Wellstead - 19. WSD Chapter 19

I gave him the flight details for both parts of the trip, plus the allocated seat numbers for both flights.

I was asked follow him to the conference room to take a seat, while he made some enquiries, and I did as he suggested. After an agonising twenty-minute wait, the gentleman returned with two more men following him, and they all sat down, before I was introduced to the two men, AFP – Australian Federal Police Inspector Hawkins, and the Terminal Manager for the Airline that Emm and twins were travelling with.

I was informed that after a quick check, it was confirmed that Emm and the twins did fly to Mumbai, but they failed to board the plane for the last stage of the flight. I was also told that all passengers had remained in the transit lounge area during the stop over, so it is not clear why they did not board the plane. I provided two photographs from my phone that I took of the twins and of Emm, when we were shopping for clothes a few days before they left for Europe.

I gave them their dates of birth and passport numbers, which I had on hand in case their passports got lost or stolen. I was told that Mumbai police and the Airline office there were already looking into the matter. I was advised to return home to Townsville, & I would be contacted as soon as there was some news.

I was not happy about this, but there was nothing more I could do, so I thanked them all and made my way back to the hire car I had organise, and I drove to the hotel where I had stayed overnight, to pack my overnight bag. I was back in Townsville early in the afternoon, and I went straight to the office, were I called my temporary assistant to my office to take down a letter for me.

I dictated my resignation as Mayor of Townsville effective immediately, due to an urgent person matter, that requires my attention for an unknown amount of time. The stunned assistant said nothing, but I could see the shock look on her face, as I finished dictating the letter, and asked her to type it up and have it delivered to the Townsville City Council CEO, as soon as possible.

Once I left the office with a small box of person items, I went straight to my apartment, where I sat down and cried for a good half an hour, ignoring the telephone that had rung a number of times. After washing my face, I telephoned Mrs Parkes and explained what has happened, and told her that I had resigned as Mayor, and that I would be travelling to India within the next few days to try and find my missing friends.

Next, I telephoned Judge Andrews and Frank Hills also telling them the whole story and the plans I had to go and search for them, both of them thought it was foolish of me to just resign and go dashing off on a wild search, but I told them that I had no choice, that I had to do this.

After I had finished both calls, I made a new message on the answering machine, and the same on my mobile phone, which I decided to leave behind, and I called Rebecca again, asking here to arrange for a business class seat on a flight from Brisbane to Mumbai - India, for as soon as possible, I informed her that I have left my phone at home and that I will call her when I arrive in Brisbane to get the information.

Next, I called the airline to get a ticket for the next flight to Brisbane, and the first available ticket I could get was early the next morning, so I booked and paid for it right away. After I had completed the flight bookings, I went for a walk down to the main business area of the city, and walking into a telephone shop, I purchased a brand new I Phone, and arranged a call plan that allowed me to make international calls, and have internet access, and because the customer service office recognised who I was, she organised it to be speed charged, the new phone number connected quickly, and the call plan arranged also.

Thanking her for her efficient service, I returned to the apartment, where I transferred just the phone numbers of family and friends to the new phone, before turning off the old phone, which I guessed I would not be using for some time. I sent a text to Judge Andrews, Frank Hills, Mrs Parkes and Elspeth, to let them know my new mobile number, which I wanted to be kept silent and unknown to everyone apart from them, and that I would be heading to Brisbane in the morning, and flying to India in the next few days, and that I would stay in touch.

Three days later I arrived in Mumbai, and I settled into the serviced apartment that I had leased for three months, unknown how long I would be there, once I had settled in, I made my way to the Australian Consulate to let them know that I was in Mumbai on personal business for an unknown amount of time, and I gave them my phone number and the address of the apartment that I had rented.

The Consulate already knew of my coming arrival, as they had been briefed on the matter of the missing Australian young man and his younger twin teenage brothers nearly a week ago. I was told to remain in contact with the consulate office, and not to go out of the city, without notifying them and having a guide with me as they didn’t want to lose another Australian citizen.

I spent a few days getting familiar with the city of Mumbai, and with that I was able to locate two newspapers companies and organised several interviews to get the story out about the disappearance of Emmanuel and his twin brothers.

Over the next two weeks, I had three newspaper interviews, five radio interviews and a television interview about me trying to find my friends. A month later as a result from all of this publicity, one of the newspapers received an anonymous tip, that the young man and his twin teenage brothers, where kidnapped by a Pakistani Terrorist group, and that they were originally going to demand a huge ransom from their family and employers.

