The Miscreant Focus

By charles back

Dan Coltrane finds himself caught up in a Chinese Communist government effort to purchase large areas of Australian real estate in cities across Australia.The purchases are not illegal, but the method by which they become available is suspect and this is where Coltrane's investigation starts. It soon becomes apparent to Coltrane that Australian politicians at a federal and state level are involved and have been bribed to co-operate with large Chinese conglomerates who are at the bottom of the real estate take-over bid. When a group of politicians from Canberra embark on a trip to China to attend a symposum in Beijing, Coltrane follows them closely and finds that important businessmen involved in gambling cassinos in China are also involved. While in China Coltrane is befriended by Jon Ling Ha, the CEO of a major corporation who appreciates Coltrane's honesty. The islands that China is constructing to Australia's north make more sense to Coltrane when he is made privvy to the plans through Jon Ling that China has for the development of Australia's vast inland areas to save millions of people from starvation. Coltrane falls in love with Jon Ling's daughter and they marry while he is in China. Coltrane is then offered an important position with the Chinese Government as their security Chief and it is at this moment that he has to decide where his future lies. The Australian security Chief in Canberra flounders in disbelief that one of his senior field officers is considering a change of loyalty to his country and attempts to get Coltrane to reconsider but Coltrane sees the bigger picture that will affect the future of millions of people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: charles back
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215615621

charles back

Charles was born in Liverpool England in 1945 and emigrated to Australia with his parents in 1950 aboard the steamship Asturius. He lived in Sydney for the next eleven years and then his father signed him up for twelve years in the Royal Australian Navy. Charles served three tours of duty as a code breaker during the Vietnam war and left the service in 1973. He attended university and graduated as a secondary Art and English teacher in 1978 and served in the Education Department of Western Australia for thirty one years. After his teaching career Charles went back to university and graduated as a Naturopath in 2007, and after continued studies graduated as a psychotherapist in 2010. Charles is now retired and lives by the sea in Perth Western Australia, close to his two daughters.

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Table of Contents

The Miscreant Focus

More thriller novels by Charles Back

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Outlander Run

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The Game Change

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Breakwater Bay

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The City of Perth Council was also involved on some level, and we anticipated that their involvement would be revealed in due course On the surface the injustice handed down to me by the Perth court lingered for a while. Up to this point all of the major outcomes appeared to be developing in favour of the international business syndicate involved. Our case build-up was proceeding as planned but an unforeseen hiccup in the plan changed our general agenda and more specifically mine when I visited Melbourne for a few days to take part in a specialist course in Asian Crime Analysis.   

It was a police drug bust stake-out and a random shot from the opposition hit me in the forehead and nearly ended it all right there. The unfortunate development in a field operation stopped me short and I’ve been on recovery leave with the prospect of being an ex-cop a distinct possibility. I’d spent the best part of my working life fighting for law and order until the unexpected injury almost ended a promising career prematurely.      

It was a night operation, and I was stopped in a nanosecond by the nine millimetre GLOCK automatic and I almost became a new involuntary organ donor. It made the front-pages for a few days, a foiled drug bust that we’d been given information about prior to the event, but it went pear-shaped around the midnight hour for the team generally, and me in particular.  

I shouldn’t have been in the squad that attended but it involved a long-time racketeer named Carl Milder and I wanted to be there when he got his come-uppance. I was unlucky that night because I was only making up the numbers for another detective that had called in sick less than an hour earlier and I was due to return to Perth the next day. I was familiar with the Melbourne case and true to my sense of crime fighting I volunteered my services, and the rest is history.    

The perpetrators were apprehended, suffered a few hard knocks by the other two officers on the stake-out with me and given an eight-year sentence in Goulburn maximum security penitentiary. Was justice served one might ask?

