Blood at Yellow Water (16 page)

Feeling groggy, Barry asked “What’s
happening now?”

The policemen replied “You’re being
released.” He gave Barry an envelope with his personal belongings
and ordered him to sign a receipt for them. He then pointed to the
door.

“I don’t know why you’re being released but
get out of here and stay out of trouble you stupid bastard.”

Barry struggled out the door and staggered
out across the road. He never saw the large 4WD come roaring around
the corner. The bull-bar of the vehicle caught him flush, lifting
his body up in the air, tossing him like a rag doll several metres
in the air until his body crashed back onto the road. The 4WD kept
going and accelerated around the next corner, vanishing from sight
in seconds. At that time of the morning the street was deserted but
Ollie Grant, the owner of the Shell service station fifty metres
away, was making himself a cup of coffee in his tiny office when he
heard the noise of the crash. He hurried outside to see a body
lying on the side of the road and a white vehicle disappearing
round the bend. He rushed over to see Barry’s lifeless body covered
in blood just as a policeman charged out of the police station. The
policeman checked Barry’s pulse and breathing but could find no
sign of life. He immediately started CPR yelling at Ollie to call
for an ambulance but knew there was no hope of saving the victim.
Another policeman joined him and cordoned off the area as a small
crowd started to gather.

The ambulance arrived quickly and the
officers applied resuscitation procedures but there was no
response. The body was placed on a stretcher and driven away to the
medical centre where a doctor pronounced Barry dead.

Sergeant Barker was quickly on the scene and
interrogated Ollie. All Ollie could recall was that the vehicle was
white and looked like a Nissan Pathfinder 4WD. He did remember that
the cover of the spare wheel had a design of a crocodile on it.

Meanwhile the rumour had quickly spread
around the local indigenous community that Barry had been beaten up
and killed by police. Within an hour, a large group had gathered
outside the police station chanting for justice. The crowd was
starting to get ugly and a few started throwing rocks at the police
station breaking windows in the process.

*

SATURDAY- LOST TEMPLE.

Bill had been driving his truck up the
Stockmen’s Track for three hours but hadn’t come across any sign of
Jake’s Toyota or any other vehicle for that matter. He stopped the
truck and turned to Shoni.

“We should have run into Jake by now. Either
he’s not coming or he’s turned off somewhere. I don’t know where he
could have pulled off the road without leaving some sort of
sign.”

Shoni replied “Are there any tracks leading
off the road along here?”

Bill thought for a second. “Good question
Shoni. The only one I can think of is the track to the Lost Temple
but it’s rarely used. But it’s worth a try, I think I may have even
mentioned it to Jake. It can’t be far away.” Bill gunned the
truck.

An hour later Bill was explaining to Shoni
that the Lost Temple derived its name from a peculiar sandstone
rock stack formation when he saw the dead kangaroo on the side of
the road. He jumped out of the truck and shone his torch on the
corpse. He could see that it had been hit by a car and searching
the road noticed freshly made tyre marks. Back in the truck he
followed the tyre tracks until he saw them turn off the road. He
saw the signpost to the Lost Temple lying on the ground as well as
two sets of tyre marks heading down the track.

“This is where they’ve gone and there’s a
car following them,” Bill said to Shoni. “I hope we can get there
in time. We’ll have to take it slowly from here.”

Bill tried to call the Daly Waters Police
Station again but there was still no telecommunications coverage.
He swung the truck onto the track.

*

Jake and Koshi ran as fast as Koshi’s
injured foot would allow through the open ground to the next clump
of trees. Koshi cried out as he tripped on his injured ankle and
sprawled over in the dirt. Suddenly, a voice yelled out in the
distance behind them and they knew they had been seen. Lifting
Koshi back on his feet, Jake dragged him to the nearest clump of
trees. He peered behind to see one of the Chinese waving to his
companions and pointing in their direction.

Knowing that they could not outrun the
Chinese, Jake looked for a hiding place or some form of shelter. He
saw a rocky outcrop about 150 metres away and thought it might
provide some form of protection. Luckily they found a U-shaped band
of high rocks which provided them with protection on three sides.
Deciding that that was their best chance of survival they wedged
themselves under the overhang of a large rock, out of sight from
anyone coming up towards them. Jake pulled out his gun and waited
with Koshi.

