Headhunters

by Mark Dawson

  “Need anything else?” Walter asked.

  “No. That’s good.”

  “There’s food and water in the container. Enough for two days. The captain is reliable. You won’t have any problems.”

  “That’s good to know, Walter.”

  The man put out his hand. “Money?”

  Milton had counted out the fifty thousand earlier, stuffing it into the cloth bag that the hotel left for dirty laundry. After paying Walter, he would have just ten thousand left.

  He held out the bag, but as Walter reached for it, he drew it away again. “You know who I work for, Walter.”

  “I know.”

  He reached and Milton drew it away again.

  “You know what will happen if this doesn’t go just like you’ve described it.”

  “Take it easy. I got the message, okay? I understand.”

  Milton flipped the bag at him. Walter caught it, his eyes lighting up with an avidity that was all Milton needed to know that it would be spent on whatever it was he was injecting into his arms. That knowledge did not make him any more confident. He was trusting their escape to a junkie.

  Walter opened the bag and reached inside, pulling out the bundles of notes. Milton thought he was going to count it, but he didn’t; instead, he went around the back of the truck and yanked down on the big handles that sealed the doors. He pulled them back, exposing the inky blackness inside. Milton laid his hands on the sill and vaulted up. He turned and extended a hand to Matilda. She took it and Milton hauled her up after him.

  “There’s a flashlight inside,” Walter said.

  Milton turned and saw it propped next to eight one-litre bottles of water that were sealed together in a plastic sheath. There were packets of sandwiches and bags of chips next to the bottles. Milton had only just picked up the flashlight when Walter slammed the doors together. The lock clicked into place with an ominous finality.

  He heard a muffled shout from outside and then the rumble of the truck’s big engine. The air brakes hissed and the container rocked a little as the truck pulled out.

  Milton felt vulnerable now.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  MILTON USED the flashlight to examine the interior of the container, and then, satisfied that he had it fixed in his mind, he switched it off to preserve the battery. If Matilda was unhappy about that, she did not complain. She was quiet throughout the brief journey, allowing Milton the chance to listen carefully. Sounds were muffled inside the sealed container, but the drilled ventilation holes meant that the noise of the city was detectable. He heard the hum of traffic as they passed through busy streets, the wearied anger of car horns, the occasional snatch of shouted conversation. Then, twenty minutes later, the quality of the noise changed. The engines he could hear were deeper, more guttural, more like the one that belonged to their truck. He heard the boom of a ship’s horn and, throughout, the regular caw and chatter of gulls.

  “The docks?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  Milton took his phone from his pocket. He had split it open as soon as he had finished taking their pictures and had taken out the battery. He knew he was being cautious, perhaps even paranoid. He couldn’t think of a way that Bachman would be able to track a phone that they had only just purchased, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  Now, though, he needed it again. He put the battery into the compartment, slid the lid across until it clicked shut, and powered it up. He dialled a number that he had memorised and put it to his ear.

  It rang six times, then seven, and then Harry Douglas picked up. “What?”

  “Harry.”

  “What? Who?”

  “It’s me. Milton.”

  “Shit…” Milton heard the sound of sudden motion. “Milton, shit.”

  “Everything’s okay.”

  “Where are you? It sounds like you’re underground.”

  “I can’t say where we are.”

  “We? You’ve got Matty with you? Where are you?”

  “Harry, listen. Something’s happened.”

  Now there was panic: “Matty?”

  “It’s okay. She’s fine. She’s with me.”

  “You’ve been gone for days. You better tell me what the fuck’s been going on. If you—”

  Milton spoke firmly. “Shut up, Harry. Shut up and listen.”

  He paused, and the line crackled as Harry held his tongue. “Go on,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  “We were attacked on the road outside Broken Hill. A man and a woman at the side of the road. We stopped to help. They pulled guns on us and put us in the back of a van.”

  “Jesus—”

  “Matty’s fine, Harry. Listen. This is all to do with me. There’s a man I used to know, a long time ago. He thinks I killed his wife, before I came out here. I didn’t, but he doesn’t believe me. He tried to kill me before and I managed to get the better of him. Now he’s trying again.”

  There was a pause, static crackling on the line.

  “So we take him out.”

  “It’s not as easy as that. He’s ex-Mossad. And I don’t know how he’s managed it, but he’s got them to help. There’s a full team with him.”

  The tone of his voice changed from anger and fear to something approaching stupefaction. “Mossad?”

  “Yes.”

  “What have you done, Milton?”

  He ignored that. “We can’t take them head-on. We wouldn’t last five minutes.”

  There was a pause. Milton found that his stomach was tight and that he was gripping the phone hard.

  “So?”

  “We’re going to be clever about it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I can’t say,” Milton replied. “I can’t be sure this line is secure.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s here. She wants to speak to you.”