The sentence handed down to the perpetrators was ludicrously light considering one of them had shot a cop, namely me, but I wasn’t dead and that was a definite plus. Although their years behind bars weren’t going to do much for my recuperation, they were now off the Melbourne streets, but my woman was gone, and I fully understood the reason for her decision. No woman wants to live with the prospect of imminent and terminal violence threatening her family on a daily basis.          

After the event I was on recuperation leave with a decision on my future service in the hands of the Federal Police Minister and pending. It was touch and go for a while but after the smoke cleared and the well-meaning comments about hard-nosed cops with even harder heads subsided, I was left with a foggy memory but a firm determination to continue in my chosen field of police investigation. Then I was shipped off to Perth for a recuperative stint in the backwaters.

The two recent complainants were smirking as the judgement was handed down in their favour and it didn’t make proceedings any easier when the authoritative image of the magistrate peered down from his bench. It was a totally new experience given my previous position as an undercover detective sergeant with the Federal police investigation branch in Melbourne. For security reasons that information was not offered up to the court as an extenuating circumstance.  

The clandestine nature of the politically sensitive case we were currently investigating needed some credibility and I had to play my part convincingly for the interested parties in attendance. There were numerous players watching from the bleachers as the case proceeded and one of those was Jon Ling ha, CEO of the Weinway Corporation.

‘Mr Coltrane you have passed perilously close to a period of incarceration because of this incident. I suggest that in the future you exercise greater control of your response to unsavoury comments made by other members of the community. I am fully aware of the extent to which you were provoked, but that gives you no right to take the law into your own hands, and physical retaliation of that severity will not be tolerated.’ Then the heavy thud of his gavel brought the proceedings to a final conclusion, or so I thought, and the courtroom started to clear in preparation for the next hearing.           

‘It could have been worse Dan,’ my legal counsel who had spent the last twenty minutes representing me said with some satisfaction. ‘We know it would never come to incarceration because of your service standing despite the judges wrap up of the case. They have to make a clear statement of fact to deter others. Also, you don’t want to bring any disrepute to the department if your future’s still in the hands of the Commissioner.’   

Keith had a valid point, but I knew the ropes and what went on in the judiciary. It was all a ruse to bring out some of the criminal heavyweights lurking in the wings and to this point it was all going to plan. This was an elaborate set-up the department had devised to flush out the controlling body that interfered with our system of law and was making inroads into the Perth property market as well. It was a form of passive takeover on many united fronts and the Republic of China was behind most of it we were sure. These people were manipulating at least two state politicians and a Federal member in Canberra, and we had managed to identify them after the drug bust that put me on the side-lines. 

The judicial system here in Perth was being manipulated by a high-flying Asian QC Wang Kwei. He was representing the two complainants and men with that skill portfolio wouldn’t come cheap. Someone with financial clout had picked up the tab to make sure that two common criminals had no charge on record. It was an integral part of the investigation to find out who was behind recent events and take decisive action against their highly efficient organisation. These two unfortunates were the work horses employed to do the unsavoury tasks that always come hand in hand with the dark activities of crime, but they were also being well protected.   

‘The magistrate was right in his interpretation of the law Dan. Although it doesn’t seem to be fair in one respect you’re still a serving police officer with no criminal conviction recorded so let it go now and get back in the saddle. It’s a case of win a few, lose a few and this one was pretty close to a draw.’   

‘You’re right of course Keith but it’s a pain in the arse to think that those two layabouts come out with a four and a half thousand-dollar payout as victims of crime while we know that they were responsible for the problem in the first place.’ Keith wasn’t part of our cover and not totally conversant with the details. What we were working towards was ‘eyes only’ security level and sometimes it’s prudent not to let the support team in on too much inside information.        

‘Yeah, I agree with you Dan, but it’s over now, forgotten. My secretary will send an invoice to the department for ‘services rendered.’       

Two

Keith Hanson had been a good friend of mine since we met at Murdoch Uni about nine years ago and we hang out together once in a while. Usually, it’s with a cold beer and it gives us time to fix some of the many problems that have beset the world. On this occasion he was involved in my affairs on a legal footing because of my indiscretion outside of a crowded bar in Northbridge a couple of months back. The incident had been carefully orchestrated by a team of police strategists closing in on the Asian powerbrokers and I was the bait in the trap.      

