Headhunters

by Mark Dawson

  “Where is he?”

  “In Croatia. The Alsatian Coast.”

  “I’ll need everything you have on him.”

  Blum nodded. “And then?”

  “I’m going to go and see him. I’ll make sure Avi knows where I am. When he gets to me, pull your agents back. You can leave the rest to me. It’s between us now.”

  “You think it will be as easy as that? ‘You can leave the rest to me’? It won’t be easy, Mr. Milton. Avi is the most dangerous man I have ever sent into the field. You can’t fight him straight up. He’ll kill you.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “He’s beaten you twice already. He nearly killed you in New Orleans. And he had you beat in Australia. I know. I read the reports.”

  “He gave me a bit of a beating. But maybe the third time’s a charm.”

  “I read your file. You were good, but that was a long time ago. Avi never stopped. He stopped working for us, but he’s never stopped killing. You know that, don’t you, Mr. Milton? Avi Bachman is a machine.”

  Milton stood up. “You’re wrong, sir. I didn’t stop killing, either.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  ZIGGY HAD set a timer on his laptop for an hour. They were going to leave when that hit zero, regardless of how much information was left to be delivered. He had masked his location as thoroughly as he could, but he knew that once the Mossad brought their systems back online again, they would very quickly be able to find out where all of their secret data was going.

  Thirty minutes.

  Forty-five minutes.

  He adapted as he worked, constantly rearranging the data to be downloaded.

  Fifty-five minutes.

  He found one particularly juicy piece of information—a list of agents active in the United States, together with Social Security information and images—and decided it was worth waiting the additional time it would take for it to download.

  Sixty-five minutes.

  The delay was greedy on his part. Almost fatal.

  Seventy minutes had passed when he and Matilda hustled out of the hotel and onto the street. Two cars pulled up outside and six men disembarked. There was nothing to mark them out as agents, not that Ziggy would have expected that, but their haste to get inside was evident and, as Ziggy and Matilda tarried a little at the end of the street, they watched as the agents sealed the building and prevented anyone else from leaving.

  “Come on,” Ziggy said. “We don’t want to be here.”

  *

  MILTON FOUND a cab on the street. As soon as they had pulled out into traffic, he allowed himself to exhale and relax. The afternoon had been exquisitely stressful. He had known that his life was in the balance and that he had ceded a decision on whether he lived or died first to the scheming of a socially inept hacker and then, second, to a man who was not noted for his compassion. He realised, as the car put the anonymous office block behind him, that he had half expected not to be able to walk out of it again.

  He told the driver to stop next to a payphone. While the driver waited, he thumbed in the coins, dialled the number for the prepaid phone that he had given to Ziggy and waited for the call to connect.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “How did it go?”

  “He took it. He left me for a couple of hours and when he came back he was very unhappy.”

  “I bet. You fucked up their network. They’ll basically have to blow it up and start again.”

  “You did it. I was just the deliveryman.”

  “So they’ll stop Bachman? Call him off?”

  “No.”

  “They’ll help you, then?”

  “Not exactly. But they might not help him.”

  “They might not?”

  “I can’t say any better than that. That’s what I needed most of all. The deck was stacked before. It might be even now. They certainly know I’m serious after what we just did to them.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We need to give our friend a reason to come and find us.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I’ll explain. But you need to leave the country.”

  “And go where?”

  “Dubrovnik.”

  They had already discussed the safest way to leave, and now Milton told him to put the plan into effect. Ziggy and Matilda would return south to Ovda and leave from there, while he would make his own arrangements. He knew that he would have a Mossad tail now that he wouldn’t be able to shake until he had exited the country. But he wanted to ensure that Ziggy and Matilda were able to leave safely. He made Ziggy promise that he would keep a careful eye on her, and he said that he would. Milton didn’t think that Matty needed a babysitter—indeed, it would probably have made more sense to tell her to look after him—but he couldn’t help himself. He said that he would call again when he had reached their destination and then ended the call.

  Back in the car, he leaned forward so that he could speak to the driver. “Change of plan,” he said. “Can you take me to Haifa, please? The airport.”

  It was a hundred kilometres to the north, and the driver—happy to contemplate the larger fare he would be able to charge—said yes and changed course.

  Milton settled back in the seat as they headed out on Route Two, and gazed out the window to the west. The deep blue sea stretched out all the way to an immaculate horizon, a few pleasure craft skirting across the surface. He turned back as a Mercedes with blacked-out windows accelerated by them, matching their speed for a moment before passing and pulling in ahead of them. He wondered whether the car was involved in his surveillance.

  Probably.

  He would make no attempt to shake them.

  It would make no difference. They knew where he was going.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  MILTON SHIFTED a little, rearranging himself so that he was a little more comfortable. He was lying on a shallow plateau that jutted out of the steep cliff side that dropped down to the clashing water of the Adriatic below him. He was prone, flat against the stony floor of the plateau, shielded from the scorching sun by the lip of rock that extended above him. He was holding a pair of binoculars that he had purchased at the airport. The sun was overhead, so he wasn’t concerned about the prospect of light sparking against the lenses and giving him away. He was hidden.

