Chapter 5: He's in Two Minds About the Problem

It's 2012, mid tourist season, and life has been quiet. The Old Bag has been deceased for six years and sometimes Bob really missed the solitude of a vacant mind, which doesn't criticize everything he does, thinks or says.

"Search and rescue calling Garrigeld Island, Search and rescue calling Bob Fischer, come in Garrigeld Island, over"

"Fischer here, Alfred, how can I help you on this fine day? Over"

"You have a rather large craft coming in your direction. I don't know of its destination but it has a larger crew than is necessary and ships are telling us that it is practice firing automatic weapons at night. At this side of the coral, something that size can't get much further than you, and it has too deep a draft for the outgoing sea channel. ETA isn't long as it's hauling it, over." To hear the test firing at night, only the fishing boats who are poaching around the reef will be out at night. They took a chance by telling Search and Rescue.

"Pre-warned is pre-armed Mr Barger, and I thank you for your heads up. Fischer, out" This is a situation where money would be counterproductive, as money wasn't the point of this message. Bob had over the years spent hundreds of hours pulling fellow sailors out of the shit and this is simply a natural form of reply by those who Bob had helped in their time of need. He had never refused to help anyone, for any reason.

<If it is us, two options, sibling, Wu or heroin. As that was Cairns calling, whoever they are have to pass Cooktown next, then Bungun River mouth. My call would be Wu family shit. Too long a time now for Tong trouble and I think the CIA is still licking its wounds and gone to ground, so I agree with you> "Fischer calling Daphne, Fischer calling Daphne. Come in Daphne. Wu come in."

"Daphne here Mr Fischer, how can I be of service sir? Over"

"We have an issue Mr Wu which has two possible causes. One could concern you, the other may have nothing to do with you. I need you here Sir at Daphne's fastest possible. Are the kids there? Over"

"It's me, Uncle Bob. Mr Wu is casting off, oops, and hitting the accelerator. Is there a code word for this? Over"

"There's two plausible, Gypsum or China, Angel, but tell him it maybe Family Wu which was not on my horizon. Both, or even all three, will require heavy duty firearms, please warn Mr Wu, kung fu won't hack it. You can start loading weaponry, take Mr Wu's advice, have Junior warned and politely ask Mr Wu if you can dig out his armaments and explain the codes, over." I don't have any secrets from Tilly. I am less than impressed with people who say that they love and trust their children, yet still keep their own little secrets.

Our family has enough secrets from the outside world so inside we have none. Junior is on a need to know basis, but up to the moment, he has proven trustworthy and reliable. Bob loves Tilly; to iterate that, Bob does love Tilly, and she does literally, know where all the bodies are buried. He also told her to get Junior to climb to the fo'c's'le with Mr Wu, to watch south for any fast moving larger craft heading north.

Earlier that year, Bob attached a series of iron rings to the exterior, lee side crater wall, with deep water mooring buoys to make a safe haven for Daphne. Max was moored there three hours later, with a Tilly made green tea in hand while Bob explained the situation. He took Wu to where he had secreted the heroin, concreted inside an unused excess to requirements hole, and he now understood our predicament. Max advised there may also be a third reason as his family, per se, had become persona non grata to the Peoples Republic of Chinese and he is now the senior member after the resultant pogrom.

We shook hands on a mutual defence pact and continued to load the available armaments. Bob had in his possession a fifty calibre sniper rifle, which he previously had considered a quaint but useless overkill of a toy. Because he could never see the point of having a completely useless toy, and because a gun without bullets is simply an oddly shaped club, he also had in his possession enough ammunition to suit, to begin a medium size war. He had test fired it and had been pleased that he hadn't aimed at the mainland; he would have hit it, he's fairly certain. When he had tested it that first time, he held the monster firmly against the meat of his shoulder and it badly sprained it even then. He might be getting soft, he accepted that, but that monster had a kick like a mule. Seeing he's just that sort of bloke, he had also created firing apertures around the volcano's crater wall, to repeat what he thinks he may have said once before, as a passing comment to Mother Harrison, preplanning is all. In his spare time he had also created a stand to remove the residual kick from the gun; just in case. Bob was rarely bored.

Wu, Junior, Tilly and Bob kept watch, four hours on at a time and at three next morning, a message came through from a whispering someone in the river bound fishing fleet, that a ship just took a look up the Bungun River estuary, using a massive floodlight, then immediately turned and headed north again. He went to wake the kids and while it seems that Junior kept his part of the agreement, Tilly was holding his humungous, wet and abused looking erection in her hand, straight up in the air in their sleep. Put it down now as a mostly, non-sexual relationship; Bob thinks. <I never realised how naïve you are brother, I got her on the pill when she was eleven; don't fucking tell me that, I don't wanna know!>

He shook them awake and Tilly acted as if everything was normal, so her Uncle Bob did as well as, but there was no point in burying his head in the sand. Junior watched Bob warily and Bob said to him, "as long as it is consensual. She's got to want it," it was okay for Bob to insist on Junior controlling himself, Bob, however, never had that little talk with his niece.