The Chinese conferred when they saw Jake and
Koshi disappear behind the rocks. They split up in different
directions, one was clearly intending to circle behind them.

Jake saw them coming and figured they were
most vulnerable from the rear. Whispering to Koshi to stay where he
was wedged under the rocks, he cautiously moved 100 metres behind
another rock and waited for the attacker to come from the rear. He
lay motionless for twenty minutes before he heard a slight noise to
his left. A shape appeared 30 metres away coming towards him. It
was the small Chinese man moving stealthily towards where Koshi was
hiding. Holding the pistol in two hands, Jake waited till the
Chinese was within 15 metres of him, stood up, took aim and fired.
The Chinese cried out and collapsed on the ground clutching his
arm. Jake raced over and saw that the bullet had hit him in the
arm, causing him to drop the gun. The Chinese scrambled over to
reach for the gun and Jake shot him twice in the chest. Picking up
the gun Jake rushed back to where Koshi was waiting anxiously and
slid back under the overhang of the rock. The realisation came that
he had just killed a man and he gagged as he tried to stop himself
throwing up.

The Chinese called out to their colleague
but hearing no response started moving behind the rocks to where
they heard the gunshots. They saw their colleague lying on the
ground and looked around for Koshi and Jake. They climbed up a tall
rock and scanned the terrain around them. The sniper adjusted his
telescopic sights on his rifle and picked up a movement under a
large rock. He gently squeezed the trigger. He grunted with
satisfaction as he heard a scream and knew that he had hit at least
one of them. He fired two more shots in quick succession.

Jake yelped when he felt white hot pain in
his leg and knew he had been shot. He rolled away deeper under
cover of the overhanging rock while more bullets sprayed around
him, yelling at Koshi to follow him. Koshi was quick to respond and
watched with dismay as Jake collapsed on the ground in agony, his
jeans covered in blood. He helped pull Jake up to a sitting
position, carefully rolled up the left leg of his blood-soaked
trousers and examined the wound. The bullet had gone right through
Jake’s calf muscle and shattered the rock he was lying on, causing
numerous cuts to his legs from flying fragments of rock. There was
a lot of blood pouring out of the entry and exit holes made by the
bullet but Jake was relieved to find the bullet had missed major
arteries. He ripped off his shirt and wrapped it around his calf
tightly to stem the blood flow. There was now a hail of bullets
smashing into the rocks around them and Jake knew they were sitting
ducks for the sniper.

Bumping along on the Stockmen’s Track, Bill
stopped the truck when he heard the first shots, trying to identify
which direction they were coming from. Leaving the road he drove
across the scrub and up to the top of hill where he had a view of
the landscape. Grabbing his binoculars and rifle he jumped out of
the car and looked down at the scene below. He could see four men
firing into some rocks. He guessed that it was Jake and Koshi
hiding in the rocks and knew that if he didn’t act quickly it would
be too late to save them. He lay on the ground, sighted his rifle
and took aim carefully at the assassins below him. Shoni lay
alongside him, fearful for the lives of Jake and her Prime
Minister.

The Chinese marksman smiled as he expertly
pumped bullets into the rocks, knowing that it was only a matter of
time before he finished off his prey. Suddenly a bullet smacked
into the rock he was lying on, narrowly missing his neck, but
spraying stone chips and dust into his face, temporarily blinding
him. They were startled as another bullet just missed them and they
scattered to find cover from this new threat. The bullets were
coming from a different direction from Jake’s position and they
realised that someone else was firing at them.

Jake wondered why the Chinese had suddenly
stopped firing when he heard the sound of a vehicle. Then he saw a
truck driving wildly over the stony ground coming towards them.
With amazement, he recognised the truck as belonging to his father.
Bill was honking the horn of the truck and waving animatedly at
them. The truck skidded to a stop in front of them and his father
yelled at them to get in the truck. They left their hideaway and
hobbled into the back seat as Bill immediately headed back the way
he had come. Bullets thudded into the back of the truck but in a
few minutes they had outdistanced the deadly fire. It was only then
that Jake realised that Shoni was sitting in the passenger seat
next to Bill. She turned around with a look of deep concern on her
face.

