Heist, page 1
ROBERT SCHOFIELD
First published in 2013
Copyright © Robert Schofield 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Australia
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ISBN 978 1 74331 520 0
eISBN 978 1 74343 260 0
Set in 12.5/16.5 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Australia
For Emma and her beautiful mother
ignis aurum probat
Seneca
CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ONE
‘What the fuck am I doing here?’
Ford didn’t talk to himself unless he was alone and out of earshot, but it was a question he asked himself every day. Leaning against the handrail, he looked down at the frothing leach tanks beneath him. He stood here every morning. It was the highest platform in the processing plant and the first place to catch the dawn sun. He looked up to the east, where the sky was glowing pink, to the point between two distant hills where the sun would soon appear from below the earth’s sharp edge.
He knew the answer to his question: he could follow the chain of events that had brought him to this empty place in the Australian desert, but knowing how one event had led to another did nothing to explain the inertia that had prevented him from changing course at any point.
He felt the first stirrings of a breeze from the east, cool air being pushed ahead of the rising sun. On the rare days when the wind was from the west, he imagined he could detect a sea breeze, a hint of salt-water freshness from the Indian Ocean, blown across six hundred kilometres of desert. He knew it was wishful thinking. All that was caught in the air was red dust blown off the bush, and wafts of cyanide and xanthate from the tanks beneath him. The smell always seemed to hang in the air. Lingering, not quite distinctive, it was more a metallic taste than a smell, something always on the tip of his tongue, like a half-forgotten memory. When he became aware of it, he wanted to wash it away with a cold beer, which made it worse.
The moon was still shining silver in the west, and below it he could make out Orion dipping to touch the horizon. Its stars seemed closer than the nearest town. As a kid in Manchester, it was the first constellation he had learned. Now it was one of the few he recognised in what felt like an alien sky. He was still not used to it being upside down, hanging there as proof that his world had been turned on its head. He scanned the landscape, measuring the isolation. There were no lights to be seen except the pool of yellow sodium around the processing plant and the white light spilling from the pit.
The sun broke through the gap in the hills. Ford checked his watch. It was a few minutes earlier than the day before, and a day closer to summer. He tried not to think of the heat and the flies that would bring. He preferred the nights when he could sleep without the rattle of the air conditioner. These dawn moments were the most peaceful of his day, but far from silent. He had worn ear protectors on the climb up through the machinery, but by the time he reached the catwalk the noise had faded to a dull clatter and he was able to slip them down around his neck. The steady vibration from the mills came up through his feet. He found the din comforting. It drowned out his thoughts.
He heard the diesel roar of an ore truck straining up the incline in the darkness beyond the plant. Its headlights appeared over the rim of the pit, and it kicked up a cloud of dust as it accelerated along the haul road towards the stockpile. Beyond it was a pair of drill rigs tall enough to catch the first horizontal rays of sun.
Ford reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone, his cigarettes and a lighter. He looked at the phone’s blank screen, shook his head and put it back in his pocket. He tapped out a cigarette and put it between his lips, then leaned over the handrail to check if there was anyone around.
Turning his face to the sun, he lit up and inhaled. He took out the phone again and studied it. The third button he pressed brought the screen to life. Beyond the pit he could see the radio mast with its blinking light, sharing a hill of bare red rock with a water tank, but he still checked the signal strength. The range of the mast was a few kilometres and beyond that the phone would be useless. In its memory he found the only number stored there. He selected it, created a new message and tapped in four digits.
Taking a drag on his cigarette, he stared at the number. He held the smoke down until he could feel the nicotine building, and then he exhaled. The smoke folded itself around his hand. His thumb hovered over the send button.
A couple more deep drags finished the cigarette. He stubbed it out against the handrail and put the butt in his pocket. His hand strayed to his throat and fished inside the neck of his shirt till it found the gold chain around his neck. With a practised motion he pulled it from his shirt and his fingers easily found the small misshapen lump of gold hanging from it.Without moving his eyes from the phone he rolled the small nugget between his fingers.
His thumb moved to the cancel key and he scrubbed the four numbers one by one. Then he punched in the words ‘fuck you’ and hit the send button. He waited a beat for confirmation that the message had been sent, reached out over the handrail and let go of the phone. He watched it fall, the sodium light glinting off it as it tumbled, until it vanished into the bubbling slurry in the tank. By the time the tank was next drained for maintenance, the acid would have done for the phone. He tried not to think about what state he might be in by then.
Putting his ear protectors back on, he headed down. Now it was light he could do his inspection round. His eyes ran automatically over the equipment as he went down the stairs. When he reached the ground he cut across to the cluster of office units. Stopping at the breathalyser unit fixed to the outside wall, he took a straw from the tray and stuck it into the hole in the machine. He blew and waited for the beep. The readout flashed a row of red zeros, and he wrote three noughts on the pad beside the machine and added his signature. He opened the office door and stamped the dust from his boots.