  The villa spread out below him was impressive. The building itself was huge—Milton estimated four thousand square metres—and the grounds led down through a series of terraces to the crystal-clear waters. Trees reached up above bone-white walls that had been bleached by the salt and the sun, and flights of steps offered access to and egress from the terraces to the house and, beyond, the ornamental gardens that had been planted in a cleft in the cliff face. Milton had no idea how much a property like this must cost. Millions, certainly.

  Dubrovnik was only a few miles to the north. This was a chic destination now, but it hadn’t always been that way. Ziggy had pulled the records of the transaction that had passed the property’s title from the previous owner to Meir Shavit. He had been shrewd. The purchase had been made at the height of the war, when the villa was valued at a fraction of the amount it would have made if it were put onto the open market today. Milton had never been one for property, but even he had to admit that the old soldier had been wise in his choice of investment.

  He saw movement and jerked the binoculars around, focusing on the figure that had just emerged from a door at ground level. It was a man, old, but in good shape despite his advanced years. He walked with a confident stride, his back ramrod straight and, if a little slow, he moved with purpose. He was wearing a white robe and slippers.

  The man followed a flight of steps down to the middle terrace, and then another that delivered him at the foot of the cliff. Milton twisted the focus. A natural indentation in the rock face had produced a large plunge pool. It was protected from the vic
issitudes of the tide by a lip of rock that extended out into the water, a natural breakwater that meant that the water was as smooth as a millpond in comparison with the churn beyond it. A wooden pier had been constructed, stretching out for ten feet into the middle of the pool, and there was a rowing boat tied up at the end.

  Milton watched as the man reached the lower level. He took off the robe, revealing a pair of swimming shorts, and then removed his feet from the slippers. He walked to the end of the pier. There was a ladder next to the rowing boat and he climbed down it, dropping the last few feet into the water. He turned over onto his stomach and stroked out into the middle of the pool.

  It was Shavit.

  Milton watched him as he swam to and from the rocks that formed the breakwater. It looked deep, the light blue of the shallower waters directly below him changing to a much darker hue where Shavit was swimming.

  Milton wondered whether now was the time to make his move. He could negotiate the cliff face in fifteen minutes, approach the pool and take Shavit as soon as he emerged from the water. He thought about it, but discounted it. He had no idea how many other people were in the villa. A place as large and opulent as that would certainly have staff, and perhaps Shavit had other guests. Ziggy had promised to hack the security system, and that, together with extended reconnaissance, would give Milton a much better idea of how many people were inside. There was no sense in moving too quickly and making a mistake. It would complicate things horribly to have the local police involved. The property was private and secluded, with high walls and security that would ensure that he and Bachman would be undisturbed when they confronted one another again. Milton did not want to spoil that by acting precipitously.

  He took out the cell phone he had purchased in the city and called Ziggy.

  “Well?”

  “It’ll be easy,” Ziggy said. “It routes through a local home security firm. I just need to get into their server and I’ll be able to see everything they can see.”

  “How long?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Get to it.”

  “Are you doing it now?”

  “Not yet. Tonight.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Just keeping an eye on him.”

  *

  THEY HAD DINNER together that night. Matilda found a restaurant down by the harbour in the Old Town and the three of them sat on the patio and dined on fish and stuffed calamari. The atmosphere was tense. Milton knew there was a difficult conversation to have, and the anticipation of it was heavy in the air. He had brought the waterproof kit bag that he had purchased earlier that afternoon. It was on the floor next to him, a visible reminder of what he was intending to do.

  Milton was the last to finish his main course and he waited for the waiter to clear the table before he began.

  “You need to get out of the city,” he said to them both when the man had disappeared into the kitchen. “Tonight.”

  “What are you going to do?” Matilda asked.

  “I’m going to bring this whole mess to an end.”

  “The old man?”

  “Tonight. I’ll go and see him.”

  “See him?”

  “He’s the way to Bachman. He’s the reason Bachman’s going to come here. And he’s the reason he’s going to be off balance.”

  “And then? When he comes?”

  He paused. “And then there won’t be a problem any more.” He didn’t want to speak euphemistically, but he had no desire to describe what they all knew was going to be required if the problem was to be resolved.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “The things I need.”

  The waiter returned with the dessert menus. Milton asked for the check.

  Matilda was fingering the stem of her wine glass. “How long will it take for Bachman to get here?”

  “Depends where he is. If he’s still in Australia, it’ll take him a day.”

  “So we’ll stay with you until tonight.”

  “No, Matty. It’s too dangerous.”

  “You’ll need help. You can’t do it all on your own.”

  “I can,” he said, thinking that he had done much worse.

  She started to protest.

