Thunder Down Under

Despite his glee, the twenty-two-year-old kept a sharp eye out across the flat, scrubby, tan-and-brown Outback he and his Mobile Patrol partner were zooming across. This was his first real assignment after finishing security officer training and he didn’t want to mess it up.

But no matter what happened today, it couldn’t be worse than where he’d been six months ago: unemployed and broke after dropping out of university when he’d lost his rugby scholarship due to a knee injury during a pickup scrum.

The only problem was that being jobless and laid-up meant he’d been only a few days from living on the streets. That’s when a former teammate had passed him the name of Wallcorloo National, the energy company his father worked for, saying they were looking for security personnel. Even injured, King had been in good enough shape to ace the WN interview process and the company had seen fit to take him on in a probationary capacity. He also found that the skills he’d acquired during his two years of school had helped him learn the bookwork fast. The company even helped him with physical therapy during his course work and that, in turn, had led him to acing the physical tests. Self-defense, marksmanship, defensive driving—he had loved every minute of it and earned glowing reports from the instructors.

These days his knee felt better than ever.

“Strewth, mate, dial it back a bit, will ya?” Logan Weathers grunted, eyeing him from behind a pair of yellow shooter’s glasses. “Your yapper’s grinning so wide I think the top of your head’s gonna fall off.”

King didn’t know a lot about his new partner, only that he had twelve years’ experience with the company and looked like he’d seen more than a thing or two. With his tanned face and arms, crow’s-feet around his eyes and rangy physique, the weathered man could have strode right out of the Outback and into his security uniform yesterday. But even with his rough-and-tumble exterior, Weathers exuded a calm professionalism—when he wasn’t teasing his new partner—and the last thing King wanted to do was to screw up or disappoint him in any way.

“Sorry, Logan.” He ran a hand through his brush-cut blond hair. “Just anxious to get to work, that’s all.”

“Bloody newbies,” the older man said with gruff affection. “Only you probies get excited about driving to the ass end of nowhere to look over an auto-pump station.”

King’s expression fell and his forehead furrowed a bit. “Yeah, but you saw the sec warning that went out yesterday, right? The Bushmen are stirrin’ up trouble again and we have to make sure they’re not fuckin’ around with company property—”

“Oi, the good Lord save me from another wet-behind-the-ears rookie who thinks he’s Mad Fucking Max,” Weathers said. “I dunno who’s pegged them for this, but whoever it is has got rocks for brains. There ain’t no splinter indigenous terrorist group running around committing industrial vandalism. Even if there was, there’s no way in hell they’d traipse all the way out here to do it. There’s plenty of closer targets that would get a lot more play on the news, if that’s what they’re after.”

King mulled that over for a few moments. What his partner said made sense, but still didn’t account for what they were doing out there. The two men had left early in the morning on their day trip, flying out from Melbourne to the isolated town of Alice Springs. From there they were driving the last 140 kilometers to inspect an automatic liquefied natural gas pumping station on the edge of the Amadeus deposit, WN’s latest acquired field and the site of its most advanced gas mining system. But the way King looked at it...

“Maybe, but those sites are also more heavily guarded, especially after the Oz Minerals incident last month. Those vandals set their copper mining schedule back almost a year and caused a few million in damages,” he insisted. “And this one’s Wallcorloo’s new state-of-the-art system, so busting it up would still get those vandals some attention. But even if you’re right, and this site isn’t a target, then why’d they send us out here in the first place?”

Weathers smiled at that and King got the feeling he’d somehow set a trap for himself. “’Cause this isolated site is the perfect training ground for greenies like yourself.

“And it’s nothing to fret over,” Weathers continued. “Actually, it means something that they had me bring you all the way out here on your first field assignment. Means they like what they see. Means they got plans for you. So just keep yer eyes and ears open and do what I say, and maybe your next assignment’ll be near a beach somewhere. Instead of humping a whole day back home like we’re gonna, you’ll only be a hop, skip and a jump away from a cold draft and a warm sheila.”

King smiled. “Amen.”

“Eh, here we are.” The Range Rover crested a small rise and King focused his attention on the forty-plus acres of pipes and machinery representing the pinnacle of liquid natural gas drilling.

He stared at it while going over the facts he’d been required to memorize during his training. The Amadeus field site was completely automated and cost more than $9 million AU to construct. It could extract and compress fourteen thousand metric tonnes of LNG every twenty-four hours, and have it ready for pickup via an automated truck-relay system through the underground offloading hangar once it entered the full production stage.

At least half of the entire facility was underground, but it wouldn’t take anyone all that much effort to sabotage the aboveground systems and cause major damage to the well.

Wallcorloo had already entered a contract with Tesla for a fleet of its first-generation electric trucks, and was working with them to add solar panels to extend their range in the unforgiving desert. King had scratched his head when he’d first heard about that plan, and wondered how they were going to deal with the ever-present dust, but had shoved the thought aside, realizing it wasn’t his problem. Just as long as they don’t get rid of my job.

“So, I take it we’re not gonna spend the rest of the day driving around the place, right?” he asked.

“Hey, they did teach you a thing or two in that classroom,” Weathers replied. “We’ll do some on-site spot-checking a bit later, but we gotta do some aerial reconnaissance first. Come on.”

He drove down the small hill to the main gate, which slid open as the Range Rover approached. King knew that was because the sensors mounted on the fence had already scanned the vehicle—including the faces of its occupants—and matched them with the scheduled patrol in the computer. If any other vehicle had driven up, the heavy steel gate would have remained locked and an alert would have been sent to WN headquarters outside Adelaide.

