A Father At Last (19 page)

Julie Mac

Ben was relieved when his mother answered her phone on the second ring.

“I might have to go away, Mum, in a hurry,” he said quietly. “I just wanted to tell you I love you.”

“Oh my darling, I love you too. So does your father.”

He thought his mother was crying.

She said nothing for a few seconds, then, “I know I can’t ask what you’re doing, and you can’t tell me, but please, please promise you’ll take care.”

“I always do, Mum.”

God, he hated doing this to her.

“Take my love with you, Ben, and remember, a mother’s love is one of the strongest forces of nature. Probably
the
strongest. My love will protect you. Well, that’s what I keep telling myself.” She laughed a little.

A mother’s love is the strongest force in nature.
Ben thought of Kelly, protecting Dylan from hurt. It wasn’t a rational decision, it was an act of nature.

Then he asked his mother a question that had burned hot in his brain for these last few days.

“Is nurture more important than nature in a child’s upbringing?”

There was a ten‐second silence. “Absolutely,” said his mother.

When Ben ended the call, he held his phone to his heart for a long moment before slipping it into his pocket.

A Father at Last

Chapter 10

Kelly woke at three‐thirty the next morning, her heart pounding and her hands trembling.

She sat up in bed and breathed deep, calming breaths.

Still she trembled—and then she remembered the dream. Not cohesive specifics, but snatches, like evil little sound bites: footsteps running—her own—then others, louder and faster. And all the while, terrible fear.

A nightmare, probably brought on by the emotional roller coaster of the last few days—by her boss’s warnings and Ben’s obvious tension.

Ben? Was
he
in danger? Had
he
been hurt?

Getting up and making a cup of hot chocolate distanced her from the nightmare, but did little to quell her uneasiness. She sat up in bed with her hot milky drink, and tried to concentrate on the novel she was currently reading. She’d never go back to sleep, of that she was sure.

Ben positioned the last listening device in the downstairs living room of the big, swanky house on Auckland’s most prestigious waterfront street, then spoke softly into the barely visible communications piece attached to the neckband of his T‐shirt. “Finished here, mate.

How’re you doing?”

“In the corridor now. Just one more to do, in the upstairs TV room.”

“Is the woman okay?”

“Affirmative. She got into bed as soon as I’d finished in the master bedroom. If her boyfriend turns up now, there’s no reason for him not to think she’s been tucked up in bed all night.”

“Good.” Ben breathed deeply. “We’ll move as soon as you’re finished up there.”

Once outside, he and his colleague would be stationed in the garden, listening, waiting and ready to bust in if the man threatened his girlfriend’s safety in any way—as were the plain clothes police officers stationed in unmarked cars nearby.

The woman, a pretty blonde in her late thirties, was terrified, poor thing, but brave.

She’d risked her life letting the cops into the house and talking to them about her manipulative, abusive boyfriend—a one‐time motorcycle gang leader turned supposedly Julie Mac

respectable in middle‐age.

He claimed to be a property developer, but his official income records didn’t stack up with the opulent lifestyle he led. He was the kingpin in the drug ring, the police knew that.

But getting evidence that would stand up in court was another matter.

They’d tapped his phones for months, but he was cunning and careful. Same story with his emails and computer activities, despite Ben’s best hacking efforts. The man only ever referred to his criminal deals in code.

This was a risky, last ditch effort to nail him. It was nearly three thirty in the morning.

By now, the drug kingpin would know his cohorts had been arrested. Soon, he’d be home.

Then, his cool blown, he would sound off to his girlfriend—and the bugs would record every incriminating word.

Well, that was the plan.

Ben breathed deeply again, consciously relaxing tense muscles. Then he heard it—

the unmistakeable sound of a key turning in a lock.

Shit!
This wasn’t supposed to happen. The boys out in the street were watching, waiting, poised to warn Ben and his colleague the minute their mark’s car entered the street.

He was coming in the back door. He must have ditched his car much further afield and walked the rest of the way home, ducking through neighbour’s gardens. Running scared.

