Headhunters Read online

  Matilda shuffled to the door. Milton had to move with her.

  “Far enough,” the man said.

  Milton stopped and stretched out his arm so that Matilda could continue far enough to allow her to dangle her legs over the tailgate. His eyes had adjusted to the glare. There was another man next to the man with the flashlight. He was carrying a shotgun and it was aimed into the back of the van. It was level with the floor. If the man pulled the trigger, the buckshot would pepper his legs and stomach. If it didn’t kill him outright, the injuries it would cause would end him soon enough. He would bleed out in the back of the van. There would be a chance, but this wasn’t it.

  The man with the flashlight took a key from his pocket. He had to lower the flashlight to get to it and, while the glare was out of his eyes, Milton took the opportunity to look around properly. It was dark, but the moon was high overhead and that, plus the glow from the flashlight, cast out enough illumination for him to see that the van had come to a stop in a wide clearing. There was a fringe of straggled underbrush and then the occasional black stripe of a tree trunk. The ground looked like the orange-red gritty sand of the outback, gradually becoming less arid as the ground dipped down to the body of water that spread out to the left of the van.

  The flashlight was brought back to bear and Milton had to look down again.

  The cuff was released from Matilda’s wrist and she dropped down to the ground.

  The shadow of a woman appeared behind the beam of the flashlight. Milton recognised her: the woman from Broken Hill. She stepped forward, into the light, and tossed a big two-litre bottle of water into the van. It bounced once and then rolled to a halt against Milton’s legs.

  “Take her around the back,” the first man ordered.

  “Come on.” The woman grabbed Matilda by the forearm and led her around the side of the van.

  “There’ll be someone outside all night,” the man with the flashlight said. “If you or the girl try to get out, you’ll be shot. Understand?”

  “Who are you working for?”

  The man ignored the question.

  “Come on. Throw me a bone.”

  “You know better than that, Milton.”

  “Look at me. What am I going to do?”

  “The less you know, the better for everyone. All you need to know is that if you do anything stupid—and I mean anything—I have authorisation to finish you right here.”

  “Authorisation from who?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Who are you waiting for?”

  “Enough talking, Milton.”

  Milton shuffled back a little. “You killed anyone before?”

  The man laughed. “Come on. Seriously? What is that? You trying to get into my head?”

  “Would that be a waste of time?”

  The man with the shotgun joined in the laughter.

  “Here’s a bone for you, Milton, since you asked. Yes, I’ve killed before. Not as often as you, maybe, but enough that it doesn’t bother me. Pulling the trigger on you would mean nothing. I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep.”

  The man with the shotgun emphasised the point by shouldering the weapon, raising the muzzle to aim squarely at Milton’s chest.

  The woman returned with Matilda. Her hand was clasped around Matilda’s bicep and she hauled her forward, sending her stumbling against the tailgate. Milton saw that Matilda’s lip was cut, with a gobbet of blood rolling down her chin.

  “Get in,” the woman said.

  “All right?”

  “Little bitch thought she’d make a run for it. She won’t do it again.”

  Matilda pressed up so that she could get into the back of the van. Milton caught her beneath the shoulders and helped her the rest of the way.

  “I was going to let you have the cuffs off,” the first man said to Matilda. “You’ve blown that. Put them on again.”

  Milton took the open bracelet, fixed it carefully around Matilda’s wrist and pressed it closed. He held up his hand, demonstrating once again that the cuffs were properly fastened.

  The first man closed the door and Milton heard the lock slide home with a metallic thunk.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she muttered.

  “She hit you?”

  “Not before I got one in myself.”

  “I told you,” he said, as calmly as he could, “no struggling. We do as they say.”

  “Until when?” she fired back. “What are we waiting for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I saw a chance. I thought if I could get into the scrub—”

  “No, Matilda. What would you have done? There are at least four of them. They would have locked me in here and all of them would’ve gone after you. We don’t even know where we are.”

