K9 Blue: Ground Zero

Chapter 1

The cold winter air filled the big man’s lungs as he charged through the darkness of the thick gum tree forest. He laboured to keep up with his best mate and partner, who dragged him at breakneck pace. Police dog Falcon had his nose to the ground, his breath turning instantly to steam after each lungful of their quarry’s scent. Trained to hunt humans, he wouldn’t stop until he had run this man down. Mike Winters slid ten metres of tracking line back and forth through his fingers. The friction from the line burned blisters into his flesh, but Falcon was merciless. He powered through the dark, straining his massive chest against his leather harness.

Training for countless hours on paddocks and deserted industrial areas under the ever-watchful eye of their trainers had helped them perfect the art of tracking. Mike knew every inch of his partner; what every flick of his tail or turn of his head meant. Likewise, Falcon knew his ‘dad’ and responded to every command and word of encouragement. He felt every silent instruction given through his lead or along the tracking line, and was able to act instantly.

Falcon drove his hind legs hard into the terrain, throwing up leaves and dust. They were on a hot track, which meant the pace was fast. Fine for a dog, but seriously dangerous for a six foot tall, 110-kilogram police officer. Mike couldn’t see his own hands let alone the uneven surface beneath the thick undergrowth, which constantly threatened to take hold of his legs and slam him to the ground. He didn’t care; the man they were tracking had to be stopped before he was able to strike again.

Five hundred metres ahead, a shadowy figure fought to catch his breath. Doubled over, he forced as much air into his lungs as he could. He cursed his habit, picked up his knife and stumbled on with a pained smile. He was confident he’d lost the cops. His insatiable desire for another victim started to swell inside, and the smooth-talking voices within soon convinced him he had to have another.

Thirty minutes earlier, he had finished with his fifteenth victim. He’d convinced himself again: ‘That North Shore bitch got everything she deserved. I did the cow a favour, just like all the others.’

He had cloaked himself expertly, slipping through the darkness — unseen and unheard – waiting until he wanted them to see him. His desires and urges mounted as he studied up close every movement they made, listened to every word they uttered. Emerging out from the shadows, he would take them completely by surprise. His heart would jump with each startled scream. His excitement and feeling of supremacy would surge. Tying them down, he would sit on a chair and give them a lesson on everything he had learned, what they had been doing, and how the more he watched, the more he hated. He took great delight as the horror in each frantic woman’s eyes grew the longer the lesson went.

Depending on his mood and how much he liked them, he would talk for a few minutes or a few hours before forcing the final humiliation upon them. He sniggered, remembering the looks of hope they would get. Mesmerised, he would watch as the light flickered then died out behind their eyes.

His calling card left no one in doubt. He would study each house, taking care to place each bloodied trophy in a position for maximum effect – a grisly proof of the loved one’s last tortured moments.

This time, however, he had been disturbed. Hurriedly, he finished his work then slipped away. No one except his victims had ever laid eyes on him. He never left prints, nothing. All the police ever got were crime scenes that told an awful story.

His last victim, Julie, from Military Road, Mosman, had a boyfriend. He had come to visit unexpectedly, watching suspiciously as the stranger reversed casually out from the garage in her Audi. He had tried to stop him driving away in Julie’s prized S4 sedan. The unknown driver simply stared at him with dead dark eyes from behind a balaclava.

The young man was gripped by fear. Running up the front stone stairs of the small white house, he gagged and gasped for breath. Flinging open the front door, he was confronted by Julie’s lifeless eyes staring helplessly back at him, suspended in the last tortured moments of her life. Summoning all his strength, the distraught man rang triple-zero. Sobbing the details to the police, he pleaded for them to come quickly.

The murderer was trying to get out of the leafy Mosman peninsula as fast as possible. The police had cars everywhere. Officers had been pulled from every police station and support command from every corner of the state. They had no leads, no forensic evidence and no idea. The only option open to the desperate detectives in Task Force Roman was to saturate Sydney’s North Shore with as many police as possible, then pray for the maniac to stick his head up. A frantic triple-zero phone call had just made Mosman the centre of the police universe.

One minute the streets were empty, and the next it was like being in a dodgem car rink. The killer floored the Audi S4 and entered the Spit Road sideways, scorching all four tyres in a cloud of smoke and exhaust as he forced his way through the Friday night traffic. He was blocked and baulked by both police and civilian motorists. This was as close as the police had ever been.

