It was well past eleven o’clock when Janet eventually managed to head off home. After their meal together, Ally and Janet had gone to see a late-night movie before Ally invited her home for a coffee. As she drove home, Janet thought about the two bouncers she had seen sitting in the café earlier in the night. Ally might have dismissed it as senseless anxiety - she didn’t know them after all - but Janet had a bad feeling about this. Sighing, she pulled up into the driveway of her home in the southern area, not noticing the black Subaru parked unobtrusively in the street outside her house.

She sat in the car for a few minutes staring at the interior of her garage, thinking about nothing in particular. Shaking her head, she climbed out of the car and headed towards the front door, rummaging through her pockets and searching for her house keys.

 

A white Toyota Camry turned into the driveway from the side street, its bright headlights glaring fiercely as they guided the driver up the dark strip. Two odd shadows ducked out of sight from the sweep of the light and two pair of eyes looked passed the bushes, noticing the senior sergeant heading towards the front door of the house. The faces on which the eyes resided on looked at each other and the lips of both mouths curled up at the corner in pleasure.

It was past eleven o’clock at night and the neighbours were all indoors, either in bed or watching late-night soap operas. The lights were on in several neighbouring houses but the two assailants weren’t too concerned. No one would be alert enough to noticed anything out of the ordinary at this time of the night. Dressed completely in black, they headed stealthily towards the state police officer who was too busy searching for something through her pockets to hear them approaching. As she produced her house keys, one of the offenders held up a baton and swung it forcefully over her head, knocking her out cold. Little did they realise, the curtains of the house across the street moved. A figure appeared at the window but disappeared shortly after.

 

Janet surfaced from the dark tides of unconsciousness. She moaned and wondered where she was. She knew she couldn’t be dead because the last thing she remembered was rummaging through her trouser pockets, looking for the keys to her house when she had felt a sharp bludgeon pain of something metallic being slammed at the back of her head and now she had a splitting headache. She could feel her heart thumping right through her cranium and it felt as though her skull would split open any moment and her head would explode. So, where was she now? She still had her eyes closed and could sense something was wrong - very wrong. She knew she didn’t have a hangover because she last remembered driving home from Ally’s place.

Groaning, she tried to open her eyes, only to realise she couldn’t. They had been covered by what seemed like a blindfold. Looking past the blindfold, she could made out a brightly lit room but nothing more and concluded that it must be morning - either that or someone had left the lights on. Listening carefully for evidence on where she could be, she heard the soft rumble of traffic in the distance including the odd police siren.

Oh, shit, she thought desperately. What the hell was she going to do?

She doubted anyone would realise she had disappeared till tomorrow because it was supposed to be her day-off today. She tried to undo the blindfold but realised that she couldn’t part her hands and eventually concluded that her hands and feet had been bound together. Wriggling furiously in a failed attempt to free herself, she came to the sudden realisation that she was trapped with no means of escape. This wasn’t looking good.

 

I was in my office the next morning, reading a typed-up document of what we knew of the Milosevic case so far when there was a knock on the door. I looked up as Skye entered, holding a piece of paper with a huge smile on her face.

‘Guess what I got for you,’ she announced, handing me the paper before sitting comfortably in the leather chair opposite my desk.

I glanced through it with an impressive whistle. It was a detailed layout blueprint of Milosevic’s house completed with the security devices. Now we were in business.

‘Good work, Skye,’ I told her, still glancing at it. ‘All we have to do now is infiltrate the security.’

‘Well, Josh - that’s the guy who works with Chubb - reckons he can turn off the devices with a remote control system,’ Skye informed me.

I put the report down on the desk and leaned back in my chair.

‘Yes,’ I agreed thoughtfully. ‘But we still need a reason to become part of their group.’

Skye too leaned back, staring at nothing in particular. It was time to put on our thinking caps and come up with a solid reason to spy on Milosevic and his men.

‘Considering Milosevic is a drug baron, maybe one of us can make an offer he can’t refuse?’ Skye suggested.

‘Yes but what? Posing as bent cops probably won’t go down too well considering he’s on the run from federal police forces,’ I reminded her.

‘I’m not talking about bent cops. I’m talking about money and drugs,’ my partner replied, leaning forward and rubbing her fingers together in a gesture of money. ‘So far there’s been no evidence to say that he actually deals the stuff, is there? He just imports and exports it.’

I looked at her and realised that she was right. All Caleb had said was that he was wanted for drug trafficking charges, not drug dealing. That could just work.

‘Yeah, alright,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll have to get onto the Drug Squad to see if they’ll lend us a couple of bags of coke or something. Neither of us will be suitable to take on the role though. He knows what we look like already. It’ll have to be someone he hasn’t seen before.’

‘Jen perhaps?’ Skye suggested then saw the look on my face. ‘Okay, maybe not.’

‘It’ll have to be someone with experience like -’

‘Erica.’

This was getting better by the minute and I smiled at the progress we were making. I dismissed her from my office and called a meeting in the briefing room. I sat in the office for a few minutes, staring into space. I was going to have to call Caleb sometime and give him an update. I picked up the communicator and dialled his work number. He picked it up after several rings.

‘Bentley,’ he greeted formally.