  She didn’t answer immediately, hawking up a mouthful of blood and then spitting it away to the side. “I do,” she said. “I know where we are.”

  “Where?”

  “It is Poopelloe. I saw a sign. We’re next to a fishing cabin.”

  “What else? Everything, Matty. Everything you saw.”

  “The water is twenty feet to the left of us. There’s a clearing and a track heading south—that’s what we came in on.”

  “What’s the cabin like?”

  “Small. Looks basic. One room, from the look of it.”

  “Any other vehicles?”

  “The Navara.”

  “How many of them?”

  “The two who stayed with you, the woman who took me, and one other in the Nissan. He was speaking to someone on a phone. I don’t know how—there’s no signal out here.”

  “How big was it?”

  “What?”

  “The phone? How big?”

  She parted her hands. “This big.”

  “A satellite phone, then.”

  The more Milton heard about their captors, the more he was convinced that this was a government-sanctioned operation. The organisation, the equipment. It all suggested it.

  “What do we do now?” Matilda asked.

  “We sleep.”

  “You think I’m going to be able to sleep?”

  “You need to try. We both need to be rested.”

  She sighed, but fell silent. Milton shuffled back to the side of the van and, as the cuffs went taut, she followed. They both arranged themselves against the metal walls. Her breathing deepened and then grew shallow and, as she slipped into slumber, her head fell against his shoulder. Milton closed his eyes and listened. He heard the murmur of conversation from outside, but it was too distant for him to be able to make anything out. After a while, even that noise stopped. He heard the hungry calls of dingoes and the chatter of a nocturnal cuckoo. Milton directed his thoughts to the Twelve Steps, and, as he recited them back to himself, he only made it to the Seventh Step before the words became a jumble in his mind and, finally, he slept.

  Chapter Twenty

  MILTON HAD no idea of the time when he finally awoke. The temperature had climbed inside the back of the van and it was beginning to get stuffy. He opened his eyes and saw lines of sunlight edged around the sides of the doors and little shafts piercing through holes and gaps in the bodywork. The sunlight lent just enough illumination for Milton to be able to see around the inside of the van. It had been cleared out thoroughly, and he couldn’t identify anything that would help him remove the cuffs and get out. Matilda’s head was against his shoulder. He craned his neck around so that he could look down at her. Her hair had fallen across her face in a curtain that reached down to his elbow. Her breathing was relaxed and even, with a gentle sighing each time she exhaled.

  He didn’t want to disturb her.

  He conducted a quick assessment of his own body, starting with his head and scanning down to his feet. All the usual aches and pains were present, almost reassuring in their constancy. It was something to focus on, and as he sat there in the back of the van, waiting for something to happen, it was a helpful distraction. H
e decided to let Matilda sleep, stretched out his aching legs, and settled in to wait.

  *

  HE GUESSED that it was another fifteen minutes before he heard the voices again.

  “Get ready.”

  He heard the lock turn and the doors were thrown open. Light flooded inside, and Milton had to look away until his eyes adjusted to it.

  Avi Bachman was standing in the sunlight.

  Milton blinked the glare away.

  “John,” Bachman said.

  Milton quickly mastered his surprise. He had entertained the possibility that this might have something to do with Bachman. But Bachman was locked up in Angola, awaiting trial for multiple homicides, and it looked very much like a life behind bars was the very best sentence he could hope to receive. However, Milton hadn’t dismissed the prospect, not completely. A small part of him, buried deep, had always entertained the notion that Bachman had a hand in this. And, now that that suspicion was vindicated, other details became apparent.

  This was a government operation.

  Somehow, Avi Bachman had been released from custody and had enlisted the assistance of his old employer to seize Milton.

  The Mossad.

  And that meant Matilda wasn’t part of the deal. She was collateral damage. Wrong place, wrong time, but that was scant consolation for her now. Bachman wouldn’t spare her. And if he thought that hurting her would hurt Milton, things would get even worse for her.

  It took a lot to make Milton frightened, and he was frightened now.

  “Surprised to see me?”

