This is a bomb!

​I spent three years as a contract safety consultant working Fly In Fly Out (FIFO as we call it) at iron ore mines in Western Australia's far north and I've felt ever since that there's a book that needs writing about that experience. This story is a stab in that direction.

The clothes were right. Coveralls, Blue Steel boots, clear safety glasses, hi-viz vest. Five hundred or more guys and half a dozen girls were tagging in through the security gate in red-dirt tinted concoctions no different to his, each giving it their individual, world-weary swagger. Another day another few million for Gina and Twiggy, the billionaires who own it all

And that’s where it sat wrong. He didn't belong. It wasn’t his age, grizzled old farts are everywhere on the mines, or even that his gear was newer and cleaner than most. Hell, we all change hard hats every six months, company policy, and his had a few plausible dust smears. Everyone wears out their boots. Every big boss up from the city brings that champion dirt collector vibe with the straight out of the pack creases in their denims. But this guy was no desk jockey on his annual ’I go to site’ PiIbarra jolly. 
The problem was the way he carried those clothes. 

Too big on him, for a start, as if he’d lost a load of weight, and the way he hunched his shoulders. He hesitated at the gate while an apprentice fitter hefted her pack over the turnstile. Seeing how it was done?

It wasn’t even that the guy ducked his head to avoid eye contact with the gate guard. Half of us do that every day. No-one wants to be picked to prove their blood alcohol level is zero and miss transport to the pit. It’s a pain hitching a lift later even if you can produce the required sample on demand. Sod that. 
This one kind of dived through and I couldn’t let it go. It’s an affliction that costs me every time, but I can’t stop myself.

“G’day,” I said.

He startled upright, almost dropped his card.

“First day, mate?” It wasn’t. Newbies have an old lag ‘buddy’ to show them the ropes on their first shift.

“No,” he snapped back. Too quickly by half. And too polite. Any genuine FIFO would have told me to F-off with a stream of uniquely Aussie suggestions as to how I might spend my day, as a Haulpak jockey behind us in the queue did right then with a couple of ‘c’s thrown in as he bumped us out of his way so me and this strange feller spilled out of the current of faded orange-tinged blue and yellow flowing to the minibuses and Rangers lined up on the site side of the gate.

“What’s it to you, pal? You’ll make me late.”

The fish out of water had recovered fast, pulling himself up to full height with a growly snort.
He had a damned good question. What did I care who came and went to an iron ore mine the size of an English county a hundred and twenty klicks from the nearest roadhouse? No skin off my nose who comes and goes up the 20ks of unsealed gravel between the mine fence and Great Northern Highway. I’m a cleaner. Zero authority. Zero responsibility. Which is exactly how I like it.

I left the force for a reason. Well, dozens of reasons and mostly wage comparisons, sure. I take home twice as much slopping dust off the lino in the transportable offices at the screen house, but at least one reason for taking my police pension had to do with sticking my chin out for a living and frequently getting it punched for being where it wasn’t wanted. I hadn’t missed a day of law enforcement.

I should have given him a shrug and a smile. Better still, done it in mining language, with my middle finger extended and a passive-aggressive, ‘Screw you.’

I guess I’m more of a cop than I thought. The grit must have wormed its way into my soul.

“You don’t look like a miner, mate,” I said.

“Piss off! What does that even mean?” He shoved me. “I’ve got to get on shift.”

I caught his wrist. “That’s my point. Where? What swing are you on? What trade?”

“I don’t have to tell you. Who are you?”

“No-one. But you don’t know the first thing, and that gets people killed around here.” When in doubt on a mine, play the safety card. Never fails.

He pulled his arm free. “Back off.”

Red flags went off like fireworks. The look in his eyes. I’d seen it before. When making arrests.

“Oi! What’s going on here?”

I stepped back. We’d caught security’s attention. A needle-thin kid with his thumbs in his belt and one of those shaved up the sides buzz cut on top hairdos that make you look like a toothbrush.
The old guy stumbled off balance into the turnstiles, brandishing his backpack. 

“Get back. This is a bomb!”

That galvanised the dregs of the arriving shift. Those on our side of the tag scanner hot-footed onto site and formed a loose ring to see what might transpire. Those on the real-world side backed off into the bus turnaround.

The company’s fearless guardian stood his ground. Fearless? Or was it gormless?

“Don’t be daft. Give it me here.”
​
He went for the bag, but the old guy hugged it to his chest. 

“Stop!” I yelled.

