Headhunters

by Mark Dawson

  It was hot and close and Milton was already covered with a sheen of sweat. Bachman was, too. But where Milton’s breath was already reduced to quick and hungry gasps, Bachman’s was still easy.

  He jabbed with his right, probing Milton’s defences, and then unleashed a kick that he couldn’t block in time. Milton crumpled over the blow, sagging to one knee and getting his arms up just in time to block a roundhouse that Bachman launched next. It was tremendously powerful, the natural strength augmented by the momentum of the spin, and Milton fell back onto the sand.

  “Come on, John,” Bachman said. “This is too easy.”

  *

  MATILDA WATCHED with mounting horror the beating that Milton was taking. She knew that he was fit and strong—she had seen more than enough evidence of that in the shearing pens—but this new man, Bachman, was of another order of magnitude entirely. He threw his punches and launched his kicks with an economy of movement that was almost beguiling to watch. He didn’t draw back his fist before throwing a punch; the blows just fired out as if his arm were a jackhammer. Milton had managed, so far, to prevent a punch or kick from finding its way through to his head, but she doubted he would be able to keep absorbing the impacts against his forearms and shoulders for long. It was obvious that each assault was full of power and force, since Milton gasped every time one of them landed.

  She was standing with the man named Malakhi and the female agent, a little way up the slope from the scene of the one-sided brawl. The woman was nearest to her, her fingers resting against Matilda’s triceps as a reminder that she was not to do anything foolish. Malakhi had referred to her as Keren and Matilda had noticed an easiness about the way they spoke to each other that made her wonder whether they were a couple. Malakhi had a pistol in his hand and Keren held a shotgun, the barrel pointing down at the ground, her left hand grasping it just below the stock.

  Matilda was desperate to do something. Milton had not said anything directly to her, but she had seen the way that he had reacted when the reality of their situation had been underlined by Bachman’s arrival. He had been frightened, and it was obvious to her that he was not the kind of man to frighten easily. She didn’t need to guess what would happen to her once Bachman had disposed of Milton. She would be next. Milton would be beaten to death and she would be shot and they would both be tossed into the lake.

  She thought of Harry. He would never find out what had happened to her. The thought of his anguish was unbearable.

  She had to do something.

  But what? She knew that she was no match for Malakhi or Keren: anything she did would just make things worse. What little chance Milton stood against Bachman would be squandered if she distracted him.

  She had no options.

  Milton was her only chance, and he was getting beaten black and blue.

  *

  BACHMAN KEPT coming on, relentlessly aggressive. Milton’s arms and shoulders had been turned into one painful, livid bruise, and every time he blocked one of Bachman’s blows he was rewarded with a searing burst of pain. Two blows had beaten his defences; he had jerked his head away from the first, just enough for Bachman’s knuckles to sink into the fleshy part of his cheek rather than against his nose, but the second had connected flush on the point of his chin. A black curtain of dizziness had descended over him and, for a moment, he had thought his knees would buckle. He had fought to stay upright, knowing that to fall now would be the end of the fight. Bachman would lock him up on the sand and choke the life out of him.

  Milton kept backing away.

  “Come on, Milton. Fight me!”

  No, he thought. You’re too much for me. Something else.

  Milton took three steps up the slope, away from the water, covering ten feet. It brought him closer to the two agents and Matty. He played up his injuries, feigning that he was more dazed than he was and dropping to one knee.

  He heard Bachman chuckle softly, almost hungrily.

  Milton’s attention was split: most of it was on Bachman stalking toward him, but he was also keenly aware of the group behind him. They had shuffled back to compensate as he limped up the slope, but Milton had narrowed the gap between him and them to six feet.

  He hoped that it would be enough.

  He rested his hand on his bent knee and pushed himself upright.

  Bachman’s arms were hanging loose at his sides. He was relaxed. Confident.

  Milton looked up. “That all you got?”

  “You have balls, Milton. I’ll give you that.”

  “You want to know something?”

  “What, John?”

  “You want…” He paused, shaking his head as if clearing it of cobwebs. “You want to know how your wife begged me not to kill her?”

  He was changing tactics now: he wanted Bachman to become so angry that his bloodlust would consume his reason.

  Replace his tactics with mad rage.

  “She begged, Bachman. On her knees. Just before I shot her.”

  It was a gamble.

  And it worked.

  Bachman lowered his head and charged up the slope at him. Milton allowed him to close, but, just before he could crash into him, he took two hops and then launched himself backwards. The agents behind him were backing away, but Bachman’s rush had distracted them and they were too slow. Milton slammed into them, his shoulder catching Keren on the chin. She fell to the ground.

  She had been holding the shotgun, and now she dropped it.

  Milton saw it fall and scrambled for it, but he never really had a chance.

  Bachman was too close. He fell on him before he could get to it.

