The Jack Riordan Stories

The Queen’s Irishman (Jack Riordan series #1)

He watched the oncoming horsemen, estimating their numbers as close to five hundred. Christ! We’ll never stop them! ‘Steady,’ he yelled, ‘steady now. Wait for my command!’ The horsemen came on. Away to the right, he could hear isolated shots from soldiers in panic, for the attackers were still out of range. On they came, five hundred yards, three hundred, two hundred, and he heard the thunder of cannon. The ground in front of the horsemen began to ripple as if churned by heavy rain, and the tribesmen were in the killing zone. He saw them swept away by the grapeshot; hundreds scythed down as if by a gigantic mowing machine. Still, they came on, a ragged, shapeless mass now, and the cannon boomed again, a second one in action. Now they were less than a hundred yards away, their screams bloodcurdling. ‘Front row fire! Second row, fire! Front row fire! Second row fire!’ He heard the crash of cannon again and the horsemen seemed to melt into the earth. Fewer than fifty turned and galloped away. Jack shouted, ‘Cease fire!’

 

Sawdust and Prickly Pear (Jack Riordan series #2)

Government House looked splendid in the warm sunshine. The ceremony was short and punctual. The only disconcerting part was a corpulent colonel of the General Staff who kept looking at Jack’s sword with suspicious eyes. Afterwards, there was a small tea party on the impressive grounds. Jack and Ettie moved to a group of Australian officers and introduced themselves. ‘Well done,’ said one, a tall captain. ‘Congratulations, both for your medal and your hat. We have to distinguish ourselves from these Englishmen, especially now we are to be a new nation.’ They fell to talking about the war. Jack found they all deplored the latest tactics by the British. ‘We didn’t come here to fight women and children,’ said one, ‘I’m pleased to be going home.’

 

Into the Dark Night, Falling (Jack Riordan series #3)

Jack swung onto a reciprocal course for Wymeswold. It took twenty minutes to reach the safety of the clouds. They had a smooth ride home. Jack picked up the beacon and eased her down to the runway. They had been airborne six and a half hours. The flight truck took them to de-briefing, where the Station intelligence officer questioned them at length over steaming sweet tea and sandwiches. Jack looked around at the near deserted room. ‘How did the others go? We didn’t see them.’

‘They aren’t back yet,’ said the IO.

Jack said nothing. They weren’t coming back. They would be out of fuel by now. The night had swallowed them up, and the war had claimed another twenty-four young lives.

 

Drowning in Her Eyes (Jack Riordan series #4)

Just before dawn, the train stopped south of Narrabri, running onto a switching track to make space for the southbound train to pass by. Jack woke about this time and climbed from his bunk, dressed, and made his way to the open platform at the end of his carriage. It was a beautiful morning. There was no sound but the gentle clinking of some metal parts as they cooled, and a faint hiss of steam from the locomotive, far away at the head of the train. All around the train, the country stretched, prairie-like, for miles, covered with sweet native grasses. He heard some kookaburras bring the world to life with their raucous, laughing calls. Magpies and butcherbirds, in a breathtaking bush symphony, joined them. Far across the plain, a large mob of sheep grazed in peace.

English poets waxed lyrical about their pastoral scenes, but this is as good as it gets, thought Jack. A sudden rush of love for his country struck him. He knew it could be cruel, but it could be bountiful and kind, too. He vowed nothing would ever break this bond.

 

The House That Jack Built (Jack Riordan series #5)

Abdul Amir Mahomet had spent several months sailing along the north coast of Australia. He would lie up during the day and investigate potential anchorages by night and early morning. He had depth sounding equipment, tide tables and the latest Admiralty charts of the area. It took a long time, but the bolthole he discovered was well worth it. AK Bay, he called it, completely hidden from the sea by a river that twisted away to the east about a mile from its mouth.

