Haut crept up behind him with his rifle. He fired three times from three metres at another black snake that was poised ready to strike Cavalier from a branch a metre above his head. Pieces of the snake’s head fell on him. He jumped back. Mac leapt around the snake’s still wriggling body as it hit the ground. He barked and wagged his tail, enjoying the kill but not ready to bite the reptile’s headless body, even in its death throes.

‘Thought you said I wouldn’t see another one!’ Cavalier said, wiping slime from his shoulder.

‘Sorry about that. It’s rare you encounter two in a month let alone within a few hours.’ Haut chortled for several seconds and added: ‘You have to say that was a close shave!’

Less amused, Cavalier said, ‘Next time I’ll bring an electric razor.’

9 BIKIE INVASION

9

BIKIE INVASION

Cavalier followed Haut’s BMW Roadster to Hobart, where Mac was left with Haut’s parents. They then drove to Haut’s office behind the Myer store on Liverpool Street. A biblical quote was tacked on the front door of his ground-floor suite of rooms.

Proverbs 11:3: The integrity of the upright will guide them. Integrity is the purity of thought, motivation, intention, attitude, speech and action.

They spent four hours going through the detailed assay reports for Haut’s various oil finds on and around North Bruny Island, and gold at Mount Victoria. At the end of the interview, half-eaten sandwiches, empty coffee cups and the crisp remains of a bucket of French fries were littered on the table in a small conference room of filing cabinets, a single bed and a TV set on a stand. A bookcase of oil brochures, technical books, bottled samples of oil and minerals covered one wall.

‘That’s 1.2 billion barrels of oil and twenty-four tonnes of gold,’ Haut said. ‘Not bad, eh?’

‘I can see why Conquer wishes to stop you.’

‘They want those reserves. Simple as that.’

At that moment, the office door flew open and four bikies, wearing telltale gear of leather jackets, fancy belts and studded wristbands, burst into the room brandishing long-barrelled handguns.

Cavalier dared not look at his suitcase sitting next to his chair. His handgun was in it.

The biggest of the four, hair sprouting from above a multicoloured sweatband, stepped forward, aiming his gun at Haut.

‘You Haut?’ he grunted.

A second bikie, wiry and wide-eyed, moved between them.

‘Hang on a tick!’ he said. ‘It’s the Reverend Al! He gave that great service for Barry Price a few months ago. Well, bugger me dead!’ He scratched his speed-hump of a nose and shook hands with Haut.

‘I’m Bert Renolds,’ he said. He then tried to uncock his handgun. Instead his sweating fingers slipped and accidentally discharged it, missing Haut by inches and shattering a window.

There were nervous reactions as Renolds apologised.