However, since they read in the media that their prisoners had recently lost their parents in a car accident in Italy, and that the young man was just a local government office assistant, the terrorist group had decided to keep them hostage until they had come up with another demand.

After convincing the newspaper to allow me to participate in the correspondence with the terrorist group, I was able to negotiate with them to provide proof that their hostages were still alive, they responded by sending a Polaroid photo of Emmanuel, Lucas and Micah sitting together, holding a newspaper with the front-page article about them.

It took me over 6 weeks to get that far, but as soon as I saw the photo of them alive, I was both relieved and shocked. Their hands were bound by rope, they look like they hadn’t washed in all the time they had been held captive, and they also looked very tired and thin.

I was worried for their health and safety, and so I started to try and negotiate their release, by trying to find out what the terror group wanted in exchange for their release. After 3 weeks of slow and frustrating effort, I could start to feel I was not getting very far, I was not sleeping very well, and eating even less.

I was surprised when one day there was a knock on my apartment door, hesitantly I opened the door a little bit to see who was there. “Mr Wellstead, I am from the Australian Consulate Office, can I come inside please?” I hesitated for a few moments before opening the door fully and stepping aside to let the gentleman in.

Once seated in the lounge I waited to hear what the consular officer had to say. “Sir we received some fantastic news this morning, so great that I personally wanted to tell you right away, about an hour ago we received a telephone call from the town of Bakhasar, in the Rajasthan province, in North Western India just 5 km’s East of the Pakistan border.

The caller identified himself as Micah Hamish Guildford, and that he has a twin brother Lucas and older brother Emmanuel, he said that he had escaped from where they have been held captive, and he convinced a business shop to allow him to call the Australian Consulate via the operator, he said he would remain in hiding at the boot cobbler store, till someone from the consulate comes, so he can show where his injured and sick brothers are being held”.

When I heard this, I jumped up and grabbed my jacket, put my boots on and grabbed my hire car keys and wallet, “I don’t know if you want to come, but I am going there now” I said as I guided the consulate officer towards the door of my apartment, “That sir is why I came personally, so I could be your guide to the region” the man said as we left the apartment and headed for the car park.

We decided to take the consular vehicle, one because it was a 4-wheel drive, two they had diplomatic protection in the car, and also the Consular officer had a supply of food snacks, drinks and maps for the area that we were heading for in the north.

The five-hour journey was very long and slow, as the roads are either very crowded or in very poor condition, and when we finally arrived in Bakhasar in the late afternoon, I scanned the map and the streets looking for the boot cobbler store, which we finally located some twenty minutes later, just before they were due to close for the day.

“Good afternoon gentlemen, how may I help you today” the shop owner said as we entered the store, where there were other customers being seen too by another staff member, the consular officer put his finger to his lips and showed his consular identification to the man, who nodded his head in understanding, “If you follow me please sir, I have the package that you ordered in the back” he said as he lead the way to the back of the store.

At the end of a long passage way there was a closed door, and he knocked twice then again once, before repeating the knock sequence, and the door was unlocked and opened from the other side, as I stepped into the dully lit lounge room, Micah saw me and sprung to his feet and rushed towards me, wrapping his arms around me and bursting into tears, I returned the hug and bent down to pick him up and carry him back to the lounge.

Once Micah had stopped crying, I asked him if he could take us to where the bad men had held them captive, and Micah nodded his head, I looked up to the store owner and smiled as I pulled out my wallet from my back pocket.

“Sir I wish to thank you for everything you have done to keep young Micah safe, and allowing him to call the Australian Consulate, please accept this as a gift with my deepest gratitude” I said as I handed him the equivalent to $2000 Australian in Indian currency.

His eyes went very wide at the huge amount of money being offered to him and his shook his head and his hands to indicate that it was too much, “Sir I have been very lucky with finances over the last few years, and I want to show my thanks with this gift, please sir, accept this on behalf of Micah and his brothers Lucas and Emmanuel, use it in any way you want, maybe you can use half of it for you and your family and the other half for some charity organisation in your town” I said holding out the money to him and he reluctantly accepted it.

Taking the rear exit to the building, the Consulate officer had his car around to the rear exit, and I lifted Micah into the back and shuffled over beside him. Micah remained seated close to me for the fifteen-minute journey to the nearest public park to where Micah and his brothers were being held, which he ran through as soon as he escaped. Nervously he pointed to the building which looked like an abandoned work shop; he began to shake when he saw the man who captured them was approaching the building and pointed in that direction.

