Thirteen boxes sat on that truck.
A baker’s dozen of clean-cut brown packages, taped up and labelled like conference crap, holding…
Fifty-two tanks.
Holding more than ten road trains of breathing assets.With no hooves.No mess.Just pure genetically pristine bloodlines, frozen and ready to stock a national stud program.
Worth millions.
Who knows how many more boxes had already disappeared overseas before today.
Finn reached into the box and gripped the metal.Even through his gloves, the chill bit down like dry ice.He hauled a silver canister free.It was about the size of a small welder’s gas bottle, but sleeker, and polished to a sterile sheen like it belonged in a lab, not a stockyard.
Frost clung to the nozzle, with mist bleeding off the collar in slow, icy tendrils.A yellow hazard triangle warned of extreme cold.Another sticker read:Cryogenic Liquid.Handle With Care.
Finn didn’t need the warning symbols to tell him what would happen if this stuff thawed.And it sure as hell didn’t belong in a cardboard box.
It’d been one year of chasing ghosts, ever since they’d learned what happened to that rodeo bull, Wraith’s Wrath, from the Rough Stock case—it all came down to this.A box.
‘And they call this a white-collar crime.’He could just hear Taryn, the queen of corporate crime, sassing him with:Still think my suits and heels are overdressed for the outback?
But this was the payload.The proof.
They finally had something they could use.
His gloved fingers brushed the frost off the lid.The canister was still cold, the metal sweating in the heat, the seal intact.He hefted it high to check the sides and the base.‘Judging by the weight and frost line, we’ve got a few weeks left before this lot defrosts into worthless sludge,’ he muttered.
‘I read somewhere that under correct storage conditions, genetic material like this can stay viable for decades—thirty, forty years, easy.’Amara counted the boxes beside him, using her phone to record everything.‘Long enough to build world-class bloodlines from scratch, and no one would ever know the difference.’
‘This isn’t just stock theft and selling it to the highest bidder,’ Finn said, holding the canister.‘It’s rewriting the future of this nation’s stock industry.’He exhaled slowly at the weight of it all.
‘You know what else they could hide in this?’Amara’s tone was edged with fury.‘Disease.Mutation.Anything.And they left it tucked under hay bales like it was fertiliser.’
‘You’re right.’Finn’s jaw tightened.‘Drew didn’t just steal stock and the genetic material.He put this country’s entire livestock industry at risk.Biosecurity, trade, reputation… all of it.’
He hoped like hell Taryn had that prick down on his knees, with a bloody nose, and whatever kind of justice the lady wanted to dish out.He’d back her, before he pushed her aside to have his go.Gently, of course, after all she was—
Dammit.
Get back in the game.
If Taryn could stay focused, in that jet, breathing the same air as Drew bloody Bannon, then so could he.
He clicked his mic.‘We’ve got product.I’m guessing it’s their last haul.’But also a haul that seemed to be tracking on time, considering the condition of the canisters.
He could hear noises from inside the jet, someone opening doors and turning it out like a drug raid.
Porter was at the top of the stairs, peering inside the jet’s cabin, while their four captives remained handcuffed, on their knees, being watched over by Craig and Stone.
Taryn appeared in the jet’s open doorway, the wind tugging her hair.‘He’s not here… Drew is not on board.’
Thirty-nine
The tarmac at Darwin International Airport shimmered under floodlights, with the heat still clinging to the concrete long after the sun had set.Another jet screamed overhead—military.Flashing like a streak of light and flame, it vanished over the Top End’s sprawling suburbia like a shooting star across the black night sky.
Most folks forgot that the airport shared its runway with the RAAF base, who actually owned it.And on nights like tonight suburbia just had to deal with it, as three military jets launched one after another, cutting ahead of commercial traffic and stacking the airspace like it was theirs to own.Because it was.
Commissioner Andrew Bannon squinted skyward as the third fighter jet tore across the night sky, banking sharply above the runway.A blazing stream trailed behind it like a roman candle on steroids, brilliant and volatile, punching through barriers like it owned the sky.
