Chapter 37
Thirty-seven
At the quarry, the air was thick with heat, as the scent of dry grass and dust tickled Taryn’s nose, when her stomach rumbled, again.
She ignored it. Even though she’d already thrown up breakfast, twice, there was no room for queasiness now—not when Finn was one step away from either justice or a breakdown.
After everything he’d learned about Drew, the lies layered over years of trust, Finn needed something solid to hold on to. Not another secret curled in her tummy that might tip him off the edge.
He needed a win. And she’d do everything she could to help him get it. So, she’d give him this instead. The mission.
From their high ridge lookout over the quarry’s main compound, the team laid low in various areas. Some beneath camo netting, gear prepped, with their comms on a closed loop. All in a position to watch for dust kicking up along the main entry points.
Porter’s voice crackled through the radio. ‘I’ve got a visual on the target vehicle. It’s them. Stolen Warraga Downs truck—two on board.’
Finn shifted beside her, his binoculars fixed on the vehicle and all but snarled over the radio, ‘It’s them. Hold your positions.’
A full-sized stock truck—not a road train, but big enough to turn heads in the city—roared into the quarry. Its faded green sides were dented and sun-aged, with a heavy tarp stretched over the livestock bay for shade.
Bob was driving, with Red slumped in the passenger seat, head bandaged, looking like the lucky loser of a crocodile-wrestling contest
Bob didn’t waste time. Before the dust had settled, he’d leapt from the truck, then disappeared inside the demountable. Before the front door had even swung shut, he burst back out, carrying a duffel bag with clothes hanging from the zip.
‘Everyone, watch for their freight,’ Taryn said over the comms. Because they didn’t just need Bob and Red. They needed Drew. And the cargo.
That was the stuff to seal the deal.
They watched Bob toss his duffel bag into the truck’s cab where Red hardly moved. Bob reversed the truck toward a ragged stack of hay bales. There, Bob started digging through straw like a farm kid after Easter eggs.
And then he hit something.
Tugged.
And out came a blue tarp.
Underneath it—boxes.
Just like Tooley and Mickey had said. Plain cardboard boxes with brown tape, light enough to lift, with small flags on the sides labelled Conference Pack.
‘Oh, perfect,’ Taryn said under her breath, as she zoomed in on Romy’s drone feed on her laptop. ‘As Mickey, the master of all things grumpy would say, those criminal masterminds of the Territory are about to be undone by a haystack full of flamin’ tourist pamphlets in nappy boxes.’
She blinked.
Nappy boxes.
Nappies.
Was that word going to haunt her for the next two years? When she didn’t even know how to change one, let alone know what a nappy box looked like.
And now here they were, her first visual cue to impending motherhood, came from a smuggling ring hiding stolen prime stock genetic material in what looked like baby bulk buys.
Fan-tastic.
‘If any of those boxes say NT Tourism, I’m putting it in my audit report under Reasons I Deserve a Pay Rise, a Desk, and a Pack of Barbecue Shapes.’
‘You’re spiralling,’ muttered Finn, beside her.
‘I’m just adapting,’ Taryn shot back. ‘It’s a skill. You should try it sometime.’
Finn’s mouth twitched. Just barely.
She exhaled heavily. The fear, the nausea, the need for sardines, and the what-ifs—still there. But quieter now, as she focused on the target. Even if it meant taking down this mess one dodgy nappy box at a time.
She scrolled back to her laptop, watching the live satellite map stutter and refresh. ‘Inbound jet is twenty minutes out,’ she said. ‘Quarry landing site is hot. It’s all happening, peoples.’
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, switching between feeds from the drones, comms, body cams, flight paths.
‘You might want to warn Romy to keep her drones below the radar ceiling, Sergeant. We need them for eyes on, but we can’t spook that other jet’s approach.
And tell Stone to stay tucked in below that escarpment. ’
Finn’s jaw clenched. ‘Listen, Fed, we’ve been watching this place for a month. Thanks to Romy’s motion cams, that are normally set up to catch crocodile nests and swamp buffalo, we’ve repurposed them for this.’
‘I thought those were just for documentaries.’
‘They are. But they also pick up human movement. We wired half of them into the quarry’s light towers.’ He gestured toward her screen. ‘Craig’s got Romy’s GoPro. Porter’s got his vest cam, and Romy will have her drone footage. If this goes to court, we’ll have every angle covered.’
Taryn arched a brow. ‘What is this? A sting or an outback fashion show? You’ve got more cameras on this than the paparazzi barging in on a red-carpet event in Milan.’
Finn gave her a look. Clearly unimpressed.
She grinned. ‘Go on. Say you missed me.’
