JonDlundyn Parker adventure #2 - 3
November 11th 2006 19:39
Lundyn's Land Rover
The trip to Wangi only took and hour and a half, done with one tack and a gybe. It was a beautiful sailing trip, with water hissing along the hull and the warm breeze rollicking around the yacht. She heeled slightly to the breeze and the men were all smiles. They hardly saw any other yachts, as it was a weekday. The lack of traffic was the best part about sailing on magnificent Lake Macquarie. Tied up and squared away at the Wangi Worker’s Club wharf, the men went into the club for a few beers. They chatted amongst themselves and a few of the local yachties joined their table to talk with them. It was a casual atmosphere. A club right on the waterfront with a bistro and restaurant. The place was sprinkled with barflies, most of who were known to the trio. Chatting was mainly about sailing and yachts and forthcoming races. One piece of scuttlebutt was a topic of interest. A new power cruiser was in the lake. It had come in during the night and was tied up across the lake at the marina there. The crew were all of Asian descent. That was not unusual in a lot of ports but here on this quiet lake it stood out like a sore thumb.
After they had finished at the club, Lundyn took his yacht to an anchorage behind Pulbah Island. There the men sipped beers and fished during the evening. It was a peaceful evening of banter between three firm friends. The fish were however not too active and dinner was sausages cooked on the barbecue attached to the stern rail. They then settled down to a few hours of music. When they were still kids in late high school, the General had introduced them to jazz. It was a way of getting out of the house and relaxing after swatting for exams. They liked the beat of traditional jazz and to pass time each of the guys had learnt to play an instrument. Roscoe was into the tenor sax and guitar. Lundyn was a guitarist and played banjo. The General was an accomplished pianist but on the yacht he played a portable battery operated keyboard. They jammed and played some hot blues as well. Then with percolated coffee and large glasses of port the men prepared for bed. The General was brushing his teeth on the rear deck under the mizzen and relieving himself over the side.
“Come and have a look at this.” He called out with frothy toothpaste dribbling down his chin. Roscoe and Lundyn came out on the deck to watch a huge cruiser go racing by them at about eighteen knots. It was dark but the hull could be made out in the half moonlight. It showed the regulation steaming lights but that was all. Unusual for a cruiser of that size not to have cabin lights or bridge lights on. It passed quite close to their yacht but still the regulation distance off from an anchored boat. They could see crew lined up along the rail and they seemed to be observing them. Every one of them Roscoe noted was below average height! That night, despite the beers and glasses of port, they kept one man on deck as a look out through the dark hours. The forward-looking fish finder with its alarm was kept on in case of underwater intruders. The radar was also left on with its signal set to go off if there was any close boating activity.
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Lundyn Parker had left the Australian Navy at the end of a fifteen-year stint. He had a good pension and skills that were difficult to obtain in Civvy Street. He had seen some war action and had often handled many ‘live’ situations as a clearance diver. For a man of action just to retire or to take up a job as an accountant or salesman was all rather dull.
Lundyn’s hobby or passion when he was in the navy was photography. As a diver he had become a skilled underwater photographer. As a nitrous oxide skilled diver he had become an expert on very deep under water photography. He was in fact in high demand now as an underwater photographer for marine insurance companies- from snapping leisure boats accidentally sunk by their owners to full sized ships in remote corners of the globe. To this end he had built himself an amphibian aircraft. He had bought the plans and kit from a company in the USA and now he was the proud owner of a Seawind. It had a wingspan of thirty-five feet and a load capacity of almost five hundred kilograms. It flew at around twenty thousand feet at one hundred and ninety knots. It had seating for four and could land on almost any lake, river or sea. This accroutment had put up Lundyn’s stocks with the insurance companies. If he accepted a job he could be on the site within a few days. No messing about with charter boats and hiring dive gear. He carried everything he needed on board. The Seawind was kept in a specially constructed water front hangar on the lake.
Well before sunrise, Lundyn had started the diesel in the ketch and was motoring back to Toronto. The General, with a cigarette bumper dangling from his lips, was preparing scrambled eggs with sour cream instead of milk, chopped smoky bacon and shredded cheese, covered with a layer of smoked trout and dill weed. A powerful coffee was brewing in the percolator and except for the disquieting visitors last night all was well with the world. Roscoe was busying himself with preparing mooring lines and fenders. Lundyn was steering his yacht but he was deep in thought. This was a peaceful lake. Very little happened here. Boats just did not appear menacingly out of the inky dark night. His senses told him things were just not right. He would do a little investigating.
About an hour after dawn the little Seawind was nosing out of its hangar. The three hundred-horse power Lycoming engine was burbling sweetly and behind the pilot’s canopy the three bladed Hartzell prop was starting to wind up as Lundyn applied throttle. Within a thousand feet he was in the air and climbing at twelve hundred feet per minute. Within two minutes he was at the altitude he wanted and was cruising across the lake. At just fifty knots he cruised over the Black Point Marina. He had singled out the cruiser he was interested in. Using both a single reflex camera built into the hull of the air craft and a hand held digital camera with zoom he snapped of a couple of dozen photos. The noise of the aircraft had brought some of the crew of the boat out on deck. They were peering up, squinting into the morning sun. Lundyn had what he wanted. He banked the Seawind round and headed back to her hangar on the edge of the lake.
From the waterfront hangar Lundyn transferred into his nineteen fifty-five mark two Land Rover. It was the canvas-roofed model and he drove with the roof down and the windscreen folded down onto the bonnet. It was a pure indulgence in some respects but in truth he didn’t need a vehicle that drove freeways as he almost always travelled by air amphibian or yacht when he needed to travel any distance. The Land Rover was just such a cool car. It was still painted with the light blue Australian Navy colours that had not been changed when the vehicle became surplice to them. He drove back to his yacht and on board he slipped the roll of film out of his pocket and made for his dark room. The images he saw set off his warning bells. From the dark room he downloaded the images off the video camera to his computer and also added the photos from the roll of film via scanner to the same file. Now he new he was looking at trouble.
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Alby Woo flicked a cigarette but out of the partly opened window of his parked car. The police radio by his side was turned down low and the controller could be heard as a background blurb, giving information to squads up and down the coast. His McDonalds breakfast remains were in a cardboard holder and the dregs in his coffee cup were cold long ago. He had been watching the cruiser moored in the Black’s Point Marina. He had a vested interest. These were the guys that were going to do some dirty work in his back yard. Ho Sin Lee had contacted him and told him that the contract was out on Lundyn and his buddy. Alby was standing by to see what would eventuate. He was ready to step in if he could help but of course he would only do so to his own advantage. He was intrigued to see Lundyn’s amphibian also checking out the cruiser. So the cat was out of the bag, he thought to himself. This might get interesting!
Woo climbed out of his car, locked it and pulling his underwear out from where it was creeping up his backside, he headed for the public toilets. He stood and pissed out his coffee with one hand leaning up against the wall of the urinal. His thick yellow stream washed cigarette bumpers down the chute and he smiled to himself as he thought how his two adversaries were going to be eliminated. Ho Sin had hired an outside group to take care of the hit. That meant no dirty linen to take care of on his turf. They would hit and run and be out of the country by this evening. Then the investigating squad would be at work and that would be a great opportunity to look for the bag of money that had gone missing. As a bonus there was also a couple of little bags of “product” to be had as well. He zipped his fly, washed his hands and smiling still to himself returned to his car.
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