Gonzo

Gonzo

Dan Malone

© Copyright Dan Malone, Australia, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9942463-4-9

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This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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CHAPTER ONE

AMERICA

Gonzo sat smoking in the small cabin of the fork lift. What he had to load was stacked beside his machine in wooden crates. His two helpers were sitting on them. He saw the plane he was waiting for as it circled the private airfield, and then started its landing approach.

'This is it boys – we're on,' he said to his companions as he tossed his cigarette.

After it landed, the pilot brought it to where he waited. As the pilots opened the passenger door, a car emerged from the back of the airport and drove to the plane. The pilots and two men from the car unloaded what the plane was carrying into the car. Giving Gonzo a friendly salute, the four men then entered the car and drove towards the gate at the airport entrance. Gonzo started his machine, picked up a crate and his two helpers followed him to the plane.

Suddenly, cars blocked the path of the car and circled the plane. Men in jackets with FBI printed on the back of them pointed guns at the three of them and the car's occupants. All were ordered to get down on the bitumen where they were handcuffed. Hauled to their feet, they were patted down, and taken to the local federal prison. Here they were stripped, searched, separated, and questioned. Gonzo pleaded the Fifth Amendment, and knew the others would do the same. When he was stripped, the guards called others into the room to view the scars on his back and body – indents and large exit wounds of two bullet holes, four inches below his right shoulder.

Three of the guards had served in Vietnam, and seen the marks of brutality on released POWs, but never as bad as this bloke. They were almost gentle in their handling of him. Gonzo, and the rest of the people he was arrested with, had their fingerprints taken, and shoelaces, belts and all personal items such as wallets, ID, cigarettes, matches and money boxed. They were taken to separate cells, the iron doors locked, and the peep-hole closed.

Gonzo relaxed on the narrow bed. The taking of his fingerprints would ensure he had problems in the future, but it was now over, and he felt relieved. What the American courts could do to him was limited, but The Firm was a different matter. His eventual exposure would not bring them any joy. They looked after their agents, of which he was one, but would eliminate anyone that posed a threat to them, regardless.

The cell was clean, with a clean blanket, flushing toilet, and wash basin. Absolute luxury compared to the stinking, vermin ridden, and never cleaned cell he had spent years in as a POW in Vietnam.

Gonzo mused on this as he lay on his allotted bed. He thought of how he had come to America, been discharged from its army, hospitalised, picked up back pay owing, and been airlifted with many others to Washington. There the president had addressed and welcomed them home at a civic reception. He took part because he felt he had an obligation to fulfil. When that was done, he secured a job with a construction company in Utah as a heavy equipment operator.

His friend Longen, as he was called because he was tall and slim, had got him the job. He owed this friend for looking after him in Vietnam.

Longen was an engineer with the construction company, and they had little contact on the job. When the job finished, he and his friend went with the company to Alaska, to work on another project.

Gonzo hated and detested communism, as his late father had. Communism, as practiced in Russia and Asia, was a brutal doctrine. It had to be opposed and the free world protected from it. Longen shared his hatred.

While working at the job in Alaska, his friend approached him and asked him to contact other people with similar beliefs in Austin, Texas. They were planning an operation that could give the forces against communism the finance needed to protect the US from the influence of forces that were out to destroy it.

Longen had said, 'Never were patriotic, alert people more needed to preserve our way of life.' The Minute Men, Patriots and a number of organizations that were loose-knit, were pro-America and wanted to preserve it the way it was. They were under the umbrella of an organization known as The Firm. Each organization was a separate identity, but all with a single purpose.

Longen told the organisation that Gonzo was the reliable heavy equipment operator that the Texas job needed and would keep his mouth shut. Gonzo knew that if successful, the job would bring in much needed capital for the fight against communism. He got time off and travelled by hired campervan from Duluth to Austin, Texas, as flying left a paper trail. It was a long trip.