“Are you hurt badly Jake, we were so worried
about you.”

He leaned over the seat and took her hand
and looked into her troubled eyes.

“I’ll survive thanks.” He had never seen
anything so welcoming in his life.

“Geez, that was a close one. You sure know
how to get into trouble Jake,” Bill said as he drove wildly across
the scrub dodging rocks and trees before eventually coming back
onto the track.

“We’d better hurry, it won’t be long before
those guys start coming after us. Can you two hang on till we get
to the highway?”

“Yeah, we’ll manage but we could do with a
decent drink.”

Shoni passed over two water bottles which
they drank from greedily.

Jake introduced a bewildered Koshi to Bill
and Shoni and explained what had happened in the last twenty-four
hours. Bill outlined how he had only received Jake’s message late
last night before coming out to look for him. He had passed Jake’s
message on to the local police and had heard nothing back although
he knew they were currently out of mobile phone range.

Xu led his team back to the Jeep, furious
that Koshi had escaped. He asked Blakey

“Can we catch them up before they get to the
highway?”

“Unlikely,” replied Blakey. “They’ve got too
big a lead on us.”

“Where are they likely to go?”

“The nearest hospital is at Mataranka. I
reckon they’ll go there. But the place is likely to be crawling
with cops once they get there.”

“Nevertheless, we must go there and kill
Koshi. Otherwise our mission will have failed.”

“It would be suicidal trying to kill him in
the hospital.”

“We must try. It will be suicidal for you if
you don’t help us.” Xu spat the words out.

After what seemed an eternity, Bill and his
passengers reached the Stuart Highway and turned north heading
towards Mataranka. Now in mobile phone range, Bill rang Lizzie who
was already working at the hospital and asked her to arrange rooms
for two new patients. He then rang Constable Hobbs, explained what
had happened and suggested he set up a roadblock at the end of
Stockmen’s Track to capture the Chinese. He also asked him to
arrange for a police guard at the Mataranka Hospital.

Hobbs in turn called up the Senior Constable
at the Mataranka Police Station requesting help with putting up a
roadblock and with a police guard at the hospital. He then rang
Sergeant Barker at Jabiru and explained that the Japanese P.M. had
been rescued and could he alert the AFP?

Sergeant Barker rushed over to the Court
House, saw Commissioner Fisher talking to Williams and interrupted
him. He blurted out the news of Koshi’s rescue to a shocked
Commissioner. Fisher then sat him down and asked him to repeat it
all over again. He looked angry when Barker told him he had passed
on Jake’s message to Williams the previous night. He rebuked
Williams for not bringing it to his attention but Williams
blustered that he was running down other leads about the
terrorists. Fisher called his Task Force together, apprised them of
the developments and gave each of them specific instructions. One
of these was to provide immediately a security team for Koshi at
the hospital. He would personally fly down by police helicopter to
interview Koshi. Before he left, he phoned the Acting Prime
Minister and filled her in on the details.

*

SATURDAY MORNING -YELLOW WATER

The assassination of the Australian Prime Minister
and the suspected abduction of the Japanese Prime Minister made
front page headlines around the world. Most of the stories
attributed the attack to Islamic State terrorists. The morning
edition of the National’s Saturday newspaper had scooped the pool
with Helen Kwang’s first-hand account of the disaster together with
graphic photographs of the slain Prime Minister and other
casualties. Her article and Percy’s photos covered the first four
pages of the “National” and were repeated on line in all the major
media outlets.

With her phone constantly ringing through
the night, Helen had only two hours sleep before her alarm woke her
at 6 a.m. She had agreed to give interviews with two of the major
Australian television stations that morning, the first starting at
7.a.m. She showered and dressed quickly, choosing the one outfit
that she hadn’t worn that week, put on her make-up, checked her
messages and the internet, and prepared herself for a long and
difficult day. She had a quick breakfast at the resort’s buffet
before walking to the hotel entrance where her interviewer and
camera crew awaited her. She was nervous realising that for any
journalist this was the story of a lifetime.