I recalled the photo of the Zolt handcuffed to a tree. Behind him had been a rock.
My eyes scanned the escarpment, the jumble of rocks at its base. Again, I could see smooth patches.
‘This way,’ I said, following these as they led me up over a small rise.
Again Tristan scrambled past me, and he was the first one down into the hideaway of Otto Zolton-Bander.
‘Wow!’ he said.
‘Wow!’ I agreed.
Wow! Wow! And more wow!
This was without doubt the most wow-worthy place I’d ever seen. The escarpment wall tilted forward, forming a natural shelter. In its shade was a ring of blackened stones, cooking utensils, cans of food, a chair fashioned from logs. Beyond that was the entrance to a cave.
I followed Tristan inside.
I noticed the fissures in the rock above, through which light entered. There was a foam mattress with a sleeping bag. A chair that had been fashioned out of driftwood. A desk that was an upturned shipping crate. On which was a pile of maps.
‘He’s well gone from here,’ said Tristan, and I was pretty sure he was right: the hideout had an abandoned air about it.
I flicked through the maps and immediately realised I was wrong about at least one thing: they were charts, not maps, because they were of coastal areas.
Some of these charts were old, their paper soft, pliant, while others were much newer, their paper stiffer; but they had one thing in common: they were of this general area.
I opened out one of the older maps.
There were pencil marks all over it, but particularly on the blue areas, the sea. Some of these marks were numbers but others were weird hieroglyphics.
‘This is like a diary or something,’ said Tristan.
I looked up to see that he was reading a small notebook.
On TV, when the cops are on somebody’s trail, the clues are always scarce: a discarded cigarette butt, a piece of paper with a phone number scrawled onto it, but this was Clue Central.
And I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it all. I folded the map back up and put it on the top of the pile. As I did I noticed that it had a name written on it in faint pen: Dane G Zolton.
‘Wow, this cave keeps going,’ said Tristan, his voice echoing.
Looking up, I said, ‘What are you doing back there?’
‘I gotta take a piss.’
‘Go outside then!’
As Tristan went outside, I picked up the notebook he’d been reading.
Opened it.
There was a noise from outside, the sound of a gun going off. Tristan appeared, his eyes wide with terror, his shorts wet with terror.
‘It’s the Zolt, he tried to shoot me!’
‘Did you see him?’ I asked.
‘He’s got a gun!’
Another noise. Again, a gun going off.
‘This way,’ I said, shoving the notebook into my pocket, moving deeper into the cave.
The cave quickly became a tunnel and we had to crawl on hands and knees.
‘What if it’s a dead end?’ came Tristan’s strained voice from behind me.
I’d thought the same thing, but I couldn’t believe that somebody as smart as the Zolt wouldn’t have an escape route. Everything else about his hideaway was so perfect – surely there wouldn’t be only one way in and out.
‘It’s still going,’ I said to Tristan as I scraped my head on the top of the tunnel.
Dropping onto my stomach I continued crawling, commando style.
‘I’m going back!’ said Tristan.
‘Don’t be crazy,’ I said. ‘This is the way out.’
But was it the way out? It was pitch-black now and the panic came at me in waves. When I started to feel myself losing control, I did what I’d been taught in running: breathed in deeply, tried to rein in my galloping thoughts.
You’ve been diagnosed as coimetrophobic, not claustrophobic, I assured myself. You’re scared of cemeteries, not confined spaces.
When I noticed a pinprick of light ahead, I said nothing. But when that pinprick got bigger I said, ‘I can see the exit.’
‘Thank god!’ said Tristan.
Thank the Zolt, I thought.
I crawled out into the blinding sunlight and onto a ledge ten metres above the water, and only big enough for two people to stand on.
‘Be careful,’ I said as Tristan followed me onto the ledge.
When he realised where we were, something crossed his face. Was it fear? But it was only a flash and then it was gone and Tristan’s normal expression returned.
‘Don’t be such a wuss,’ he said.