They did. I’d used my cop voice. If you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and it seems you don’t lose it. And both were staring at me. Security Boy astonished. He’d got used to the unearned respect that went with his faux law enforcement uniform and positional authority. Bomber Bloke, wild-eyed, desperate. A cornered weasel. Did I mention red flags! Probably everyone in the big ring around the gatehouse was staring, as well, I could feel their eyes. It made my back itch. What the hell was I doing? Quite possibly getting myself killed. 

“Let’s all take a breath,” I said.

Security Boy, his name tag said Hunter, flexed his muscles. “I’ve got a job to do, mate.”

“Getting us blown up?”

“Keeping the mine open.”

“How well does that work with the gatehouse blown to smithereens?” Perfectly fine, I should think, the gatehouse is hardly essential to production, but you know what I mean.

“He hasn’t got a bomb!”

Bomber Bloke’s eyes flicked between us while we talked about him as though he wasn’t there. His tag read Goran, by the way. I notice details when things get hairy and the adrenaline’s running.

“How do you know it’s not a bomb? What if it is? Hey Goran, mate. Can I call you Goran? I’m Don, by the way.” I very deliberately eased my shoulders and forced a friendly smile. As they taught us on a training course. “What have you got in there, then? A couple of sticks of gelignite?”

He hugged the backpack closer.

“ANFO and a NONEL.”

“Yeah? Whatever,” Hunter sneered.

“Easy, Hunter. Easy. I’m pretty sure ANFO is what they put in the blast holes.”

Open-cut mining, any mining, I guess, is earthmoving on steroids. You dig it up, sort out the stuff you can sell, and dig up some more. In the Pilbara, they blow up a couple of football fields at a time, then move in with shovels and loaders. They deliver the explosives in tanker trucks. 

“Yes.” Goran straightened. “Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil. NONEL’s a shock tube detonator.”

“Bullshit.” 

“Is it? Why don’t you check?”

“Yeah, give me the bag.”

“No! Look him up on the system.” I pointed at the other two security stiffs bug-eyed at the office windows. “We’re all in the computer. Look him up. See if he’s the sort of guy who has access to ANFO and det caps.”

“There are thousands in the system. How do I find this one?”

Seriously? Where do they recruit these guys? 

“He just went through the turnstile.” You knob! “He’s one of the last who tagged on. Look for Goran somebody.”

There was a crash in the office as both Hunter’s teammates dived for the computer. I nodded to Goran and relaxed some more. Well, re-relaxed, because I’d tensed up a bit, as you do. 

“Bloody hell, he’s a shotfirer! No, wait, this one’s twenty-five. It can’t be that bloke.”

Goran raised his chin. “My son is the shotfirer. But I know blasting. I learned in the VRS. In the nineties.”

“In the what?”

“I’m guessing he means Yugoslavia. Bosnia, Kosovo, one of those?”

Goran nodded. “Ja. The Odbrambeni Rat.”

“There you go, Hunter,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m taking Goran seriously.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah.” Couldn't have put it better myself.

“What do we do?”

We? We? “What you should do, and your mates in the office, is shut this place down.”

“We can’t stop production!”

“Yes, you can. Anyone can. The last one who did it won a safety award.”

“But how?”

“I dunno. Look up the procedure!” There’s a procedure for bloody everything on site. Five for how to drive a ’ute, I counted them. “And don’t forget your Job Risk Assessment!”

Hunter scuttled off. 

Which was my second chance to walk away. But I stayed with Goran, who slid to the floor, his back against the tag scanning tower, the bomb cradled in his lap.

He wouldn’t have stopped me if I’d gone. Damn it, I should have. Left it to whoever get’s paid for that stuff. The Site General Manager, maybe? But I sat down instead. Cross-legged on the dust-ingrained tiles. They should audit the gatehouse cleaning contract.  

I felt sorry for Goran. Yeah, right! Or maybe sorry for myself, and Hunter, come to that, a kid thrown into a situation he was totally unprepared to deal with because I’d stuck my nose in. My fault. The same old, same old. Once a cop, always a cop, for me. Damn it. 

“Not how you expected this to turn out?” I said.

He sighed. “I would have blown up one of those big trucks.”

“A Haulpak?”

He nodded. “Or a digger.”

“Why, Goran?”

“My son is Goran. Was Goran. They killed him.” He jabbed his finger at the floor. “Here, at this mine.”
“Bloody hell, eh?” Seriously? What do you say? I was surprised I hadn’t heard. Back in the seventies, fatalities went with the job, but not anymore. Serious accidents are a huge deal on the mines. If someone had died, it would have been in daily safety briefings for weeks.

My confusion must have shown because he said, “A year ago.” Ah, before I started. “He was crushed. An accident, but they say it was his fault! My son! They don’t care!” He sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Goran had a wife. Children. What are they to think about their papa?” His accent got stronger as the more distressed he became.

