by Mark Dawson
One less tango to worry about.
“Listen to me, Alexander. The man outside is very dangerous, but so am I.”
“But you work in IT!”
Milton ignored that and held up the grenade. “He’s got us penned in, but I’ve got this. It’ll buy us a few seconds. When I say run, you run. Okay? As fast as you can. As soon as you come out of here, there’s a slope that heads up to your right. There’s cover up there, trees and shrubs. Get right into the middle of it, as deep as you can, and keep going.”
Alexander nodded. Milton took him by the shoulder and pressed him back against the wall, next to the door. He slotted himself between him and the opening, took a fresh magazine from his pocket and held it with his left hand, pressed against the forestock of the rifle.
“Bachman!”
No response, just the sounds of the swamp.
“You’ve missed twice now.”
There was another pause, and then an angry voice shouting out, “You got lucky twice.”
“You’re getting old.”
“Maybe I am. But that’s it, Milton. You’re done.”
Milton listened hard, eyes closed, trying to pinpoint the location of the voice.
“Leave now, Bachman. I’ve got Bartholomew. If you’re still out there when I come out, I’ll shoot you.”
“You’re not going anywhere!”
There was an ear-splitting rattle as another fusillade from the AK studded the side of the container.
Milton turned to Alexander and told him, with his eyes, to be ready.
He wiped the sweat from his face, took a breath, and moved.
He swivelled on his right foot until he was in the doorway, scanning out even as the muzzle of Bachman’s AK flashed again, continuing the pivot until his back was against the wall on the other side of the doorway. The bullets screamed at the crate, several pinging against it, a few whistling through the open doorway and crashing, with bright chings, against the metal walls.
He breathed in and out, composing himself. He had to move quickly. Bachman was in the other building, but he would move positions soon.
“Well done, Bachman. You just killed the container.”
“Try it again and see what happens.”
Milton took the grenade, pulled the pin and, his thumb over the spoon, counted to three.
One.
Two.
Three.
He pivoted back into the doorway and lobbed the grenade at where he had seen the flashing of the AK and took cover again.
There was a burst of gunfire, bullets crashing against the metal, the sound of scrabbled footsteps, and then, as Milton’s count reached five, a crump as the grenade detonated.
“Now!”
Milton was first. He hurried out of the doorway, dropping down to one knee.
Alexander stumbled out after him, tripping over the sill, his feet sliding through the dust as he fought to right himself, eventually scrambling into cover on the right.
Milton brought the rifle up, pressing the butt between his breast and the front ball of his shoulder. He tilted his head so that his right eye was looking straight down the top of the barrel and focussed on the front sight, aimed into the blackened walls where the grenade had just exploded, and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired, chewing through the rounds in the magazine. The glass that remained in the frames went opaque before it was blown into the room beyond.
When the M16 ran dry, Milton ejected the empty magazine with his right hand and slapped in the fresh one with his left, firing off another burst as he took quick sideways steps to the fringe of the vegetation and the cover offered inside it. Alexander was just ahead of him, struggling through the monkey flower and milkweed. Milton caught up with him, took him by the elbow, and hauled him along.
He had started to wonder whether Bachman had been caught in the storm of shrapnel from the grenade when the AK clattered again. The leaves rustled and the boughs jerked as the bullets scattered through them. Alexander’s face was rigid with terror, the colour blanched from it.
“Come on,” Milton said. “We need to move.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
ALEXANDER CRASHED through the palmetto, ascending the ridge, his breath heaving out of his chest in ragged sobs. Milton came after him more carefully, pausing every fifty feet and turning back, the M16 raised and ready to fire. Bachman wouldn’t take unnecessary risks, but, he reminded himself, he had just lost the only bargaining chip that he had to use against them. Without Alexander, he would have to change his tactics or abandon the job, and his fee, and run. Milton didn’t know the man well enough to be able to guess, but he was dangerous enough that he preferred to assume the worst. If he was still coming after them, he would have no compunction in coming at them hard with everything he had.
Milton reached the top and paused again, crouching down, raising the M16 and tracking it across the dense scrub through which they had passed. He couldn’t hear anything save the chatter of a startled egret and the wet slap of an animal in the algae-topped waters of the swamp. He held his breath, concentrating hard, looking for signs of a clandestine approach; he heard, and saw, nothing.
And then, he did hear it. A rending, awful scream of anguish. It came from down the slope, from the direction of the encampment.
At first, Milton thought it was an animal.
And then he realised that it was Bachman.
Milton knew, then, that they were in trouble.
There was a tremendous crash from the top of the ridge. Milton turned. Alexander wasn’t there and, as he pressed up and set off after him, he heard the sound of something tumbling down the other side of the slope. He crested the rise and saw Alexander, on his back, at the foot of the slope. He must have tripped over an exposed root and then rolled all the way down. He was on his back now, jackknifed over the lip of the swamp, his legs submerged in the dirty water, slowly sliding farther and farther into it.
Milton picked a cautious route to get to him, proceeding backwards for the last few steps, the rifle aimed up the slope.
“You all right?”
“Tripped.”
“We need to get out of here.”
Alexander stayed where he was, panting.
“Get up!”
He thought he heard something behind them, a twig, perhaps, something snapping.