No matter how hard he pushed the superb German sports car, he couldn’t shake the Highway Patrol V8s as he accelerated towards Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Two thundering sedans sat a metre from his rear, punching high-beam headlights and flickering strobe lights into his cabin. They blinded his mirrors and pushed his level of panic to the maximum. His mind was processing a hundred images and thousands of pieces of data. Desperately the voices screamed instructions inside his head,

‘GO, GO, GO! YOU CAN’T LET THEM CATCH US.’

‘KILL ANYONE WHO GETS IN OUR WAY.’

‘DON’T STOP FOR ANYTHING — RUN.’

Then, through the flashing haze, he saw his opportunity. He entered the very tight and off-camber S-bends that lead down the hill towards the Spit Bridge. Planting his foot to the firewall, he drove the high-powered, all-wheel-drive car straight into the side of a Toyota Prius that was crawling at the speed limit in the outside lane. The glancing blow sent the Prius straight into the guardrail in a hail of smoke and flying glass. The Audi bounced off the side of the smaller car, fishtailed and continued on down the steep road. Both Highway Patrol cars had to brake to avoid the carnage. One of them couldn’t get out of the way and slammed front-on into the Prius’s driver-side door.

The murderer smiled. He had a break now, and took advantage by crossing the bridge at over 200 kilometres an hour, pushing the car’s design and tyres to the absolute limit. The cops were still there, but 300 metres behind. He laughed out loud to himself, yelling at the top of his voice, ‘You have rules — I don’t, arseholes!’

The demons chimed in. ‘You’re the man. They can’t stop us now. Let’s teach them a lesson; time for another to die.’

He continued on. Turning hard left he shot through the Seaforth shopping strip without backing off for a second. Still with a 300-metre break, he powered onto the Wakehurst Parkway where it was pitch-black. He pushed hard, turbo whining at full throttle into the national park. He was congratulating himself, convinced he had got away with it, when he caught a movement from the left side of the road.

With a bone-jarring explosion, the kangaroo entered the cabin feet-first, shattering the windscreen which had hit it at over 200 kilometres an hour. No matter how good the design, at this speed there was no way the muscular, solid beast was going to simply bounce off. The stricken car swerved, braked, then skidded sideways for 100 metres before slamming rearwards into a gum tree, creating a brilliant explosion of falling eucalyptus leaves amid billowing dust.

‘Harbourside 225, urgent! The Audi has crashed! The Audi has crashed!’ screamed Highway Patrol over the police radio.

The V8 protested as the red-hot brakes forced the big sedan from 240 kilometres an hour down to a dead stop. The officers rushed inside the cloud of smoke, guns drawn, but fully expecting to drag a dead body from the deformed and smoking German sports car. Instead, all they found was the twitching, bloodied carcass of the kangaroo. It lay dying, still stretched across the dashboard with its head and front paws hanging out of the shattered remains of the windscreen. They shone torches in every direction, trying to pierce the choking dust.

‘Harbourside 225, he’s out of the vehicle and we can’t locate him. We need the dog here asap.’

‘Dog 26, your location?’

‘Dog 26, I’m on my way to the scene right now. Get everybody we have on every road to form a perimeter, we need to box him in.’ He managed a grim smile: they were in the middle of hundreds of acres of gum tree forest — perfect for a police dog.

Mike pulled up and jumped out of his ute, running to the rear where he dropped the tailgate, grabbed Falcon’s tracking harness and released his mate from where he eagerly awaited. Falcon knew the job was on — the sirens and lights along with Mike’s urgency told him they were off to work. Broad-chested and proud, forty kilos of muscular German shepherd bounded out of the car, automatically threading his powerful head into the choker chain at the end of his lead. Mike’s arms were almost pulled from their sockets as the black-and-tan monster dragged him towards the line of trees, exactly where the perpetrator had fled. Growling and salivating, he was showing Mike he knew the target was close, that he could smell him.

Mike commanded Falcon into a sit, and then slid the tracking harness over the dog’s head and ears and locked the buckle and ten-metre line into position. The command to ‘find’ sent Falcon into a controlled frenzy. Lowering his black nose to the ground, he hoovered up the dirt until he found the scent he was looking for. His thick, heavy tail started wagging at the same time as his hind legs thrust into the loose sand at the side of the road, driving his body towards the dark tree-line. Mike gave him a quiet ‘good boy’ as he released the tracking line through his hands and moved off with Falcon showing the way. Mike knew by watching the big dog’s determination and focus that he was on the driver’s trail and nothing short of killing his dog was going to stop him.

‘Dog 26, I have a track east into the bush from the crash site. Keep all police out of here and on a perimeter. I don’t want the dog to find them — I want this offender.’

‘Copy that, Dog 26. For your information, the owner of the vehicle is deceased, another victim of the Head Hunter.’

‘Dog 26, copy.’