King checked his phone to see if HQ had sent out another alert regarding possible vandals, or even if the security system had detected any trespassers out here and notified base. He shook his head as he realized that, of course, home base would have let them know if they were about to run into trouble.

“Relax. I’m telling you, we’re the only ones out here for a couple hundred kilometers.” Weathers drove inside and parked the vehicle near a quartet of plain, wind-scoured wooden bunkhouses, where either engineers or security would stay on a longer trip.

“Remember your water.” Weathers shook a liter bottle at King as he cracked his door, the comfortable air-conditioning evaporating like it had never existed as a searing, bone-dry breeze blew into the SUV’s cab.

King grabbed his bottle and also made sure his security belt, with its radio, handcuffs, pepper spray, collapsible metal baton and sidearm, was secure and properly situated on his hips. They’d removed the belts for the long drive out, but now that they’d arrived, he wanted to make sure he was properly attired for the assignment...just in case.

Opening his door, he stepped out into the midday heat, feeling his skin already drying in the baking climate. He put on a khaki bush hat to protect his head from the sun’s merciless rays, then walked to his partner, who was already at the back of the Rover.

Weathers had opened the rear door and was pulling a large, black-plastic case to the edge of the cargo area. He unsnapped the catches and lifted the lip to reveal a large black-and-red device nestled in a foam cutout. Removing it, he snapped two folding legs into place to allow the sleek industrial drone to stand. Picking up a hard-cased iPad from a narrow slot in the foam, he powered it up and opened the pilot app for the RMUS heavy-duty police drone, testing the five rotors and underslung 360-degree camera.

“This baby will cover the entire perimeter in about thirty minutes. We can record our flight, zoom in, the whole nine yards,” Weathers told his partner as he put the drone through its test paces. “Grab it and come on over here.”

King picked it up by the legs, surprised by its weight. He followed the older man a few meters away from the Range Rover and set it on the ground, then retreated to the rear of the vehicle.

Weathers hit a button on the tablet screen and the five rotors spun, accelerating until they were a ring of black blurs around the drone’s central housing. With a loud buzz and a puff of dust, it rose into the air, climbing until it was just a speck in the sky and could barely be heard.

He piloted it out over the first section of the facility. “Might as well take a load off,” he said. “Doubt we’re gonna see anything ’cept a few wallabies bouncing around.”

King nodded, his eyes glued to the tablet screen, which was giving them a drone’s-eye view of the LNG plant. The dozens of neat rows of white pipes gleamed in the sun, even under the light coating of ever-present dust that covered everything out here. He watched Weathers guide the drone out to the ten-foot, chain-link perimeter fence, the HD camera so clear he could see sunlight glinting off the points of the razor wire topping the security barrier.

“So far, so good.” Weathers fell silent as he started flying the drone along the fence. Section after section ticked by under the little vehicle’s camera—until both men saw something that made them pause.

King inhaled sharply. “Is that—”

“Fresh boot prints?” Weathers finished. “Looks like it.” He zoomed in on the tracks. “At least a couple people came through there, maybe as many as four.”

“But...no one’s been out here for weeks,” King said. “Those should have blown away by now.” He was all too familiar with the constantly shifting Outback, which could erase all signs of a person’s or vehicle’s passage in hours.

“Agreed,” Logan said as he opened another app on the iPad. “Let’s see where these go while I call this in.”

The drone began following the trail as the tablet connected with a satellite and routed the call to WN HQ. After a few seconds a pleasant-faced woman with a headset appeared in the window.

“Wallcorloo National Security Division, how may I help you?”

“This is Senior Patrol Officer Logan Weathers, with Probationary Officer Connor King at the Amadeus LNG plant,” Logan replied. “We’re reporting a drone sighting of what looks like trespasser tracks inside the facility. To the best of our knowledge, there isn’t supposed to be anyone on-site at this time.” As he spoke, Weathers isolated the footage and forwarded it to the security woman.

“We’ve received no notice of an intrusion.” The woman reviewed the snippet of video, a faint furrow appearing above the bridge of her nose. “Are you sure this isn’t leftover tracks by the last engineer team?”

“Pretty sure,” Weathers replied. “Especially considering they would have started out from right where we’re standing now. How should we follow up?”

“Just a moment.” The woman was typing something on the keyboard in front of her and began speaking into her headset, but King couldn’t hear what she was saying. He flashed a quizzical frown at Logan, who was still watching the screen.

“She’s kicking it upstairs. Standard CYA procedure.” Eyes still on the screen, Weathers removed a keychain from his belt, selected a small black key by feel and held it out to the younger man. “Open the weapons locker in the back.”

“You sure? I mean, she hasn’t even come back yet—”

“Officer Weathers, thanks for holding,” the woman said. “We are classifying this as a Level 1 Incident. You and your partner are to investigate the tracks and secure the area, making sure that no trespassers are on the grounds. Anyone you encounter should be taken into custody. Above all, take care to prevent any damage to the facility. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “We’ll report in once we’ve cleared the area. Weathers out.”

He blanked the comm screen and returned his attention to the drone’s camera view. “Hang on...what the hell’s going on here?”

King leaned over to glimpse what his partner was looking at. He caught flashes of figures moving among the pipes deep in the complex. Weathers zoomed the drone camera in as far as he could, until it appeared they were only a few meters from the trespassers.