Honorable Assassin (6 page)

When they dropped Terry off, the
team talked with Ginger for a while. Terry went out to check on the
chickens and sheep. He found the animals to be well cared for by
the neighbors who had even done some fence repairs. When he
returned to the house, Ginger was sleeping, knocked out by the pain
medication. Terry quietly took his uncle’s .32 revolver and a box
of shells and headed for the woods on the other side of the
meadows. Today would be the first time he shot a living thing. It
was far from the last.

Inspector Barlow had not been one
to hang out in the red light district of Kings Cross. It was not
that Barlow was a prude, or even that he was all that monogamous,
but he was there for a different reason now. He had occasion to be
there officially from time to time, investigating the occasional
biker murder. The biker gangs were divided into two camps; hard
core and wannabes. The killings usually involved the hard core
bikers taking offense at the wannabes and starting a fight. It
would not be long before the wannabes stopped bothering.

The Plucked Rose was a strip club
with rooms upstairs for additional income. The beer flowed freely
and the ladies were pretty. The matchbook Inspector Barlow had
found in the lock of the hospital’s side door was from The Plucked
Rose.

It would have been a mistake to
come on too strong in this area. The police were respected but not
loved in the Kings Cross area. They were never assisted without a
cash flow back and even then it was likely that the information
gathered was old or incorrect. The best information gleaned in that
area of town was by keeping your ears open and your mouth shut. If
he had flashed the composite drawings and started asking questions,
Barlow would have gotten nowhere. As it was, he never spotted his
objective. He tried hanging out in some of the other local clubs as
well, drinking lightly and remaining unobtrusive, but he got
nowhere. They knew he was a cop, the management of these
establishments could smell a cop when one walked in the door. They
did not know what he wanted, but they knew he was there on business
since it was not the women and he was not looking for drugs. One by
one they noticed his presence and then noticed his absence.

Bradley had seen the old farm
truck in the lockup, and had even entered the office expecting to
inquire about recent impoundments, but he had gotten spooked when
he saw a man in the office that did not look like he belonged
there. Sitting in a chair, reading the newspaper with no obvious
function pegged the man as an officer of some sort. The assassin
left quickly, without making eye contact.

The hotel room was within
surveillance range of the impound lot and the underpaid nurse
alerted Bradley when Ginger was released. A sniper rifle was
trained on Kingston when he drove his truck from the lot but the
two local constables were enough to keep Bradley from taking his
shot. He would get a better shot later.

When the Protective Services men
took over at the county line, Bradley gave up for a while. He
wanted a quick, clean operation; one in the head of the man, one in
the head of the boy, and go. He was in no mood for a shoot out with
killers. He headed off in a different direction and spent some time
in Canberra before heading to Melbourne in Victoria. He felt safe
being out of New South Wales and thought he would go back to
eliminate the two Kingstons in a while. A while turned into ‘some
time later’ and then to ‘when I get around to it.’

The assassin decided he
liked Melbourne a lot and rented a small house on the Yarra River
with access for watercraft. He took a train back north and piloted
his boat down the coast. He spent a good deal of time on the
Ellsinore
. He
thought that recent events in Melbourne would serve to keep
attention off the less flamboyant members of society. The previous
year had seen the Hoddle Street Massacre in August, where 7 died
and 19 were injured, and the Queen Street Post Office Massacre in
December.

It was not that Bradley intended
to stop working; he just moved his operations south for a while.
His disguise as a computer systems repair and analyst was vague
enough to allow him to tell anyone who asked that they would not
understand.

It was August 17, 1991, when the Strathfield
Massacre occurred, that Ginger Kingston saw the writing on the
wall. The government was already making noises about gun control.
It was obvious to anyone who paid attention to the news that they
would be registering everyone’s firearms before long, so Ginger
began to acquire more guns. It was not that he needed them; he was
just upset that he might be denied access to them in the
future.

Terry Kingston was happy to see the arsenal
growing. The more new guns he used, the better he got. He read
books about arms training and began to learn how to assemble and
disassemble weapons blindfolded. It was quite possible that he was
the most knowledgeable munitions expert in the country, at least
among 12 year olds.

The woods behind the farm soon had little
remaining wildlife. Ginger had told his nephew repeatedly not to
shoot something he was not going to eat but that did not always
hold. One would not eat a fox, but it was not even a natural member
of the Australian ecosystem and shooting a fox was considered
mandatory. Rabbits had to be shot on sight and they were, of
course, both edible and tasty. Both the foxes and rabbits had been
introduced to Australia by Europeans for the purpose of hunting
them but they took hold much too successfully and became massively
destructive to the country’s natural fauna. Terry was happy to
assist in their eradication. He also learned to clean and cook all
manner of wild game.

He had reached an acceptance level in the
school by dint of the fact that he was growing quickly and was in
the best of shape. He had learned how to fight and was actually
told that he needed to stop thrashing his classmates. His
justification was that they had been starting the fights and that
he was merely giving them what they were asking for.

On the farm, he learned how to work as
Ginger worked, indefatigably. He fixed the fences, split the wood
and repaired all manner of mechanical equipment. He sheared sheep
and slaughtered them when necessary, killed chickens and hunted all
manner of pests.

It was that year when Ginger bought him a
car. It was a 1968 Holden Monaro GTS 327 and though it ran when
they pulled it into the barn, it needed a lot of work. The years
had not been kind and it had been beaten by a series of young
owners.

Terry was nonplussed by the gift. It would
be years before he could drive on the roads and a car like the
Monaro could not negotiate the fields. He could already drive a
standard transmission and was actually quite good at keeping the
truck moving in the mud, but this was different.