  Milton turned away from her so that she could have a little privacy. He gazed into the darkness and then took the opportunity to walk across to the doors and run his fingers against the seal. It was secure. This was potentially a crazy idea, but he was all out of alternatives. He had to hope that it would work. If not… or, if Walter betrayed them… well, they wouldn’t last long.

  He turned back after a minute. He didn’t want to leave the line open for too long.

  “Matty.”

  She held out the phone to him.

  “He wants to talk to you again,” she said.

  He took it.

  “What the fuck is going on? If anything happens to her…”

  “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  There was another long pause. More static.

  “All right,” he said, finally. “When will I hear from you again?”

  “A few days. But be careful. They might be watching you.”

  “I can look after myself.”

  “I know you can, Harry. But they won’t hit you straight up. Just watch out.”

  “You too.”

  “I’ll call when I can.”

  “Look after her, John.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise me.”

  He turned the beam of the flashlight away so that Matilda couldn’t see him and said quietly, “You have my word.”

  *

  AVI BACHMAN was in the same bar as Harry Douglas. Indeed, he was just two tables over from him, arranged so that he could observe him without making it obvious that he was watching. Bachman was close enough to overhear Douglas’s side of the conversation, and it was that that probably saved the man’s life. It was obvious that he was speaking to Milton and it was similarly obvious that he had no idea where Milton and his sister had gone. Douglas spoke with animated fluency, his expression passing through several very distinct stages: relief, confusion, anger and then, finally, concern. Bachman sipped at his bottle of beer as Douglas continued the conversation, interrogating Milton as to the whereabouts of his sister and what had happened to them both, and, obviously, getting very little
in return.

  Lucky for him.

  Douglas had been put under observation as soon as Milton and the girl had escaped them. Bachman had led the chase all the way to Broken Hill, but Milton had too much of a head start and he had been able to shake them off. He had stayed in the town, knowing that it was pointless to continue the pursuit until he had a better idea of where they had gone. There was the train, of course, but it was already thirty minutes to the west by the time they had arrived. There were other possibilities, too; he might have stolen another car or taken a bus. There were routes out of town to all points of the compass and no way of knowing what was most likely. Bachman didn’t have enough manpower to chase down every possibility, so Malakhi Rabin had alerted the sayanim to watch the stations and termini in Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. That done, he took a hire car and drove back towards the sheep station.

  There was the possibility, however slim, that Milton might try to surprise them by looping around so that he could return to Boolanga. There were weapons in the trunk of the car that he had taken to escape, but he had no travel documents and no easy way to get out of the country. Milton was resourceful—Bachman knew that from bitter personal experience—but there was the chance that he would assume they were looking elsewhere and return to collect his documents.

  The news that the girl had been found in Adelaide, and the call that had followed from Milton to warn him off, had changed all of that.

  Douglas finished the call and put his phone away. He sat at the table for a long minute, staring into space, his fingers absently picking at the label of the bottle. And then, a little resolution flickering into his expression, he stood, laid ten dollars on the table, and made for the exit of the bar.

  Bachman left money on his own table and followed him outside.

  He tailed him into the street, staying twenty feet behind him. Douglas was a decent-sized man, but he was lame, favouring his right leg. Bachman made the assessment automatically and knew that he would comfortably outmatch him in a struggle. But it wouldn’t come to that. He could feel the reassuring bulk of the pistol in its shoulder holster. It would be a simple enough thing to follow him out of town, force him to stop and then put a bullet into his brain. He was wearing a knife in a scabbard that was strapped to his ankle and, he thought, if it came to that, he would favour the blade over the pistol. It would be more personal. More enjoyable. He had a wellspring of frustration building up inside him, and the expression of primal violence was, in his experience, the best way to release the pressure.

  Douglas took a right turn, heading away from the busier part of town and toward the parking lot where he had parked his Jeep. Bachman had parked his own car on the other side of the space. Apart from their vehicles, the lot was almost empty. There were no other people around.

  Bachman felt the twitch of adrenaline and picked up his pace. Douglas was a hundred feet away from his Jeep. Bachman was thirty feet behind him and quickly closed to twenty.

  Bachman heard Malakhi Rabin’s voice in his ear. “Bachman, what are we doing?”

  He wore a tiny microphone attached to the collar of his T-shirt. “Hold position,” he hissed.

  “Not here.”

  “Hold.”

  “At least let him get out of town first. You’ll be seen if you—”

  Bachman clenched his fists with fury. “Hold position and shut the fuck up.”

  Douglas reached the Jeep and stood for a moment, fumbling in his pocket for something. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

  Bachman reached into his own pocket and took out the packet of Longbeach he had bought earlier that afternoon.

  “Excuse me,” he called out.

  Douglas looked up at him, an expression of wariness on his face. “Yes?”

  He held up his unlit cigarette. “You got a light?”

  “Sure.”

  Bachman stepped closer to him, put the cigarette to his lips and dipped his head a little to touch the end to the flame. He inhaled once and then twice, waiting for the cigarette to catch light, and then straightened out.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  He gazed up into the sky. “Hot tonight.”

