Sergeant Danny Ross moved nervously through the dense forest of wattles, pines, and eerie, grey-white ghost gums half-a-dozen kilometres outside Glen Hartwell, in the Victorian countryside.   A powerfully built man, Danny had been nicknamed “Bear” by his friends, and colleagues in the local police force.

It had been raining off-and-on over the last week, so the air smelt fresh and clean, with a strong aroma of eucalyptus from the gum trees.   But the pine needles underfoot still crunched loudly, making Bear wince each step he took, defeating his best efforts at stealth.   His great size made it impossible to walk silently through the forest.   He heard a crunch up ahead, followed by a curse, and realised that his constable, Terry Blewett, was having the same trouble.

Bear, Terry, and half-a-dozen other local cops had spent the last three days searching day and night through the forest for illegal Russian immigrant Kostyn Pavolich.   Pavolich had entered Australia on a six-month tourist visa in February 1980, and then had not been seen for nearly four years.   Until he had been captured in New South Wales in December 1983.   But on the way to court Pavolich overpowered a policeman and took his gun.   In the resulting short shoot-out, he had killed two constables, and a young WPC had been shot in the back, turning her into a paraplegic.

After the shoot-out Pavolich had vanished again for more than six months.   Until a few days ago, in mid July 1984, he had been sighted in the forest around LePage and Lenoak — two towns near Glen Hartwell.   Despite his scepticism at the reports, Bear had mounted an all-out search for the escapee.   With the “help” of half-a-dozen cops from Melbourne, they had been searching the forest for the last three days without discovering any sign of Pavolich.

The area had also been swarming with journalists from around Australia, despite Bear’s best efforts to keep them at bay.   After three days the press had obviously started to think that it was all a wild goose chase, however, for the last couple of hours Bear’s sixth sense had been tingling, warning him of imminent danger.

‘Sixth sense like hell!’ thought Bear.   ‘It’s just your nerves on edge after the last three days with almost no sleep.’   Bear had almost convinced himself that his nervousness was only fatigue, when from ahead of him he heard a gunshot.