“Look here, boy. What we have is a truly
fine automobile despite its appearance. It has a V-8 Chevrolet
engine so parts are reasonable. It still runs so it hasn’t ruined
the crankshaft. The heads are worn but they can be salvaged or
replaced. The body is Australian so we won’t need overseas body
panels. This is a project that you can finish or not, but you will
pay me for the parts as soon as your father’s lawyer releases the
proceeds from the insurance business. That will be when you turn
17. Imagine what it will feel like to pull up to school in an
honest to goodness classic.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. The first thing we need to do is
disassemble it and determine what needs to be done. We need to mark
each piece and keep the bolts and nuts together and mark them. This
is the only way we can put it back together, when we know where
everything goes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You seem a wee bit scared by the
prospect.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stop saying that and go and get some
masking tape and tags from the back. We are about to learn
everything there is to know about this car. Tomorrow we go down to
town to get a ledger and a manual. I hope you’re ready to
work.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stop saying that and split me some
wood.”

Terry’s trepidation was eclipsed when he
heard the awe in the voices of the older boys when they heard he
had been given a Monaro 327.

Halfway through September of 1995 Terry
Kingston had a life altering experience. He was in school when it
happened and it came from a most unlikely source. He was being
forced to watch a movie of a Shakespeare play and, like his
classmates, thought this was a waste of time. Then he saw the
setting for the first act of the play; Ellsinore. He saw that name
and the bottom dropped out of his world. Gone was the screen and
the classroom and the children. He was back on the Agamemnon, eight
years old and being chased by two men in the
Ellsinore
. His
reaction was almost like epilepsy; he stiffened up and started
shaking though he was not foaming at the mouth. For the first time
since he was half his present age he recognized the name of the
speedboat. It was the last piece of a puzzle that had been haunting
his dreams ever since it happened.

“Uncle Ginger, I remember. I saw it today in
school and I remember the name of the boat that was chasing us the
day they killed my father. I want to find that boat and I want to
kill the bastard who shot you.”

“Is that right? Suddenly you are the
avenging angel, eh? You think you can just find out where this boat
is and go there and shoot this man?”

“Yes, sir, that is exactly what I
think.”

“So you’re going to go in there without a
plan? Without backup? Without a driver’s license or a second
thought?”

“I know what he looks like and he won’t be
expecting me. I intend to find him and kill him and you won’t stop
me.”

“Look here, boy, I don’t intend to stop you.
I don’t intend to try to stop you. What I do intend to do is keep
you from throwing your whole life away on something because you
didn’t think it through. When you hunt foxes you go where the
rabbits are. You know the fox will be after the rabbits so that’s
where you look for him. That is not all there is to it though, is
it?”

“No. You need to watch the rabbit runs. The
fox doesn’t set up too close to the hole because he needs some
space to get the rabbit before it reaches its burrow.”

“Aye, that’s one aspect, but there is so
much more that you are so used to doing that you don’t even think
about it any more. You don’t walk on their trails, you don’t stand
upwind, you don’t walk through poison ivy, and you don’t walk
through nettles.”

“But there is no parallel to that in the
city.”

“You don’t know he is in the city. You don’t
alert another fox who will in turn alert your prey. You don’t wait
‘til you see the fox to load your gun. You don’t go shuffling
through piles of dead leaves. What I am saying is there is so much
more to hunting than pulling a trigger. That is compounded 10 times
when you hunt a thinking prey. Especially when you are hunting a
professional. How many cars have driven down the road since you got
home from school?”

“Two, three if you include Jerry Cuthbert’s
car.”

“That is what I mean. You remember things
like that. Now then, boy, was either of those cars a big
block?”

“No, sir. I can tell a big block. I might be
fooled by another V-8, but both those cars had whiney four
cylinders.”

“Good. You notice things like that. Now, do
think there is a chance that this man will not notice the rumble of
a high-compression 327? Do you think you can drive that Monaro
around a suburban neighborhood undetected?”

Terry was silent. He resented being spoken
to like a child even if he was one.

“Now, what is your source of reference to
know where this boat is?”

“I thought I could go to town hall…”

“No. Go to the library in the school and
talk to the librarian. She will be able to tell you when and where
the records are available, or she can find out. It’s probably
registered under a phony name anyway, but the library is always a
good place to start. Don’t tell anyone why you want to find the
information, make up a story. Tell them I want to buy the boat. I
saw it and just loved it and wanted to find the owner so I could
tender an offer to buy it. That way you smooth over the path and
people are less likely to remember you. Your interest is in the
boat, not the man who owns it, but you need his name and address to
find the boat.”

“I see.”

“You are sure of the name?”

“Yes. Ellsinore.”

“Then ask the librarian how to find that.
Town hall will only have records for this area so that is
worthless. Oy, I got another idea or two as well, but you start
with the library.”

“All right, Uncle. I’m going to need to get
my learners license as soon as I’m 16. So I can get where I need to
go. I also need to finish upgrading the brakes on the Monaro. We
got her running like a dingo but the old drum brakes stop her like
a land train.”

“Oy. Order the parts, I’ll put it on yer
bill.”

“Uh, Uncle Ginger? Can’t we use the computer
at the Insurance Company to access the database at the RTA and find
out if the
Ellsinore
is registered in Wales?”

“Now yer thinking. We do that next. Do yer
research first. Go to the library. Oy, the new springs came in
today. I’ll show you how that’s done after you clean out the
paddock.”

“Yes, sir.” Terry grabbed a shovel and
tossed it into the wheelbarrow.

“I’ll be back in an hour. I need to get a
tank of acetylene and some brazing rod.”

“Ok, Uncle.”

Ginger watched Terry’s back retreat and
realized he was not going to be able to control him for much
longer. He was getting too strong, too tall and too smart to
restrain. The only thing he was going to be able to do was direct
him. He shook his head and started the engine on his old truck.