My continued police service depended on how I brushed up after a six-month convalescence leave of absence and so far it was going well. After recovering from the life-threatening head wound, I decided to try my hand at a normal existence for a while and see how my recovery progressed, but the call of active service is hard to ignore and so I maintained my interest in the service in my own hours and just bided my time. 

The neurologist recommended that I get myself a temporary position as part of the recuperation process during the first few months and take it one day at a time. I’d served in some heavy-duty Police undercover teams and international crime units before and as a force we were up the sharp end most of the time. It was there that thorough training in fieldwork techniques taught me how to maintain self-discipline and look after myself physically. Not against gunshots it would seem, but in the days of Hoddle Street and the heavies who held sway in Melbourne you had to be on top of your game every minute or you might not make it home to talk about the experience. 

This new service recovery strategy was devised for the recuperation of serving police officers injured in the field and it has some merit. I’ve had a quantum shift in my perception during the rehabilitation period and it’s clarified some of the bias I held towards criminal activity when working as a serving officer. My observation removed the fog and now I have a viewpoint from a different angle. I sense that many things have altered dramatically during the past two or three years and sometimes it’s difficult to come to terms with some of the borderline elements of the readjustment my thinking process has undergone.     

Cops have always been on the other side of the fence to the guy in the street, but we were still shown some respect, but now it was very much the ‘us and them’ mentality that prevails. Maybe it’s the electronic age and as a community we’ve forgotten how to communicate and be civil and considerate to others.

That’s a harsh take on progress I guess but too many people are angry and walk around all day looking for a reason to abuse total strangers or take advantage of people who appear to be vulnerable. Calling out something like that was how the police operation developed with me centre stage as the main event at the local courthouse this morning. 

The two guys in the prosecuting camp were in the Northbridge bar a few weeks ago. They scoured around half the night just itching for a rumble with someone, anyone and that was our chance at an introduction to the suspects. Our surveillance team had identified them as a possible part of the muscle working for the Asian consortium that was intent on making headway into the Perth real estate market, and we needed some visual field confirmation.      

These two heavies were doing the rounds of the bar looking for trouble to further escalate the violent reputation that the venue was becoming renowned for. Within weeks the patrons would stop frequenting the place and the owner would go broke and sell for half of what it was worth. I literally bumped into one of the bully boys while on my way out of the late-night watering hole that was still heaving inside.  

To on-lookers it appeared to be a simple misjudgement of time, space, and speed by both of us, it happens every day.        ‘Watch where you’re going shithead,’ the stockier of the two growled after I’d said good night to Keith and headed for the exit. There was nothing physical in the early part of the exchange and it should have ended right there, but that was not my intent. I’d handled myself well with a good-hearted reply for the benefit of onlookers and meant to placate the man who appeared to be unhappy about my presence anywhere near the front door.       

‘Oops sorry mate didn’t see you there,’ I’d replied in a conciliatory tone. I was prepared to absorb his insult without further comment, but I knew beforehand what his response would be.      

‘Well take more bloody care where you’re going in future or I’ll....’     

‘Or you’ll what?’ I replied provocatively and that was where the disagreement escalated to the next level as was the intended direction of the manoeuvre. 

‘Or we’ll take your bloody head off and shove it up your arse,’ his mate said with a sharp push against my left shoulder.  

It was an act of bravado on his part because he felt confident with the two on one advantage he appeared to have. There were two Federal undercover officers sitting at the bar watching and ready to act if it appeared that I was in any real trouble but so far it had all gone to plan.

Provocation is no cause for retaliation as the magistrate said, but physical assault provides for reasonable steps towards self-protection. That was the basis of my defence in the court decision that went against me an hour ago.   