“Get out!” Ben uttered the words softly as he dropped behind the big sofa in the living room. His mate upstairs would hear the message and evacuate according to plan, jumping from the upstairs deck at the other end of the house, onto a patch of lawn below.

Ben let his ears track the ex‐gang leader’s progress: in the back door, pause at the security panel to set the outside alarms, straight across to the stairs, then up, moving fast.

And bellowing all the way to the woman.

“Get online, get me a flight—anywhere, Hong Kong, London, LA, Sydney—leaving ASAP. I gotta get out of here. The cops have busted everyone. They’ve got everyone.” He was hardly pausing for breath. “And you’ll have to go down to my lock‐up in the morning and chuck out that courier package that came in from China last week. Dump it in the harbour or something. Christ, what a waste. That’s half a million dollars worth of bloody high quality meth.”

Gotcha!
They’d broken the ring. The critter upstairs was the final link. With him and his cronies out of circulation, the scourge of methamphetamine, and its pure form, P, would abate for a while. In time, other low‐lifes would take their place, but for now, it was all the police could do. Soon, the uniformed boys would swoop, but they’d be waiting first for confirmation Ben was out of the house.

He moved swiftly, silently, across the living room, down a wide passage towards the back door. By the time he’d reached it, the man upstairs had stopped ranting. Unhelpfully, A Father at Last

thought Ben—the noise would have muffled any slight sound he made opening and closing the back door.

He snibbed the lock, delicately pulled the door shut behind him so it made just the merest thunk, and stepped outside, moving fast across the marble tiles towards the pool house, safe in the knowledge they’d sabotaged the extensive outdoor alarm system earlier.

The night was silent. It was the early hours of the morning: the genteel suburb was sleeping. And then a dog barked, raucous, angry, scared maybe. But loud as hell. Ben could hear a chain rattling; now the dog was snarling, and in the muted light from a distant street lamp, he could make out its shape ten metres away in the neighbour’s garden off to his left, lunging at the end of its chain against the white picket fence that separated the two properties.

He swore under his breath. The woman hadn’t told them there was a dog likely to nut‐off next door. But then, it was probably perfectly okay with her and her man—

obviously, because it hadn’t barked when the boyfriend came past five minutes before.

Whereas Ben was a stranger.

A stranger who needed to get the hell out of here, fast. He ran to the pool house, knowing his footfalls couldn’t be heard above the racket the dog was making.

Rory, his colleague, was waiting in the appointed meeting place, behind the pool house. They didn’t speak—they’d worked on enough special ops together to know exactly what the other was thinking—and turned as one to make their exit, straight down the garden towards the thick shrubbery that separated this house from the adjoining property at the back.

But before they’d moved two paces, there was a crash from the direction Ben had just come. He knew exactly what had happened: their quarry had flung open the back door with such force it had smashed back against the wall and the glass had broken. Then came another sound, the bone chilling, deadly soft phut‐phut‐phut of a high‐powered rifle fitted with a silencer. Bullets sprayed around the garden, some of them hitting the pool house with dull thuds.

They ran, he and Rory, across the lawn, pushing through the shrubbery, then down the neighbour’s drive towards the street in the next block.

“Target armed and firing. Back of the house.” He relayed his terse message to the backup crew as he ran.

At the pavement, they turned right and sprinted towards the corner of the short suburban avenue.

Senses tuned to high alert, he was aware of other footsteps, heavier than theirs, pounding down the pavement. Then the footsteps stopped and raw fear ripped through Ben’s gut. Still running, he glanced across at Rory. He’d heard too.

It came: the evil whisper of silenced bullets flying in a maelstrom around them. Ben felt a sting in his lower arm, then they were around the corner facing a long, empty street and Rory was pointing to a handy cluster of shrubs in the garden nearest them.

Julie Mac

They threw themselves into the bushes, crawling on their stomachs into the dense cover. Ben heard the man’s footfalls, heavy, pounding. Down the pavement. Around the corner. Stopping.

Then came his muttered growl, “I’ll get you, ya bastards.”

Bullets spraying again, tearing through the bushes, pinging against letterboxes in the street.

