Читать книгу Manipulation - D.K. Wilde - Страница 1

The sun was intense on the desert’s baking red bull dust as the temperature climbed into the high forties. He had been walking since early that morning. Was concentrating on thoughts of The Dreaming and had not seen another sole for three days. Oblivious to his surroundings the sudden pain across his left calf swung him around and threw him to the ground. Followed by the familiar sound of a 7.62mm SLR round that cracked, like a stockman’s whip, and he realised he’d been shot.

On the ground he rolled across to the cover of the Porcupine Grass. It was a clean shot that had taken the top layers of skin and tissue. A burning sensation crept up his leg and he started the mental process of finding something to stem the blood flow. Lying on his back he used his trusty double bladed hunting knife to cut strips off the Paperbark Tree. The first as a tourniquet and the wider second strip was wrapped to secure the muscle. A stick tightened the tourniquet. Crushed Billygoat Weed was spread across the wound to stop infection and a further wider strip of Paperbark was used as a bandage.

The whole time he remained astutely alert to further shots or movement. He had already calculated the shooter to be to the southwest and more than likely scanning his vision from west to east. Trusting his hunting skills, and having not picked up a scent, he determined if there was more than one shooter they were not to the north.

Eight minutes had elapsed, since the shot. Watching through the Porcupine Grass a rifle barrel reflected off to the southeast. Unarmed he needed to level the playing field. A long stem Black Boy plant was the perfect decoy. Slowly swaying the plant gave the impression of somebody moving. As the rounds were slashing and penetrating the Porcupine Grass he deduced where the two shooters were located. He doubled back and crawled along a dried up waterway that meandered behind them.

With the sun directly overhead and the ground like a furnace the shooters would not have much patience and would need to find shade. Using this knowledge, to his advantage, lying four metres behind the first shooter; he waited. It had been fifteen minutes since they had fired their volley of shots. Frustrated, the shooter stood. Wiping the sand and sweat from his eyes he grabbed his two-way and instructed his mate to follow suit.

The shooter had raised his water bottle to his mouth as the knife lodged directly into the side of his neck, killing him silently and instantly. Rushing across to the fallen body he reached down grabbed the rifle; checked a round was chambered and spun around to sight the second.

The second shooter had left his hiding position and was scampering across the sparsely vegetated, iron ore encrusted landscape. Without missing a beat, he aimed the long range scope and fired a direct headshot.

Twenty minutes later he had found weapons, ammunition, a GPS scanner and water on both men and a photo of him taken at the Darwin Marina, nine weeks earlier.

Wade Ross a trained ex Special Forces soldier who had just spent the last nine weeks wandering through the desert of Central Australia on a journey of Aboriginal spiritual enlightenment. He knew the two shooters had been sent as his assassins.

It was time to return to civilisation. His first point of duty was to find out who these hit men were working for and why he was targeted.

Using the vehicle, of his would be assassins he headed back to Darwin.