In the chair opposite Ford’s desk sat Werran with a smirk on his face. Ford knew what was coming. He took off his hard hat and hung it on the back of the door. Then he took off his safety glasses, found the cloth in his pocket and slowly wiped the dust off them. He avoided eye contact until Werran gave up waiting.
‘I saw you up there,’ Werran said. ‘Third time I’ve seen you this week.’
It was still cool in the office, and would be until the sun rose higher, but Werran’s forehead shone with sweat. He took off his baseball cap and wiped his brow with his sleeve then slicked back the thin red hair across his scalp. He was dressed the same as Ford, in yellow work shirt and jeans, the Gwardar Gold Mine logo embroidered on the pockets. His plastic identity card hung from a clip on his breast pocket. Werran was the only staff member Ford knew who was smiling in his mugshot. Ford’s eyes were drawn to the neat creases in the other man’s shirt, and he wondered whether he spent his evenings ironing. His own shirt was faded, frayed at the cuffs and mottled with a dozen types of stain. He idly poked a finger through a cigarette burn in the sleeve. A clean shirt was the uniform of a bludger.
‘I thought you quit?’ said Werran.
‘One vice at a time.’ Ford took the butt from his pocket and flicked it at Werran, who flinched as it bounced off his cheek. ‘Bag it and tag it. Exhibit A.’ He slumped down into his chair. ‘You missed your calling. You shouldn’t be wasting your talents chasing health and safety out here. Should be in the city, a big-shot parking inspector, making a real difference to people’s lives.’
Werran reached into his pocket and produced a brass key. He held it out across the desk. Ford stared at it. He had seen it before, but not this close.
‘You’re second key man today.’
‘Don’t want it. Try someone else.’
Werran shook his head. ‘Take the fucking key.’
Ford reached across and Werran dropped
‘Left for Kalgoorlie yesterday, soon as his shift ended. Supposed to hand the key over to you before he went, but you were nowhere to be found.’
‘Out in the workshop all day. He drove?’ Most of the men had flown out on Tuesday for the race round in Kalgoorlie.
‘His choice. Scored an invitation to the corporate marquee for the Cup, so he won’t be slumming it with the boys. He’ll be drinking McCann’s champagne, rubbing shoulders with management in a tent full of office girls. All big hats and skimpy dresses, getting rat-arsed six hundred klicks from responsibility.’
Ford looked at the key in his hand. It changed everything. ‘You had a week to tell me.Why wait till now?’
‘Don’t look like you’re getting a bloody medal. Stevo was supposed to be doing it, but he pulled some bullshit stunt about compassionate leave and drove out yesterday arvo.’
‘Drove to Perth?’
‘Fuck no. He’s in Kal. I reckon the only one seeing any compassion from that mongrel will be one of the lovely ladies of Hay Street.You’re the last man standing.’
‘When’s the milk run?’ asked Ford.
‘Not going out on the plane today. There’s too much.Truck’s coming.’
‘Today? What time?’
Werran checked his watch. ‘They’ll be here at eight, in time for the lock. Got a text real early, telling me the van left Kalgoorlie at five. I’ll see you in there about ten minutes before.’ Looking pleased to have caught Ford off-balance, he hauled himself out of the chair and left the office by the internal door. Ford craned his neck and watched him loiter a few minutes in the corridor, fussing over some safety messages on the noticeboard, and then head towards the crib room.
Ford turned on his computer and stared at it for twenty minutes, unable to focus on his work. Eventually he grabbed his hard hat and went outside to sit on the bench under the shade cloth. He lit a cigarette and looked at the rusted oil can full of sand, overflowing with butts, that marked the smoking area.
On the far side of the plant, parked among stacked containers on a broad stretch of gravel designated as the storage yard, were two low-loaders hooked up to a pair of battered prime movers. They were empty, apart from some equipment under a tarp on the front of each trailer near the cab. Maybe the drill rigs were moving out.
Ford burned through two more cigarettes thinking over his options. None offered him much hope. He pulled a shred of tobacco off the edge of his lower lip and opened the pack to see if a third would help. It was empty. He thought about opening the packet in his top pocket but checked his watch. It was time.
He put on his hard hat and safety glasses and walked across the yard towards the refinery. It was tucked up against the tallest part of the plant and surrounded by a chain-link fence. He punched the four-digit code into the keypad beside the electric gate and it slid open. He walked past the large roller door and stopped at the personnel door beside it. The corrugated-steel door had an identical keypad, and the video camera on a bracket above it covered the gate and the approach to both doors. Ford keyed in the number again, tilted his face towards the camera and waited for the buzz.
