Chapter 01

Life’s Ups and Downs

Moses Kent ’Smoky’ Grey is talking to another student while they both walk to the university car park. They’ve just finished their final exam so they can now relax until they get their results. As is the usual thing with students just after any exam they’re talking about the questions. Both Smoky and Ruth, the other student, are looking around the car park while they walk and talk. They can only see half of the car park due to the hedge beside the path blocking their view of the rest of the car park, but it’s only another two metres to the end of the high hedge on their left.

Both look up when they hear a loud vehicle engine on the other side of the hedge. That shouldn’t be happening because the university is a 25 kph (kilometres per hour) zone. So someone is speeding. The sound nears them then a black van races past the end of the path they’re on. The tyres screech due to heavy braking and the van comes to a halt in front of a car parked on the end of the row of cars several metres ahead of the two students. Four men get out of the van and race to surround the car they just blocked in which has a young woman at its wheel. One man pulls on the door handle, but it doesn’t open. One races to the other side to try that door while one stands to the side yelling orders and the last man is reaching into the back of the van for something. The van’s driver is in his seat with his head turned to watch what the other men are doing. The van’s engine is still on, but it’s idling while the van sits there.

Smoky starts running forward while saying, “Ruth, hide and call the police.” He doesn’t wait to see what she does. The man giving orders is near the back of the van and he’s the one closest to Smoky. So Smoky drops his shoulder to charge into the man’s back as hard and as fast as he can in the several strides he takes to reach him. Smoky’s right shoulder hits the man in the middle of his back about level with the bottom of his shoulder blades. The man is tossed forward with his upper body at an angle. On being hit the man screams at the same time as a gun fires. The man hits the ground hard with his hands hitting the road just before his body. His right hand opens from the pain of the contact with the road, and the handgun in it goes sliding across the road. The man’s forehead hits the edge of the gutter with a loud crunch, and his scream stops.

The man who turned to reach into the van is moving backward while turning toward the car with a heavy hammer in his hand when the gun fires. The bullet enters the back right quarter of his chest, and throws him sideways into the pillar between the front and back doors of the van while it tears through his chest and lung. The impact with the van causes him to let go of the hammer he’s swinging while turning to his left. The hammer flies from his hand to hit the driver on the side of the head to knock him sideways while breaking his neck in the process.

After knocking the first man flying with a shoulder charge Smoky continues his charge to the car. The man trying to open the driver’s door half turns when he hears the gunshot. Seeing an attacker he turns more toward Smoky while he braces for the impact. However, there is no impact because Smoky half steps to his right while making a very fast upward swing with his open left hand. The bony part at the base of the palm of Smoky’s hand strikes under the man’s jaw while still moving upward. The man’s head goes back and there’s a loud crack when his neck snaps from the force of the blow. The contact causes Smoky’s body to start to turn with his right half continuing forward, so he grabs hold of the man’s shirt with his left hand to use the man as a pivot point while he turns as much as possible to throw himself onto the bonnet of the car. Smoky hits the bonnet while still turning and rolling, but out of control. He slides across the bonnet to slam into the body of the last attacker.

Jim, the man who ran around the car also looks up when he hears the gunshot. He sees his mates go down then the attacker is sliding across the car bonnet toward him. He grins while reaching for the knife in his pocket as he plans to cut this person up. However, Jim is still bringing the knife up from his pocket when the attacker slides off the car bonnet to hit Jim in the chest as the attacker’s hands are held up in front of him. Jim is off balance when Smoky hits him and Jim is thrown violently backwards.

Smoky knows he doesn’t have full control and he’s going to hit the ground hard, so he needs to stop the last man from doing anything to hurt him while he gets back on his feet. The best he can manage in the few seconds he slides across the car is to turn to get his hands in front of himself. His hands make contact and he puts all of his strength into shoving the man as far away as he can. The man flies backwards much faster and harder than Smoky expects him to. The man hits the next car, turns a bit, slides along it, falls to the ground, and heaves for a moment. The fall is awkward for Smoky, but he does get his left arm under him to help cushion the impact a little bit. He hits hard and he dislocates his left shoulder, which is better than breaking his arm. He struggles to get up, and he’s surprised the last attacker isn’t on his feet before he is.

After a few paces Smoky is beside the man checking his pulse, there isn’t one, so he leaves him to check on the others. All of them are dead. Damn it! Now he won’t be able to find out what it’s about. Smoky walks a few metres to one of the rubbish bins in the car park and he sits on it. In the distance he can hear sirens wailing, so he smiles. The authorities will be here soon, but too late, as usual. He gets his phone out and he hits a speed dial. His mother answers, so he briefs her, “Mum, the uni car park, section Red, Charlie Four. Some men trying to kidnap a young woman. I stopped them, five dead. Left shoulder is out. I don’t know who was involved or why. I feel very sick. Police are on the way.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath before she says, “Take several slow deep breaths. I’m on my way. Keep calm and say nothing to anyone until I get there. I’ll bring someone to take your car home.”