  Douglas lit his own cigarette and nodded at that. There was a pause between them, uncomfortably long, before Douglas frowned and asked, “You need anything else?”

  Bachman dragged on the cigarette. He clenched his fingers, balling his hands into fists. He thought of the gun. He thought of the knife. Malakhi Rabin was watching from somewhere behind him, and, in the unlikely event that Bachman was observed, he would take care of any witnesses. They could wait until they were out of town, but what was the point of that? Why wait? Why not do it now? Bachman was frustrated beyond patience.

  “You all right, sport?”

  Bachman snapped back into awareness. He pinched the cigarette between thumb and forefinger, slipped it from his mouth, and smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Fine. Just a million miles away. Thanks for the light.”

  Douglas shrugged it off and took a half turn toward his car.

  Bachman wondered, for a final time, whether he could afford to indulge himself, but he decided against it. Killing him now would be a foolish thing to do. There would be some short-term gratification, but that would pass and, when it did, he would have eliminated the best opportunity they had for picking up Milton’s trail again. Milton had called Douglas. Perhaps he would call again. Perhaps he would arrange to meet him somewhere. And Douglas had asked Milton where he was. Bachman had heard him ask the question. Perhaps Milton had told him something, given him some hint. Maybe, maybe not. But Milton and Douglas were friends. That meant that Douglas was leverage.

  It was frustrating, but Bachman needed Douglas to be alive.

  For now, anyway.

  Douglas paused and looked back at him with a quizzical expression. Bachman nodded farewell and set off.

  Later, he thought.

  Later.

  There would be time to release the frustration later.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  AZABU WAS Tokyo’s most expensive residential district. Its appeal was partly geographical since it bordered the fashion district of Aoyama, the Akasaka business district and the similarly upscale Hiroo residential area. The area had a village feel and Ziggy had passed a number of small eateries that charged extortionate prices as he made his way to the address that Shoko had provided. The real estate here was some of the most expensive in the world. There were a number of embassies here, too, and that meant that there was a reasonable police presence. Ziggy had researched that and was confident that it wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem.

  Ziggy parked his rental next to Azabu Gardens. He had researched the development as he planned the best way to complete the assignment. There were sixty luxury apartments nestled on a quiet, tree-lined street.

  He reached across to the passenger seat and took his MacBook from his bag. He rolled down the window; it was another hot, muggy Tokyo night, and the interior of the car was stuffy. The garage was protected by a roller door with a control unit on a metal stalk sunk into the concrete on its approach. He had waited outside the block all yesterday afternoon until a resident had arrived to open the door. He had captured the frequency used and now, as he held up his transmitter and aimed it at the unit, the code was fired back and the door unlocked and rolled up.

  Ziggy checked the street, saw nothing that concerned him, and rolled his car down the ramp and into the darkened garage.

  The cars inside were all expensive, but the car he had been tasked to collect was the most expensive of all. It was a Bugatti Veyron. It was wide and low-slung, pressed down to the asphalt with the promise of immense power. It was the fastest street-legal car in the world, with a top speed of nearly 270 miles per hour. It was also the most expensive. This model, Ziggy knew, would have cost its owner more than two million dollars.

  He found an empty bay with a line of sight to the Veyron and parked. He to
ok his laptop and activated the software. He targeted the car and set the software to find the correct frequency. The algorithm sped through the millions of variations, slowly identifying the components of the activation code. The software’s timer displayed the interval it believed it would take to crack the code: nine minutes.

  He had fretted about the wisdom of this misadventure for several hours after Shoko had sent him the details on behalf of her brother. He knew that he had been fortunate so far. He was careful, and he could minimise the risks of detection, but it was inevitable that the spate of high-end car thefts would eventually attract the attention of the police. Ultimately, cars like this one would be kept under surveillance. It wouldn’t matter how careful he was: he would eventually be caught. He knew that the sensible move would have been to decline the offer and put the whole silly episode behind him. He should have gone back to his apartment, packed up the things that he could not afford to leave behind, dumped the rest, and left. South Korea sounded good: highly technological and with the fastest domestic broadband system in the world. It was the kind of place that would suit him very well.

  And then he thought of the night he had spent with Shoko and his resolution crumbled.

  He would compromise.

  This one more time.

  That was it.

  One more job for one more night.

  And then he would leave.

  The price for that night was the Veyron that sat in the lot ahead of him.

  The timer counted down.

  Three minutes.

  He reached down and, without realising that he was doing it, rubbed his hand against the ache in his leg. He knew it was psychosomatic, but it always felt worse when he was stressed.

  The software bleeped. It had isolated the code with two minutes to spare.

  Ziggy took the transmitter, looked around the lot to ensure that he was still alone, and then fired the data at the Veyron.

  The lights flashed, the wing mirrors folded out and he heard the clunk as the locks disengaged.