‘It’s Ally. I’ve found out where Milosevic lives but I’ll need you to lay low for a while,’ I told him.

‘Why?’ Caleb asked curiously. ‘I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to run the operation.’

‘I’m not. I just need a few days to check out the layout of his place. It’s pretty big,’ I looked at the layout again.

‘Alright, but can you at least give me some idea where he lives?’ he sighed.

I gave him the address and had another thought. Surely, Milosevic couldn’t be working alone.

‘Just one more question; does he have any associates?’ I asked.

‘Two that we know of but haven’t been able to prove as yet,’ Caleb supplied. ‘Fred O’Brien and Troy Jansen - bouncers by profession and thugs by pleasure.’

‘Charming. Okay, thanks, Caleb. I’ll see what I can do from my end and I’ll keep you posted.’

I hung up. I needed to get to the briefing room to meet my investigators. Erica, Jennifer, Simon and Mario were in the room when I entered it. Skye had thoughtfully summoned them for me while I was on the communicator to Caleb. What Skye and I had discussed in my office was only a skeleton plan to infiltrate Milosevic’s group. We needed more meat to it if we were going to make this work effectively and hence the meeting with the others.

‘Okay, Skye has probably briefed you on what we intend to do to bring Milosevic down,’ I began. ‘Our main problem is that we’ve only discussed it for about five minutes and you might be able to help us with the details. Firstly, we need someone with undercover experience to pose as a drug dealer looking for a business partner. Erica, we’re hoping you would be available to take on the role?’

‘You betcha!’ Erica grinned. ‘I was wondering when you were going to make use of my services.’

‘Right,’ I nodded. ‘Any suggestions as to how we’re going to actually get into Milosevic’s den?’

‘How about going to Hindley Street and keeping a lookout for him?’ Mario queried.

‘Somehow I don’t think Milosevic’s stupid enough to be seen in public. Especially on the main street,’ Simon supplied. ‘We need to know who his thugs are who can lead us to him.’

‘Actually, I’ve just come off the communicator with Caleb and he tells me that there are two associates known to the Feds - Fred O’Brien and Troy Jansen.’

‘This is getting better already,’ Erica laughed.

Everyone turned to look at her.

‘Why do you say that?’ I frowned.

‘I was working on this mission a couple of years ago while still with ASIO where we were supposed to be gathering info on a terrorist group hiding in Sydney,’ she explained. ‘Anyway, I got sent down here and these guys were the ones who led me to the group. You could say we go back a fair way.’

‘Did you catch the terrorist group?’ Jennifer asked.

‘ASIO don’t arrest them. The Feds do,’ she told her then paused thoughtfully. ‘They’ve been on the run ever since.’

‘Mmmm, I wonder if this is linked to that mission in anyway,’ I muttered. ‘Okay, maybe you can still use your cover. Or would that be too risky?’

‘No, that’s fine. I’ll just tell them I’ve changed professions,’ Erica grinned.

 

Erica looked around the street in hope of finding Jansen and O’Brien once again. Looking down at the LRSD thoughtfully provided to her by Ally, she turned it on to the communication channel and began to walk up the street.

‘Still no sign of them,’ she reported and straightened her waistbag once again.

She felt a tad ridiculous walking the street considering it was only one in the afternoon. She would have preferred it if the role was performed during the night when the street was alive and vibrant but Skye had insisted they at least tried and find these guys anyway. She was almost ready to give up all hope of finding them when she suddenly spotted them turning into a side-street.

‘I’ve got them,’ she reported into the LRSD and followed them up the street.

She wondered what they were doing out on the street this early in the day. Perhaps they were working that night and wanted to have some fun. As she turned the corner, she looked around, frowning. Where had they disappear to? She could have sworn that she had seen them come this way. Suddenly, without warning, a strong hand clapped over her mouth, pulled her aside and, the next thing she knew, she had a gun pointed at her throat.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ growled a very familiar voice before releasing the hand slightly.

Erica’s anxiety suddenly evaporated into confidence when she heard who it was.

‘Don’t ya recognise me?’ she smirked.

‘Hang on, Troy,’ a second voice called followed by a tall muscular man whom the voice belonged to. ‘Lemme check the chick out.’

He grabbed Erica by the face and turned it slowly so Jansen wouldn’t accidentally discharge the firearm. He grinned widely.

‘Well, if it isn’t the Spider!’ he exclaimed, ‘How the hell have you been keepin’?’

‘I’d be better when Boofhead decides to get that gun off my face,’ Erica replied heartily. ‘How are ya, Fred?’

‘Sorry, Spider,’ Jansen apologised as he let her go. ‘Didn’t recognise ya. What you doing in this part of town?’

Erica shrugged casually then looked around her cautiously.

‘I ... um ... need a bit of help,’ she told them. ‘You see, my client suddenly went cold turkey on me and I need a replacement.’

‘Yeah? What sort of business are we talking about?’ O’Brien asked curiously.

Erica brought them aside and unzipped her waist bag, revealing several bags of ecstasy tablets. The blokes whistled impressively.

‘There’s a hell of a lot where that came to and I need it of me fast. ‘You know anyone who can help?’ Erica asked, hopefully.

‘Shit yeah,’ O’Brien hooted. ‘I reckon she’ll love ya for it too.’