Here, alongside the towering cliffs of an escarpment, lay a small island. Between the mainland and the island lay a narrow body of water, deep enough for medium-sized ships. It was possible to moor a ship close in along the escarpment, partly hidden by a large overhang. The small island would be the campsite for the men Abdul would leave here to mind his prize. Both ship and camp, camouflaged with netting and painted panels, would be virtually invisible from the air. After a couple of days, the ship would cool down and be undetectable by infrared cameras.

 

Whither Blows the Wind (Jack Riordan series #6)

Two days later, Hans Konrad crept around a street corner and found he was looking at several filthy, bearded men with captured German weapons and red and white armbands. Slow to react, he went down to a burst of fire from a machine pistol. The man behind him grabbed his legs and dragged him around the corner to shelter where a medic treated at him. He was conscious, bleeding from two wounds in his left shoulder, neither life threatening. Soon he was in a clearing station, then on his way to the main aid post. By now, he had finally cracked. He could do nothing. He lay on a stretcher and stared at the roof, comatose. The medics gave him a shot of their scarce morphine and tagged him. A train was leaving for Germany in the morning.

 

Invisible (Jack Riordan series #7)

The well-dressed man in the luxury apartment in Prenzlauer Berg reached for the ringing telephone. ‘Weissmann,’ he said. Once he was Wassermann, and before that, Wessels. It had not been difficult to find a forger in post-war Berlin.

A big man, running to fat a little, with a greying beard and hard eyes, said, ‘We may have a problem.’

‘I do not pay you to have problems. What has happened?’ The voice was quiet, but with underlying menace. This man did not tolerate failure or incompetence.

‘I fear someone has been sniffing around the old cave. There are traces of boot prints and I think some rocks looked awry. I stopped a party who would have been near there. There are two young men and four young women, teenage girls, two of them. The two men are Australians, the rest German. I have their names.’

‘Where are they now?’

‘I do not know. They have crossed the border into Poland. I could not follow.’

‘Send me complete descriptions. I may have to do something about them. Now, how goes our other business?’

‘He is reluctant; he wants more money, another hundred thousand.’

‘Diebische Schweine! Very well, telephone me in twenty-four hours.’ He hung up.

The well-dressed man, once an SS-Scharführer, and now known as Rudi Weissmann, walked to his apartment window, and looked out onto the street, the park below, and the sprawl of the city beyond. Who would have thought it, he mused, remembering the ruins of Berlin, the Russian POW camp, the death he had expected to come in the Gulags? He smiled. I got out of that one, and many more. I am rich, but there is more to come; soon I will make Croesus look like a pauper!

 

Flesh (Jack Riordan series #8)

Frank telephoned as they were having breakfast. ‘Read the newspapers,’ he said. ‘And come over here about nine o’clock. I’ll fill in the gaps for you.’

The papers were agog at recent happenings in Lincoln. The special anti-corruption task force arrested and suspended seventeen police suspected of corruption. They discovered three bodies in shallow graves in a forested area close to the Hotel de’ Elegance. Several Serb nationals were in custody. They had found the officer in charge of the local police hanging from a rafter in his garage. Police had not ruled out foul play. The proprietor of the establishment, a German national called Helga Krebb, was missing.

The papers used the largest headline print they could.

The Times said, with its usual restraint:

‘WHITE SLAVERY’.

The News of the World said, with its usual good taste:

‘KNOCKING SHOP KNOCKED OFF!’

At nine, Jack and the girls entered Frank’s office to find the same three visitors waiting for them again. He offered them coffee and chairs. Frank said, ‘We want you to go to Croatia.’

 

No Easy Mark (Jack Riordan series #9)

Ordu sighed. This monkey is always imagining things, he thought. ‘I’ll go back and take a look,’ he said, wrenching impatiently at his collective. Inside the rotor gearbox, the bearing that had shed the metal shavings setting off the sensor began to break up. Ordu straightened up and headed for the clump of trees.

On the ground, Jacquie and Taylor heard the helicopter pass overhead, crouched alongside the Landrover. ‘Don’t look up!’ yelled Jacquie. Taylor spotted the general’s pennant fluttering in a slight breeze, just as the engine note from the Kiowa changed.

