8:30pm – Thursday, June 10 on Channel Nine
There is something strange about the suspected foreign fishing vessel (FFV) that a crew from HMAS Hammersley boards in the Timor Sea. On the deck of the Breakaway 111 are four Australian men who claim to be on a fishing trip, but Dutchy (Conrad Coleby) is suspicious of a fishing boat that seems to be carrying no bait, no nets, no fish and without any “blood and guts” on the deck.
Further investigation reveals a cargo of illicit alcohol – and results in the XO, Kate McGregor (Lisa McCune), being held hostage with a machete at her throat while the rest of her crew is sent packing, minus their Navy issue radios and pistols.
An unexpected move by Breakaway deckhand Taylor (Chris Morris) sees Kate tossed into the sea, later having a tense meeting with CO Mike Flynn (Ian Stenlake) and the rest of the crew that boarded the suspect vessel. Flynn cannot understand how three armed sailors could be beaten by one man wielding a machete, and is furious that the crew has lost vital equipment. But there is an underlying issue when RO (Kristian Schmid) accuses Dutchy of freezing when he could have saved Kate from the machete wielding Quinn (Chris Hillier). Kate defends Dutchy, but rightly suspects he is carrying baggage from the Gulf war. His reported Medal for Gallantry also intrigues Two Dads (Nikolai Nikolaeff) who gets himself into a very nasty mess after RO casts doubt on Dutchy’s war record.
On land, in the dry community of nearby Port Johnson, the CO’s main priority is to reclaim the missing weapons, but acting alone, Dutchy strides into a hornet’s nest that involves an ugly domestic dispute, and an encounter with Sgt. Booker (John Waters) the local police chief. On the trail of the booze runners, Dutchy receives a brutal bashing by men he recognizes from the Breakaway 111 – and then faces another dressing down by Flynn for his gung ho behavior.
But Dutchy, determined and obsessed, continues his solo search for the guns and the booze runners, discovering that Taylor, the deckhand who saved Kate, is actually an undercover Federal policeman, on the verge of cracking an Asian based booze business worth millions. The next time Dutchy sees Taylor, it is on board the now abandoned Breakaway, where the undercover agent’s corpse is found, crawling with rats.
Intrigued by Dutchy’s recent behavior, Kate questions him as to why he is so protective of her in action but ignores her on board, but their discussion is interrupted when Dutchy spots the grog runners’ truck. Kate accompanies him on a ‘borrowed’ bike, but the pursuit ends with the XO being held hostage again – and she and Dutchy tied together in a hold somewhere in the ocean.
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