A Handicap of the Devil? (27 page)

Not the first time religious extremists had taken such action.

Panic was the order of the day on the houseboat after Marcie received Big Jim's call. She switched off her cell phone as soon as she finished talking to Big Jim. She knew as well as Jim how the police kept a trace on unwary criminals with mobile phones. She also accepted Jim's advice about making any future phone calls many kilometres from where she was staying, never making calls from the same place twice and avoiding the temptation to let the police pinpoint her whereabouts by making calls in a circle from her location. It is surprising how many similarities there are in the minds of police, criminals, lawyers, and journalists.

"Where can we go, go.” Old Crone was more upset by the possibility of change than worried about the threat from the police, which she didn't fully understand. Old Crone wanted a settled home somewhere where there were certainties her life did not have at that time.

"Don't you worry yourself, Old Crone.” Sampson was sympathetic to her feelings. “We got a fallback place all fixed up."

"We have?” Jonathan looked up sharply.

"Yep,” chimed in the dwarf. “Sure have. There's an old shack with no one living in it just upstream from here."

"Pack the van with everything heavy. We'll take it, and we'll also take the old rowboat.” A plan was already forming in Marcie's agile mind. “But hurry, Big Jim said they were on the way. That only gives us a couple of hours at most before they get here."

They all bustled around packing everything they could move quickly. The dwarf and Sampson were careful to pack the beanbag chairs that still contained enough dope to stone the entire Australian defence force for several weeks. They left most of the furniture behind as too heavy and cumbersome to move. Speed was of the essence.

Marcie drove the van, while Sampson and Scarface manned the oars of the boat with the dwarf as coxswain. In forty minutes they were on the move, and the houseboat sat at its mooring—deserted once more.

People in other places were also moving. A band of scruffy lawyers with axe handles, baseball bats, guns, cans of petrol and a good supply of matches, was parking its BMWs, Mercedes and Porsches in the car park of a suburban hotel. They transferred themselves and their weapons into two yellow, hired people carriers. They burnt rubber and headed for the freeway to Murray Bridge.

At about the same time, the Police Commissioner finished briefing Detective Sergeant James as leader of the raiding party that would arrest Jonathan and his disciples. A junior constable arrived with the warrants. She placed them on the commissioner's desk and discretely retired without a word.

"Right.” The commissioner shuffled through the warrants. “Here you have separate warrants for each of these idiots for affray, assaulting police and causing a public nuisance. See if you can think of any other charges and I'll add them to the charge sheets for their appearance in court."

Detective Sergeant James took the warrants, took one step back and clicked his heels in seeming copy of SS officers in bad movies about World War Two.

As he reached the door the commissioner stopped him, “Oh yeah, if this mob happens to resist arrest, the odd belt around the ear hole wouldn't go astray, but don't tell anyone I said so."

The Detective Sergeant waved a hand in acknowledgment. He moved quickly to form his team. Detective Constable Honey was first on his list.

Two yellow people carriers pulled to a stop half a kilometre from where the houseboat lay. Lawyers, being the cautious breed that they are, would never go charging in without first finding the lie of the land. Two swarthy, badly shaved young men were deputised to reconnoitre and report back to the main body.

The two men concealed themselves in the bushes and spent a little while observing the houseboat. Nothing moved and they saw no sign of life. They reported these non-facts to the leader of their party.

The leader thought deeply for seven seconds and then said, “Okay, maybe they're asleep and maybe they've gone somewhere. We'll storm the boat. If they are there, we deal with them and torch the boat. If not, we lay an ambush."

They left the vans and walked the half kilometre to the gate leading to the houseboat. They lay in the scrub along the fence and observed the boat for a few minutes establishing that all was as it had been before. Then the leader gave the signal to charge.