Instinct urged Ben to tackle the gunman; his bullets could kill some innocent householder stepping outside to investigate the odd noises. But to show himself would be almost certainly fatal for him—and Rory—and soon, any minute, any second now, the backup boys would be here in their vehicles.

Silence.

Then barely discernible sounds.

Soft squeaks of a shoe sole as the gunman moved towards them.

Rory’s accelerated breathing close by in the darkness to his right. His own breath coming too quickly, danger—cold, naked fear—sending adrenalin spiralling.

The low hum of vehicle engines, travelling at speed, getting closer.

The metallic click of a rifle magazine being discarded just a few metres away.

Images clear in Ben’s head.
His parents’ house on Christmas Day, bursting with family and extended family. His mum preparing food at the kitchen bench, growling at his step‐dad for chopping the onions the wrong way. Charlie leaning in, his arms encircling her waist, kissing her on the neck; his mum laughing softly. His sisters, bossy, bitchy, loving. His aunt, his uncle, his cousins and their noisy tribe of kids.

A happy family. What would it do to them if he were shot dead? If they had to bury him?

More metallic clicks. A new magazine in place.

Two new images, bright, searing, filling his mind.

Kelly’s eyes. Beautiful. Sad.

And Dylan’s. Full of the optimism and innocence of childhood.

Through the branches of the bushes, he saw a sudden flood of light up ahead.

Vehicles rounded the corner of the street, moving fast. As the sirens burst into life, Ben made a decision.

A Father at Last

Chapter 11

Kelly was sure she wouldn’t go back to sleep, but she did, and when she woke again it was seven thirty. She had to fly around the house getting ready for work, making do with just a little tub of yoghurt and a cup of instant coffee for breakfast so she could be at the office in the city by eight thirty. As it was, traffic was frustratingly jammed up on the harbour bridge and she was glad she’d stuck a soothing CD in the car stereo as she left home. It was eight forty‐five when she walked through the office door.

Instantly, she knew something was up. There was a buzz of excitement around the office. Four or five of the staff were crowded around the receptionist’s computer screen and someone had the morning news show turned up loud on the boardroom television set.

She was hardly through the doors when the senior partner, normally a model of old-fashioned decorum, called from his office, “Kelly! Come and look at this.”

This morning’s
Herald
was spread out across his desk. A huge black headline across the top of the page screamed
Major drug bust
. The entire front page was taken up with stories and pictures, along with teasers pointing to more inside.

Kelly’s blood ran cold as she scanned the stories. The bust was the result of a major police operation spanning two years. Last night, all the hard work, much of it covert, had come to fruition; they’d nabbed importers—one of them an ex‐sports star, the current darling of women’s mag celebrity pages—wholesalers and dozens of street level dealers.

Their arrests would make a huge impact on Auckland’s—no, New Zealand’s—drug scene. She should have been glad, but instead, her stomach churned with apprehension.

Ben was involved. She felt the horrible, cold truth, tearing at her, deep inside. Her nightmare had been some sort of weird premonition—a signal, maybe a cry for help from Ben.

And then the
Breaking news
banner on the side of the front page caught her eye, and she knew her fears were real. Beneath the banner was a stark headline,
Shooting at
scene,
followed by a brief, one‐paragraph, one‐column story: as the paper was going to press in the early hours of this morning, news had come in that a person had been shot by a high‐powered rifle. Reporters had been unable to ascertain whether or not the shooting was fatal. Neither did they know if the victim was a police officer or a perpetrator.

She gasped out loud.

“You’re okay, aren’t you, Kelly?” Her boss sounded worried. “The friend you told me about yesterday—” he paused for a long time, before saying quietly “—is it possible he’s Julie Mac

involved somehow?”

Her boss’s eyes were on the story she’d just read.

She nodded her head slowly. “Highly likely. I think I should…would you mind if I took some time off? I need to go…”

“You need to go down to the police station, see what you can find out,” said her boss. “And don’t think of it as taking time off. You’ll probably have to go down there later for work anyway.” He cleared his throat noisily. “That’s our job as defence lawyers, Kelly.