Maybe this was the extent of the Zolt’s planning, as far as his escape route went.
I didn’t believe this, however. I peered over the edge, looking for a way off the ledge. The cliff face was smooth, though; not even a sticky-fingered rock climber could get across that.
‘Can you go back into the tunnel for a sec?’ I asked Tristan. ‘I need some room to get down on my stomach.’
He did as I asked and I crawled back into the tunnel. Then, legs spread-eagled, I edged my head further and further over the precipice.
A flash of red, of plastic.
‘There’s a kayak down there,’ I said as I carefully got to my feet. I knew the Zolt wouldn’t just leave us up here.
‘But how do we get to it?’ Tristan asked as he carefully edged back onto the ledge.
‘I reckon you’ve got two choices: either you jump or you dive.’
‘That’s really funny, Silvagni.’
‘Is it?’ I turned around, took a small step and jumped off the cliff.
I’m glad I was wearing shoes, because my feet hit the surface hard, and then I was going down, the momentum taking me deeper and deeper. The water was cool and clear; down below I could see a bed of kelp, fronds waving at me, welcoming me.
I was going too deep, I was starting to run out of air, so I kicked hard with my legs, reached up to grab handfuls of water. It worked and I started ascending, eventually breaking the surface, gulping in air.
High on the cliff I could see the ledge, Tristan looking over. I waved at him and he jumped. He landed a metre or so away from me; the splash was tremendous. When he surfaced, and got some air back into his lungs, he actually smiled at me.
‘That was mad!’ he said.
We untied the kayak from where it was tethered to a tree root. Removed the paddle that was jammed between the root and the cliff.
Although it was a single, we both managed to get on board. Tristan sat right at the stern, and I shuffled back until I was wedged between his legs.
‘Steady on, Silvagni!’ he said.
I wasn’t so keen to get this close to Tristan either. Because getting close to Tristan usually meant pain. But I’d mucked around on kayaks enough to know that unless you got all the weight back, they were very difficult to manoeuvre.
I started paddling.
We quickly decided that we had to go back to the boat, that there was no way we could paddle this kayak home. I kept as close to the cliff as possible. We rounded a corner and Gunbolt Bay came into view. Our boat was exactly where we’d left it. But there was another speedboat there as well. Blue, bigger than ours.
‘That must be his,’ whispered Tristan.
Another dip of the paddle and the other headland, the one we’d climbed, came into view. A man was sitting on the beach, facing away from the water. In his hands was a rifle. Even from there I recognised him: it was the man with the red bandana who’d blocked the entrance to Cash Converters the day I met with Hound de Villiers.
‘Is that him?’ whispered Tristan. ‘Is that the Zolt?’
‘No,’ I said.
I’m a runner, not a swimmer, but Coach Sheeds – unlike Gus – believes strongly in cross-training, so we spend quite a few hours each week in the pool.
I backed the kayak out of view again.
‘I’m going to swim and get the boat,’ I said.
‘He’
ll shoot you,’ said Tristan.
‘He’s not expecting somebody to approach from the sea,’ I said. ‘He’s totally focused on the track.’
‘He’ll shoot you,’ said Tristan again.
‘I’ll meet you back here,’ I said.
‘He’ll shoot you,’ said Tristan.
I slid off the kayak and started breaststroking, making as little splash as possible. The beach came into view. The man hadn’t moved; his gaze, and his gun, was trained on the rocks of the headland. Slipping through the water, I approached the boat.
Voices from the beach.
‘It’s me.’
‘Okay, gun down.’
‘Still in there.’
‘Why don’t you smoke him out?’
‘Might have to.’
When I got close enough to the boat, I took a lungful of air and duckdived. Now I wished I didn’t have shoes on: they felt cumbersome and weighty as I made for the bottom. I saw the taut anchor line and followed it down. My fingers fumbled as I tried to undo the knot.
If only I had a knife, I thought.
But I didn’t.
Fingers fumbled.
Lungs burned.
