Calls went out across Queensland: shots fired, officer down. She’s stranded. Nil radio.

Constable Craig Loveland was in the dayroom at Tara police station when the call came over the radio. He pulled on a ballistic vest and went out to get the station’s one remaining vehicle.

He drove for about 25 minutes before hitting the intersection of Tara Chinchilla Rd and Mary Rd, where he’d been instructed to wait.

Constables Christopher Sharman and Mathew Owen were on the afternoon shift at Dalby station when they heard the call.

Dalby is more than an hour’s drive. The pair drove code one, lights and sirens, taking 38 minutes.

They arrived to find Constable Loveland waiting. The Dalby crew were putting on their own ballistic vests when a crackly message came over the radio.

The reception was bad and the three officers weren’t entirely sure what they’d heard. But they agreed it had sounded as though a crew was “off the job” - meaning on scene at Wains Rd - and that shots had been fired.

They decided to drive down to the front gates.

As they drew close, they saw a man was driving towards them on a quad bike.

“My mate’s down there - he’s been shot in the back,” Victor Lewis shouted at them.

“I don’t know who’s shot him.”

“Mate, get out of here,” one of the officers shouted back.

Constable Owen turned to his colleagues.

“I want to get back,” he said.

They’d come within metres - and seconds - of being killed. Only moments earlier, a man had been killed by the front gates where they’d been about to pull up.

The three officers were armed with Glocks - only accurate over a short range and no match for high powered rifles with scopes.

There was nothing they could do but get out of there.

Inspector Timothy Mowle was in his office in Charleville, five hours and 450km away, when his phone rang at 4.45pm.

It was Inspector Wayne Rasmussen. There was an active armed offender in the Chinchilla/Tara area. There were officers down and trapped.

Insp Mowle hung up the phone and dialled the Special Emergency Response Team commander. They knew. Teams were already mobilising. One team would be on board a helicopter. Another in the heavily armoured BearCat. More in light armoured vehicles.

He made call after call, took notes.

She’s hiding, he wrote. She’s being hunted. They’ve set fire to the grass to flush her out. There were grave fears they’d soon locate her. One of the officers had been heard pleading for her life.

Insp Mowle rounded up the only highway patrol officer in the building and asked him to drive them to Wieambilla. He needed to stay on the phone. It was 5.35pm and SERT was still 90 minutes away. He doubted Keely had that much time.

Miles officer in charge Werner Crous was in Dalby when he heard the news. He drove to Wieambilla, forming a plan on the way.

He did not want to wait for SERT to arrive. But he would not force anyone onto the property, into the line of fire.

He would call for four volunteers and they would go in and rescue Rachel, Matthew and Keely.

More and more police had gathered at a forward command post at the Mary Rd intersection, many after stopping at Chinchilla to retrieve the station’s supply of rifles.

Once there, Sgt Crous outlined his plans. But he wouldn’t get four volunteers - he’d get four carloads.

A KISS OF GOODBYE

They filled three of the cars and drove slowly to Wains Rd, cradling Glocks and rifles. Inside the lead car was Senior Constable Andrew Gates.

Only an hour earlier he’d been at Dalby police station, staring at a row of rifles that had been laid out on the table of the day room. Someone had handed him one. Not long before that, he and his wife - also a police officer - had taken their daughters to the neighbours. Kissing them goodbye as they drove into extreme danger.

The drive from the forward command post to the Trains’ property was roughly 2km.

They pulled over part way to talk about how to proceed. They were terrified. Sen Const Gates approached Acting Sergeant Matthew Minz.

“We have to go in,” Sgt Minz told him.

“Yeah,” Sen Const Gates said.

Soon, Sen Const Gates called a second halt. They were approaching a rise in the road and he feared an ambush.

Five years ago, on the other side of Toowoomba, Senior Constable Brett Forte was murdered in such an ambush by a crazed gunman with an automatic weapon.

They parked two of the cars and approached the property on foot, staying to the sides of the road close to the tree line.

They approached Alan Dare’s car, rifles at the ready, in case someone was inside.

Near the front gate, Sen Const Gates saw the burnt out shell of the Tara police vehicle. Smoke was in the air. The bush around them was on fire.

On the ground was Mr Dare. He wasn’t moving.

Sen Const Gates led the officers onto the property, using the tree line as cover, hoping the twilight would provide its own cloak.

A little more than 100m away was one of his colleagues, dead, the word “police” visible on their uniform.

He reached for his radio.

“I can see an officer down in the driveway,” he told the comms operator.

Behind him were his colleagues, rifles and Glocks in hand, stunted bushes and wisps of trees their only cover.

He could hear someone on the radio. A comms operator was giving them code words to shout for Keely.

She was out there somewhere, laying in long grass, fires burning around her, too terrified to move.

THE RESCUE OF KEELY

Somewhere on the road between Charleville and Wieambilla, Insp Mowle had made a decision.

He phoned Sgt Justin Drier and told him he was not prepared to wait for SERT. He wanted a team to enter the property and rescue Keely. They needed to take emergency action to rescue one of their own.

“It’s already underway,” the sergeant told him.

Keely had spent two long, terrifying hours on the phone to a triple-0 operator. She’d whispered to them that she’d thought she was about to die, that the gunmen were so close she was afraid to keep talking, that the fire was so close she could feel it burning her feet.

She could hear voices but could not tell whether it was her rescuers or the gunmen attempting to lure her out.

The operator gave her code words: pink and blue. Told her to run towards the voices.

Then she was up, running towards them, out in the open. She ran, ran for her life, gun in hand. They shouted at her to keep her cover. Get to the trees. They must have pictured it, terrified that would be the moment she’d take a bullet, after they’d shouted for her to give up her place of safety.

“Stay with the tree line, get to the finish line,” Sen Const Gates shouted.

She flew by him and out to the front of the property, into the arms of Constable Stephanie Abbott.

They kept going. In front of them was a second body, a second police officer, laying in the grass.

Sen Const Gates got back on the radio. He wanted a car to push through the gate and drive past them to the second body. He told the comms operator to tell them to prepare to take fire.

The police car rumbled by them minutes later, the driver crouched low, ballistic vests lining the dash.

Sen Const Gates stepped in behind it, using the vehicle as cover against the bullets he expected to fly towards him at any moment.

He stepped over to the body in the long grass. It was Rachel. He grabbed where he knew her police load bearing vest wrapped over her shoulders and tried to drag her towards the car. He nearly pulled her shirt off and couldn’t understand why. He couldn’t think straight.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and leg and hoisted her up. He felt the massive wound on her leg as it pressed against him.

He felt Sgt Minz there beside him, helping him. At the car he placed her down to open up the back door of the police car.

He picked her up again, feeling once again for her vest. It was only then he realised it was gone. The shooters had taken it from her. Her radio, her Glock, her taser - they were gone.

He didn’t know if she was still alive, not until her head turned towards him as he took her in his arms. That’s when he knew she was gone.

He put Rachel in the car. Across from him, the other rear door opened and he saw Constable Gurinder Boparai struggling with Matthew’s body. Nearby, several of his colleagues were in the tree line with rifles, trying to give them cover from an invisible enemy.

They couldn’t understand why they weren’t being shot at and they didn’t want to spend any time figuring out why.

The car reversed back down the drive and those left behind covered each other as they retreated back out to the road.

CHAPTER V: INSANE TRIO’S LAST STAND