Chapter 9

I was still pissed that the arsehole had managed to sneak up on me.

Just before the cavalry arrived, I got back up and looked at the man I had shot. I noticed the scuff marks on his elbows and knees. The reddish dust contrasted with his black outfit. It had been a dry winter, and this was red soil country. I carefully walked around the front of my vehicle and examined the ground.

I could see where he had crawled over the gutter and disturbed the dry leaf matter. I stepped carefully and tracked his movement back to the left side of the lorry. I took a couple of stills as I moved around.

I looked back at my light post and determined that he had snuck around behind me while I had been blinded. Being covered in matte black clothes, he had blended in with the shadows.

The ringing in my ears and my own heartbeat had probably been enough for me to miss his movements if he had made any noise. Getting dirty hadn’t bothered him, and his actions just reinforced my belief that he was military trained.

I walked back to him and looked at his face. He had pulled the balaclava up when he went to talk to me. Not a good sign of his intentions. I didn’t doubt for a minute that he would have raped me, and probably more if he could have. I didn’t believe for a second that he had any intention of letting me live through the ordeal of being his captive.

His eastern European looks weren’t ugly to me, and I judged him to be in his early thirties. He’d probably done fine with the ladies without having to rape them. However, some people have weird quirks, as I had learnt. I also knew rape wasn’t about sex. It was all about control.

His body suggested he had been fit, and his rounds were the most accurate shots that had been fired at me when he knew where I was in relation to him. I moved to examine the pistol. I knew that it was a Glock.

This kinda fazed me, as they had gone out of fashion thirty years ago. The Australian Armed forces, including the Police, changed to Wilson’s pistols in the sixties. To be honest, I liked my old man’s Glock, as it was a nice weapon to fire, even if a bit heavy. His model was a lot older than this one.

The Wilson pistols were lighter than our last variation, and they took a lot of punishment. Most cops don’t get involved in long-range gun battles, so we don’t need to carry cannons. With more women in the services, they were the preferred weapon as they were a lot easier to fire, had less kick-back, and had amazing velocity.

If the baddies wore body armour, you could be in for a bit of grief, but most of the sorts of robbers and bad guys we have to deal with aren’t that sophisticated. These blokes were not expecting me to turn up either.

I had a bad feeling about the whole setup, but I decided I’d keep it to myself until I talked to Dad.

I averted my eyes and stood up as the first Polly spotlighted the area and me.

It hovered for a minute as it shone the light over the lorry and then back over me, standing near the dead guy. It landed so that it blocked off the end of the cul-de-sac. I went and grabbed my busted radio as three people got out had headed towards me.

“Bugger,” I said under my breath as I recognised the tallest of the men striding towards me, and I stood up straighter.

Inspector James Davis was 197cm (6’5”) tall, twenty-five, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and a real hunk. He also had the hots for me for some unfathomable reason.

“Dusty, ah, Constable McGee, are you okay?” he demanded.

He’d almost gone to hug me but pulled up short when he noticed my posture and as he remembered that my hat-cam was still on. He ran his eyes over me critically instead.

“Yes, thank you, Inspector Davis,” I replied crisply.

He frowned for a moment and pulled himself together.

“What happened to your radio, Constable McGee?” he asked me more formally.

“It caught a ricochet. The bullet smashed it just under the aerial, sir,” I said and showed him the busted radio.

I then twisted a bit to show him my hip and thigh. He also got to see the blood drying on my uniform pants and the gash in them.

He then ground his teeth and spat at me, “You said you weren’t hurt.”

“A bit of shrapnel. It probably just needs a Band-Aid,” I said, dismissing the injury.

It still stung a bit, but I wasn’t bleeding as much anymore. I’d been hurt worse when I got caught up in barbed-wire as a kid. Hey, at least I’d have a war wound for my troubles.

By this time, two more Pollys and a medi-vac had landed and further blocked the end of the street. James slipped his arm around my waist and directed me to the medi-vac. I blushed furiously as I was more than capable of getting there on my own.

“James,” I hissed softly.

“Shut up,” he growled and hugged me tighter. “Damn, woman, you scared the frigging life out of me.”

I chuckled and said, “Not as much as I scared these three. You’re still breathing.”

He stiffened and looked at me, possibly not appreciating my macabre sense of humour. We had arrived at the back of the medi-vac, and he sat me down on the raised floor of it.

One of the paramedics, John Jang, came up to me after he finished hooking back the door of the van, “Who is the worst hit, Dusty?”