The knot loosened.
Pain behind my eyes.
I pushed the end of the rope through, and again. Once more and the rope was untied. I wrapped it tight around my hand, and made for the surface.
Once there, I sucked in air. With each lungful the pain in my head lessened.
If I tried to get on board here, if I started the motor, he’d just pick me off with the gun.
I started swimming away, pulling the boat along behind me. Luckily for me, it slipped easily across the surface of the water.
I was out of sight of the beach. One more tug and the boat would be out of sight too, and I could climb on board.
Then that sound again – the report of a gun – and a bullet zinged across the surface of the water.
This wasn’t a computer game, this wasn’t an action movie; this was a real bullet and it had just missed me! I wanted to be outraged, or astonished, but I didn’t have the time, so instead I yanked at the rope.
Another report, another bullet. But I was out of sight now so I hoisted myself on board, retrieved the key from its hiding place, slotted it into the ignition, turned it. The outboards sputtered, then roared into life.
I rammed it into forward and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The motors roared but the boat didn’t move.
Hell! The outboards were up.
But which button was it?
‘The red button!’ came a voice over the water.
Tristan was paddling frantically towards me.
Which red button?
A distant roar of an engine – the other boat had started up.
The kayak smashed into the side of the boat and Tristan scrambled on board, into the driver’s seat. He hit a button and the outboards lowered. He pressed down on the accelerator. The boat reared up like a wild horse, levelled and took off.
The other boat was behind us. We were flying, we were rocketing, and it didn’t seem possible that they could be gaining on us. But they were, and it almost felt as if there was something supernatural about them, as if they weren’t bound by the laws of nature. I could make out three figures in the boat, two of them holding guns.
‘I can’t go any faster,’ Tristan said. ‘Their boat is bigger and more powerful than this one.’
Should we just stop? Show them who we were? Show them that we weren’t Otto Zolton-Bander?
Tristan’s eyes were on the sat nav.
‘There,’ he said, pointing to something.
He swung the wheel and we were heading for the shore. I wondered what his plan was: ram the boat into the shore and try to escape on foot?
Bad plan, Tristan, I thought. They’d just pick us off with their guns.
But then I saw it, a break in the low-lying shore. A creek.
‘I went kayaking there a few months ago,’ he explained. ‘And it’s pretty shallow.’
Now I got it.
‘Too shallow for them?’
‘That’s the plan.’
Tristan eased his foot slightly from the accelerator when we entered the creek, but with the trees whooshing past, so close I could’ve leant out and touched them, it felt like we were going twenty times faster than we had been before.
That stuff I said about runners loving speed? Okay, I take it back. All of it.
I looked behind. The boat was still there, still gaining. One of the figures had his gun raised, pointed at us. Tristan’s eyes were on the echo sounder.
The needle was rising quickly, the water becoming shallower: 3 metres, 2 metres, 1 metre, .5 metres.
The propellers hit the bottom and the boat slewed to one side, the water churning into a muddy brown colour. They soon found water again, though, and we took off.
I looked behind. The boat had dropped back. The plan had worked.
The distant report of a gun.
We both ducked but there was no whistle of a bullet.
Already they were too far away to cause us any harm.
The creek opened out and we were back in the bay again.
‘Well done,’ I said, slapping Tristan on the back again.
Tristan returned the gesture, but when he’d finished slapping he grabbed a handful of my wet shirt and yanked it hard, causing me to topple over the side and into the water.
SHOT
Like I said before, I’m an elite runner but far from an elite swimmer. Still, I have a fair lung capacity, so when Tristan turned the speedboat around and came at me, its knifelike bow cutting through the water, I sucked as much air as I could into my fair lung capacity and waited until the very last second before I went deep.
I still couldn’t quite believe it: Tristan was actually trying to kill me. I could hear the high-pitched whine of the motor, feel the churn of the blades above me. I waited until they had faded before I surfaced.
Tristan and the red speedboat were two metres away.
