Chapter 04

Friday

The day starts with Kim sitting up for his breakfast with an update from Jim while he eats: no movement worth talking about but Harry’s bit of trouble. After having a good laugh Kim tells Jim to let his people know they did the right thing in not letting the thugs kill Harry, making Jim happy they did good. When Jim leaves Kim remembers the file with the photos etc. He pulls it out to try to make contact with the people in the file, but he soon finds he can’t send his ’roaming eyes’ to a place on the map by willing it. He gives up and puts the file aside since he doesn’t wish to spend the time to visit each spot by going through the streets.

Kim does spend time checking in with his mother, Lee, and Harry; they’re all OK. He moves on to studying more things on the Internet and rereading some of his text books as he does have to fill in his day.

During lunch he discusses with Ali and Leslie what medical help to provide to him at court. They agree Ali should go since she’ll be of most use if there is any need for medical help. This then moves onto what’s needed at the hospital. After a lot of discussion they decide Leslie will stay in the room, Judy can go home on paid leave when he leaves for court, and Jackie to come in about four thirty since the court won’t rise until four o’clock. If it finishes early they’ll manage without them.

Lee spends the morning studying with her tutor and finishes all of the work for Geography while Helen goes through their cupboards clearing out things to be sent on to Harry.

After lunch Lee’s tutor collects all the work Lee has done to put it in large envelopes, each labelled with her name and the subject. She has a similar set of envelopes with Kim’s name. She leaves the house, with guards, and goes to the hospital to collect all of the work Kim has done and gives him verbal tests of the material covered. She’s surprised and pleased with his work as he gets her questions right and the written work looks good. She takes it all to the school to be marked by the teachers so the results are entered on their school records. She goes home after that.

Legal Games

Madison is surprised to get a call from the Attorney General’s office asking her to meet their solicitor at Judge Finnegan’s court to deal with the matters before him. When she gets there the other respondents or their representatives are present and they soon sort out how they’ll deal with the matters before the court. They ask to move the matter up to be heard next week, despite the lists being full for some weeks to come. Judge Finnegan had been taking Tuesday off, but he agrees to change his schedule to have this matter dealt with then instead of the initial listing date in six weeks. He smiles when Madison is the only person to thank him for changing his personal arrangements to help them. The others are quick to pack up and leave.

Judge Finnegan sees the respondents aren’t happy with him making himself available for next week, despite their strong arguments for a quick hearing to get the matter sorted out at the earliest possible date. He checks the lists and he finds all of the courts are full for five weeks except for the following Wednesday being free for Judge Haley, a judge closely connected with the Premier. Hmm, it looks like he just put another spoke in their plans to play legal games to short change the plaintiff.

Poor Put Upon Politician

The State Party Leader calls Doomben Dave as his first task of the day, it’s a long and difficult call because Dave is upset about losing his best man, but reluctantly agrees to back off for now. At lunch the news comes through about the change of date so he’s happy to hear that, but unhappy to hear their attempt to get it before Haley didn’t work so it’s still before Finnegan, a man known for his impartiality and application of the law in strict accordance with the wording and intent of the law.

He’s just getting over that news when he gets a call from Doomben Dave saying all bets are off as someone just took out some of his men. In a very angry tone he says, “This has to be the work of those people of the boy Majors, whoever they are, just like they ruined yesterday’s fifteen million dollar art deal by getting his artworks back. They’ve gone too far now, I want...”

He’s interrupted in his tirade, “Whoa, stop. What’s this about an art deal in the millions? Majors is the son of an Army Warrant Officer.”

“Shit, I thought you knew. The kid inherited a house with a stack of famous art works from his grandfather. Harry Wells had swapped some fakes for the originals and I was selling them on the side for fifteen mil to split it with Wells so I’d get seven million for doing next to nothing. But sometime in the last week the originals were taken back and the fakes put in their place. We didn’t notice the swap until they got examined by the buyers. That little mess cost me a lot of prestige. That deal was how I met Wells. He suggested this compensation con after the accident happened. What difference should his being rich make. Hell, he has to be rich to move into private care, or didn’t you think of that?”

“I thought he was putting it all on a tab to bill us later, not paying for it as it goes. Warrant Officers aren’t rich as they don’t earn all that much, despite being a top combat soldier with lots of extras.” He hangs up as he’s very concerned with this information.