Adrenaline pumping, and concentrating hard on Falcon, Mike hardly noticed his own physical effort. For thirty minutes they followed the scent, the low branches and uneven ground whipping and scratching them as they tracked on. Sweat stained Mike’s dark blue overalls, but all the time he was concentrating on what Falcon was telling him. If the dog slowed down and stopped wagging his tail, Mike knew that the track had changed direction. He would increase the back pressure on the tracking line by clamping his thumb down hard and stopping still. Falcon would search around the circumference of the line, and go back into his tracking gait when he found the scent, wagging his tail and driving his hind legs hard. They were getting closer. Falcon was starting to pull even harder, and occasionally lifted his head to take in the wind-borne scent left by whoever was running just ahead. Mike could hear the offender: there was a faint movement in the darkness. The echo of pounding feet on the dry, dusty surface was also impossible to conceal. The Head Hunter was within their grasp.

‘Come on, mate, let’s take all the happiness out of this arsehole’s day,’ he puffed encouragingly.

The tone in Mike’s voice zapped the message straight down the tracking line to Falcon, who by now was bashing through the undergrowth using his nose to zero in on the target. They burst out into a clearing where Mike could finally see the distinct shadow of a human, some twenty metres directly in front and moving fast. Falcon saw him, too; he barked and growled, eager to take down the figure. He could sense the urgency from his master and smell the fear emanating from the sprinting psychopath.

‘POLICE! Stop or I’ll release the dog,’ Mike yelled.

The sweating, panting figure still had thirty to forty metres to run before he could reach the safety of the tree-line. He heard the challenge, and the growl and bark. He knew he had three choices: stop and give up; stop and fight; or keep running. He had no intention of going back to jail, where he would no doubt be trapped in a stupor of prescription drugs and forced solitude for the rest of his life.

The demons screamed again: ‘KILL THEM, KILL THEM, KILL THEM!’

He stopped, turned, and drew the carving knife from its leather sheath, moonlight glinting on the long, sharp blade.

Mike had lit up the clearing with his high-powered torch. The twisted, foreboding figures which a second earlier had made up the thick forest turned to the familiar friendly surrounds of the Australian bush. Standing facing them was the man who had spread so much terror and fear over the North Shore of Sydney. Dressed in black and wearing a balaclava, the silent figure stood square-on to the two law officers. Brandishing the blade in his gloved right hand, he made a dangerous proposition. Mike moved in closer, straining to hold back the barking, salivating German shepherd. The criminal just stood there, his chest heaving from the exertion of the chase. His hot, heavy breath misted in the night chill, adding to his phantom-like appearance.

Mike’s adrenaline pumped as he realised this was no two-bit shit bag but an armed psychopath, without a doubt prepared to kill anyone who wanted to arrest him. His hands shaking, he took a deep breath and unhooked the tracking line from Falcon’s harness, while taking a firm hold of the centre-top handle with his left hand. Falcon’s huge orange eyes stayed focused on the murderer. He knew what had to be done and waited impatiently, bucking and surging, waiting for his master to let go. They studied the target from ten metres away, a distance great enough to give them both time to react if this clown decided to go on the offensive.

‘POLICE! Drop the weapon and get on the ground! If you try and run, I’ll release the dog.’

Nothing. He just stood staring with dead, dark holes reminding Mike of a Great White Shark’s evil black eyes.

‘Look, mate, you’re not going anywhere. We’ve all run a long way tonight, we’re all buggered. Why don’t you pack it in and give up, eh?’

In a low and menacing voice, the murderer replied: ‘Make me.’

Mike looked down at Falcon, who was totally focused on the menacing figure in front of him. He knew then that there was only going to be one way to take this lunatic in: violently. He drew his .40-calibre Glock pistol, the curved rough grip of the handle fitting his hand comfortably, giving him confidence. Fifteen police rounds and a police dog versus a psycho and his knife. Mike liked his chances, but did not underestimate the ability of the man in front of him. He switched off the torch as he switched on the light source attached to the base of his pistol. Still enough to light up his target, but not quite enough to keep blinding him. There was no way he could wait for backup, as he had lost radio communications and didn’t know how many other coppers, if any, were following him in. He and Falcon were going to have to handle the situation alone. He couldn’t risk letting this criminal escape.

Falcon started to go berserk again, straining as they moved forward to take his target on. The dog didn’t know what this guy had done and he didn’t know how dangerous he really was. He just knew that he was going to take him down with his dad like they had done so many times before.

Mike and Falcon edged in closer. ‘DROP THE WEAPON. GET ON THE GROUND!’