“Right, Mum. See you soon.” He has his phone back in his pocket when he sees a police car enter this section of the car park.

The police come to a screeching halt by the scene and two cops get out of the police car. One stands to the side to watch everyone while the other checks for pulses. All five are dead so he turns to his partner and says, “Five dead. We don’t need the ambulance at all.”

Smoky says, “Yes you do! I’m hurt and I think the girl in the car is in shock. Keep the ambulance coming.”

The Australian Federal Police officer watching everything uses her portable radio to call in to request one ambulance plus the Scene of Crime people because she has five dead on the scene. She walks over and asks Smoky, “Up to telling me what happened?”

He gives a half smile as he replies, “Sorry, my shoulder is dislocated or displaced. All I know is it hurts a lot. Also, I rang my mother and she’s bringing someone over to collect my car. She said not to talk to anyone until after she arrives.” The officer smiles at him obeying his mother’s orders at his age. He grins as he adds, “She’s also my solicitor, Amanda Kent-Grey. I think you may have heard of her.”

The officer nods, as his mother is one of the best known solicitors in Canberra. She says, “Yes, I know her. I’d follow her advice as well.” She turns to walk over to check on the young woman in the car, she’s still in her seat and shaking, obviously very upset. The officer is soon helping the young woman out of her car and sits her down in the passengers seat of the police car while her partner waves everyone away from the area.

Ruth slowly walks over while staring at Smoky. She reaches him and says, “Damn, that was incredible. You’re a one man combat team.”

Her comment gets the attention of the first police officer who comes over and says, “If you saw what happened you need to wait around until I can get a statement from you, Miss.”

Ruth nods as she says, “My car’s over there. Can I go to it to sit down for a moment?” The officer nods approval. Ruth goes to her car. Smoky smiles, because as soon as Ruth sits down she pulls out her notebook computer and she starts typing. He thinks she’s doing her statement of the incident so she can get it done and get out of here right now.

More police cars arrive with two uniformed officers to direct traffic and two detectives. The ambulance arrives and they check the woman out. The medics give her a mild sedative and then they look at Smoky’s arm. They feel his shoulder, joint, and upper arm with great care.

One of the ambulance officers diagnoses the arm as being displaced but not a full dislocation. One of them asks, “Want it put back?” Smoky turns to reply, and the other does something to the arm. A short sharp pain then the hurting drops to a mild ache.

Smoky looks at the man working on his arm while saying, “That hurt, you sneaky bastard! Thanks, it doesn’t hurt as much now!”

The man smiles as he replies, “Yeah, a displaced shoulder hurts like hell. I’ve had one, so I know. To help it settle back into place you should get it massaged every day for the next ten days. We can take you to hospital if you want to get an x-ray to be sure it’s back in right.”

While shaking his head no Smoky says, “If it doesn’t settle down by this time tomorrow I’ll get an x-ray. That’ll allow the soft tissue time to relax again.” The man nods his agreement and the two ambulance men sit on the ambulance’s rear step while they finish their paperwork.

The Scene of Crime people arrive and get busy at the same time as Ruth walks over with some papers in her hand. She has a portable office set up in her car which includes a printer and paper. She hands Smoky a sheet of paper, walks over to give one to the young woman, then hands two to one of the police officers first on the scene as she says, “Here’s two copies of my statement of what I saw. I typed it up and printed it out on my computer. I’ve other things I have to do. Can I go now?” The officer reads the statement then nods her approval. Ruth is soon driving away.

After walking over to Smoky the officer says, “According to this you put in one hell of a fight. I know you’re not superman because you got hurt and he doesn’t get hurt. I’ll wait for your solicitor to get a statement. OK?” Smoky simply nods his agreement while reading Ruth’s statement.

Ten minutes later Smoky’s mother arrives, dropped off by one of her office staff. When the car drives off Smoky figures his mother will be driving them home. She walks up and holds out her hand, so he gets the keys out and hands them to her before pointing to the officer in charge. Although the two detectives are sticking their noses into everything the police woman first on the scene hasn’t yet told them who he is.

Amanda walks over to the officer and says, “Hi, Jenny. Can I take him to his car to prepare his statement?” She nods her approval and Amanda waves at Smoky. He gets up to go to his car which is several cars down the row on the other side. They get in, she opens her briefcase, and she types on the computer built into it while he talks. When he stops talking she shows him what’s on the computer, he mentions a few things to change, she makes the changes, they both check it again, he nods his approval, she prints out several copies, and he signs them. Amanda gets out of the car, goes to the police car, gives one copy to the young woman while talking to her for a moment, and the other two copies go to Jenny, the initial police officer, while the two women have a short talk.