After a few minutes thought he rings the Attorney General back to pass on the information about the artworks scam. The AG is not happy about this development but it reminds him to put people to tracking the ancestry of Kim, which he does as soon as the phone call is over.

Nothing else of importance happens during the afternoon.

Sweet Revenge

Dave’s top two enforcers are leading a group of eight men out of a building in an industrial section at Bulwer Island beside the Brisbane River. Because their cars are parked on the river side of the building the men are walking toward the river when the lead man is thrown backward into the man behind him and the one behind him. The others are just starting to turn to see what’s up when the second in charge of the team is thrown into the man behind him while a loud gunshot booms over them, followed by another shot. At the sound of the shot they all hit the ground and start looking for who’s shooting at them. They wait for two minutes, but there’s no more shots. They only get up when they hear the sound of approaching sirens because someone nearby had called the emergency services. The five men shot are already dead.

The police investigation establishes they were shot with a .50 calibre rifle powerful enough to punch right through them and the spent rounds are found embedded in the bricks of the building behind the men; but the rounds are so distorted they’re useless for forensic analysis. Due to reports of some shots being fired on the other side of the river they believe the shooter fired from about fourteen hundred metres away near the Fort Lytton Motocross Club directly across the river from their location.

An hour after the shooting a florist arrives at the site with a wreath saying, ’Rest in Peace, Marilyn.’ The case is still open and unsolved.

Friday Evening

That evening Kim has a number of visitors, starting with Gabby and her family. They’re all very happy as it seems her doctors are amazed about the miraculous recovery of Gabby and her sister. Gabby is the only one who knows the real reason behind it, but they’re all happy for the recovery from the cancer. It’s a real good and upbeat visit for all of them, despite how short it is.

His next set of visitors is Judy with her girls, all very happy to meet the person who paid for their special lunch the other day. Another upbeat visit, even if it’s a short visit so they can catch the bus since Judy doesn’t have a car.

Madison drops in to tell Kim about the current state of the legal games. A smiling Tim is with her, another short visit since he’s taking her out for a late dinner after the meeting. Tim’s big item of news is he has a good photo of Doomben Dave. They’ve managed to get the first real good photo anyone’s managed because he’s very photo shy. Kim’s eyes almost pop when he sees the photo. He looks up at Tim, “Have the cops got his fingerprints? If they don’t, can we get them? I don’t care how we go about it I need a copy of his fingerprints. That’s a high priority task. Also send a quality copy of this to Mandy as she needs to know.” Both Tim and Maddi are surprised about his reaction.

While gulping Tim says, “I’m pretty sure the police don’t have his prints on file at all. He has no criminal record. But I think we can get them, if we don’t mind paying big bucks to move someone and to have them protected from Dave’s people afterwards. Why?”

“OK, I can’t be positive, yet. If this is who I think it is he’s wanted for murder in Adelaide. The only photo I’ve seen is about twenty years old, taken at the time he was first arrested for the murder of both of my grandparents. He skipped out on a very large bail; the arrest warrants for him are still valid.” They both gulp and Tim promises to get to work on the matter. He’s worried because twenty years ago is about the time Dave started to get noticed in Brisbane, he arrived here with a lot of money from an unknown source. They’re not as happy leaving as they were when they arrived.

It takes a long time with the rest of Kim’s current book about the dragon planet for him to settle down again to go to sleep. His last thought is about how it’s odd the way things sometimes work out in life. How fate seems to close circles, if this man in his early fifties is the same thirty year old man in the twenty year old photo he has of the killer. But it sure does look like him, same facial bone structure but aged a lot more.

Saturday / Sunday

The weekend is very quick to pass with days of ease and quiet for everyone. Kim is visited by his family, observed by Doctors Michaels and McDonald, he has some more evaluation sessions, he works on his therapy, reads his books, and does a lot of research on the Internet.

Lee and Helen visit Kim both days, they also do some shopping on Saturday afternoon, and otherwise stay holed up in the house watching television movies and shows. They keep up their own exercise routines on the gear in the family gym and they clean the house as well.

Jim drops in for a brief discussion about what they now suspect about their main enemy and if they think he remembers the family name after all this time. They conclude they doubt he’s made the link because the name isn’t uncommon and the long ago event is from another state at the other end of the country.

The worker bees of the political power brokers are all very busy trying to find out information and to get things ready for court next week. But they’ve got their work cut out for them since a lot of the offices they need to check things with are closed for the weekend, so answers to some of the questions won’t be available until Monday.