He’d tricked me, he’d cut the motor.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get in.’
‘You tried to kill me!’ I said.
‘Don’t be so over-the-top, I was just mucking around,’ he said.
Really?
Then a gun went off and Tristan went down, his head hitting the ski pole before he sprawled face-down on the boat’s back seat. On the far bank I could see the man in the red bandana, rifle raised. I swam over to the boat, hoisted myself on board.
‘Tristan? Are you okay, Tristan?’
In reply, a moan.
Blood was pouring out of him, over the seat, pooling in the boat’s hull.
Another report, and a bullet whizzed over our heads. Keeping low, I crawled to the boat’s bow. Reaching up, I turned on the ignition.
The motors roared into life.
Another bullet whizzed over me. One hand on the bottom of the steering wheel, one hand pressing down on the accelerator, I lifted my head up to sneak a look and swung the boat around until it was heading in the right direction.
More zinging bullets.
And more moaning from Tristan.
When there were no more bullets, I carefully raised my head higher and looked behind. I couldn’t see Red Bandana, but I still waited for a while longer before I sat up.
‘Tristan, you okay?’
‘They shot me,’ he said. ‘They shot me.’
I took off my T-shirt and used it to wipe the blood from Tristan’s face. Soon, it became obvious what had happened: he’d nicked his cheek on the ski pole as he’d collapsed.
‘Am I going to die?’ he said.
‘Probably,’ I said.
‘I can’t die now! I can’t!’ said Tristan.
I wanted to watch him suffer a bit longer – payback for pushing me off the boat – but I couldn’t, it was just too ugly.
‘You didn’t actually get shot,’ I told him.
It occurred to me that if t
hey had wanted to kill us we’d both be dead by now. This wasn’t shoot to kill, this was shoot to scare.
‘Where do you think all this blood is coming from, you moron?’
He did have a point – there was a lot of blood for such a small nick: head wounds are like that – but eventually I was able to convince Tristan that he hadn’t been shot, that he didn’t have any holes in his body that hadn’t been there when he was born.
The blood eventually stopped flowing and what was already on the boat was easy to wash off.
When we pulled into the pier, Imogen was waiting for us, sitting cross-legged on the edge. Her hair was loose and the breeze was moving it around her face. She looked like somebody out of an ad for something pure and wholesome. And I wanted to cry. Whether it was because she looked so beautiful, or because we’d just been shot at, I wasn’t sure, but there were some mega-emotions swirling around in my body.
‘Where have you two been?’ she said.
I looked over at Tristan, at the divot of skin missing from his cheek, splotches of blood on his clothes.
‘Mucking about in boats,’ I said.
Tristan put his hand up to his cheek.
‘What happened to you?’ Imogen asked, her voice full of concern.
‘He fell on a rock,’ I said.
‘Tristan?’ said Imogen.
‘I fell on a rock,’ he said flatly.
Imogen didn’t look convinced. ‘On the boat?’
‘We landed,’ I said. ‘Checked out this really cool island. And Tristan slipped and fell. It’s nothing really. Just a graze. Isn’t that right, mate?’ My eyes searching Tristan’s, I said ‘It’s a miracle he didn’t break anything, actually.’
He opened his mouth and I thought that was it, he was going to say ‘I almost got shot!’, but instead he said, ‘It was a miracle.’
Mr and Mrs Jazy were having a late breakfast outside and we had to go through the same charade with them.
This time, thankfully, Tristan’s performance was more believable. And though Mrs Jazy was a bit concerned, Mr Jazy wasn’t.
‘Boys will be boys, eh?’ he said, rummaging around in his beard.
‘Come on, let’s take the Merc for a spin,’ he said to his son. ‘I need to visit the caterers, make sure everything’s okay for tomorrow.’
Great, I thought. Now I could sneak off to my room, check out the notebook that was still in my pocket. I was worried that it would be wrecked and all that work – locating the Zolt’s lair, getting shot at – would be for zilch.
Catch the Zolt Page 11