On his arrival, he went to the office in Austin of the Pan American Mineral Exploration Company. The company manager told him that the reason for the trip was to verify that there were uranium deposits in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Desert dwellers maintained it glowed at night. His mission was top secret. If uranium was discovered, the people fighting communism, The Minute Men, Patriots and men like them would have real money to fight the enemies of the free world. The Chilean dictator was anti-communist and they had an agreement with him that, if they discovered uranium, it would give them a war chest to continue the fight.

He flew to Antofagasta in Chile as Earl Carl Austin, a heavy plant operator and driller. His fellow POW, Longen, met him there. He had hired a big loader, heavy dozer, forklift, portable camp, and two drilling rigs. He bought a five ton truck and twenty seat bus, and employed ten men to be on stand-by until needed.

Gonzo drove the big low-loader, with the dozer and forklift on board, and towed the heavy-tyred drilling rigs. Longen drove the five-ton truck with fuel, an off-road motorcycle, water, and portable camp aboard. They drove into the desert, Longen in front. It took two days to get to where they were going. The low loader was slow because of its heavy load. When they arrived, the area was a desolated uninhabited wasteland. Longen instructed him to clear a path though the mesa, two miles long and a hundred yards wide for the drilling rigs to work in, and then to dig a small open cut mine at the end of it.

Longen left on the motor bike and arranged to transport the men hired to the site by bus. They arrived late the next day. Gonzo was still clearing the strip. He towed the drilling rigs with the dozer towbar, into position on the areas he had cleared.

The crew Longen had hired, and the machinery people he had rented the plant from, thought they were mad, as the desert had been prospected years ago. They believed that there was nothing except scorpions, snakes, and spinifex. Longen told them it had never been drilled.

Gonzo finished clearing the strip and then excavated the small open-cut mine, dozing down to rock, twenty-feet under the desert surface.

The crews drilled in long shifts for five days, fishtailing through the sand and then two foot six inches into the rock below. The rock core removed from the hollow diamond drill was placed in wooden boxes. They would be air freighted to Austin to be analysed. Longen inspected the open cut mine and took notes.

When they had finished, Longen took the hired men back to town and paid them.

Gonzo had towed the drilling rigs from the cleared site as instructed, and was pulling down the remains of the camp site, fuelling the ute, and checking its motor when he saw the bus returning. He was surprised that Longen arrived back driving the bus. He had expected him to come back on the motor bike to pick up the truck.

While Longen parked, Gonzo started the dozer to load it on to the low-loader, but Longen stopped him. He put the clean, gallon, ex-petrol tin on the camp fire, and threw a handful of tea leaves into it. When it boiled, he poured some of it into two large pannikins, and both men stirred sugar into the black tea, and sipped it. Longen was thoughtful before he lifted his eyes and spoke. What he said changed the whole purpose of their trip.

Three days later, Gonzo flew back to the States, and Longen left on the motor bike, heading north. He was well paid for his time in Chile and donated half of it to The Firm. When he picked up the van from the private garage where it was parked, he noticed the mileage reading had an extra six hundred miles on it.

CHAPTER TWO

AUSTRALIA

Barry Perkins stood stunned. What had happened seemed like a bad dream. One minute he and his girlfriend were pushing their way through the crowded Brisbane airport with Captain Hartley, searching for his parents, the next there was pandemonium.

Without warning, gun shots rang out. The crowd panicked. When he found the source of the shots, his heart stopped. He turned to his captain not believing what he was seeing.

Captain Hartley looked equally stunned. He turned to the unarmed security guard beside them. 'Do something! They’ve got my parents.'

'They've captured all the other guards. I can't overpower them on my own.' Perkins could see the frustration on the face of the guard.

The captain tried to push through, two men held him back. One shouted, 'Don't. You will cause a bloodbath if they open fire.'

'Don't be a hero, I don't want anyone shot,' one of the gunman yelled at the captain, waving his short machine pistol.

The captain said, 'You have my mother and father,' but the man was unmoved.

Perkins stood still and took in the scene. They had six hostages in all. The airport police and most of the security guards had been disarmed, as had the eight guards who had left the plane. They were now in the coffee lounge, handcuffed together.