‘Oh, shit,’ she screamed, ‘the flag! He’s seen the flag!’ She leapt to her feet and snatched at the offending piece of cloth, tearing it from its small jack. The helicopter passed overhead once more, turned, and hovered in front of the trees. Another piece of the bearing race broke away.

‘There’s nothing there, you baboon,’ said Ordu. ‘Give it a squirt and we’ll move on. If there is something, we’ll soon find out. Joseph fired a long burst from his twin machine guns into the central mass of the trees as they passed over again, Ordu spun the machine around to observe what effect the fire had. At that moment, the fragment of bearing became jammed in the teeth of the gears and, with a loud shrieking of metal against metal, the gearbox broke apart. The rotor stopped turning.

Ordu had been trained for such an emergency and, cursing the delinquent engineers, cut the engine, and tried to land the helicopter as quickly as he could. For a pilot not regarded with any respect by his fellow officers, it was a credible effort. The Kiowa plunged onto the sandy ground, canted as the port side undercarriage collapsed, and tipped onto its side. The rotor blades struck the ground and stopped, bent and broken, as she came to a halt in a cloud of dust and a cacophony of tearing metal and breaking plexiglass. Ordu could feel the heat of the dead engine and could smell spilt jet fuel. No, he thought. No! No fire, please God! He could feel Joseph tugging his harness, finding the release, and tumbling out onto the ground. Both stood and ran for their lives. Behind them the helicopter burst into flames, then exploded with the rattle of machine gun rounds cooking off.

 

Other Novels

 

The Golden Eagle

Each night they made love as if there would be no next time. Neither could get enough of each other. He revelled in her soft skin and lovely body she offered to him without reservation. She took him to new highs, as he did for her. Her flashing eyes, generous mouth and her obvious enjoyment drove him on and on. He knew he could not live without her. But he had to admit that he had his fill of bustling Europe.

Sometimes he longed for the wide-open plains of Brodie’s Crossing, the soft summer nights, and the calls of all the familiar birds, the scent of eucalyptus oil and smoke from the bushfires on the scorching summer days. He thought with relish of the wide sandy beaches and the sparkling blue Pacific Ocean.

 

He was a son of this great southern land. He had worn its uniform, had fought bravely in its name. Like all Australian farmers, he had an elemental attachment to his land. Mike remembered his youth on ‘Donegal’ sitting on a hillside, his horse nuzzling his shoulder, watching the cattle string out along their tracks, heading for the water holes in the creek below. He could forsake none of this.

 

Horses

A sad Matron met him at the hospital, and took him into a small treatment room, closing the door. ‘My dear Mr Gillespie,’ she began, with tears in her eyes. ‘I have the worst possible tidings for you. Your dear Roseanne has passed away from the Influenza. I am so sad for you both. I know you had planned to marry. She was a brave girl, and she fought to stay with us, but she lost her fight a week ago.’

This news stunned George. He said nothing for a long while, thinking about all the things that they had planned together, things now crumbling to dust, blown away into a great desert of nothingness. ‘Where is she?’ he asked.

‘I am sorry, my boy, we had to bury her as soon as possible; she is in the hospital cemetery. I will take you there now.’ The Matron knew more than she had said. Roseanne had come to her with the ‘special, joyous’ news. She was with child, so happy she would have a family for George after losing his three brothers, and so excited about their return to Australia; there was no point now in telling this poor man he also mourned for his unborn child.

The grave had a temporary marker. Soon they would re-inter her in the Commonwealth War Cemetery, along with George’s three brothers and over 500 others. George saw the flowers mounded on the grave and he knew she had been a loss to more than him. He fell to his knees and put his head in his hands.

The Matron patted his shoulder and left him to his grief. It took a long time, and he reflected on his losses, his three brothers, his many other mates, and most of all, his darling love. She had become the one shining star in his world, leading him towards hope and family, to a future that now would never be. Finally, his spirit broke, and he wept, for her, for his brothers, for the happy, lost world the war had destroyed, for a world that would never be the same. He wept until his soul was empty, a barren, worthless thing.

