Twenty-two
In the distance, Cattleman’s Keep loomed like a black monolith, its jagged cliffs swallowing the faint starlight, casting a heavy shadow over the still waters of Starvation Dam. The outback’s silence seemed heavy as Ryder parked his ute behind a thick cluster of trees that sat on the higher side of the dam’s overflow creek bed. It was the perfect cover for tonight’s recon of the neighbour’s property.
At the ute’s back tray, he handed his spare Kevlar vest to Dex, slipping on his own, before handing Dex a handgun. ‘Take this, brother. In case things go sideways.’
‘I always did like your toys.’ Dex checked the magazine of the nine-millimetre pistol. ‘Got any spare clips?’
‘Always.’ He handed over four extra magazine clips then slid some into his own Kevlar vest. He checked their torches, passing one to Dex, then fitted his night-vision goggles over his cap. Topping the ensemble, he slipped the strap for his favourite toy over his shoulder, a lethal M16 that delivered over 700 rounds per minute, nicknamed The Woodcutter. Now he was ready to play!
‘Do I get one of those?’ Dex’s white teeth flashed in the dark.
‘No.’ Ryder frowned. He didn’t have to share everything with his brothers. ‘Here, put this war paint on.’
‘Wow, we’re really getting into costume.’
‘Leo mentioned he’d spent time in the military. If he’s growing a big cash crop out here, he’ll definitely have cameras as part of his security.’ He dug around his box and pulled out some compact, camouflaged 360 cameras. ‘While we’re there, let’s leave some of our own. These will blend right in with the surroundings.’
‘Nice…’ Dex tucked them into his small pack. ‘But wouldn’t the wildlife trigger the cameras?’
‘Leo will have his set at a certain height for a man, not a wallaby.’ He smeared on the face paint. ‘If you need a leak, do it now.’
‘Good idea.’ Dex wandered off.
‘Bree, where are you?’ She’d disappeared behind the bushes somewhere.
‘I feel so underdressed for this party.’ She pointed at Ryder’s vest and guns. ‘Ooh, make-up looks so good on you, cupcake.’
‘C’mere.’ He hooked his finger into the waist of her jeans and pulled her close to smear camo paint on her pretty face.
‘Are you available for face painting at children’s parties too? I want a fairy face, please.’
It was hard to keep a straight face when Bree was like this. She had such a gift of being playful at the worst of times.
‘Do you have your weapons?’
‘Sure.’ She had her bushman’s knife sheathed on her belt and her rifle strapped over her shoulder. She also looked hot in skin-tight black.
‘As I don’t have a spare vest for you, I think you should stay here.’ Ryder wanted her safe. Even though they needed Bree to show them where the pipe was, he still had hope of talking the pretty little outlaw into staying on this side of the fence and not entering no-man’s land.
‘Not now I’m all dressed up, cupcake. It’s rude to take a girl out on a date and then make her stay in the car.’
‘I wouldn’t class this as a date.’
‘But look at you.’ She flicked at his Kevlar vest. ‘I can tell you enjoy wearing this can’t-see-me kit.’
‘It’s been a while.’
‘Have you ever tried cosplay?’
He arched his eyebrows at her. ‘What?’
‘Hmmm… It might be the perfect way to teach someone like you how to play.’ Bree purred, and it was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard.
He wanted to bring her close to his chest just to let that sound vibrate against his skin.
‘I have this mask fetish for Ghost.’
‘Who?’ What?
‘Ask Ash. He’ll tell you who Ghost is. You share the same build.’ Bree grinned in a sinful way, her eyes all sparkly. ‘I think Ghost is a lieutenant in the British Special Forces or something.’
He growled. That’s right. A deep growl rolled like thunder in his chest all from some other soldier Bree was swooning over.
‘We ready?’ Dex came round from the other side of the ute.
‘Yeah.’ Ryder wiped his fingers free from the camo paint, dropping the container back into the box on the back of his ute full of his specialised gear.
Bree peeked inside the metal box. ‘Are you preparing for a zombie attack?’