The consulate officer made a quick telephone call before jumping out of the car, I jumped out too, telling Micah to stay in the car and lock the doors. Just as the door to the workshop was about to close, the consulate officer quietly placed his foot in the way, and waited for me to catch up, we then silently entered the building, which had a wide semi dark passageway, leading to double doors at the end, which were slightly open. We stopped just before the doors and listened in, where we could hear a raised voice and some smacking around the face and punches to the stomach, as the captor demanded to know where the other twin was.

As quietly as possible we opened one of the doors, and we were about to step in when we hear the captor say that he would be back soon with some more equipment to get more details out of them. We quickly backed away and pulled the door back to its original position, before dashing back down the passageway, I stopped suddenly when I saw a doorway to the left which I hadn’t noticed earlier, and the consulate officer crashed into me before realising why I stopped.

What ended up being a store room, we went in and closed the door most of the way so it was slightly ajar, and waited for the captor to go past, and exit the building, before we raced back down the hallway and pushed the door open, grabbing the edge to stop it from crashing against anything as it swung open, where we found Lucas and Emmanuel on the floor with their hands bound tight in front of them.

Emmanuel was sitting up but leaning forward after his recent treatment from the captor, while Lucas was lying on the concrete floor and he didn’t look at all well. I sat next to Lucas to quickly assess his injuries and illness, before I took off my jacket and carefully placed it over him before carefully picking him up in my arms and slowly standing up. The consular officer untied Emmanuel’s hands, before helping him to stand up, and we made our way towards the door, stopping for a moment to listen for any sounds of the captor returning.

Within moments we were outside and walking as fast as possible towards the vehicle, Micah unlocked and opened the doors as we approached the vehicle, and helped with getting his twin brother into the back seat. Emmanuel was place into front passenger seat, and we were soon all in the car as the consular driver jammed the gears into first and hit the accelerator pedal hard with his foot.

I asked the consular officer to take us to the nearest private hospital, as money was not a problem when it concerned his close friends, and within twenty minutes they screeched to a stop in front of the private hospital. The noise of the brakes screeching brought the attention of some nurses and a doctor who brought out two trolleys, after I shouted out that we had two injured people, and we were soon in the emergency department treatment area, where the nurse was asking me questions about Emmanuel and Lucas, and also Micah after I told them that he had been mistreated too.

Emmanuel had severe bruising around his mid-section, and they rushed him to surgery with suspected ruptured spleen, and broken ribs, while Lucas and Micah were made comfortable and assessed for injuries, before I was informed that they were both fine apart from malnutrition and exhaustion.

The doctor suggested a two day stay in hospital to get fluids and food into them but first they needed a bath, which both boys protested about the nurses giving them a bath, and asked me to do it instead. I was a bit surprised by this, as I hardly knew the boys plus they were in their early teens but that didn’t seem to worry them.

Once in the bathroom, I helped them both to carefully remove their clothing while the bath tub was filling, when they took off their shirts, I could see most of their ribs showing, and they looked very frail, with their pants and undergarments removed, I assisted them into the bath, and with wash cloths, slowly and carefully washed both of the boys. At one point the doctor entered to see if everything was ok, and to bring some borrowed clothes from the donation cupboard, before leaving again.

It took me over an hour to wash both of them and to get them dried and dressed, before calling the nurses, who came in with two-wheel chairs to take the boys to their assigned room. After seeing them settled into their beds and given some soup and bread to eat, they soon drifted off to sleep.

I watched them sleep for about half an hour before leaving the room, where I noticed a police officer seated at the doorway to the boys room, I nodded to the officer before making my way to the nurses station, where the consular officer was talking to the nurses and another man, giving a description of the captor, the address of the property where they were held and a rough layout of inside the building where they were held.

About an hour later we were informed that Emmanuel was out of surgery and in recovery, that the spleen was removed and his ribs strapped to keep him from moving them, and that he would be placed in the same room as his brothers in about half an hour. I was relieved that Emm was ok, and now all three of them were safe, and I thanked the Consular Officer for everything that he has done, and he said he would be keeping in contact over the next few days.

I went back into the boy’s room and sat down on a chair between the two beds and was soon fast asleep, briefly waking up when the nurses brought Emm into the room and settled him into his bed. When I woke in the morning, I felt a blanket covering me and when I saw Lucas not in his bed, I shot up out of the chair and raced out the door, nearly knocking over a passing nurse as I headed for the nurse’s station.