Operation Pink Elephant by Stephen Dando-Collins

Author:Stephen Dando-Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2014-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

In the TICTS half of the port, thousands of metal shipping containers the size of large trucks sat side by side, stacked one atop the other, across the bitumen dockside loading area. The small GRRR detachment working here was dwarfed by the stacks and by massive, four-wheeled lifting machines that looked like praying mantises. The sun had gone down, and now the docks were lit by banks of orange lights.

With the sunset had come the evening cool. Both Ben and Caesar were grateful for that. They had been searching for six hours without success. Ben had given his four-legged partner a break every hour and a drink of water from one of the two water canteens on his belt. The canteens had been filled on Canberra, which produced its own fresh water by evaporating seawater in a large desalination plant aboard. This was the only water that Ben would permit Caesar to drink here at the port. He didn’t trust the quality of the local water, which might contain any number of diseases.

As night wrapped around them, they worked on in the artificial light. There was no way that Ben and Caesar could have searched every single container in six hours. They might have accomplished it in six days. So, Ben had been selective, picking containers for inspection at random, taking special interest in those whose paperwork indicated they were carrying agricultural produce – which Wally Springer had said was the usual cover for smuggled ivory.

To complicate matters, the seal on each container had to be broken and the doors unlocked for Caesar to check their contents. In order to do this, the assistance of a TICTS official was needed. Baz and Chris had gone in search of just such a man and had found an English-speaking Chinese clerk by the name of Mr Zhu working on the second floor of a TICTS office in a dockside warehouse. The middle-aged Mr Zhu had been reluctant to cooperate, but Baz and Chris hadn’t let that get in their way.

‘This isn’t a request and it isn’t an invitation,’ Baz had told Mr Zhu. ‘You are going to help us look inside the containers, end of story! A mate of mine is in trouble, and you are going to help us get him out of trouble.’

Mr Zhu was brought down to the piers. He opened one container after another, looking very nervous as Ben let Caesar poke his nose inside each one. But as time ticked by, Caesar found nothing.

‘You’re pushing him pretty hard, Ben,’ Chris Banner said with concern, when Caesar took a drink break.

‘I know,’ Ben said grimly. ‘He’s pretty much at the limit of his endurance now. Some dogs lose interest in the job after a while, but Caesar would sniff until he dropped.’ Kneeling beside his partner, Ben ruffled Caesar’s neck. ‘Wouldn’t you, mate?’

In response, Caesar wearily licked him on the cheek.

From the seaward side of the port came the buzzing sound of an approaching helicopter.

‘That’s the Sally coming to pick us up, Ben,’ said Baz.

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