Back at the car Amanda gets in and drives off. A bit down the road she says, “Moses, you need to take great care for a while. That young woman’s father is very rich and you just busted up her kidnapping. You also took out the five professionals sent after her. Whoever sent them is sure to be very unhappy with you. Jenny did us both a favour by not telling the detectives about you yet. She’ll just hand them the statements when they finish looking over the scene. If they knew you were more than just an ordinary witness we’d be here hours before we got away. I want you to go away somewhere, anywhere, for the rest of the day. I’ll call you tomorrow to let you know how things are going.”

He sits and thinks for a few minutes before saying, “Can you spare Betty for a few days? I shouldn’t drive, so she can take me fishing.”

Hiding Out

Amanda smiles. Betty is her office manager and she’s nearly old enough to be his grandmother. She treats Amanda like an equal with just a touch of boss respect, but she looks on Moses as the grandson her daughter never had. She says, “Yes. I can let her take the rest of the week off on pay since she’s looking after a client. Damned if I know why she likes you, but she does. I know all you two do out on that lake is fish, sunbathe, and talk, so you may as well take the camper to go to Lake Burrinjuck.” She uses the ’hands-free’ phone accessory to call Betty to tell her what’s going on. Betty is happy to have a few days out on the lake to fish, and on full pay too.

An hour later Betty is driving the Grey family camper-van out of the garage and down the road. Both of them have enough clothes for ten days, now all they need is to stop to get some food on their way out of the city. A short stop at a supermarket is made to get all they need for the next week. They’re on the Barton Highway and passing the village of Hall when Betty says, “Care to tell me what happened?”

Smoky knows his mother didn’t tell Betty about the incident but she must know his mother raced out of the office at short notice and now she’s driving him off on a trip in the luxury camper-van registered to a privately owned company that can’t be traced to the Grey family, but they own it because they own the company that owns the company, etc. They both love driving this big van, but he didn’t even ask about driving it. Smoky just gave her the keys for her to drive instead of having the usual heated discussion over who drives for how long. So Betty knows something serious is up and she now wants to know what it is.

He sighs then says, “I have to get out of town for a few days and be unreachable on my normal phone. Mum has that and I’ve got the ’hide out phone.’ She’ll call when it’s safe for me to return. After this morning’s exam I interrupted a kidnapping in the car park. There was a bunch of them so I hit them hard. One had a gun I didn’t see, one had a knife, and one had a hammer. I smashed into them from behind and scored a strike by knocking them all down. In the process two of them killed two of them, one broke his skull on the gutter, and the guy with the knife landed on it to kill himself. I broke the neck of the fifth one. So they all ended up dead while I hurt my shoulder.”

Betty gives him a quick glance, slowly shakes her head, and asks, “This the first time you’ve really hurt anyone?” He nods, which she sees. “So it’s also the first time you’ve killed someone and you feel a bit sick to the stomach about it.” Another nod. “Your mother may not like what I’m about to say, but I want you to think about this as a case of stomping on a nest of roaches. Real men don’t go around in groups of five to kidnap a person! Only scum and vermin do. Got it?” He turns to stare at her and she catches his head movement out of the corner of her eye. She grins, “You’re not the first person to have to kill someone. I threw up after my first one. But it could’ve been due to all of the bloody mess the shotgun made of him that caused me to be sick.” His eyes go very wide.

Sighing Betty pulls over to the side of the road and parks. She turns to him, “About twenty-five years ago we lived on a farm west of Sydney, near Dural. Jane witnessed some bike gang members shoot someone. The gang came around to shut her up. Jack met them at the gate and they shot him, he was unarmed. Their leader motioned for one of them to open the gate. I was standing nearby with the shotgun because Jack told me to. I aimed at their leader and fired. We only had bird-shot for hunting rabbits and ducks. However, at only fifteen feet it was more than enough for them. The bastard’s head vanished in the blast and blood spurted everywhere. I bent over and threw up. When I came upright again the rest were looking everywhere for where the shooter was. I was bent over behind a bush while being sick, so they didn’t see me. Being so close they weren’t sure of the direction. I pumped another round and fired at the next one, but a little lower. I got all six of them at the gate. One of them who’d hung back a bit turned and raced off. An hour later thirty of them arrived. They drove through the gate with a truck. I was up on a hill to the side of the house with Joe’s old three-oh-three. He taught me how to hunt roos with it soon after we got married. I got seven with the first clip while they came through the gate and I got seven more with the second clip while they spread out on the farm. I was pushing in the fourth clip when the ones still able to do so took off and they left twenty-one of that group as dead scum behind them. Jane didn’t need to testify because the ones she saw kill the man were all now lying dead on my farm. The prosecutor called it self-defence because they were all armed. I wasn’t charged, the dead were buried, then Jane and I moved down here. Just like me, you were busy killing vermin on two legs.”