He stayed there all night, then he rose as another day, his first day without her, crept across the eastern horizon; he called to Caesar and rode away from the wreckage of all he held dear.

 

Lonely Road

Snake Bay docked several hours before a dark car drew up beside her on the wharf. Five men stepped down and approached the gangway, two of them dishevelled, unshaven, apparently disoriented.

At the bottom of the gangway, they stopped, and one of them called out softly. The Ensign who was Officer of the Watch heard him, but he didn’t understand; he didn’t speak Farsi. He replied with an encouraging grunt and flashed a green lamp. The men swiftly climbed the gangway, dragging their two captives with them.

When they reached the deck, they found themselves blinded by several powerful torch beams. ‘Welcome to the USS Snake Bay,’ said the Ensign, ‘We’ve been waiting for you assholes.’

Snake Bay sailed on the morning tide; next stop - San Diego.

 

Casey’s Island

Mick had parked at the far end of the lot, out of the lights and screened from view by some large trees. When they reached the car, he opened the luggage compartment. There, on a blanket, lay a near-new SLR. ‘Interested?’

Eamon looked around, searching for anybody who could see them, puzzled. ‘Is this kosher?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know mate, I’m not Jewish,’ said Mick, ‘but I didn’t find it lying in a park. If you want it, it’s yours, no questions asked.’

‘How much?’

‘Five hundred,’ said Mick, ‘with the accessories.’

Eamon drove away from the Club with a SLR and webbing sling, a bayonet, cleaning kit, four thirty round magazines and one thousand rounds of brand-new ball ammunition still in its sealed box. He didn’t waste time, driving back to Weipa as fast as he dared, sleeping by the road, and grabbing a quick sandwich when he could.

The next morning, he loaded his boat and set off for his island. Billie Quartpot had done a brilliant job on the Dora. He had cleaned it from top to bottom, applied two coats of paint to the hull, installed a new battery, and checked all the electrics and lighting. He had made sure the two gas bottles were full and changed the air, oil, and fuel filters on the engine. Eamon paid him for his work.

He only wanted what the paint and parts had cost him, but Eamon gave him another hundred dollars as well. ‘See you in a week or two, boss,’ he said. ‘Have a bloody good camp waiting for us!’

Just at dusk, he motored into the lagoon. Dora had behaved impeccably. She ran smoothly and handled beautifully.

He dropped anchor into the clear water and shut down the engine. In the silence, he looked around him at the turquoise water, the green slopes and the stark peak rising from the jungle. He felt an extraordinary sense of peace.

 

Valedictory

‘You were part of it. You’re just as responsible as the perpetrators.’

‘I don’t think so, and anyway it’s all over now. If it makes any difference, I didn’t agree with the war, but I’m a little old-fashioned. I believe in duty, honour, and responsibility. I did what my country asked of me, and I’m immensely proud of my service and of the other young men who served and sometimes died alongside me.’ 

She got to her feet and walked over to the bed, where he was sitting on its edge, facing the sofa. She stood very close. He could smell her perfume and feel the body heat coming off her in waves. ‘You do well to talk about responsibility. You promised to marry me, and you abandoned me.’

‘I didn’t abandon you, Roberta. I would have married you. I wanted to marry you. But you left me, you gave me back my ring and took another man’s instead. What was I to do?’

Suddenly, her face crumpled, and she began weeping, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Oh Andy,’ she said, ‘I so wanted you back. John was just there to make you jealous. God damn you for your principles!’ She pushed him back on the bed and fell upon him, straddling him, trying to kiss him, tearing at her clothes. ‘I still want you, Andy,’ she sobbed. ‘Please, please love me again. Make love to me now. It’s been so long. I want you so!’ 

It tempted Andy. He remembered other nights, other hotel rooms, her lovely body, her pretty face. He fought to get out from under her, pushing her aside, seeing her pert breasts where she had torn open her blouse. ‘No, Roberta. It is too late for that, fifty years too late. I just want to be your friend now.’ 