They watched as the gang shepherded the hostages through the VIP lounge towards a plane, parked a little way from the building. The refuelling vehicle was trundling away.

Perkins, his frustration at not being able to help the captain's parents building, turned to the security guard. 'Why are they taking that plane?'

The guard shrugged. 'I have no idea. There was no red alert on anything today.'

'Then there is little hope my parents will come out of this alive,' Hartley said, his voice flat.

With a gun trained on them from the plane door, two guards emerged from the plane and cleared the passenger ramp. The door closed from inside, and the plane roared down the runaway and rose into the air and disappeared. The few security guards left unrestrained ran to the aid of their trussed up colleagues.

***

Captain Hartley searched the newspapers in the next few days to see what they reported about the hijacking. It made headlines in the newspapers world-wide. The newspapers reported that it had taken time for the Air Force to get two fighters into the air. They found the hijacked plane flying at thirty thousand feet, where the thin air made the plane fuel efficient. The fighters were powerless to do anything but follow because of the hostages aboard. Eventually, low fuel levels made them return to base.

Where the plane wound up was now the topic of interest, as was the fate of the hostages, but the real interest was in its cargo. The story revealed that the plane had been carrying gold bullion worth millions. It was the biggest heist in history.

Because of China and Japanese tensions, China's big fleets in the pacific, and America's fleet matching them, smaller nations had become anxious, and shifted their gold reserves to Australia. They felt it was safer there because of Australia's isolation and protection under the American umbrella. The hijacked plane was used to transport the gold reserves. It had landed in Sydney from England. After it had been refuelled, it was flown to the Philippines and Singapore, and then on to Brisbane airport to refuel again. Where it was headed from there was a mystery.

There was speculation that the destination was to be Alice Springs, where a large bunker was reported to have been constructed to receive the cargo.

A major inquiry had been launched into the robbery. The Government wanted to know why the Commonwealth Police had not been informed what the plane was carrying. If they had known, they could have beefed up security at the airport. They had also looked at how the hijackers had known about the cargo the plane was carrying, as the operation was clandestine.

All law enforcement agencies knew the hijackers had inside knowledge of the operation, and a hunt had been on to find the leak. This was not successful, as many bank and government officers were aware of the operation and believed the heavily armed guards on the plane made robbery impossible. Why eight of the ten guards from the plane had gone into the airport to stretch their legs and get coffee while it was being refuelled was questioned.

The guards told the investigators and the media that four armed security men in uniform came on board after they landed, said they were replacement guards, and told them to take a break. The uniforms the four guards wore had been taken from the airport security guards. Two senior Asian security guards stayed on the plane. When they arrived at the coffee lounge, they were overpowered and tied up.

The noise of the shots had brought the two remaining original guards left on the plane to the top of the stairway adjoining the aircraft entrance. But they too were disarmed...

Both guards were bundled back into the plane. They were later ordered to remove the passenger ramp when all hostages and hijackers were aboard.

Investigators discovered that that the shots fired at the airport roof had been blanks. No bullets were recovered and the gunman had gathered the shell casings. The noise of the shots and the caps and sunglasses the men had worn were meant to frighten – and succeeded in doing so. The observation camera gave a very limited view of the activity, and did nothing to help the police. The long brimmed caps the hijackers wore were popular with many young passengers and limited identification. Before the sunglasses were donned, the hijackers seemed to know where the cameras were and how to avoid their limited scrutiny.

The newspapers reported that the loss of gold had wrecked the economies of both nations involved and caused a collapse of financial markets across Asia, and right into Europe. This had sent the price of gold through the roof. The Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans were considered to be involved, either singly or together. Their aim, it was said, was to wreck capitalism in Asia.

The CIA, M15, and UFOs were among the theories touted by the radio's ring-in listeners. But law enforcement agencies considered the hijack was to fund some organization, possibly terrorist.

Leading papers printed facts and well-thought-out opinions. Every time any suspicious debris was found at sea, or washed up on a beach, naval and salvage ships were soon on the scene. But all were false sightings.

Five countries plus Australia had naval ships scouring the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, as there was speculation that the plane could have changed directions from where the