Matt Rogers
Isolated
“Man is the cruelest animal.”
PROLOGUE
Officer William Brandt of the Jameson Police Department unlocked his front door and stepped into a cozy living room furnished with a plain couch, a small flat-screen television and a glass coffee table. Ordinarily at the end of the work day he would relish the peace and quiet of the evening’s final hours. Then he would head to bed, alone. Just as he had for the last year, ever since he and Georgia had parted ways. Ready to repeat the process the next day.
But tonight was different.
An hour ago he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to.
With a pounding heart he crossed to the kitchen, small and white and decorated just as sparsely as the living room. He snatched the landline phone off its cradle and held it in a sweating palm. Usually the silence of the empty house had a calming effect. Now it unnerved him.
He stood staring into space for what felt like an eternity, listening to the sounds of the forest outside. The eerie chirping of crickets. The pine branches rustling in the mountain breeze. Jameson was a small town buried in the never-ending woods of the Australian countryside, far from the twenty-four hour bustle of the city. The isolation gave Brandt room to breathe. At least, that’s what he told people.
In truth, he fucking hated the place.
Hundreds of square miles of nothingness in every direction meant there weren’t many places to make new acquaintances. Or find a girlfriend.
It also meant there was a lot of room to bury a body.
If they got to him, he knew no-one would ever find him.
Clutching the phone in his grip, it sunk in that he had stumbled upon something sinister, a secret that those responsible would kill to protect. He found himself plagued by the unshakeable feeling that he was in way over his head.
A spontaneous detour after leaving the station had led him down a road he didn’t normally use. He’d seen floodlights in an area of forest he believed to be deserted. He’d decided to check it out. Even though he was off-duty, curiosity got the better of him.
He’d been spotted.
Now he began to punch in a number, unsure if he was making the right decision. Before he landed in the dead-end career of a small town police officer, he’d done some time in the military. The defence force advertisements had influenced him enough to serve three long and uneventful years in the Royal Australian Navy Reserves. They’d stationed him up in Sydney at Fleet Base East, where he’d made a few friends in the Special Operations Command.
They were who he needed right now. Special Forces were the only body capable of addressing an incident of this magnitude.
Especially after he stressed the importance of what he’d seen.
A floorboard creaked in the corridor connecting to the kitchen. It was almost inaudible, but the silence amplified the noise. He froze halfway through the process of dialling. He put the landline back on the wall and reached for the holster at his waist. Jameson’s crime rates were virtually nonexistent, which meant he’d never used his firearm in the line of duty. He was inexperienced in these situations. He struggled to suppress his nerves.
Before he had time to draw his weapon a man stepped round the corner. It sent a pang of shock through his chest. The intruder was a little taller than him, his expression steely. His eyes were cold and hard. Emotionless. He seemed perfectly calm, as if breaking into houses was an activity performed for leisure. Were it not for the enormous handgun in his palm, safety flicked off, Brandt would have trouble believing the man had hostile intentions.
The intruder levelled the pistol at his head.
‘You know why I’m here?’ the man said.
Brandt nodded. ‘I swear, I won’t say anything to anyone. I’ll pretend I never saw anything.’
‘But you did see.’
‘I know. Please. You can trust me.’
‘Maybe I can. Maybe I can’t. No way to know for sure.’
‘I won’t talk.’
‘You’ve got that right.’
It only took one shot.
The round exploded out of the barrel, deafening inside the confined space. It entered through Brandt’s temple and blew out the back of his head amidst a spray of blood and brain matter. The intruder had chosen an IMI Desert Eagle to kill the officer because it left no room for speculation. Surviving a direct impact to the forehead from one of its cartridges was impossible.
Brandt’s lifeless body spun away. He landed heavily on the kitchen floor and lay still.
The intruder took one look at the corpse and knew nothing further was necessary. He tucked the handgun away, then shrunk back into the shadows. He had no time to linger. He would get his men to dispose of the body later.
There was work to be done.
CHAPTER 1
Just a few short miles away, Jason King took a single glance around the country-town bar. He saw five men. After a beat of observation, he concluded that three were inebriated locals and two were workers temporarily residing in the countryside. He had spent thirty-two minutes sitting at the thick oak countertop of the bar. Timing the duration he spent in one place was something instinctive, ingrained into his subconscious from past experiences.
'Can I get you another round, bud?' the bartender said, motioning to King’s empty glass. He was a burly man with a beard that fell past his neck and thick long hair tied back into a bun. His heavy-duty clothes reeked of beer and tobacco.
He was no threat.
'Sure.'
The man took King’s glass and placed it under the tap. A stream of ale ran into the bottom, creating a thin layer of froth as the glass filled to the brim. It was his second glass and he couldn’t help but admit it was good.
He took the time the bartender spent on the refill to shoot another look at his surroundings.
One could never be too careful.
Nothing had changed. A roaring log fire on the far wall cast a pale orange glow over the room. Wooden tables covered most of the floorspace, each cut from the trunk of a single tree and polished and smoothed to perfection, adding to the gritty outback feel of the decor. The three locals sat together in the far corner near the fire. Giant mugs of beer rested on their table, each at various stages of completion. They talked loudly, cackling at each other’s comments. The pair of workers were still dressed in their high-visibility vests. Both their outfits were covered in dried concrete stains and their faces sported the weary expression of labourers finally resting after a long day’s work.
The bartender laid down a fresh round in front of King, full to the brim. 'Here you go.'
‘Thanks.’
'Can’t help but notice your accent, mate. American?'
King nodded. 'Born and raised.'
‘What brings you all the way out here?’
'Recently retired. Decided to travel for a while. See the world.’
‘You look too young to be retired.’
‘I made use of the time I had. Got a lot of work done.’
‘Well, you’re a lucky man.’
King shrugged and sipped his beer. ‘That’s debatable.’
‘Why here?’ the bartender said. ‘There’s a million places you could have gone. I can’t say we’re the most attractive tourist destination on the planet.’
‘It’s quiet out here,’ King said. ‘I needed to get away from all the trouble.'
'Trouble?'
He paused. ‘Life gets chaotic sometimes.’
‘I get it. Sometimes you need to put all the shit behind you.’
King nodded.
‘How are we treating you so far?'
‘I like it here.’
There was a moment of silence. King adjusted his khaki trousers and took another mouthful of beer.