‘Do you know their name?’Finn crouched before the cretin.
Sawyer laughed.‘Oh, I’ve said enough, don’t you think, mate?You want more, well it’s not for free.No, siree.Dead men don’t tell secrets with that mob, you know.Look what they did to Dane Carter.To that Renzo fella, too.And if that techie, Bastion, didn’t decide to dance with the crocodiles, he would’ve been next.’
All names that Porter remembered through Amara, when she talked about the Stock Squad cases as he carried her across the outback.The Rough Stock Casehad Dane Carter and Renzo involved in stealing prime rodeo animals for genetic materials.The Cold Stock Casewas all about stolen crocodiles that involved the vet-technician Bastion.
All three men were linked to stolen genetic material from highly prized animals.All three now dead.
‘You knew Bastion?’called out Stone.
‘The techie, yeah.Did the genetic stuff.Embryos, DNA, semen and whatnot, all in them fancy high-tech canisters.’
‘Were they cold?’Stone asked.‘Cryogenic canisters?’
‘Yeah.That’s what I heard ‘em call it.They looked like smaller welder’s gas bottles.’
‘How many?’
‘Heaps of ‘em.’Sawyer shrugged.‘But you’d have to ask Bastion—oops.You can’t.’
Porter wasn’t sure what was going on with the Stock Squad, but the look on Stone and Finn’s face said it all.It was big.
‘If you want me to talk, well, I need a helluva lot of assurances that I doubt you’ll be able to cover.’
‘See this…’ Finn held out his federal badge.‘This gives me licence to do a lot of things, but at this stage, you’re not walking out of here, Sawyer.’
‘No, but I might be running.’Sawyer’s wrists snapped forward—the twine cut clean by a small, jagged shard of glass from a smashed beer bottle that flashed in his grip.
‘Dammit!’They’d missed it.
Porter lunged for him, but slippery Sawyer rolled underneath the caravan to burst out the far side, kicking up red dust as he vanished into the rocks.
‘Go go go!’ Marcus shouted and everyone scrambled.
Porter’s dress boots skidded on loose gravel as he bolted after Sawyer, chasing him into a crack within the hill itself.A narrow corridor with walls of cool stone, so steep they hid the sun.
The shade deepened like a tunnel as it hugged the narrow track, slick with algae and moss growing along the drip line.He slipped—slammed his knee on a rock, catching himself on a slab of sandstone, with his knuckles scraping and his fingers desperate for a hold.It was worse than being on ice with no skates.
But he kept going.
The tunnel twisted as he chased after the echoing footfalls ahead, where he saw daylight.
Porter burst through the gap into a wash of brutal sunshine but hit the slope wrong.His boots skidded on loose rock, and he slammed into the ground, shoulder-first.Sharp pain speared through his arms as he rolled over gravel and dry grass in a dress shirt that had seen better days.
He landed hard, with the wind knocked clean out of him.His sunburnt skin screamed against the scratches while dirt and stones embedded into his skin.At the base of his skull, the dull throb he’d been ignoring since Sawyer’s shovel cracked him, flared into a full-blown roar.Bleeding again, he was now seeing stars.
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to black out.
Even so, he didn’t stop.He rolled over to his knees, as the familiar sounds of a quad bike kicked over.
The engine soon bellowed to life, and Sawyer spun the rear tyres in Porter’s direction.
A spray of gravel and grit exploded across Porter’s face and chest, completely blinding him as he rolled to shield himself.
By the time Porter rolled over to blink furiously from the sunlight that was still too sharp for his eyes—Sawyer was gone.
Dammit.
Porter wiped the scraps of what was a left of his shirt’s sleeve across his face, and spat dirt, forcing his vision to focus—