Mr Wu was cooking in the kitchen when they arrived, his eyes were watering and he was sneezing for some reason, as he handed Bob a couple of freshly baked damper rolls the size of dinner plates, each with a layer of lightly fried birds eye chillies, multiple fried eggs and rashers, and rashers, of bacon. They agreed that Max was the target and that they have good and accurate intel, seeing they headed straight here when he wasn't at Bungun River town's anchorage. Bob headed to the sniper's nest.

They placed themselves in their respective positions and tested the powerful little two-ways, pre-set on channels seldom used in nautical situations. He also had a separate two-way set on the standard nautical wavelength, Channel 16, simply monitoring. Bob could see in the poor early morning light Tilly and Junior in the water on each end of the beach swimming out with three ropes of proximity mines designed to float a metre under the surface, and then swimming aside so they don't cause an awful mistake when they had laid the last one and pulled the arming strings. They had practiced the manoeuvre as a team often enough.

These mines are an off shoot of the tidal generator Bob was inventing as he can now make an object float at any designated depth and position under the ocean's surface. The generator itself no longer needs to face any particular direction and the mines are directional, in this case up, with a ninety degree field of trajectory, that is up and out, both ways. Hey, fuck you! Quit yawning, as Bob Fischer finds it fascinating.

The ship is a biggun all right, and looks powerful; it had to moor in the deeper water almost a klick out to sea, so Bob was impressed at the pace in which it made it through the reefs. All very dramatic, black rubber duckies, he counted about ten people in three boats with faces blackened and black skin tight wetsuit clobber. He could see the skipper and another on the bridge, probably the pilot, who is why they got here so fast, as a third someone in my binoculars has a gun on the second person. Shoot him bro and you won't get out of here in a month of Sundays, the water depths and small reefs littering inside the main reef are like a maze.

The small fleet were using electric motors, totally silent except for a sound of the prop itself hitting the morning stilled ripples. When they were about half way I placed my first round through the man on the bridge with the gun, quickly reloaded, neither of the other two had moved, and placed a second through the skipper, like magic his head disappeared.

There was only one explosion on the water as the boats were in a disciplined horizontal line as they headed for shore. I took a bite of my second roll as the mountainous wall-like fountains of water came raining down again.

Mr Wu makes a mean bread roll, maybe missing something hot though to add some zing. <You Palatless Cretan. You is stuck with me now sibling, love me, love my food, not that you've got much choice now>

All that was in evidence was now were small pieces of rubber ducky, and bodies, count, yes ten. We had no idea who or what was left on the ship, I hope the pilot didn't have a heart attack. It appears that only one rope of mines popped. I designed them so if one mine went in a string they all went, meaning that any unfired mines wouldn't leave unpleasant pollution if the joining rope broke as it certainly would in an explosion. Shrapnel is pointed upwards in a ninety degree arc by the very way they must float. I radioed for everyone to stay where they are, have patience, as if there is anyone left it will be up to them to make a move. I kept my binoculars trained, all along the length and peered my best through the below deck portholes for movement.

That second roll wasn't bad, so Bob realised that he must have been a bit peckish. Eventually one figure, that older white male pilot, raised himself from the deck railing, outside the bridge. He simply raised his hands in the air, and from what Bob could see, he had closed his eyes. Teddy Agnew used to pilot the major tourist jobs but couldn't change ships mid water any more as his arthritis had crippled him. His hands are tied with cable ties. On the radio on the marine channel, "Come in, Mr Agnew, can you read me? Come in, Mr Agnew, over"

The gentleman re-entered the bridge, "Teddy Agnew here Mr Fischer, I don't know if I should thank you or not but they are all dead to my knowledge, over"

"Thank you, Mr Agnew, that's what I've been waiting to hear. Sit back and I'll have someone there forthwith. Are you all right, as you would have had a bit of a shock, Sir, over"

"I am fine thank you, but my wife is being held hostage down in Rocky. Or that's what they said they were doing, over"

"Mr Wu, can you board please. Careful of Mr Agnew, as he is elderly and he maybe in shock, over"

"Roger, over"

"Tilly and Junior, go along the sides and put the remaining mine-strings on safety please, but leave them in place. Tilly, after they are on safety, swim along the string that blew and check that all of them went off. They should have stopped in place if there is no current. Be careful, over"

"Roger, Uncle Bob, over"

It took a couple of hours to clean the beach up. The line of mines had gone off as designed and Junior had towed both strings of remaining mines back to the beach. Bob and Tilly dragged the bodies, all riddled with glass marbles and shards thereof, to be laid out beside each other along the sand, six men and four women; to Bob's mind that guarantees Chinese Army sourcing. He made a phone call to Henry Papadopoulos's home in Rockhampton, who's the manager of Rocky Marine Search and Rescue, and told him of Teddy's problem, and Henry went silent for a few seconds. "The found Margaret's body two days ago with a broken neck in a suspicious car accident and the police are searching for Teddy, Bob. Oh, God, tell him that I am so sorry, please, Bob, oh so sorry. Chinese Army, eh?"

"Yep, I've got the bodies here beside me. I think this is no longer a police problem Henry. Have you got a contact that we can use? Otherwise everything up here is just going to disappear." This is in-family business with a family member in trouble, of which I have been a standing active member of for over thirty years.