At three metres, the phantom moved. He passed the glinting knife back and forth between his hands in an attempt to keep the pig and his dog guessing. Bending forward, he moved in a wide circle, daring the two of them to come in closer to where he could drive his blade through their flesh. Gutting them would be a pleasure. Unfortunately for him, though, his eyes were still trying to adjust from the torch’s intense light to the relative darkness supplied by the smaller light source. The loose branches and rocks strewn over the uneven surface of the clearing gave way beneath his boots, sending him down on one knee with the knife still firmly in his hand.

This was Mike’s chance. He didn’t hesitate for even half a second. Screaming his command for Falcon to attack, he released his aching grip from the straining harness. ‘GET HIM!’

Falcon shot forward with total focus and purpose. Flying through the air, he hit his target on the full and clamped his jaws down around the sinewy biceps of the murderer, who yelped when he saw a full white set of canines scream out of the darkness and straight into his arm. Mike’s command to attack wasn’t really necessary — Falcon knew what had to be done and he was doing it. The murderer was knocked completely off-balance, crashing to the ground. Mike quickly slammed his pistol back into its holster and grabbed hold of his large aluminium torch, all the while moving in to help out his mate. There was no hesitation; his partner had done the hard part, now it was Mike’s turn to earn his money. This psycho was still armed.

‘Good boy — give it to him, mate!’ The big cop came over the top of Falcon, who was still clamped down on the murderer’s arm and violently shaking his head back and forth, driving his canines further and further into the tearing flesh. The big dog growled as he pig-rooted his prey back towards the dark line of trees. Mike momentarily lost sight of the blade.

‘Shit, shit, shit. Where’s the knife?’ Mike swung the torch down as hard as he could on the murderer’s arm, just as he viciously hacked the blade out of the dark at Falcon’s snout. The torch smashed into the man’s forearm, shattering the bone with a brutal strike. It stopped the blade attack in its tracks and propelled the deadly steel onto the ground, clattering out of sight. Mike dropped the torch and drew his right fist high above his head.

‘Giddy up!’ he yelled.

His fist slammed straight down into the centre of the balaclava with a sickening thud that shattered bone and cartilage, spreading the man’s nose flat across his face. His head bounced off the unforgiving ground with a crack. Mike swore, rubbing his swelling knuckles in his left hand. The man went limp, his balaclava stained with the blood which poured from his broken nose. Falcon was still biting down hard and fighting, the punch spurring him on. He wouldn’t quit until he was told to. Triumphantly he dragged the unresisting carcass across the rocky ground. Mike located the blade and bagged it, and then yelled his command to Falcon, who reluctantly let go. He trotted back to Mike’s side, but never once took his eyes off the prized catch. Mike gave his dog a well-deserved pat on his head.

‘Some of your best work, mate. Well done.’

Although he couldn’t understand the words, the big dog understood the tone and knew his boss was happy with him. Mike told him to stay while he slammed the now-moaning body onto his chest and handcuffed him. No point in taking chances.

‘Now, let’s have a look at you, arse-wipe.’ Mike rolled the prisoner over, grabbed the base of the balaclava and ripped it up as roughly as he could. What he saw didn’t surprise him at all. He mopped away the blood, smearing an ugly red patch over the cruel, skinny face. Fighting the urge to lay on a few more cheap shots, Mike spat his words into the murderer’s ear.

‘Well, arsehole, I’m not carrying you back. You’re going to walk whether you like it or not. Get on your feet.’

‘I can’t, my arms are broken. Keep that fucking dog away from me,’ he whined.

‘Get up or I’ll leave you with my partner.’

He pointed towards Falcon, who was sitting a metre away, staring and growling. ‘I’m a fucking saint compared to him, so I suggest you get up and start walking.’

Mike watched, standing dead still with no intention of helping his prisoner in any way. The defeated man dragged himself up and started to limp back across the clearing into the thick scrub. Not a word was spoken on the return. All that could be heard was the cracking of the undergrowth and Falcon panting heavily as he trotted dutifully beside his handler, watching the prey, who was now under their complete control.

As the adrenaline had worn off, Mike’s feet dragged heavily in his boots and he suddenly felt very, very drained. The radio on his belt burst back into life, with constant chatter replacing the static that had been all he could receive deep inside the forest. He was relieved to be picking up the main working channel for the Northern Beaches area.

‘Standing by for Dog 26,’ the operator pleaded.

‘Dog 26, standing by.’

‘Dog 26, go ahead. What’s the situation and what’s your location?’

‘Dog 26. One in custody, weapon secured. I’m walking him back out to the crash scene. You’d better organise an ambulance — he’s been bitten by my dog.’

‘Dog 26, copy that — and well done!’