filled in for an hour from now?'

Charlston looked at Burkett and smiled. ‘Well done, sunshine,' he said. ‘You've found our dirty cop. I wonder if Parry's having as much fun?'

‘Weapons hot, Colonel,' Beattie said. ‘We've got a firefight down there. Looks like two men down. Sir, do you want me to notify civilian police?'

Chang thought about that quickly. He had no authority to intervene in a civil dispute and the legal ramifications of being caught spying on private property using military assets were ones that he didn't wish to tempt. But civilian police were almost twenty minutes away, and he didn't have to admit to illegal surveillance. He could report they'd been conducting a nocturnal defence exercise over the reservoir and detected the incident on the fringe of their standard surveillance systems. So long as they didn't intervene in the party, they could still have time to identify and extract their soldier, hopefully without anyone being any wiser.

‘Yes, Corporal,' Chang said. ‘Notify authorities immediately. Any word on our telephone call in the meantime?'

‘Nothing yet,' Beattie said. ‘But he has been kind of busy.'

Bricker was down but still shooting from the ground. He caught Parry again, this time in the arm. The spike-haired thug had found himself a nice little hollow to belly down in and Locklin couldn't get a kill shot on him now that he had to. Every time Locklin stuck his head up, someone tried to take it off his shoulders with a bullet. Sykes had to be hiding behind the Mercedes, but Locklin couldn't shoot it up to hunt him off without cover.

‘Hey, Knox!' he shouted, hoping the cop wouldn't recognise his voice. ‘Drill the Mercedes!'

Knox didn't hesitate. He'd seen someone shooting at him from behind there too. He brought his Glock pistol to bear and fired five 11mm rounds off along the car — hollowpoints, which made a nice fat impact every time. It might not have killed the creep, they both realised, but at least it shut him up for a minute.

Now it was Locklin's turn to give cover. Parry was in the open, and he didn't look good.

‘Get your mate!' Locklin shouted and Knox ran to Parry under Locklin's fire. Parry was heavy and Knox struggled with his wounded arm, but he managed to drag him to the rear of the crashed Falcon a short distance away.

‘Who's our friend?' Parry asked, wincing as Knox propped him against the boot.

‘Beats me,' Knox said, ripping off part of Parry's shirt to push into his hip wound. ‘But I'm glad I didn't run over him.'

‘Me too,' Parry said, gritting his teeth. That was twice now he'd seen that face roll over a bonnet in front of him. ‘Where is he?'

Knox put his head up just enough to look around. He saw legs under the Landcruiser at the same time as Bricker did. Bricker fired two shots through the four-wheel drive at Locklin and then two more shots in quick succession at Knox and Parry. As soon as he did, he sat up a bit to reload and Locklin and Knox dropped him with two shots each, all four rounds conducting heart surgery.

‘Quick! I need a vet!' Nikki shouted into the mobile. ‘Can you look one up for me? It's urgent!'

‘Is this Jayson Locklin's phone?'

‘
Please
? I need a vet, it's really,
really
urgent.'

‘This is Corporal Peter Ryan, Sixth Battalion, Royal Army Reserve. I need to speak to Lance Corporal Locklin, is he there please?'

Nikki hung up. The guy wasn't listening. She'd have to find the number by herself.

‘Looks like we're fast running out of choices, sir. Assuming he's there and he's not wounded, and further assuming that he's working alone, Locklin has to be either this guy over here by the vehicles or this one over here in the forest.'

‘Well it's not the one in the forest,' Beattie said, furiously clicking on his keyboard. ‘A girl just answered his phone right … there,' he said, pointing to the map. And the thermal imager confirmed two heat sources at that point, one human, the other a large four-legged animal that was lying on its side.

‘That's not good,' Chang said. ‘If we can't verify his presence, we could get ourselves in a lot of trouble going in there. Did she say he was there?'

‘No, sir. Apparently she was only interested in talking to a vet.'

‘Stay down,' Knox said, moving round to the other side of the Falcon.

Parry nodded, holding the artery closed on his leg while blood oozed through his fingers. ‘That should be easy.'