Doomben Dave is very busy calling on people and hiring some not nice people. He was able to shake Jim’s people at one critical point, but Jungle’s people were on hand to pick up the ball since they’re keeping an eye on him from a bit further back and they were able to react in time.

Jungle is very worried about the people Dave talks to late Saturday after shaking loose from Jim’s people for an hour or so. The way he did it made it clear he was aware of Jim’s people watching him, but not Jungle’s people. The good thing here is Jungle isn’t supposed to be watching Dave. After the report he got from Jim about the old linkage he put two full teams on Dave, and it’s good he did. After Dave spoke with the people he went to talk with one team stayed with Dave while the other stayed with the new group.

All of the opposition key players except Dave appear to be quiet while building their strength for the coming court battle next week. While Dave appears to be organising to do something they’re not sure of what it is, but Jungle hopes more intelligence will resolve that matter in the next few days. Dave has a look of satisfaction that really worries Jungle and he doesn’t recognise any of the people Dave just dealt with, but he has good photographs and he knows he’ll understand more when he finds out about who they are and what they do.

Jim has a lucky break Sunday evening. His contact at the restaurant where Dave frequently eats is able to get hold of Dave’s wine glass with a clear set of fingerprints of Dave’s right hand. The forensic technician Jim often uses is able to lift the prints, and all without any of Dave’s people noticing it happen. The prints are sent off to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and to Mandy to pass on to the Adelaide Police so both will check their records for them.

In the quiet that wraps around the city that night everyone involved with Kim’s matters have a feeling of ’the calm before the storm.’

Monday

Everyone goes through their morning routine with the expectation of another quiet day while people prepare for the major fight in the court on the morrow by checking everything they need and resting up. Kim has a long talk with all his doctors about going to court in a wheelchair, they’re not happy but they can’t come up with a real strong reason not to. Jim isn’t happy about it either, but he accepts it then he organises the security, including combat vests to be worn by Kim and his attending medical staff. Jim is concerned about near misses in attempts to get Kim.

All goes very quietly during the morning until ten thirty when the first of the surprises reaches people. The first surprise goes to the Attorney General when one of his staff drops a file on his desk: it has the information Kim’s father was Caleb Majors son of Benjamin Majors, the important financial powerhouse murdered in Adelaide. The father and son had a big disagreement when Caleb went to join the Army, the boy was all but written out of the will, leaving everything to any children of his. Along with this is the news about Caleb’s mother being a member of the Casey family. The Attorney General is quick to spread the news to the others who were at last week’s special meeting, which makes them very unhappy. They now realise they’ve screwed up big time.

The second surprise is for Jungle. His personal contact in ASIO (an Australian intelligence agency), the one he gave the photos of Dave’s new friends to very early in the day has called wanting an immediate meeting to discuss the people in the photos and why Jungle has the photos.

Third surprise is for Amanda when she’s getting ready to leave her office to travel to Brisbane for a few days. A friend in the Adelaide Police Force has identified Doomben Dave’s finger prints as those of the wanted criminal Brian James Watts, the killer of Kim’s grandparents. She tells her contact what she knows about him and sends the proof of identification information on to Kim through Madison.

Lunchtime finds two very important meetings going on, the first is the state political power brokers discussing what to do now they’ve found out they’ve screwed up. Kerry is too worried to jump down their throats with an ’I told you so’ speech. He’ll save that for later, if they have a later. Their meeting covers many angles and it goes on for all of the afternoon. By the time they finish they’ve a set of strategies to use, which of them they do use will depend on how things go in court tomorrow because it’s now too late to stop things going to court. They’ll see what can be done in court to terminate the affair as early as possible tomorrow.

The second meeting is between Jungle and his ASIO contact, Johan. They’re meeting in a riverside café. This is one of those meetings they can’t afford to ever have happen, for either party, but the circumstances dictate it must happen. They both order light meals with cold soft drinks.

With a sigh Johan says, “OK, Jungle, I don’t mind doing you a favour, but I need to know a lot more about these people and your interest in them before I can tell you anything.”

Jungle gives him a very penetrating look, “Then, we’ve got a really big problem, Mate, because I can’t say anything unless I know you have to know. What say we exchange a little bit of information at a time, taking turns, OK?” He gets a nod of agreement. “We came across these people while tracking someone who wants to kill our principal. He’s tried once with an assassin and he lost his killer. Security has been increased. Your turn now.”