I turned the other cheek and went to walk away when a large hand gripped my shoulder and spun me around ready to set me up for a sucker punch. The intended blow came as a roundhouse right cross. It was slow and cumbersome for a young guy who was making his mark in the standover profession, and it proved to be his downfall. I stepped inside its arc and crashed my forehead into his face with a force level that broke his nose in two places. He was never going to look the same again.   

His mate entered the melee as the rescue team but a short jab to his midriff brought him down to waist level and I snapped my knee up into the side of his head which fractured his cheek bone. That brought an end to the short fracas, and a small crowd started to form around us intent on sharing in the excitement. I heard them gathering just prior to the encounter but at the end of the physical part camera flashes were arcing up all around us because people love to see some action on a Saturday night.  

Photo evidence would give their social standing a boost and so it went. When the police arrived I explained my side of the story but these two were well known locally and two onlookers, one an Asian woman gave evidence that contradicted my story. I was summarily arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm and these proceedings started to stir up some interest. It was all was going to plan for us but Jesus Christ, what a night. Ten days later I walked down the courthouse steps towards my vehicle in the car-park. I was approached by a middle-aged man dressed in casual clothing and dark sunglasses who appeared to be of European descent, Greek or Italian maybe.     

‘Mr Coltrane, can I speak with you for a moment, Mr Coltrane.’     

‘Sorry mate, I have nothing more to add,’ I said assuming him to be the court reporter for one of the local newspapers. 

‘No, no, it’s nothing like that but I was there on the night it happened. You got a rough deal back there, but the law is the law and those two get away with it all the time. They belong to a group of standover merchants that cause fights around that area on a regular basis to intimidate the local business owners and scare away the customers. I know because I own the bar where it happened and I’m slowly going broke. They didn’t expect you to stand up to them so convincingly, but you did a great job.’     

‘Get the law to help you mate,’ I said feeling some empathy with this guy but knowing that there wasn’t much I could do to help him. I needed to flush out the brains behind this business agenda and to do that I needed the opposition to reveal a few details, like their location and who they were working for. That wasn’t going to happen through my involvement with one of the local businessmen who was having trouble with a few fights starting in his bar.   

‘We’ve tried that but when the police come to investigate they do very little and say that there’s no evidence.’    

‘The law is definitely an ass,’ I replied visualising my recent hearing and how it must look to the locals. I crossed the stone paving outside the courts and walked towards the underground parking area where I’d left my car. After our brief encounter he stopped following me when he realised that his approach for help was useless. He saw that I’d stood up to these people, but it appeared to him that I had no authority to investigate and there was very little that I could offer to help.    

‘They haven’t finished with you yet either,’ he called after me, ‘so watch your back,’ but I shrugged off the warning as an idle cautionary remark and continued on my way.  

Three

I learned how to handle the plethora of low life walking the streets of most Western cities a long time ago, and old habits and the skills that go with them die hard. I entered the cool gloom of the parking area and took a ticket out of my wallet as I approached my pride and joy. It’s an early model BMW sedan that cost me a large chunk of my injury entitlements, but it’s been worth every dollar. Before I got to open the driver’s side door a gravelly voice I’d heard recently in court called out to me. 

‘There’s three of us this time fancy man, reckon you can handle us all do you?’ I turned to see both plaintiffs and their larger very muscular associate standing between me and my car intent on continuing with the disagreement we’d had in the bar a few weeks before. They wore the usual sleeveless t-shirt and jeans uniform favoured by the joy boys of their generation and each one of them carried a very persuasive weapon, a seventeen-inch-long stainless-steel ratcheted wheel brace.     

‘You didn’t give me too much trouble last time as I recall, so apart from the fat boy with you this time what’s changed?’ I said provocatively. It’s actually a fearful experience to be confronted by anyone carrying a weapon and three assailants are even worse. God knows I’ve done that enough times in the urban wilderness of Melbourne and other places, but it gets harder when you’re a couple of years older, alone, and outnumbered. In situations like this remaining calm and thinking clearly is the only way to go if you want to survive intact.         