She sat weeping in the centre of the big bed. He wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he knew that would be the worst thing he could do. Eventually, she calmed, gathered herself and went to the bathroom to wash her face and do her hair. When she emerged, she was naked. ‘Take a good look, you bastard,’ she said. ‘This is what you’re missing.’

He sighed and tried to cover her with a towel. She pushed him away, surprising him with the strength in her slim arms. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘Never touch me again!’ She dressed, checked herself in the wall mirror, and walked to the door. ‘Go home, Andy, forget you ever knew me.’ She closed the door.

He would never see her again, for a year later, she would drown while surfing near Byron Bay. Her three million would still be in the bank three years later, the subject of bitter litigation between her distant relatives, for she died childless and intestate. Andy was certain the lawyers would probably get most of it.

 

Comes a Time

The sound grew louder and soon an Iroquois passed overhead, flared out, and landed alongside the ruins. The armed men prodded the others to their feet and the men carrying the bundles began to load them into the aircraft. Two men dismounted from the helicopter, both large white men dressed in fatigues and cloth hats, but without insignia. Both wore pistol belts. One took off his hat and used it to wipe the sweat from his face, revealing hair so white he might have been an albino. Tom focussed on his face. The man was repellent, nose broken and crooked, and a large scar on his left cheek. At this distance it was hard to be sure, but it seemed a cruel and hard face. He strolled over to the armed men and seemed to join in their conversation.

As soon as the bags were loaded, he pointed to the Vietnamese, now back in the gutter squatting on their heels. The others walked over and began shooting them. After the fire ceased, the big man took out his pistol and walked along the line of bodies, shooting some in the head. He entered one of the huts, and Tom heard two more shots. He climbed into the helicopter with the other white man, and it took off, heading east. Tom held it in his glasses for a time. It was painted plain olive drab with no identifying markings at all, not even a serial number. The rest of the men turned and set off up the road to the west, the way they had come.

‘Christ!’ said Tom.

The others had seen most of what happened down on the road and were speechless. Finally, Bluey said, ‘The bastards. There were kids there. Oh, fuck!’

Tom said, ‘Well, let’s go see what we can. It looked bad to me. Killing those people was a serious business, a war crime probably. And what about those blokes in the Huey? Who were they?’

An eerie silence dominated the small village. Even the birds and insects seemed to have abandoned it. Twenty or more Vietnamese lay dead in the ditch, four children and a babe in arms shot with his mother trying to shield him. Toni stumbled away and threw up in the bushes. The others were no less affected. ‘Where are the other two?’ said Mick.

They found them in a nearby hut, both dead it seemed, a man and a women both European, both about twenty-five years old. Tom knelt beside the male and searched him for identification. He found a passport, wallet and a press card from Agence France-Presse: Leon Combardre, French citizen. He moved to the woman, startled to detect a faint rise and fall in her chest. Quickly, he felt for a pulse. It was there, faint and erratic. ‘Mick, fetch the medical bag. Hurry!’

She should have been dead, shot in the chest just below her left breast. Mick pressed a field dressing to the wound and bound it tightly around her torso. There was an exit wound in her back that received the same treatment. ‘She might live,’ he said, ‘but she’ll need a doctor pronto. I’ll give her some morphine.’ Tom felt again. Her pulse was stronger now that the bleeding was stemmed.

‘No,’ he said, ‘It’ll be better to wait until she wakes up. We’ll grab their car and find a hospital. Have we got any plasma?’

‘No Boss, only some saline solution.’

‘Give her some of that, but rig a line so I can give her some blood’

‘She’s French too,’ said Brian. ‘And the press as well.’ He indicated a video camera on the ground. ‘This bloke would have been her cameraman, I’d say.’

Swiftly, Tom bundled up their personal effects and took the cassette from the camera. ‘Pity about the others,’ he said. ‘But there’s no time to bury them now. Go, go, go!’ As he ran to the car, he noticed something on the ground and picked it up. It was a small piece of a brown gel-like substance. He smelt it. It reminded him of a surgical glove, rubbery, but with a faint floral overtone. He threw it away.

 

 

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