A Tropical Cure (A Darren Mangan Thriller Book 2) Read online

  A TROPICAL CURE

  by John Hollenkamp

  " …killing someone leaves a hole in your heart; sometimes you have to put it in someone else’s…"

  This is a fictional story. All names, characters, portrayals, organisations, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination, and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations, businesses, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 John Hollenkamp

  The right of John Hollenkamp to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment ( Moral Rights ) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, John Hollenkamp.

  A TROPICAL CURE: published by AKROKKA PUBLISHING

  www.johnhollenkampauthor.com

  Cover Graphic Realisation: Duncan Carling-Rodgers – Business Communications Management – bcm-online.com.au

  in consultation with John Hollenkamp

  Knife and blood images used under license from Shutterstock.com; Chironex fleckeri by Gautsch, CC BY-SA 2.0

  E Book Formatting: Duncan Carling-Rodgers – Business Communications Management – bcm-online.com.au

  Dedication

  Carol - for your constant patience, support and love...

  Johannes and Mitson - anything's possible... you guys are the best!

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  PROLOGUE

  Townsville.

  He’d been still for fifteen minutes. Stalking prey required patience. He had all the time in the world. The turbid water in which he lay had started to flow faster, not rushing but pushing harder against his head. Just below his eyes. His short, powerful legs hung perfectly motionless, his body floating without effort, suspended just below the water surface. His long, thick tail trailed behind only moving enough to keep his body from changing direction.

  The scent from the red-legged pademelon had drawn him here. The little wallaby had returned for the last three nights. Same spot, varying her arrival with the idiosyncrasy of the tides. He had been watching her. Her hind legs were slightly stuck to the mud. That would slow her down. Her joey, still too small to feed or drink on his own, big enough to hamper her agility. She was nervous, she would lap up a small amount of the salty water, then look up, her head darting from left to right.

  Wrong. You should be looking ahead, in front of you. Silly pademelon.

  She had come to drink from the brackish water. There was no fresh water anywhere near here. Fresh water would have been sweeter. It’s what happens in the dry season. The fresh water dries up further inland, and the silly animals wander towards the coast. Only brackish water here. Silly pademelon. And slowly his tail swirled…

  Suddenly, a disturbance in the quiet of the night, a sound like a tree trunk rolling…then a loud splash! Water whooshing over the surface.

  Instantly, … the Pademelon had gone!

  His pupils narrowed to a vertical slit.

  Instinctively, he ducked. The water had quickly filled the void. Then he resurfaced, metres from where he’d floated below the surface with only his eyes out of the water.

  Incensed… who enters my domain? And his head rose higher out of the dark water, but only enough for him to smell, and to see. So easy did his tail swirl…and he glided towards where the splash had come from. Who enters my domain?

  ***

  Bordering one of Townsville’s northern suburbs is a large tract of barren scrubland to the east and south. This flat flood-zone is silt-laden and pock-marked with dry scrub, and far from pretty. Within this isolated five-square kilometre area a tributary of the Bohle River system, Stony Creek does a mind-boggling meander. Thick mangroves line Stony Creek and add to the feeling of desolation should you get lost in this maze. At night, the quiet is often disturbed by Bush-Stone Curlews, whose eerie shrieks may scare some who venture here. At certain times of the year, you might even discern the hatching calls made by female crocs, warning other crocodiles her brood is about to be born.

  The scrubland is popular with hoons on dirt-bikes or in four-wheel drives, or grubs who leave their rubbish behind after a picnic day on the piss; of course, there are also dumped stolen cars, or the skeletons that remain after stripping. The debris left behind serves as witness to many deeds and crimes committed under the cover of darkness, or the isolation in day-light hours.

  One can find many objects casually and deliberately disposed of … or accidentally, like a taxi-driver’s shoe …

  CHAPTER 1

  TAXI RIDE

  Eddie couldn’t use a touchpad mobile phone – his fingertips were too big and cumbersome to get the numbers or letters consistently right. He punched the six-digit numbers on his old Motorola flip-phone, one with keypad buttons. The ringer on other end of the line went for five cycles before a mechanical voice answered, “Northern Taxis…pick-up address please…”

  Townsville in February. Hot and steamy. He glanced at his watch
: 9.47pm. The evening temperature was still up in the high twenties, he was sure of that. No wind, his shirt stuck to his back. Sometimes the heat and the humidity would send him troppo, tonight he could come close. When’s this taxi coming? Then he heard a car in the distance, a dull beam appeared at the corner of the street. The taxi approached a sluggish pace. The brakes squealed as it pulled up. Eddie gave it the once over before opening the back door on the passenger side, sliding into the cool, air-conditioned space. After he exchanged a nod with the cab driver through the mirror, he settled into the comfortable and cool, vinyl seat.