  “Of course. I thought you were in Louisiana.”

  “Things change. We’ve got unfinished business.”

  Bachman was not a big man, perhaps a shade taller than Milton, but he was powerfully built. Milton thought that, if anything, he was a little bulkier than he had been the last time he had seen him. Bachman had had a lot of time on his hands. He had clearly spent some of it in the penitentiary’s gymnasium.

  “John,” Matilda said, “who is this?” She stirred and tried to sit up.

  Bachman’s attention had been fixed on Milton, but, now that she had spoken, he turned his cold eyes on her. “I heard we had another passenger. Who are you?”

  “Matilda Douglas. And who the fuck are you?”

  Bachman laughed. “Feisty. Like the girl in New Orleans. Right, Milton? Just like her.”

  The mention of Isadora reminded Milton that if Bachman was out, then she and her family were in danger, too. Anyone who knew him—anyone who could say that they were friendly with him—was in a great deal of danger. “She’s the friend of a friend,” he said, trying to deflect attention away from her and knowing that it was a futile gesture. “I know her brother. I was working for him.”

  Bachman gave Matilda a little tip of the head. “My name is Avi. Has John mentioned me?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. We’re not really friends.”

  “That has nothing to do with—”

  “He killed my wife. No reason why he’d tell you that. Doesn’t paint him in the best light, though, does it, John?”

  “I didn’t—”

  Bachman’s seeming affability vanished in the blink of an eye. He raised the pistol and aimed it at Milton’s head.

  “Deny it one more time.”

  Milton looked at him, at the mask of fury that had fallen across his face, and knew that he should pull back, but he couldn’t. “I didn’t kill her, Avi. I told you what happened. She was killed by a ricochet. From one of your rounds.”

  “Say that one more time.” He came forward and jammed the gun against Milton’s head.

  “Take it easy.”

  Bachman pushed hard until Milton’s head was pressed up against the side of the van. The muzzle of the pistol pushed against his skull, just above his ear, and he thought of the bullet nestled in the chamber, two inches away, so close.

  “How well do you know John, Matilda?”

  Bachman held the pistol in place. Milton’s arm was outstretched from the position he had been forced into.

  “Not very well.”

  “No, I doubt you do. I can’t imagine that you’d want to have anything to do with him if you knew what he was really like. I’ll tell you a few things, shall I? See what you think then.”

  “Avi—”

  “He used to be an assassin. He’s a murderer. A professional killer. He tell you that?”

  “No,” she said, her voice wavering.

  “I know he didn’t tell you that he killed Lila, but he did. Lila—that’s my wife. He shot her. And she’s just the last that I know about. You killed anyone since, John? Anyone else Matilda should know about?”

  “No.”

  “That’s the thing, Matilda. Psychopaths, the worst ones—they’re good at hiding it. Someone like Milton”—he pressed harder with the gun—“someone who seems like he’s just another guy, just another ordinary guy… You got to ask, what kind of person is it that can hide like that?”

  Milton pushed back, straining his neck until he had moved his head away from the wall. Bachman let him do it, but he left the gun still pressed there.

  Milton stared into his face. “Shoot me or don’t shoot me,” he said. “I don’t care. But, please, for God’s sake, just shut the fuck up. If you believe a word of that, you’re even more insane that I thought you were.”

  Bachman held the gun in place for another long second and then brought it away.

  There was glee in his face. Milton looked into his eyes and saw madness.

  “I’m not going to shoot you. You know me, John. That’s not my style. Too easy. We’re going to finish what we started in the fairground. You and me. Man on man. No weapons. No one else.” He stepped back, handed the gun to one of the other men and then took off his jacket. “Get him out of there, Malakhi. Take the cuffs off and take them both down to the lake. I was going to wait, but we might as well get this over with now.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  MILTON WAS dragged out of the van and held at gunpoint while the cuffs were removed. The bracelet had been fastened to his wrist for hours and it had chafed and scraped the skin. He kneaded the flesh, trying to encourage the blood to flow back into fingers that were a little numb. The bracelet was removed from Matilda’s wrist, too, and the female agent grabbed her arm and pulled her aside.