Once inside, it took him a moment to adjust to the darkness and the heat. There were no windows. The furnace was cold and the equipment stood idle, but the room held the heat from the day before when there had been a pour.
Two men were already in the room, waiting for him. Werran stood at the long bench beneath a pair of dusty TV screens monitoring what was going on outside. He had a clipboard and was pointing out some figures to Bill Petkovic. They didn’t interrupt their conversation to acknowledge Ford. He looked nervously around the room, checking the equipment out of habit. His eye was drawn to the vault in the corner. Its concrete walls filled nearly a quarter of the room. As he looked, its steel door buzzed for a moment and then emitted a soft click. Ford checked his watch. It was eight exactly.
The noise snapped Werran to attention. He straightened his back and pushed out his chest. ‘Time lock. We’re on. Front gate rang a minute before you arrived, Ford. Van just checked through. Let’s open up.’
He went to the vault and concentrated on the combination wheel in the centre of the door, the dial as large as his hand. He twisted the wheel, leaning close to see the etched numbers and to hear the soft clicks, his lips moving as he remembered the sequence. Ford shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Petkovic was scraping the dirt from under his fingernails with a pocketknife.
At the next click,Werran released his breath and pulled down on the lever above the wheel. The door was clearly heavier than he’d expected and he had to grab the lever with both hands and lean back to swing it open. The vault inside was dark. He reached in and turned on the light switch and a single neon tube pinged and stuttered.
It was the first time Ford had seen the inside of the vault, and it was only just large enough for the three of them to fit inside. A plain wooden chair stood on the concrete floor next to the small steel safe. On the safe sat a child’s piggy bank.
Werran held up his key. ‘Ford, show me your key so Bill can witness that both key holders are present.’ Ford rummaged in his pants pocket and produced it.‘Bill, could you please confirm both keys?’
‘Do you want a fucking salute as well?’ Petkovic muttered as he parked himself in the chair next to the safe.
A horn sounded outside. Ford and Werran stepped out of the vault and returned to the monitors. They could see the armoured van backed up to the mesh gate and a guard standing in front of the camera grinning at them. Werran pressed a button next to the monitor and the electric gate opened. The guard returned to the cab and the van reversed through the gate. Once the gate was closed, Werran pushed the second button and the roller door at the front of the refinery ground into life. Sunlight flooded into the room and Ford put a hand over his eyes. Once the van was backed in, the door rolled down behind it and the room returned to dim artificial light.
The driver killed the engine and the cab’s doors swung open. Both uniformed men got out, leaving their helmets on the seat.
‘Glad to see we’re not the only sad bastards having to work during the race round,’ said the driver, yawning and scratching his head. ‘What did you losers do wrong?’
The guard was engrossed in a form on his clipboard. He was taller than the driver, with heavy shoulders that sloped as if being pulled down by their own weight. He walked over to Werran and thrust the clipboard under his nose. ‘Check the docket and let’s get on with it.’
Werran looked at the clipboard, then turned to Ford and nodded towards the vault. They went back inside and Werran inserted his key into a hole on the left side of the safe’s door. He looked jumpy, but Ford found the bare cold space calming. ‘Where does mine go?’ he asked.
Werran sighed and pointed to the matching keyhole on the right. Ford slid in the key and turned it. He heard the click as the lock disengaged, and took out the key and put it back in his pocket. Werran yanked the handle and swung open the door. Petkovic didn’t move from his seat, but the other four men gathered in a semicircle and bent down in unison to stare at the stack of gold bricks in the safe.
‘Why so much?’ asked Ford. He counted eight twenty-kilo bars on the floor of the safe. He did the mental arithmetic: with the gold price running as high as it was, there was more than eight million at his feet.
‘They’ve been holding back for a while,’ said Werran. ‘McCann’s putting on a show for some investors during the races. Marco reckons he’s going to park the van in the middle of his corporate marquee and lock the buggers in the back one at a time. Five minutes alone with this little pile and the greed will be sweating out of them.’
‘Are you going to keep staring at it or are you going to load the fucking stuff on the van?’ Petkovic asked the driver. ‘Your mate in the back is probably getting a bit lonely.’
Ford looked back at the van and heard someone moving about inside it.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ said the driver. ‘He sits in there all day with his little murder mystery novels, his headphones plugged into his music. I think he likes it in there.’
Werran bent at the knees, lifted the top bar from the safe and handed it to the guard. Ford took the next in both hands. He followed the guard to the van and, copying the other man’s actions, put the gold bar into the deep steel tray mounted in a recess in the side of the vehicle. The tray slid back and the bar disappeared. Metal banged on metal as the man inside stacked it with the first bar. Petkovic grunted impatiently behind him, so Ford turned away and went back to the safe. Werran handed him another bar, and he stood waiting while the men ahead of him loaded.