Knox clutched the flesh wound above his elbow and made his way down the passenger side of the car to the radio, but once inside, he couldn't raise a signal. Bullets had shattered the console. Sykes took a shot at Knox again from the Mercedes and Knox made a mistake. He lunged to the wall of the boathouse, and hit it hard, not realising that there were more surprises inside. Three rounds came through at him and he went down, bleeding through the back pocket of his pants.

He took another two shots in the vest as he fell and landed hard, with the wind knocked out of him. He knew he woudn't be able to move much soon from the bruises spreading across his back where the vest had absorbed the impacts — but he wasn't moving much now anyhow.

Locklin swore, thinking two could play at that game. He fired three rounds back through the wall at Fletcher and the others and Mailtand screamed, followed by a crash inside and moaning.

‘My paintings!' Moltoni shouted. ‘No shoot! No shoot!'

‘Eric!' Fletcher shouted. ‘Get off the paintings or I'll give you something to moan about!'

Maitland wailed louder and Fletcher silenced him with another shot. Then outside, Sykes grunted from behind the Mercedes like a wounded dog and summoned his strength to swing his Winchester up, aiming it at Knox and screaming, ‘Die Cop!'

Locklin saw him move and swung his rifle around, aiming over the Landcruiser's bull-bar to drop him permanently.

Knox nodded thankyou and Locklin nodded back.

Behind him, the plane idled up. Locklin looked at the cops and then at their car, realising there wasn't enough left of it to get them out the front gate. ‘Either of you two fit to drive for help?'

‘If I had a car,' Knox groaned, not realising that his blood loss was affecting his judgement.

Locklin felt his sock, amazed to feel the Landcruiser keys still there and tossed them onto the driver's seat. ‘Keys are in it,' he shouted. ‘But check out the Merc. It's got better cargo.' He took two steps towards the boathouse and saw Knox trying to get up.

‘Stay there,' he ordered, seeing the cop run out of steam. ‘I'll get help to come to you.'

But how? He knew Fletcher would have a phone but he wasn't the easiest option. Murphy's rescue boat however, was still grounded in the mud and it would have a two-way.

‘Who
are
you?' Knox asked groggily. But he didn't hear an answer. He only saw the smile before Locklin bolted for the boat.

‘Jayson Locklin's not available right now, please leave a message after the beep. Beeeeep,' Nikki said and hung up. ‘
Shheesh!
' she thought aloud. How could she ring out if people kept ringing in all the time?

‘Get her back,' Chang said. ‘I want to talk to her. And open up another window in BCSS and see if you can't track down one of the vets from the patrol dog units down at Darra. Looks like we'll have to make a trade-off.'

‘Pretty big trade-off, sir,' Beattie said a minute later. He had her on the phone and was handing the mike over. ‘Now she says she's got a vet. She needs a way to get a horse there.'

Chang looked at the loadmaster who scratched his helmet, thinking. Some days, he wished he'd joined the navy.

Locklin lunged to the boathouse, listening. He could hear another engine on the lake, only this one was flying — an Iroquois, coming in low. It was the army, and they were coming in fast. He glanced to the Cessna.

The cab light inside the plane illuminated the pilot at the controls. Fletcher and the Italian were on the left float, trying to get a painting through the door as the Iroquois overflew them. Fletcher passed his weapon to the pilot as the pontoon swung round and the Italian fell backwards into the water. The pilot helped Fletcher with the painting, taking two potshots at the Iroquois until he realised they weren't interested in him, while Fletcher stretched an arm out to help up the Italian.

Locklin bolted towards the plane as the Iroquois spun round overhead. He dropped to one knee, took up the rifle and found a clean shot on Fletcher, but he couldn't fire.

Soldiers don't shoot civilians. The words swum in his head like a mantra. He wanted to. He swore trying, but he couldn't do it. Fletcher was unarmed now and Locklin hunted justice, not blood. But a dark whisper told him that it was inevitable. All he had to do was pull the trigger.

A spotlight from the Iroquois lit up his position and he clamped his eyes shut, too late to save his night vision. He looked up and saw it hovering lower between him and the plane. The downwash from the rotors whipped sand and grass into his eyes and he squinted, shielding his face with a hand as the pilot came in closer. Locklin gritted his teeth and spun on his heel, bolting to the back of the boathouse where he heard the rotors power up and fly over. He edged along the boathouse to the left, testing them, and the pilot broke off and swung round to head him off.