He snorted. ‘Like a busted boot misses a bindi-eye seed.’
‘Charming,’ she drawled. ‘Please, don’t get all emotional on me now.’
‘Just focus, Fed.’
‘I’m trying. But you haven’t even made me a coffee that tastes like mud since I got back. Clearly, something’s missing in my life.’
His mouth twitched. Not a smile—but close.
‘You’re terrible at affection.’
‘And you’re still talking.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Finn narrowed his eyes, the corner of his mouth fighting the need to curl. ‘Keep it up and I’ll put you on car wash duty at the police station. That’s every vehicle. Including Craig’s horse truck.’
Taryn gasped, hand over heart. ‘You monster. Those things haven’t seen water since water was invented.’
Finn just shook his head and muttered, ‘See, this is why I drink my coffee alone.’
She grinned, her eyes flicking to the incoming radar image of the jet.
Then something clicked.
All humour dropped as she watched Bob ease the truck toward the airstrip to wait for that jet. ‘Wait… Something’s not right.’
‘What now?’
‘Why would Drew fly into the hot zone? He’s smarter than that.
’ On her laptop, she pulled up the Ag School conference site and crosschecked the speaker’s schedule, including the emails she had access too.
Her breath caught. ‘Look... Drew has cancelled the speech he was meant to give this afternoon.’
They needed to know where the head snake in a suit was at all times. And she’d spent all morning combing Drew’s emails, confirming that Bob and Red were headed to the quarry to meet the jet.
Finn had the plan in place. All she’d done was back it up with flight logs and digital proof—like he’d started the sentence, and she finished it. Not to show off, but because she liked having the last word. And he let her.
She’d never had a partner so in sync. It felt like he was someone she’d worked closely with for years, not someone she hadn’t seen in a month
‘And?’
‘Look at the time stamp on his email.’ She tapped frantically, pulling up the time-stamped files. ‘First one’s from Bob at 10:47 last night. That’s two hours after you got Lydia and Brodie to the hospital.’
She read aloud:
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: need pickup
did look-see with Red, found warraga empty.
took truck, were lining up a dozen fats when it went to hell.
red got clocked hard. bleeding bad.
no ute, no way out.
town’s after us. highway’s blocked. cops looking.
not leaving him.
this is the plan, yeah? quarry run.
send the jet.
—bob
Sent: 10:47pm, Wednesday
‘Then Red follows up with his email an hour later, threatening Drew.’
Finn frowned and leaned in closer to her laptop screen to read the email:
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Confirm your end
Don’t think you can block me by not answering your phone.
You’d better have that jet lined up, Drew!
This is the out you promised.
My wife is in hospital with some kid from the yards. She saw too much, told me she’s been talking to the cops.
I’ve got nothing left in this town.
And you know what I know.
Don’t make me say it twice.
—R
Sent: 11:58pm, Wednesday
‘Then it takes Drew almost six hours to respond, and that’s when he books the jet from Adelaide to Darwin. Around the same time, he sends this.’ She brought up email three:
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected], [email protected]
SUBJECT: Re: Confirm your end
Jet is on track.
Be there with the last load.
D.
Sent: 5:17am, Thursday
Finn shrugged. ‘He delayed his response, making Red sweat it out. Drew would do that. Or he was asleep. It was midnight.’
Taryn shook her head. ‘Drew would’ve had an alert set for emails from Bob or Red. Those two made him too much money. And we both know Drew is the kind of man who keeps at least three backup plans especially for times that feel like chaos.’ Especially after a message like Bob’s.
She looked at Finn. ‘Drew never said he’d be on that jet. He just confirmed it was coming. When I crosschecked the bookings,’ she said, tapping on her laptop, ‘I found something else.’
‘What?’
‘A second manifest, logged by the shell company Stokemir PC. That’s the bank Drew hides behind. This one’s inbound from Canberra to Darwin. Look…’ She spun her screen towards him. ‘The time stamp matches Drew cancelling his speech at the ag conference. Minutes after Bob’s first email came through.’
She met Finn’s eyes.
Finn didn’t need to say it. They both knew what it was.
Drew’s running.
‘Would Drew have an escape kit?’
‘Yeah,’ Finn muttered. ‘Passport, cash, burner phone… maybe even a fake ID.’
Taryn frowned. ‘Where would Drew stash it? Somewhere discreet? Not his house.’
‘No.’ Finn shook his head. ‘Drew’s smarter than that.
He wouldn’t use post office boxes, that’s too obvious and too traceable.
He would’ve just bought a nondescript car and paid for long-term parking.
Somewhere public, out of the way, with 24-hour access to drive through, grab what he needed out of the boot, and then keep moving. Like an airport.’