Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

figures emerged. All male given their height and breadth. Working in the darkness they began to unload items from the back, carrying them inside, sometimes needing two of them to heft whatever it was.

Lorcan didn’t interrupt them. He had seen spy movies before. It was best to gather information before deciding upon any action. Find out who they were and what they were doing. Determine if they were friend or foe. Caution swayed him more towards the latter than the former. His immediate concern was that these people were working for Nikos and were here to do something bad to him. But if they were they would have no need for the tunnel and the equipment. From what he had read Nikos and his brother exercised concise not convoluted punishments. This dash of common sense relaxed him. That and the Browning .22-250 rifle sat by his side. He had been offered it at a good price by a guy outside Mallon’s yesterday. He had been suspicious at the start as the guy, who introduced himself as Matty, knew that he was living out at Kallayee – word had obviously spread – and said he might need it to shoot dingoes or anything else threatening his property. At the time, Lorcan had wondered if it was a subtle warning but the guy took $200 and gave him the rifle and a few shells. He had yet to fire it and as he sat there staring at the rifle he wondered if he had been taken for a ride. He had only fired a gun once in his life. At a clay pigeon shoot organized by INK Tech. Maybe that training would come back to haunt Nikos Iannis. But first things first. He had to find out who these people were and what they wanted. He turned his focus back to the house across the road.

The unloading was completed in fifteen minutes and the three men disappeared inside the building. The focused glare of headlamps erupted from the window holes, darting around as if they were making sure the room was clear before eventually disappearing.

Lorcan waited for five minutes before following. Sneaking inside, he immediately saw that the cupboard covering the hole had been moved. For a moment a chill passed through him. What if they had spotted anything out of place? Had he touched anything? Would they be able to tell? What if they were actual spies, their mission secret and illegal? The British government had used some places out here for nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe there was something down there that had been left behind. Uranium or plutonium. Fanciful but possible.

He stood at the tunnel entrance. Murmured speech echoed through it, faint and distorted. In no language he could identify. He wondered if they were foreign spies. The thought scared him even more.

It was time to make a decision. Should he go down after them? In the narrow tunnel the rifle would be constrictive and he wasn’t sure how well prepared they might be. It appeared a slick operation so he had to assume they had rigged defences of some sort.

His deliberation paid off. Suddenly a faint light appeared, growing stronger by the second. One of the three men was returning.

Lorcan panicked. He looked around the room. The contrast of its sheer darkness was all-encompassing. He lost all sense of thought and direction. Where was the door again? How far? Was there anything in the way? The light drew closer. He had about twenty seconds. Remembering the way, he made for the door and darted around the side of the building. He pressed himself against the wall, hoping that the clouds continued to swallow up the moon. For ever would be long enough right now. A stranger passed him on the way to the ute; tall, bearded and slim, almost ghoulish, his limbs seeming to grow as if absorbing the darkness. The figure freewheeled the truck across the road into an old shed that Lorcan had never thought of checking. Even if he had, the truck looked battered enough to pass for having been left there for fifty years. Throwing a cover over it the figure walked by him again and disappeared back down the tunnel.

This time it didn’t take Lorcan long to consider whether to follow or not. There was no fucking way he was going in. He would retreat to his viewing spot. Take up sentry duty. With his rifle.

He pressed his phone to his ear and listened to the recording he’d made. The rasps of breaths, the echo of the walls. And the voice. Confirmation that they weren’t alone in town.

After ten minutes the low rumbling began in earnest, vibrating under his feet. The noise that had plagued them since arriving. Confirmation that these men had been here since his family came to town. Without breaking cover. Meaning that they were determined. Meaning that it was a major operation of some kind. Machines carted in and rock broken. All for what? Gold? Diamonds? Opals? And persisting in this heat and with this level of secrecy indicated success of some kind. Lorcan wanted to know. So he kept watch.

An hour before dawn the three men re-emerged, breaking up to silently perform prescribed tasks. Well-drilled.

As well as the tall, bearded figure from earlier, the gathering dawn allowed him to ascribe details to the other two, the shortest one packing fat under a shirt that was glued to his body with sweat and a bald head that caught the fading moonlight. The other one had darker skin than the others, a little younger and in better shape, sporting a full head of sweeping, unkempt hair.

The bearded one – who seemed to be in nominal charge – retrieved the ute from under the cover and backed it to the door. Loading took half the time of unloading, a dusty blanket covering the flatbed dulling any stray thud or clang.

The other two climbed in and the ute