Sometimes conciliation is worth a try but it’s not a reliable option. With thugs and bullies of this ilk you know you’re in trouble when it gets down to ineffective parlance bedrock. That’s where I was right now with my provocative name-calling repertoire and there was no turning back.     

The four of us were in a relatively confined space between two cars, boxed in with a solid concrete support column to the left at the rear of my car and a drive away lane to the right. My best option was to stay close to the cars and limit their ability to swing the short wheel braces with any momentum if it was going to develop that way as it surely was.        

‘I thought we wrapped this up in court an hour ago,’ I said as an opener to the pointless conversation.    

‘Not that easy fella,’ the muscle man snarled back as the other two flanked me and closed in for the first strike. No use in me trying to backpedal here, no percentage in that, and besides there was no-where to go. I stayed with a well-tried rule of engagement, hit out first and hit out hard. I struck forward with a short stabbing knee high kick hoping to catch the skinny bastard off balance, but he was too quick.    

He was half expecting my opening gambit, but his lofty mate was a bit slow and as I pulled back from the kick I caught him squarely under the side of his throat with a blistering right handed side punch. My police judo instructor of years gone by would have been extremely proud of me. Although I wasn’t the champion unarmed combat student at the academy, I still passed the training course in the top ten percent of recruits at my Federal Police Graduation, and it was paying off.   

Lofty staggered backwards into the Ford Capri behind him and dropped his steel rod as he clutched his badly damaged Adams Apple. I took a glancing blow on my right hand from the skinny guy’s retaliation which caused me to wince, but I was ahead on points, and I snatched up the weapon lying on the floor. Round one was over, miraculously I was still in one piece, and I was armed and operational.       

‘No point in going on with this guys,’ I said uneasily, but before I could finish the conciliatory proposition, muscles leapt forward with his wheel brace raised high above his shoulder readying to crash it down on to my unprotected skull. The brace missed the side of my head by less than an inch, but he’d hit me with a telling blow on my left scapula.

It felt like the bone had cracked and then a searing pain knifed through my shoulder and into my left arm but not before I delivered a thunderous six pointer into his groin, it was a nutcracker.  

The kick stopped muscles dead in his tracks. It brought him to the ground with a throaty gurgling grunt, but I had to bear the excruciating pain from the blow he’d landed on my shoulder with his wheel brace. I was almost delirious with the pain but still I managed to hold my ground. The agony was indescribable, and it felt as though my collar bone had been broken in at least two places. I was still standing, but only just, and my left arm was badly damaged and totally immobile.    

Round two hadn’t gone so well, and the idiot on my left was the last man standing. I wondered if he was going to go on with it or live to fight another day? Hard to know how these animals think, so I pointed the brace in my right hand directly at him as a warning and said, ‘go and get some medical help for your two mates Lofty while you can still walk.’ He hesitated indecisively for two, maybe three seconds and then retrieved a mobile phone from his back pocket and scurried away in conversation towards the exit.

While he was gone I knelt down to the muscle man still writhing in agony on the floor and spoke menacingly into his right ear.         

‘If I decide to come looking for you after my shoulder heals fat boy I’ll make it worth my while, got that? Then I decided to put some fear and the threat of future retaliation into this bastard’s memory to keep him looking over his shoulder for the next couple of weeks. Crims are like that. It would give him something to think about during the painful sleepless nights ahead and throw him off his game. 

He looked back with a disdainful smirk on his face and grunted something unintelligible, but I hadn’t finished with him or his mate just yet. The grand finale was about to come down on both of them, and hard.      

To emphasize the point, thirty seconds before I drove off I hit both of these swine once and forcefully on the left scapula with the wheel brace I’d retrieved earlier. I made sure it was hard enough to crack the bone and inflict an injury on both of them that was similar to my own. It was a tough call to make because I'm still a serving police officer