The surprised chuckle spilled free, as he locked up the metal box.
‘Aw, look at that. He’s ready to party.’ She playfully messed up his cap, knocking his night vision goggles out of place.
It should have annoyed him.
But not when Bree looked cute in her black skullcap that she normally wore in the Smithy’s shed. ‘Let’s go, daylight’s coming.’
‘Not you.’ He tugged on her jeans, pulling her back. ‘You stay on my six.’
‘Your what?’
‘It means you stay right behind me.’ He started walking with Dex beside him.
Bree followed, yakking away. ‘If I do that, I’ll walk on your boots, and one of us will trip over, then I’d make you blush with my swear words, and then I’ll feel worse for being so clumsy and might start a stampede of runaway wallabies to rush through the scrub that’ll set off all the alarms.’ Bree then did something so unexpected it stunned him to a standstill—she jumped up onto his back.
With arms wrapped around his shoulders in a piggyback, she whispered in his ear, ‘You know that saying, save a horse, ride a cowboy…’
‘Bree, play nice with Ryder,’ said Dex, chuckling. ‘The brother is armed to the teeth.’
Her legs had a decent grip on Ryder’s hips—pity he was facing the other way. Instead, he cupped her butt with a resounding slap and gave her denim arse a good squeeze.
‘Oi.’ She jumped off, rubbing her butt as she strolled past him with that sexy swagger of hers and tapped on their barbed-wire fence. ‘Now Dex, remember the last time you went through the scrub you got all kung-fuey over a bunch of incy wincy spiders?’
‘It was a bird spider that was the size of a freaking dinner plate.’ Dex positively shivered with that foolish grin. ‘Harper will back me up on that. She said hers was bigger.’
‘Will you two behave?’ They were like children. Ryder swiftly hiked over the fence, with Dex doing the same. ‘Come on.’ He held out his hand to Bree.
‘I might not play the part of a bunny who can jump tall buildings like Supergirl on steroids, but I can climb a fence.’
As if Ryder was going to miss his chance of holding her, to swiftly lift her over the fence. ‘Tuck your hair in.’ Even with the camouflage paint on, she was pretty.
Bree stepped back, tucking her hair away. ‘Got any wise words of wisdom from the war room, Captain Cupcake.’
Dex snorted in a deep snigger, desperate to stop laughing out loud. ‘Dare you to say that three times real fast.’ Dex nudged Bree as if they were in some playground.
‘Oi.’ Ryder scowled at the pair. ‘Stealth mode actually means being quiet! This isn’t some game. We’re now trespassing.’
‘Like Leo and his band of balding gorillas haven’t done it before.’ Bree drew out her hand-forged bushman’s knife as she crouched down and dug at the ground to locate the pipe that even had Dex arching his eyebrows in surprise. They both hadn’t seen it.
‘This way,’ said Bree, keeping her knife drawn. ‘Don’t worry, I heard you tell Dex about staying as low as a wallaby in case of any cameras. Try to keep up.’
‘I’d really like that girl if she didn’t scare me,’ mumbled Dex.
‘Yeah…’ Ryder followed Bree with Dex at the rear as they silently crept through the deep undergrowth of the scrublands of spindly grasses and low-lying shrubs, punctuated by the twisted trunks of eucalypts and acacias. Without the moon’s glow, the clusters of trees created a heavy darkness that made the air feel denser, carrying the scents of parched earth and dry vegetation. There was the occasional snap of a twig, or the rustle of dry leaves made by the wildlife that easily blended into a place where instead of streetlights and cars, there was only darkness, silence, and stars.
Bree stopped to brush the dirt and leaves aside, revealing the pipe’s junction.
‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered at her side.
‘It splits off into two.’ She pulled out the pipe join, exposing the hose running in two separate directions. ‘They’re not even bothering to bury it anymore.’ She removed her glove and held the pipe.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You can feel the water running through it. Shh… I can hear sprinklers running.’ She then inhaled. ‘Get a whiff of that.’