Sixteen lawyers, armed to the teeth with various weapons, leapt from the bushes and charged down the slight incline towards the houseboat. When they reached the gangplank there was some confusion as they struggled to form themselves into single file to board the boat. Their blood was up, and there is nothing as bloodthirsty as a stirred-up lawyer. Eventually they sorted themselves out and stormed onto the boat one at a time.

They crashed into the cabin and came to a stop as they realised it was empty. Every inch of the boat was searched, but nothing of interest was found.

"Okay,” said the leader. “We settle down to wait. We'll take it in turns to watch out of the porthole. Jonas, you take the first two-hour watch. White, you've got the second; Farkham, the third. We'll think again after that if they haven't come by then.” So saying, the leader found himself a comfortable position on an old couch at the end of the cabin, and after depositing his can of petrol and axe handle on the floor, went to sleep.

The other lawyers found themselves comfortable positions. Four of them began a game of snap—that wonderful card game where one must be first to grab the cards out of the middle when a card of similar suit hits the cards on the table. Others sat and talked, smoked or closed their eyes and slept while dreaming of piles of money and games of golf in hell.

Three unmarked police cars, followed at a discreet distance by two paddy wagons, swept up the freeway towards Murray Bridge, sirens blaring, lights flashing. The drive from the city had been unremarkable, and they covered the intervening ground as quickly as possible given the traffic conditions. Twice they crept over the two hundred kilometres an hour mark, and Detective Sergeant James in the leading car issued a quiet reprimand to the excited constable driving the car.

James sat in the back with his favourite Detective Constable. She kept rolling down the window of the car whenever the speed was low enough to allow this. Detective Sergeant James still had gastric problems.

Now they slowed considerably as they reached the Murray Bridge freeway exit. Cars moved aside as the police cavalcade thundered down the straight road toward the turnoff into more dense country following the riverbank. They turned before they reached the City of Murray Bridge and hurtled southward. Detective Sergeant James ordered the sirens to be cut, although he left the demountable blue lights flashing atop the cars. He didn't want his birds on the houseboat to be startled before the arrival of the constabulary.

They rolled on through the flat countryside. Low bushes and scraggly trees were the order of the day, along with cleared paddocks, where sheep grazed whitely against the green of the superphosphate treated grass. Saltbush was plentiful, and here and there tumbleweed tumbled in the wind. The country was poor and degraded. The sky was overcast, and the wind blew strongly from the west with more than a hint of rain.

They roared past the derelict remains of several sandstone farmhouses. On two properties all that remained of the houses was a chimney rising sadly into the sky. It was a reminder of the hard country only a few miles outside of the rainfall areas in this part of the world. On the right as they travelled they could see the scar of the Murray River meandering slowly towards the sea. River gums grew in profusion along the line of the river. Foliage and trees increased in height as the water table rose closer to the stream. A number of salt damaged areas glistened whitely close to the Murray and nothing grew on these.

There were no vehicles or human beings in sight as they came up on the location of the houseboat. Detective Sergeant James slowed the cars to a crawl and turned off the flashing lights. They approached close to the gates leading to the houseboat and stopped.

"We'll go on foot from here,” ordered the Detective Sergeant as he climbed from the car.

The plain-clothed police formed themselves into a squad and waited for James’ order to storm the boat.

"Uniformed personnel remain here with the wagons. Bring them down as soon as we've made the arrests and we'll have them back to the watch house. The rest of you follow me. This should be easy."

Detective Sergeant James swung open the gate and left it open for the paddy wagons to enter behind them, as he and his bevy of plain-clothes police jogged towards the houseboat.

Paul Jonas, the lawyer sentry on the first watch, shook himself awake and looked lazily out of the porthole. Twelve large men and women were charging towards the boat. “Hey, look out. Here they come."

Lawyers sprang into life and took up positions behind doors, behind furniture and in corners.

"Let them all in if possible and then we jump them,” said the leader.

"There seems to be a lot of them,” whispered Jonas as he continued to stare out of the porthole.