  “What if it isn’t a day?” Milton said “What if they’ve told him where I am? He could be on his way now. He might be here already.” Matilda started to protest again, but Milton stalled her with a raised hand. “No arguments. I don’t want you to be involved. Either of you. You should never have been involved in the first place. You need to go.”

  She started to retort, but bit her lip. Instead, she got up, folded her napkin on the table and went into the restaurant.

  “Ziggy,” Milton said, “you have to make sure she leaves.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “You need to do better than that. After I’m gone, you take her to the airport and get onto a plane with her. Promise me.”

  He looked down and exhaled. “All right. Okay. And then?”

  “Get her back to Australia. This will be over one way or another.”

  “What if Bachman…”

  Ziggy didn’t finish, but Milton understood what he meant. “It won’t come to that.”

  “I know, John, but what if it does? What if he’s still out there and you’re not? What happens then?”

  “You’re planning to disappear, right?”

  He shrugged. “That was the plan.”

  “Make sure you do.”

  “But what about her? She’s not going to want to do that, is she? She’s going to go back to Australia and her brother.”

  Milton took a moment to answer. He had considered the consequences of failure. Would Bachman revenge himself on them, too, even if Milton was dead? He didn’t know. The man was a psychopath. He was unpredictable. There was a chance he would consider the ledger still open. There was no profit in thinking about the possibility. There were no other ways to bring an end to what had happened.

  That was the thing: he couldn’t allow himself to fail.

  He stood.

  “Are you going?”

  “It’s easier.” He reached down for the kit bag and rested it on his chair. “What we talked about earlier—that’s ready to go?”

  “You just need to send the email. It’s all set up.”

  Milton collected the bag. “Thanks. You’ve been great. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without your help.”

  Milton knew that Ziggy looked up to him, and he knew that his praise would mean something to him. He hoped it would cement the last piece of cooperation he needed from him. He needed him to get Matilda out of harm’s way.

  Ziggy smiled at Milton’s gratitude. “You sure you don’t need me to stick around?”

  “I need you to make sure Matilda gets home. Tell her I’m sorry, about everything that happened. Will you do that, please?”

  “Of course.”

  Milton slung the bag over his shoulder and put out his hand. Ziggy took it.

  “Be careful,” Milton said.

  “And you.”

  Milton turned and made his way between the tables to the cobbled street that led down to the waterfront. He didn’t turn back.

  Chapter Fifty

  THERE WERE over a thousand islands in the Adriatic within easy reach of Dubrovnik. Businesses gathered around the harbour offered tourists the opportunity to hire speedboats, sailing boats and yachts, some with skippers and others without, so that they could make excursions out to the beautiful and unspoilt beaches that were all within easy reach. Milton wanted a speedboat, although he had no interest in relaxation. He waited until it was just after midnight before scouting the jetties that accommodated the hire craft. He found a Maestral 599, a RIB that was a touch under six metres from aft to stern and powered by a Yamaha outboard motor. He waited until he was confident that the harbour was quiet, tossed the new rucksack down into it and then boarded the boat. He crouched down low and shuffled to the stern and the motor.
He popped off the motor cover and dug out the quarter-inch nylon emergency starter rope with a small wooden handle at the end. He turned the valve on the fuel primer to the open position and squeezed the fuel primer three times so that he could hear the fuel squirting. He fixed the knot on the end of the starter rope into a notch on the flywheel and pulled. The engine caught. Milton reduced the revs a touch, cast off the mooring line, and then gave the engine enough revs to edge the boat out into open water.

  Milton waited until he was beyond the fifteenth-century fortifications of the Old Town and the Porporela lighthouse and then opened the throttle all the way. The engine growled and then roared, and the Maestral picked up speed, bouncing across the gentle waves. He passed Lokrum, an island that could be reached with a vigorous swim from the city, and headed to the south. He ran dark, with no lights, and maintained a course that kept him around two hundred yards from the shoreline.

  In twenty minutes, he was adjacent to the landmarks he remembered from his reconnaissance. The cliffs reached up sharply like crenulated battlements, the villa nestling within their embrace. Milton cut the engine and let the boat drift, bobbing up and down on the swell. The only sounds were the lapping of the water against the hull and, somewhere above, the crying of a gull. He collected the claw anchor from the bow of the boat and tossed it over the edge. The rope unspooled for ten seconds before it went taut.

  Milton opened his waterproof rucksack and took out the equipment that he had purchased earlier. He found his binoculars and scanned the coastline. He followed the glow of a car’s headlights as it traced the headland before disappearing into a copse of trees. He scanned along the cliffs, across inlets and outcrops of rock, and saw no one. Finally, he examined the villa. There were lights in the windows on all three levels. Milton studied them for five minutes until he was rewarded with a dark shadow that moved across a window on the top level. He was too distant to identify Meir Shavit, but he was prepared to assume that his target was home. Ziggy’s investigation suggested that he lived alone. The two pieces of information were all that Milton needed to decide to put his plan into operation.