A strong, sickly sweet herbal scent carried on the breeze. It was cannabis. Ryder had been around Dex’s hemp crop enough to recognise the scent. It also wasn’t the first dope crop he had to do recon for, but then he’d had a military team to back him up. Today he had adult children.
Dex inhaled deeply, his cheesy grin growing. ‘It smells potent, people.’
‘You’re not taking any.’
‘Brother, at this stage all I have to do is walk through the field and the resin will stick to me. I can roll it off and hot knife it later. I’ll go this way.’
‘Wait, I’ll do a scan of the area first.’ Ryder unclipped the detector from his belt and pointed it at the area.
‘What is that?’
‘An MMTD.’
‘Can we use big words for the civilians present, please?’ asked Bree.
‘It’s a combined thermal imaging and RF detection unit. It’s to detect people or animals, but it also scans for radio frequencies to identify hidden cameras, audio bugs, or other forms of surveillance equipment.’
‘Cool.’ Dex leaned in closer as Ryder adjusted the green screen and scanned their area. ‘How long is the range?’
‘In this terrain,’ Ryder said, nodding at the thick vegetation, ‘we’d be lucky to get ten metres. In the desert, I’d get two hundred. But the thermal’s picking up a large open field ahead.’ He watched the small screen for any movement. ‘I’m only seeing wallabies, a dingo… and cameras.’ He pointed toward the field. ‘There’s a camera at two o’clock and another at eleven.’
‘So it’s like swimming between the flags, then?’ Crouched low, Dex adjusted his gun. ‘I’ll follow the pipe this way.’
Ryder grabbed his brother by the arm and slammed an earpiece into his hand. ‘Put this in and be bloody careful. Stay low. It looks like there are cameras set every thirty metres, pointing out at the bush, which would give them a range of anything between thirty to one hundred metres.’
‘In other words,’ said Bree in a hushed tone, ‘please keep your arse to the ground as much as possible.’
‘You, too.’ Dex winked at Bree as he slipped in the earpiece. Crouched low he followed the pipe, disappearing to their left.
‘So, I guess we’ll take pipe number two.’ Bree crept stealthily along the undergrowth, her footfalls incredibly silent, only to pause for her fingertips to brush away the leaf litter to feel the topsoil.
‘You can track?’
Bree nodded. ‘I’ve been hunting since I was a kid.’
She went to walk on, when he grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back. ‘What the—’
He covered her mouth with his hand. ‘Shh.’ He then pointed to the thin wire ahead of her, cleverly hidden behind a thick ant mound. ‘It’s a motion sensor. Dex…’ He hissed over the radio, ‘Watch for any motion sensors. They’re set just on the perimeter of the field. And be careful not to leave any footprints in the mud near those sprinklers.’
‘Got it,’ whispered Dex.
Ryder pulled Bree back to hide behind the thick trunk of a eucalyptus tree. ‘Stay here.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To take some video. And don’t you dare pull out your phone. The backlight will instantly draw attention to yourself, even on night mode.’
‘Talking from experience, are we?’
‘Stay put. Please.’
‘Okay.’ She shrugged, as she stood on the toes of her boots to peer out into the field.
‘I’ll be back soon.’ He activated the camera integrated into his night-vision goggles, then bypassed the motion detector and stealthily followed the irrigation line deep into the crop of mature cannabis. It had to be worth millions.
And that meant it was now a deadly game with Leo.
With plenty of video footage of the area, giving him a clear sense of what he was up against, he set up a few of his own cameras before heading back to find Bree. ‘It’s one big field.’
Bree shrugged. ‘Is that unusual? Sorry, but this is my first dope field.’
‘Normally illegal growers have them scattered in smaller crops to avoid detection from the air.’
‘You do realise we’re in the middle of nowhere, in the most forgotten region of Australia? We’re not on any flight path, or near any major roads or even a large regional town. Come on, the only time the Northern Territory makes the national news is for a cyclone or a crocodile attack. Hey, would those satellite pictures have picked up on Leo’s field? I know Finn used a drone, but that was set for—’
‘Heat. I know.’ It’s what Ryder would do. ‘Come on, let’s go back.’ He led the way, tapping his comms. ‘Dex? Come in.’