  Milton was left with Bachman and the other man he had addressed as Malakhi. He took a moment to get a better look at his surroundings. He saw the slope down to the lake, the vegetation that grew more abundant the closer to the lake it was. There were three vehicles: the UPS van, the Navara and an Isuzu D-Max. Milton guessed that the last vehicle was the one that Bachman had arrived in.

  Bachman pushed him ahead of him and told him to walk down to the water’s edge. Milton did as he was told. He knew he was in a dangerous situation. Bachman was an immensely gifted hand-to-hand fighter, trained to a high level in Krav Maga, the combat system devised by the Mossad. They had fought once before, in New Orleans, and Bachman had bested him without much bother. He had beaten him to the edge of unconsciousness, and it had only been the intervention of Isadora Bartholomew that had provided Milton with a momentary distraction. He had taken advantage of it, using a metal crank upside the head to put out Bachman’s lights.

  The ground descended to the edge of the lake. The shoreline was wide and open, with a surface of damp sand. There was a slight breeze, just enough to send ripples across the otherwise glassy water, tiny waves that lapped over the sand and then quietly retreated. Milton felt two strong hands on his shoulders as he was propelled ahead, stumbling a little as he stepped ankle-deep into the water.

  The water gave him an idea.

  He turned.

  Bachman had removed his jacket. He was wearing a white T-shirt, cut high to his shoulders, the garment revealing the sleeves of tattoos he wore down both arms. If Milton had suspected that he had added weight during his incarceration, now he was sure. His
shoulders were stacked with slabs of muscle, the join between them and his neck now difficult to discern. His biceps bulged as he flexed his arms, and the hunks of his pectorals pushed out against the white of his shirt. Maybe ten or fifteen extra pounds of muscle since their last encounter. He had outweighed him then; this made it even more of a physical mismatch, and that ignored the fact that Bachman had already outmatched him once in combat.

  Milton shook out his arms and rolled his shoulders, trying to give the impression that he was loosening up. He was not. He was looking for a way out. He hadn’t lasted as long as he had by taking on impossible odds. He would fight Bachman, but it would be on his own terms.

  But there was nothing.

  Bad enough that they were in the middle of the wilderness, with no easy means of transportation. Even if he could win a moment’s advantage over Bachman, there were the other agents to consider. They were a little way up the slope. Worst of all, they had Matilda. He wouldn’t be able to leave her here.

  Somehow, he had to beat Bachman.

  His opponent stepped forward, closing the gap between them.

  “Come on then, John. We’ll finish this now.”

  *

  THEY LOCKED UP, Milton fixing Bachman in a bear hug and trying to force him to the ground where he wouldn’t have to contend with his arsenal of kicks and punches. Milton could barely contain him, but he managed to lock his fingers and started to force him down to his knees. He started to drag Bachman backwards, one step at a time, the water reaching up to his knees and then his thighs. Bachman realised what Milton was trying to do and Milton could feel his body go taut with tension. He heaved again, as hard as he could, and managed to drag him into water deep enough so that it reached above his waist. Bachman found a new reservoir of strength, drew back his head and butted Milton in the face, loosening the hold with the first strike and then forcing it apart with a second.

  Milton bit down on his lip, blood squirting onto his tongue. He stumbled away, wiping the blood from his mouth, just barely able to raise his defences to block away the right and left punches that Bachman swung at him. Bachman came around to the side and attacked again, forcing Milton away and back to shallower water. He stepped toward the water’s edge, his feet sucked into the damp sand, trying to stay out of range as he decided upon another tactic. Bachman followed, aiming a kick at the right side of his trunk that Milton was able to block with a downward slap of his hand. Bachman hopped onto the other foot and kicked into the other side of Milton’s body. He blocked with his arm and the blow caught his elbow joint, sparking a jolt of pain that made him gasp aloud.