  Milton tried to get his arms between their bodies, but Bachman was much too good to let him do that. He locked his legs around Milton’s hips and worked around so that he was on his back and Milton was atop him. He locked his arms around his neck in a hold that Milton recognised as a Hadaka-Jime, or guillotine choke. Milton’s head was forced beneath Bachman’s left arm, the crook of Bachman’s elbow pressed tight to the side of Milton’s neck. Bachman’s right palm was pressed against his own chest; he gripped his wrist with his left hand and pulled upward with both arms. He pulled again and pushed down with his legs, exerting huge pressure on Milton’s throat.

  Milton felt Bachman ratchet up the pressure again. Milton heard his voice in his ear, a harsh and compressed whisper that was full of fury. “Fuck you, Milton.” He pulled again and Milton was swallowed in a tide of darkness that swelled and swept over everything. “Fuck you.”

  Milton couldn’t draw breath.

  Everything started to fade.

  “Back off!”

  The pressure relaxed, just a little, and the darkness receded.

  Had he heard that? A voice? He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure at all—about that, or the clamour of angry voices that he thought he could hear now.

  Bachman squeezed again, and the darkness closed in once more.

  *

  “BACK OFF!”

  Matilda raised the shotgun and aimed it dead ahead of her.

  Bachman tightened his grip. She looked down. Milton’s lips had started to turn blue.

  “Let him go or I’ll shoot.”

  The woman, Keren, was dazed. The impact with Milton had cut her lip, and now blood was running freely down her chin.

  “If you shoot,” Bachman said, “you’ll hit both of us.”

  Malakhi had pulled a pistol from its holster and was aiming it at her. She was aware of it in her peripheral vision: the glint of the metal, the infinite black circle of the muzzle.

  “If I don’t shoot, you’ll kill him anyway.”

  “True,” Bachman grunted, cinching the hold in more securely as Milton struggled, weakly now.

  “I’ll shoot,” Malakhi called out. “You and Milton will both be dead. All for nothing.”

  She tried to ignore him. Bachman kept the hold fastened tight across Milton’s neck, the lines of his tendons standing out across his forearm.

&n
bsp; “I’m serious,” she yelled. “You’ve got three seconds to let go.”

  She had to bluff it out.

  “Three.”

  How much did Bachman value his own life?

  “Two.”

  “Put it down!” Malakhi shouted. She tried to ignore the gun.

  “One.”

  Bachman loosened his grip, just a little. Milton gasped for breath before Bachman tightened it again, getting his feet beneath him and then rising, dragging Milton back with him.

  “Let him go.”

  Bachman was edging away, using Milton as a shield. She had no idea what he would do. She thought that she would be unable to pull the trigger, but, as she felt it nestle between the joints of her finger, she wondered if she had underestimated herself.

  She didn’t have to find out.

  “All right,” Bachman said. “Malakhi, relax. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Bachman released his grip and, raising a foot into the middle of Milton’s back, propelled him back toward her again.

  Milton fell forward, stumbling to his hands and knees in front of Matilda. He braced himself with both arms and struggled upright, coughing as he gasped for breath.

  Matilda kept the shotgun trained on Bachman.

  “Look at her, John,” Bachman said. “I think she might have shot us both, you know. She might have done it. There’s something to this one. Some backbone. That’s impressive.”

  Milton got to his feet. “Keep the gun on him,” he told her, his voice rasping.

  Matilda had no intention of doing anything else.

  Bachman turned his attention to her. “Seems like we’ve got ourselves a little stand-off, Matilda. If you shoot me, my colleague will shoot both of you. That doesn’t suit any of us, does it? And it doesn’t need to happen like that. My friend isn’t going to fire first, are you, Malakhi?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  “Are you, Malakhi?”

  The man spoke through gritted teeth. “No.”

  Even as he answered, Keren drew her own pistol and took aim. Matilda tried not to think about it. It was overkill, anyway. Two pistols made no difference. One would have been more than enough.

  “Easy,” Bachman said.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t do her right now,” the woman said, lisping a little through a thickening lip.

  “Because you know what happens if I’m not around to keep making phone calls. You think Victor will be happy? You need me to remind you?”

  Matilda kept her attention, and her aim, on Bachman, but she could hear a whispered instruction from Malakhi to Keren.

  “Do what you have to do,” the woman muttered.

  Bachman kept his own attention on Matilda, but he nodded his satisfaction. “Good. Now, then, Matilda. Let’s keep things civil, shall we? They’re not going to shoot you and you’re not going to shoot me, although I can see that you would like to do that very much. You know why I know you’re not going to do anything?”

  “No,” she said, edging around a little so that Milton could get behind her.

  “Because you’re not a fool and you don’t have a death wish. Right?”

  “That depends on you,” she said.

  He laughed at that. “You have some balls on you,” he said. “You hear that, John? She has some balls on her.” He paused, edging around, Matilda covering him every step of the way. He spoke again. “This is what we’re going to do. You just bought John a little more time. There’s a car over there, up by the van. Where are the keys, Keren?”

  “In the ignition.”

  “Take John with you. You’ll be fine. The spread on that shotgun is more dangerous to us than the pistols are to you. Malakhi and Keren won’t fire.”

  She started to back up the slope.

  “Keep the gun on him,” Milton repeated.

  “I am.”