‘Yeah, bro.’ Dex’s hushed voice was clear over the headset.
‘Where are you?’
‘Right in the middle of the field. Don’t lecture me, I had to see how big it was. You knew I’d do it, and it’s a top place to put in one of those 360 cameras.’
‘Good. You can come back. Now.’ It was an order. He did not want Dex getting clip-happy with the foliage to have the growers suspicious because of some buds missing.
‘On my way.’
Beside him Bree gnawed on her bottom lip.
‘You look worried.’
‘I am. It’s a big crop.’
‘I shouldn’t have brought you here.’ He hated that she was worried, grabbing her hand to try and console her as he led them back to the fence.
Then he heard a vehicle.
‘Get down.’ He pulled her to the ground behind a row of thick bushes and protectively covered her, as an ATV came over the small rise from the far end of the firebreak that was too far for his handheld detector to pick up. With a sweep of its spotlight, it shone over the boundary, missing his ute, hidden by the trees, but it clearly highlighted their dam’s wall.
Inside the open-air all-terrain vehicle, the passenger manned the handheld spotlight. The blend of heavy metal and hip-hop music blared over the speakers to bounce off the scrublands, loud enough to disguise the crunch of the ATV’s beefy tyres rolling over the dirt track
‘It sounds like Linkin Park.’
‘Shh.’ Ryder covered Bree’s soft lips with his hand.
The smell of coffee, petrol and cigarette smoke reached them as the ATV rolled right past Bree and Ryder.
‘Nothing but roos, again tonight. Not exactly the action I signed up for.’ The passenger bellowed out over the music.
‘Keep it that way. Leo will have our bloody heads if we miss anything, and no stirring up the old bloke next door, not unless Leo says so,’ called out the driver, flicking his cigarette butt out on the dirt.
They were the worst night sentries! But Ryder could feel Bree’s heated anger growing. She was very protective over her grandfather. ‘Don’t,’ he warned her under his breath.
‘Are you sure this spotlight’s not losing its juice? Feels like it’s barely reaching the trees next door.’ The passenger tapped the spotlight, its beam of light shuddering across the dusty fire track.
‘It’s fine. You’re just getting paranoid coz we’re this close to harvest…’ The ATV slowly cruised past with the men casually chatting as if on a Sunday drive, heading in Dex’s direction.
‘Dex, they have sentries.’ Ryder grit his teeth, his hands on the M16 peering down the scope. ‘They’re pathetic, just doing the rounds. They won’t hear much over the music, but don’t draw attention to yourself as they have a spotlight. Meet us at the ute when you can.’
‘Righto.’
‘We’re just a joke to those cowboys. Not only are they blatantly stealing your water, but how they treat Charlie… He’s never been a threat to them.’ Bree sneered in anger. ‘Those arseholes are—’
‘Whoa.’ Ryder pulled her back down, hooking his leg over her to use his entire body weight to pin her to the ground while covering her mouth. ‘Calm down.’
She muffled something under his hand.
‘Are you going to be a good girl for me?’
She scowled at him.
He liked this game.
With his hand over her mouth he sniffed at her slender throat, truly inhaling her scent of vanilla, pecans and something seductively spicy deep down into his lungs. His nose nuzzled into that soft spot below her ear, delighted to feel her squirm and the bare outline of goose pimples disappearing under her shirt. ‘If I let go, will you remain calm?’
She nodded, her breath ragged.
Slowly he moved his hand away, ready in case she did something, especially when Bree could be reckless and completely unpredictable.
‘We’ll wait here for a bit until that ATV is out of range.’ Hey, he was in no rush to move, staring down at a vision. With his fingertip, he brushed down her cheek, her dainty chin, then across those luscious lips. ‘You can’t scream, baby.’
Even though she was frowning at him, his eyes locked with hers. He licked his lips, which curved into a smile, as he was filled with a sudden urge to play . He pressed his lips to hers, kissing her with an intensity that left no escape, not when he had her pinned beneath him.