Smoky is astonished this little frail grandmother shot up a bunch of big, bad, gang members. He slowly shakes his head as he says, “I must remember not to make you angry with me. I figure it’ll hurt a lot. Yes, it’s best to think of it as vermin eradication. But my stomach still feels a little queasy.”

Betty gives him a weak smile while saying, “You’ll get over it. Just make sure you’re up to doing it again when you have to.” He nods to her. “So, I see all of your training and workouts finally paid for themselves. You likely saved that person’s life!” He half frowns. “Smoky, most kidnap victims end up dead, unless they’re a child or young person taken for the slave trade. Thus it’s very probable you saved that person’s life.” He hadn’t seen it that way or thought of that likelihood. However, that point of view does help him to accept the consequences of his actions a lot better. Although all five of the men died because of his intervention the deaths of four were due to the situation or things outside of his control, but he did intentionally hit the man under his chin with the clear knowledge he’d probably kill him with the blow he intended to use.

Both sigh, chat some more, and then get on with their fishing trip. Their talks do help Smoky come to terms with the situation, to fully accept he did the right thing, and to also acknowledge he’ll do it again if he has to. When they stop for fuel Betty refills the van and she pays for it while he hides in the back of the camper-van. They don’t want him to show on any of the fuel depot’s surveillance cameras. A few hours later they’re parked in a camp-site beside Lake Burrinjuck in New South Wales. Betty is busy stabilising the camper-van while Smoky is getting the aluminium boat off the back of the camper by undoing the ties and working the winch to lower it to the ground. They take a side each to carry it over to the lake to put it into the water at the nearby launch spot. Betty unpacks their fishing gear to put it in the boat while Smoky gets the outboard motor and he attaches it to the boat. Thirty minutes later they’re out in the middle of the lake with fishing rods in the water while lying back and softly talking about what he’ll do for a living now he’s finished his university degree.

She asks, “Smoky, you’re always taking photos so the photography studies make sense, but why the business management degree too?”

He grins, “If I know how to run a business I won’t go broke making mistakes running my own photography business.” She slowly nods her head in understanding as her response to his reply because it makes sense, also it’s very typical of the way Smoky and his mother think things through in great detail when they have the time to plan things out first.

Time for a Change

It’s nearing midday of the fourth day at the lake when the two go back to the camper for lunch. They’ve caught a couple of fish and even had one for dinner last night, but they mostly catch and release the fish. As is their routine they turn the phone on to check for text messages. The delay in being given the ’all clear’ is of concern, but not yet an issue. Today the phone has a message: ’Drop by the office as you have to collect a box.’ Both smile because few people would get the message there. It’s not a note to visit the office, but hidden in a simple code is a request to check a cloud-computing storage site they use.

Betty prepares lunch while Smoky gets the boat off the lake, washes and cleans the boat, gear, and motor; secures the boat to the camper; puts the motor away; and stores their gear. He’s back inside when the food is ready for them to eat lunch. After eating they go into the small town of Bookham, NSW, to access the Internet via the computer’s SIM card. The use of the phone system in Bookham can be traced if someone goes to the trouble and expense to do so. However, since it’s a common food stop on a major highway anyone making such checks will likely think the call was while stopped for food while driving down the highway.

Smoky logs in, downloads copies of the two files there, and logs out before opening the encrypted files with his personal security code. The first file is more information on the kidnap victim, her family, and the histories of the kidnap team members. The only people who’ll miss the dead are those who hire them to hurt people, so he’s now feeling a lot better about the outcomes of the incident. The young woman is on her way back to the USA with the security staff her very rich father sent to see to her safety in transit. Her family is very concerned because only ten people knew she was in Australia and only four of them knew where in the country she was or why she was there. The last four are from her family and the others are government officials with access to her passport records. They now suspect a family member is seeking to take over control of the many family businesses. The Coroner has already ruled on the deaths and no action is to be taken against Smoky, but he will have to keep an eye out for the people connected with the kidnappers who may want revenge. Since they’re all Australians that is a major concern to him.

Smoky closes that file and he opens the other file, it’s scanned copies of letters from a law office in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Some distant relative has died and a very old trust he managed is now Smoky’s to manage if he wants to go to the USA and mange it. He has to visit them to finalise the paperwork and take it over.

There’s also a note from his mother suggesting he take over the trust because it’ll give him something to do while it also gets him away from the people in Australia who may want to harm him. She also mentions she sent over scanned copies of the requested documents and she mailed certified copies of the originals; these are the documents proving his heritage and his relationship to the deceased.