  “Where you are going, sir?” the foreign cab driver asked, with heavy accent.

  “Northshore.”

  “Okay, you tell me which way you want to go.” The driver flicked his eyes from the road ahead to the rear-view mirror repeatedly.

  “Get onto the highway and head north, to Dover Plains. Know where that is?” A gruff instruction.

  “Yes.” The driver’s hands were firmly clasped around the wheel.

  “Don’t fuck me around with a long ride either. Sick of you idiots not knowing where to go. It’s your job. You’re a fucking cabdriver,” Eddie grumbled.

  The cabdriver fidgeted and sat straighter.

  His glassy eyes shimmered when lighting from shopfronts and the street flashed intermittently on his face.

  “Yes, I understand. I know Dover Plains. I go there now.”

  Eddie gazed into the mirror and caught the foreign driver’s dark eyes twice. The big ex-boss of the Devil’s Sinners Motorcycle Club sat in the rear seat scheming his intimidation. For the next ten minutes, nothing was said. Eddie observed the driver relaxing a little, until the two-way radio crackled “…pick up for two Mount Alexander…” The driver started to answer.

  “Leave it!” Eddie’s eyes shot an angry glare into the mirror, don’t touch that radio! it said. The driver released his hand from the microphone.

  Back to silence.

  After several minutes, “How long have you been driving taxis?”

  “Six months. It is good job,” the driver replied.

  “Turn into the Sandy Point road, the off-ramp up ahead.”

  “Yes. You can tell me where you want to go?”

  “Tell ya when I’m ready,” Eddie spoke sharply.

  The cab driver tightened his lips, his eye-lids flickered. Eddie could smell the fear from the cab driver: the fear of an unknown destination, or an unpredictable passenger, or worse. That’s what made Eddie so good at intimidation – understanding the energy of fear.

  “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Bilal. I am from Pakistan.”

  “Bee-lal, hmm…”

  “Yes, Bilal.”

  Bilal pressed the signal lever down, and to the clicking sound of the indicator he steered the cab onto the exit ramp while maintaining a steady speed of sixty. Parts of the road to Sandy Point were not well-lit. “We are at your house soon?” Bilal enquired anxiously.

  “Just keep driving, Bilal.”

  Bilal felt his heart beat flutter. His fingers ached, the tension in them made steering the car very heavy. There was an eerie absence of traffic, all the homes along the road appeared abandoned. Bilal suddenly felt alone. He glanced at his Seiko watch trying to avoid any attention from this passenger – a very large man who looked very scary. Bilal remembered the warning from his cousin, “Driving taxis is a dangerous job, you should stick to computer programming. Much safer.” His cousin’s words echoed. Easy for you to say. I must feed my family. Bilal would reply without words.

  “Keep going towards Sandy Point .”

  “Yes.” After a few moments, Bilal ventured, “And what is your name?”

  “Never you fucking mind. Turn right here.”

  Bilal was relieved. Ocean Parade was a dead end at the boat-ramp, so they wouldn’t be travelling much further, but his passenger had said nothing as they passed the last homes on either side of the road. Bilal knew the next five hundred metres of Ocean Parade was surrounded by bush and ran along a mangrove-lined Stony Creek. Crocodiles had been spotted here. Now he became nervous and fearful, but it wasn’t the crocs he was worried about. Silently he was hoping the two-way radio would sound, so he could at least tell base where he was. Alone on a deserted road with a terrifying passenger.

  “Slow down. Turn into this track.” Eddie speared his left arm in front of the wide-eyed cabdriver pointing at a narrow dirt track. On purpose, Eddie did not retract his arm, instead he drew it closer to Bilal’s neck, just touching the petrified cabdriver’s lower chin. Eddie pulled his arm closer, tightening.

  Bilal swung the taxi, abruptly swerving it onto the sandy track. He felt the blood draining from his face. He could count the passenger’s hairs on his thick forearm. He felt an urge to pee. His foot came off the accelerator from panic, slowing the cab instantly. Stopped, the bright beam of the headlights shone into the bush and blackness beyond. He shrunk into his driver’s seat, from the mirror he eyed the dark shadow behind him. Past the fading beam of the headlights it was dark, desolate and hopeless, it was like he was looking inside his mind.

  Eddie’s face inched closer, his breathing steady.

  “Unless you want to die right here you’d better put that foot back on the go-pedal and start moving,” Eddie hissed into Bilal’s ear.