“Shit, is this linked with the hospital killing?” Jungle doesn’t give any indication if it is or isn’t. Johan pulls the photos out of his pocket and places one of them in the centre of the table, “This is a known major killer for hire. His speciality is bombs, very big bombs.”

This does get a reaction from Jungle. Johan puts all of the photos except one on the pile, “These are all small fry. We’ve identified them from the photos in their police checks for immigration. None are of concern, but all are known to be volatile and easily led. Individually, none of them are of concern at all and they don’t know each other. We’re worried because there’s no reason for them to ever meet each other, but collectively the places where they work gives them access to materials that do concern us when brought together in the wrong way, in an explosive way. I’m sure you get the picture that now worries me.”

Jungle is nodding his head in a slow beat. “I bet they’re all fairly religious and belong to the same sect but at different meeting venues. I’ll also bet the other photo is of a man who’s very good at persuading people to do things and is believed to be mixed with a terrorist group or groups with a certain volatile religious base. Right?”

Johan nods, “Yes, but we’ve got no proof. Now spit it out.”

“Yes, it’s related to the shooting at the hospital. These people were visited by the guy who ordered the shooting. He spoke with them on the weekend then took them to a warehouse out on Osprey Drive well away from anyone else. They’re in the middle of moving some trucks to the warehouse. The main bad guy knew he was being watched and worked a way to get free of the main group watching him, but he didn’t realise he was covered by a backup team. Those photos were taken by the backup team when the men met. You suspect a major bomb, don’t you?” Johan grimaces when he nods yes. “OK, forget you ever saw those photos and this talk never happened.” Johan looks shocked! Surely Jungle isn’t going to let them set off a big bomb in the city. “You don’t want to know what I plan to do, but I promise there’ll be no collateral damage to people.”

Johan suspects the local police will soon find some bodies, but nods as he gets up and leaves. He used to work with Jungle overseas: he was the intelligence officer who often gave Jungle the information to go stop bad things from happening in events that never happened. It’s just this one is on Australian soil this time. But it’ll be better dealt with this way instead of a major court case. He wonders how it’ll be done while he strolls back to his car. Johan puts it out of mind when he gets in his car.

Taking Out the Trash

With a deep sigh Jungle gets up from his seat, picks up the photos, and puts them in his pocket. Thirty minutes later he’s at the command post of the two units he has keeping an eye on these people. The senior team leader says, “Boss, all but one of the four tonne trucks have left, empty. From what we can tell I’m positive they’re making a huge bomb in the last truck in the warehouse.”

“I think you’re right since the identification of the players indicates that as the most likely situation. Are they all in there now? And were you able to get those special items installed during the night?”

“Two of the small fry are out returning trucks and the others are inside. All of the packages are in place. The code for the truck left in the building is one, four, delta, five.”

“OK, contact the people following the other trucks to get the packages back off them right now.” He nods as he moves away to make the phone calls on his cell phone by using coded language to give his orders.

Ninety minutes later they’ve had collection confirmation from all but one of the other trucks when the close in observer informs them the people on the building have closed and locked the back of the truck and are in the process of cleaning up the site. Jungle looks at the team leader and nods to him, picking up the encrypted radio Jungle says, “Be gone, now.” Both watch and wait while the team leader enters the code into a special radio unit. A couple of minutes later a person stands beside a car parked on Kite Street, gets in, and drives away. They wait a moment longer for the car to get well away. At three forty-five in the afternoon, local time, the team leader lifts a plastic cover and depresses the button on the radio transmitter. Both men watch the building that’s about two kilometres away from them. The expected event happens, both stand to watch the reactions from the nearest neighbours who are well away from the target building when people pour out of the two closest buildings. It’s a fair walk from their place to the target building, some stand still to watch while others go back into their workplaces. Several minutes later the various emergency services arrive, so Jungle leads the rest of this group back to their vehicles and they leave.

Responses

The lead item on the Brisbane hourly radio news reports is, “A short while ago the areas around Lytton and Port of Brisbane were rocked by an explosion in an empty warehouse in Osprey Drive, the sound of the blast was heard in Wynnum and at the Airport as well. The building was destroyed in the blast but no damage was done elsewhere, except for a few shattered windows. Police and Fire officers are investigating the scene to find out what caused the blast. The remains of a stolen truck and three damaged cars are at the scene. The police are tracing the owners of the cars. That’s all that’s known at this time.”