Chapter 38 #2
‘I have the pilot.’ Taryn dragged the cuffed pilot to Amara, who then took him to kneel on the tarmac beside Red. ‘Call out who’s secure?’
‘I’ve got Red… You mongrel thief.’ The normally calm and casual cowboy was pissed. Craig yanked the flexi-cuffs tight, giving a grim nod—the kind a stockman gives when he’s caught someone who’d broken their cattleman’s code.
Dried blood had trickled down Red’s face to blend into his long red beard. The wound from Brodie’s blow still seeped beneath the rough, hastily wrapped bandage.
But no one showed him any pity. Not when every ringer who’d ever passed through the Elsie Creek Stockyards adored Lydia, especially Craig who was close to her.
On his knees, Red twisted his torso as he tried to fight the cuffs, the sun, and no doubt the ache from his head wound. ‘Wait! Lydia? Is she—’
Craig gripped Red’s shirt front, his snarl bared teeth. ‘You don’t get to say her name. And you sure as hell don’t get to ask.’
Red collapsed back onto his knees, head down, defeated.
Finn didn’t say a word. Didn’t need to. Craig would have the satisfaction of Red’s arrest. And he needed it.
They all did.
‘Bob’s down, too.’ Porter forced Bob to kneel on the tarmac beside Red.
‘Second male from the jet, Clancy, secured.’ Finn dropped the goon down beside the pilot, as the crims lined up along the tarmac, kneeling under the sun.
He turned to look for Taryn.
She was already heading for the jet’s stairs, gun drawn. ‘I’m going in.’
‘I’ll back you.’ Porter was fast as he took the steps two at a time to quickly catch up, to give her the support she needed.
That left the truck.
Finn flicked a signal to Amara.
No words needed.
She’d been shadowing him for over eighteen months now. The perfect apprentice, who was sharp, steady, and always two steps ahead when it counted.
They moved, one on each side, with boots light on the tarmac, side-arms raised, and every sense alert. Finn took the driver’s side, Amara the passenger’s, flanking the vehicle.
As the helicopter fell silent, and the rotor’s dust wash settled, Finn reached the back first, and raised a fist for Amara to pause.
They just had to be sure they had everyone.
As she aimed her gun at the back canopy, he peeled back the canvas flap.
No bodies.
No shooters.
Among the bale of feed hay and scattered tools, stood a pile of ordinary brown cardboard boxes. There were no address labels, just a strip of brown tape sealing the lid, and a faded sticker that read: Conference Pack—NT Tourism.
He drew his knife from his belt, and with a sharp flick, he slashed the box clean down the seam.
Inside… cryogenic canisters.
Four of them. Nestled tight within the moulded foam, where each silver cylinder stood upright—sealed, sweating, and still cold enough to burn. The box was lined with thermal packaging, the kind used for vet vials or lab-grade samples.
And yet, outside, it was nothing special. Just a brown cardboard box, sealed with cheap tape. The kind of box no one looked at twice.
Even its label: Conference Pack—NT Tourism, was harmless. Exactly the sort of thing that passed through airstrips and depots without question.
Thirteen boxes sat on that truck.
A baker’s dozen of clean-cut brown packages, taped up and labelled like conference crap, holding…
Fifty-two tanks.
Holding more than ten road trains of breathing assets. With no hooves. No mess. Just pure genetically pristine bloodlines, frozen and ready to stock a national stud program.
Worth millions.
Who knows how many more boxes had already disappeared overseas before today.
Finn reached into the box and gripped the metal. Even through his gloves, the chill bit down like dry ice. He hauled a silver canister free. It was about the size of a small welder’s gas bottle, but sleeker, and polished to a sterile sheen like it belonged in a lab, not a stockyard.
Frost clung to the nozzle, with mist bleeding off the collar in slow, icy tendrils. A yellow hazard triangle warned of extreme cold. Another sticker read: Cryogenic Liquid. Handle With Care.
Finn didn’t need the warning symbols to tell him what would happen if this stuff thawed. And it sure as hell didn’t belong in a cardboard box.
It’d been one year of chasing ghosts, ever since they’d learned what happened to that rodeo bull, Wraith’s Wrath, from the Rough Stock case—it all came down to this. A box.
‘And they call this a white-collar crime.’ He could just hear Taryn, the queen of corporate crime, sassing him with: Still think my suits and heels are overdressed for the outback?
But this was the payload. The proof.
They finally had something they could use.
His gloved fingers brushed the frost off the lid.
The canister was still cold, the metal sweating in the heat, the seal intact.
He hefted it high to check the sides and the base.
‘Judging by the weight and frost line, we’ve got a few weeks left before this lot defrosts into worthless sludge,’ he muttered.
‘I read somewhere that under correct storage conditions, genetic material like this can stay viable for decades—thirty, forty years, easy.’ Amara counted the boxes beside him, using her phone to record everything.
‘Long enough to build world-class bloodlines from scratch, and no one would ever know the difference.’
‘This isn’t just stock theft and selling it to the highest bidder,’ Finn said, holding the canister. ‘It’s rewriting the future of this nation’s stock industry.’ He exhaled slowly at the weight of it all.
‘You know what else they could hide in this?’ Amara’s tone was edged with fury. ‘Disease. Mutation. Anything. And they left it tucked under hay bales like it was fertiliser.’
‘You’re right.’ Finn’s jaw tightened. ‘Drew didn’t just steal stock and the genetic material. He put this country’s entire livestock industry at risk. Biosecurity, trade, reputation… all of it.’
He hoped like hell Taryn had that prick down on his knees, with a bloody nose, and whatever kind of justice the lady wanted to dish out. He’d back her, before he pushed her aside to have his go. Gently, of course, after all she was—
Dammit.
Get back in the game.
If Taryn could stay focused, in that jet, breathing the same air as Drew bloody Bannon, then so could he.
He clicked his mic. ‘We’ve got product. I’m guessing it’s their last haul.’ But also a haul that seemed to be tracking on time, considering the condition of the canisters.
He could hear noises from inside the jet, someone opening doors and turning it out like a drug raid.
Porter was at the top of the stairs, peering inside the jet’s cabin, while their four captives remained handcuffed, on their knees, being watched over by Craig and Stone.
Taryn appeared in the jet’s open doorway, the wind tugging her hair. ‘He’s not here… Drew is not on board.’