  The taxi lurched forward and Bilal negotiated the first hundred metres of sandy track with too much speed causing the car to slide from side to side on the gravelly surface.

  “Slow down you idiot, you’ll get us both killed!” Eddie barked.

  Bilal steadied the slewing car and dropped the speed back to a fast crawl. Eddie kept his arm around Bilal’s chest.

  “What you want? I do nothing. I just driving taxi. Please, my family,” Bilal pleaded on the verge of sobbing.

  “Shut the fuck up and drive.” Eddie retracted his arm, instead he put his large hand around the cabdriver’s throat, while exerting gentle pressure Eddie felt the thumping of the driver’s heart through his thick fingers.

  “I give you money. I have some money, please you take,” Bilal spluttered.

  “Slow down.” Eddie’s breath was brushing Bilal’s ear. “Now see that there. Take that track, and just drive, slowly.” Eddie pointed with his finger.

  The dancing light beam shone on a line of scraggly scrub ahead, near the centre of it was a grey gap, leading the way into a darkened tunnel. The springs in the taxi were now squeaking like an orchestra of confused violins. Approaching from the sparsely vegetated sandy clearing, the entry of the track narrowed to a car width within metres. Long thin branches, barely a centimetre thick with only a scant cover of leaves slapped against the side of the cab, occasionally springing into Bilal’s face.

  The drive went for minutes on end, until the scrub finally separated, disappearing from headlight view.

  “Slow now.”

  “Please you take money. Please.”

  “Right plant it here. That means, fuckin’ stop, you ignorant black shit.”

  The taxi stopped. Eddie reached for the key in the ignition, killed the engine, snatched the keys and dropped them on the floor next to him. “Kill the lights, and turn off that fucking two-way. Now!”

  Bilal’s face started to glisten from tears running down his cheeks. Frozen, he was unable to switch off the headlights. Eddie pushed the man forward with such force that his forehead slammed against the steering wheel. It stunned Bilal momentarily, allowing Eddie to reach the light switch. Click. It was dark. Inside the cab the two-way radio was glowing green and white. It was still on. Then…”forty-four where are you?”

  No one replied. Then again … “Bilal. Got a pick-up in Mount Alexander …”

  “Turn it off!”

  Bilal heard a car door open. The crazy passenger is getting out … He is opening my door. “No, please, please no. Don’t hurt me.” Bilal felt his shirt collar being grabbed, the second button on his shirt hitting his Adam’s apple, squeezing his windpipe. Hi
s forehead hit the door-pillar, his right knee caught the edge of the hinge, instantly sending pain. The man had pulled him from his seat, his legs fell to the ground but he could not stand.

  Eddie dragged the cab driver along the ground and dropped him a few metres away from the taxi. Around them, the pitch black of the night had softened to a grey from a half-moon glow.

  “I’m looking for one of your mates,” Eddie broke the short silence, “A white guy with a moustache. Skinny and tall, curly brown hair. Looks like the guy from Magnum PI.”

  The two-way buzzed out loud. Eddie twisted in anger, snatched a rock from the ground, stomped to the taxi and smashing the front of the radio, pulverising the device with several violent smacks.

  Bilal swallowed his spit, his mouth was dry, mind all jumbled up. White man. What white man? “I don’t know. I…do not understand…PI…What is PI?” A sudden pain hit him under his kidney, the impact causing him to buckle over and collapse to the ground, his mouth swallowed some dry dirt.

  “There’s more of that, if you don’t answer my questions.”

  Eddie ogled the little man groaning on the ground. Fucking migrant bastards. Eddie really hated Asians, especially the weak and skinny ones who wouldn’t answer his questions. The skinny cab driver started to cough and heave uncontrollably.

  “Stop carrying on like a baby.” Eddie growled.

  “I…I cannot speak. I do not know him.”

  Bilal started trembling.

  “Yes, you fuckin’ do,” Eddie lashed out again, and kicked the poor cabdriver in the lower back. Bilal convulsed and contorted his body into an awkward position. Eddie bent over the slight man. You little Asian cunt, you’re faking all of this. I’ll fuckin’ show you. With one hand clasped on Bilal’s shirt collar Eddie lifted Bilal’s upper body and head, with the other he balled a fist and drove it into the cabdriver’s face.

  The punch echoed like a splat.

  Eddie let go the man’s collar, and the cabdriver flopped to the ground, his head falling sideways hitting a sharp rock, blood gushing from his mouth and nose. A pool of blood on the ground from the back of his scalp appeared and grew larger.

  What the fuck. Surely he can’t be unconscious from that little tap. Eddie prodded the lifeless body with his boot.