There was nothing but raw courage and suppressed fear between Pat Brear and a bullet or a shotgun blast to the heart or the head.

He wore no body armour and carried no weapon.

In Victoria’s lonely Upper Murray bushland near Corryong, the detective-senior constable, carrying two jerrycans, trudged towards a fugitive who was armed with a combat knife, three loaded shotguns, three loaded rifles and, it emerged, the fantasy that he was John Rambo, the anti-hero of the movie, First Blood .

Brear’s single hope was that three police mates, inching through the trees nearby, might grab the gunman he was approaching before a trigger was squeezed.

The fugitive, fresh from terrorising captives across the border in NSW, sat in a stolen four-wheel-drive that was out of fuel but parked in a perfect

See Full Page