I let that sit while I monitored developments through the glass doors. The crowd had dispersed, alerted by walkie-talkies, thank goodness. I’d half expected sirens. They loaded back onto the buses and drove off. So, it was just us two in the likely blast zone. Nice.

“Grandchildren, eh?” I said.

He nodded.

“Boys? Girls?”

“Two girls. Nine and six. Little Aussies.”

“Lovely.” My marriage didn’t last long for kids, but I understand the concept. “I’ll bet they miss their dad.”

The faintest of nods. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“They’d have missed their grandad, too.”

He screwed his eyes tighter.

“They don’t have to lose you. You don’t want to lose them, do you? Watch them grow up. Make sure they remember their dad.”

His eyes flickered open, red-rimmed now.

“We can sort this out. You haven’t done anything.” Apart from possessing and making explosives, which can get you ten years on it’s own, let alone endangering life, threats to kill or destroy property and anything up to and including terrorism charges if it took their fancy. “You don’t want to hurt anyone, do you?”

“No. The company! Make them pay! But, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“That’s good. And no-one’s been hurt. Let’s go out there. Tell ’em it’s over, everything’s okay and see what we can do, eh?”

“I’ll go to jail, won’t I?”

Yep. You bet! I wasn’t going to lie, but I kept up my sympathetic expression and loose shoulders. So loose. Christ, it was hard! “You’ve made your point. They won’t forget Goran. You’ll see those girls.”
He held my gaze without flickering a muscle. Over his shoulder, I could see someone in a hi-viz vest approaching from the distance with what looked like a loud hailer. The last thing I wanted was long range, three-way amateur negotiations. The blind leading the blind is rarely a good idea. So, I stood up and offered my hand. 

“Come on. Let’s go.”

Goran’s dad’s chin dropped, then lifted, and he struggled onto his feet. “Yeah,” was all he said. Defeated.

“Leave the bag behind, eh? Best if you don’t walk out with it.” I didn’t fancy brushing hips with a bag of high explosives and a fragile detonator.

“Oh, yeah.” He looked at the bag as though he’d forgotten he brought it, shrugged and planted it on the tag reader. Where it wobbled once and slid off.

I dived for it and missed.

It thudded into the floor with a crunch and a distinct click.

I curled into a ball to meet my doom, and…

Nothing.

I chanced a look. A backpack on the tiles. A grey-haired bloke in mine clothes that didn’t fit, gaping at me on the tiles in the foetal position.

“Ha.” I struggled up, brushing myself down, feeling a complete tool. “I thought the detonator had gone off.”

“It did. It’s a thirty-second fuse.”

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

What the hell!

I grabbed the backpack, realised we should be going while it stayed, but I’d made my choice. The off-site door was nearest, so I hauled it open, hurled the bomb as far as I could, screaming, “Get down!” To anyone who could hear as I took my own advice, flopping face down into the corner between the wall and floor with my hands over my head.

Nothing happened. Again.

It was becoming embarrassing. But the bomb maker was down too, and the world erupted.

++++

The ANFO blasted a circular dip in the car park road base. The site maintenance guys marked it off with witches’ hats and danger tape as required by the relevant procedure until the H&S investigation was complete, then filled it one morning without fanfare. The explosion demolished a heap of glass, too, most of which landed on my back in granular form, but the windows were soon replaced. Production was interrupted for a whole ten minutes. So, three weeks later, the only remaining evidence was a slightly darker patch in the gravel.

Goran got six months and some top-quality grief counselling, funded by the company, which has a way of producing startling moments of empathy when you least expect it. They made a hefty payout to Goran’s family as well. The managing director delivered the cheque to Goran’s wife personally with an apology for the unconscionable delay.

Which leaves me as the one who’s suffered most for my own stupidity.

I’ve been up before the site General Manager three times for increasingly lavish offers of permanent employment on staff. As a security supervisor or in H&S, kill me now. Apparently, by tossing that backpack into the car park, I reduced the damage bill to tens of thousands from half a million for a new gatehouse, card readers, turnstiles, IT and all. I keep telling them I’m done with taking any sort of responsibility. I just want my mop, anonymity, and the ridiculous salary they pay cleaners, but they think I’m bargaining. They’ve put me up for a safety award, for God’s sake! Why won’t they leave me alone?

The reward that means something? A card that found me through the internal mail from head office. It’s homemade, from a sheet of drawing paper with balloons and a big red heart drawn in crayons on the front. Inside it says, ‘thanks for helping Poppa’ with half a dozen kisses and it’s signed Kristy and Maddy Paunović.

Regressing to my inner police officer was worth it after all.

Image courtesy 95C and Pixabay