"Get away from there,” hissed the leader. “You'll spoil our little surprise.” Jonas did as he was told. He hid behind the couch and waited for action.

"I see one of them at the porthole,” shouted Detective Constable Honey as her sharp eyes noted the movement on the boat.

"We've got ‘em,” roared the sergeant. “Leave Goodfellow to me. He's mine.” The incident in the mall was in sharp relief as Detective Sergeant James led the charge over the gangplank and through the door of the houseboat.

"Where are you Goodfellow, you c.... “roared James as he crashed through the door and was felled instantly by an axe handle skilfully applied by a contracts solicitor. And then it was on. Eleven very tough and rough detectives stormed into action, met by sixteen nasty and mean lawyers. One of the detectives called for backup from the four uniformed personnel at the cage cars. They immediately revved their motors and hurtled towards the boat.

"Where's Goodfellow?” roared Detective Constable Honey as she felled two lawyers with vicious swipes of her truncheon. “I want Goodfellow!"

"I want Goodfellow,” screamed the leader of the lawyers as he felled a fat Detective Constable with a blow of his axe handle. “Where's Goodfellow?"

The fight was short but extremely vicious, and it was the arrival of the four extra uniformed police that carried the day. They charged into the fray just in time to take out Jonas as he attempted to fire his sawn-off shotgun—something that would have done immense damage to friend and foe in that confined space. He was felled from behind by the timely application of a police baton, which was smartly followed up by a large knee in the groin, which was followed by another concussion rending application of the same baton. The shotgun was wrenched from Jonas’ senseless hands, and that worthy, along with his conscious and unconscious colleagues, was hurled down the gangplank and into one of the waiting cage cars.

"Where's Goodfellow?” The adrenalin was surging through Detective Constable Honey's body.

"Isn't he with you?” The leader of lawyers was pressing a handkerchief to a large head wound, as he waited his turn to be hurled into the paddy wagon.

"What would he be doing with us?” The Detective Constable was most annoyed that she hadn't been able to biff Jonathan severely.

The lawyer leader was puzzled. Even in his fuzzy and wounded state he sensed something was not as it should be. “What would he be doing with you? He's your leader, isn't he? And where did a bunch of handicapped deros learn to fight like that?” He gazed about him in wonder and finally focused on the police uniforms among the civilian clothes. “Police? You're the police?"

It was the first time the Detective Constable or any of the other police twigged that things were not as they probably ought to be.

Detective Sergeant James was laid carefully in the back of one of the unmarked cars. The driver conveyed him immediately to the Murray Bridge hospital. Later that evening James was flown by police helicopter to the main hospital in the city. He was the worst of the injured on either side, although many others were concussed, bloody, bruised, and beaten. Jonas, who had attempted to wield the shotgun, sustained some additional injuries in his cell. These were marked down as having happened at the scene. As a lawyer he knew the form and kept his mouth firmly closed at his trial and copped what was coming to him sweet.

There were walking and non-walking wounded on both sides. The police patched themselves up as well as they were able before making off back to the city. There they would charge a number of the city's lawyers with a number of offences relating to violence towards the police and various weapons offences.

There was no sign of Jonathan Goodfellow or a single disciple anywhere. The police commissioner and the premier were very unhappy men.

"Something is badly wrong.” Big Jim was on his feet pacing around the premier's office. He and a select few people had been called to an emergency meeting with the premier. Also present were Joanne, editor of the rival newspaper, Jones P. senior as head of the Lawyers’ Society and the Police Commissioner. The premier had not informed either the opposition leader or his press secretary about the meeting.

"Something stinks,” Big Jim continued. “We get a number of violent acts perpetrated by lawyers, usually the most peaceful and law abiding of men. It doesn't add up."

"I agree.” The premier glanced around the room. “Something is badly wrong. We fail to find Goodfellow and company, and instead of them there's a bunch of armed lawyers lying in wait to ambush the police. Can you explain any of this?"