  “You get in the car and drive away. But it’s just a postponement. John knows I’m going to find him again and kill him, one way or another. You’ve been lucky twice, haven’t you, John? Hiding behind someone’s skirt for the second time.”

  “I’ll drive,” Milton said to Matilda, his voice low and imperative. “I’ll go around, get in, wind down the passenger window and open the door for you. You’re going to get in, rest the shotgun through the window and keep it trained back at them. All right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You get a head start, but where are you going to go? Look where you are, John. There’s one road out of here. You could go east or you could go west. How hard is it going to be to find you again?”

  Malakhi and Keren still had their guns on them. Bachman stayed where he was, allowing a distance to open up between him and them.

  “You know who he is?” he called out. He was talking to Matilda. “You know who he really is?”

  “I know who he is,” she said.

  “Don’t let him get in your head,” Milton said.

  Bachman pressed on. “John Milton. The British government’s most bloodthirsty assassin. You know how many people he’s killed? I bet he hasn’t told you that. Men and women, maybe children too. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t listen to him.”

  Bachman’s voice was full of sarcasm. “What is it, John? How many have you killed? A hundred? Two hundred?”

  Matilda and Milton kept backtracking; Bachman started to follow them.

  “How many, John?”

  He didn’t answer. She dared not look behind her, but she heard the sound of a car door opening, then the sound of an engine turning over and an electric window winding down. She heard the click of the door as it was unlatched and the squeak of a hinge as it was opened.

  “Get in.”

  Matilda backed up until she felt the chassis of the car against her back. She heard Milton put it into gear.

  It was the Navara. She ducked down and lowered herself onto the passenger seat.

  Milton had the car in gear and floored the pedal.

  She heard shots.

  Two shots.

  The windshield shattered and Matilda shrieked.

  They swung around, the rear wheels sending up twin scads of gravel and scree.

  More shots. The rear windshield was blown onto them.

  Matilda poked the barrel of the shotgun out of the window. The agents were spread out on the slope between the clearing and the water’s edge. They dropped to the ground as she fired. The buckshot spread tossed up scads of dry earth and vegetation and she thought she heard a cry of pain.

  She pumped the shotgun, ejecting the spent round and chambering a fresh one.

  Milton wrestled the car into a straight line and they barrelled ahead.

  They passed the van. Matilda aimed and fired into the engine block. She pumped again, leaning out of the window so that she could jack around and aim at the Isuzu. The Navara bounced through a pothole just as she fired, and the jerk ruined her aim. The spread went low, the edge blowing out the front offside tyre and scoring tracks across the hood.

  “You all right?” he called out.

  She didn’t answer.

  He swung around and looked at her. “Matty? Are you hit?”

  She realised that she hadn’t taken the opportunity to check herself over.

  She checked now.

  “I’m all right.”

  Milton swung the wheel, the rear of the vehicle sliding across the gravel until the wheels found purchase and they bolted forward.

  “What did you hit?”

  “The van isn’t going anywhere.”

  “The four-by-four?”

  “I think I blew a tyre out.”

  “Well done, Matty.”

  They roared up the track that led back to the Barrier Highway. There was a single bar gate at the end. Milton told her to hold on and punched the gas. The Navara lurched ahead and then slammed through the gate, ripping it open. Milton spun the wheel again and the car slid out onto the asphalt, heading west.

  “We need to mov
e,” Milton said. “They’ll change that wheel and come after us.”

  “Where?”

  “Broken Hill,” he said.

  “And then?”

  “I’m going to have to work on that,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  MILTON DROVE the Navara as quickly as he dared. It was a fine balance. He knew that Bachman would be in pursuit, and he couldn’t allow him to catch up. On the other hand, if he drove the car too fast through a pothole and buckled a wheel, he was going to have to stop, and Bachman would reel them in. How long would it take them to change the wheel on the Isuzu? Not long. He pushed the car up to sixty, blooms of grit and dust spraying out and, he knew, visible for miles behind them. Nothing to be done about that. He couldn’t slow down. And Bachman was right. There was no way they would be able to lose them out here.

  Matilda was grim-faced next to him, bracing herself against the dash as the car bounced and leapt.

  Milton stared ahead, his face locked in concentration. The sun lanced down, blinding shafts that he had to squint into, trusting that the glare wouldn’t blind him when he needed to see.

  The engine roared.

  Milton squeezed down with his foot.

  Eighty-five.

  A little more.

  Ninety.

  “John—” Matilda said.

  Milton didn’t reply.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We run. If we stay ahead of them, we’ll be fine.”

  “They’ll come?”

  He nodded. “He won’t give up.”

  *

  MILTON REALISED how they were going to escape as the buildings of Broken Hill appeared from out of the heat haze. The road had been joined by the tracks of a railway for the last twenty miles and, as they raced ahead at seventy, they caught up with a train. It was enormous, almost a kilometre from start to finish, and the Nissan was travelling more quickly. They passed carriages with people gazing out of the window at them, a dining car, and, eventually, the squat-shouldered engine. The driver pulled his horn as they raced ahead, the mournful up and down blare echoing away across the vast plains.