He pressed the rifle into his shoulder and held his breath, aiming left and right, swivelling smoothly from the waist. Alexander pulled himself out of the muck, wrapping his hands around a trunk and yanking himself clear.
Milton thought he saw something. A brake of cane, moving against the wind?
“Down!”
He fired, spraying bullets into the vegetation.
There was no return fire.
“Move!”
Alexander scrabbled away, heading west, and Milton came after him. The magazine was dry. He ejected it and pressed in the second spare. One left. He had the MP5, too, but the AK would outgun that if it came to a showdown.
They were halfway back to the road. Alexander struggled through a curtain of Spanish moss and broke out onto the track that Bachman had used to drive into the compound. Milton followed him reluctantly, aware that they were ceding cover for speed. But, he concluded, Alexander did not know how to exfiltrate safely in cover. There might be more tripwires, he was clumsy and loud, and any small advantage that they might have wrested would have been lost. It might be better to just let him run.
Milton would cover him as best he could.
#
MILTON’S TOYOTA was where he had left it, untouched.
He tossed the keys to Alexander. “You drive.”
“What?”
“Get in the car, Alexander. Right now.”
He did as he was told, fumbling the key into the lock, opening the door and getting inside. Milton backed around to the passenger side, feeling the chassis against him as he aimed the M16 back into the swamp. The engine turned over and started. Milton kept the gun up, rea
ched down with his left hand and opened the door.
“When I get in, drive,” he called. “Floor it. Understand?”
Milton edged across, briefly rested the rifle on the roof and scanned the cypress and oak, the dark vegetation clustered between the trunks and beneath the canopy of their boughs, and then, not even close to being satisfied, he ducked down into the car. Alexander punched the gas before the door had closed. The Corolla’s engine whined impotently, but the car just juddered ahead.
The brake was still on.
“Shit!” Alexander said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Milton turned in the seat so that he could aim the M16 back through the car, out of the rear window and into the bayou again.
“Just relax,” Milton said. “Release the brake.”
He punched the gas again. The car jerked ahead, quickly getting up to thirty and then forty.
Milton maintained his aim through the rear window, staring down the hard sight, but there was nothing.
Bachman wasn’t giving pursuit.
Chapter Fifty
MILTON CALLED ZIGGY PENN on the way back into the city.
“How did it go?”
“I found him. He was where you said he would be.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Where are you now?”
“In the city.”
“Where’s Izzy?”
“I just saw her. She left ten minutes ago.”
“Left?”
“For court. The hearing.”
“On her own?”
“She’s got her mother and father with her, like you said.”
“I meant, you’re not with her?”
“You didn’t say…”
Milton gritted his teeth. He hadn’t told Ziggy to stay with Izzy. He wasn’t a field agent, and the last time he had tried to take the initiative he had very nearly been killed. But, still, some common sense would have been nice.
Izzy was out there, on her own.
Bachman was out there, too.
There was no guarantee that he had given up yet, and the memory of that rending scream was fresh. Who was the woman in the crate? Did Bachman know her? Milton didn’t like what that might mean.
He was going to need Ziggy to get to her fast.
“You need to go and find her. And you need to stay with her.”
His tone changed. “Why?”
“I don’t know if I got Bachman or not. I don’t think I did.”
“So he could still be out there?”
“Yes. And if he still is, he might not exfiltrate. He might come after me. And if he doesn’t think a direct run at me is a good idea, he knows there are other ways to get my attention.”
“With her.”
“Yes, or her parents. You need to get her right now. You’ve got a head start over him, but I don’t know if this is him on his own or if he has a team. If there are others…” He looked over at Alexander, a frown of concentration on his face, and decided not to spell it out. “You get the picture.”
“I’m on it.”
“Have you given her the information she needs?”
“To get an adjournment? Shit, Milton, yes. Very strong evidence that Dubois has been paying the mayor, the police, more than enough. Babineaux is implicated. She’s going to try to get it postponed for the rest of the week. That’ll give me the time I need to get a dossier in a presentable state. But you don’t need to worry. It’s all there. She’ll have everything she needs.”
“Well done. Now—go and get her to court.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Chapter Fifty-One
ZIGGY GOT into his car, took out his cellphone and activated the mapping application. He was on Salvation Row. He entered the address of the courthouse at 410 Royal Street and waited for the route to be plotted. The solid blue line that appeared revealed the only sensible way to get there: the bridge over the canal, then Elysian Fields Avenue, then the court. Ziggy knew that an operative, someone like Milton, would have advised her to get off the main road and make her way there through the quieter, less obvious streets, but Izzy wasn’t an operative. And he hadn’t warned her. She didn’t know that she was in danger.
At least it would make it easier for him to find her.
But, he reminded himself, if it was easier for him, it would be easier for Bachman, too.
He set off to the west.
#
HE FOUND her at the junction of Elysian Fields Avenue and North Rampart Street. Her car was snagged in a long queue of slow-moving traffic, jockeying to get past the lights at the junction. The line of traffic that was filtering to the left was moving more quickly, and he swung into the lane and stopped when he was alongside.
The driver of the car that was jammed in behind him leant on his horn as Ziggy got out, waving at Izzy to lower the window.
She did. “Oh, shit,” she said, her eyes going wide. “Alexander?”
“He’s safe. Milton has him.”
“So what is it?”
“We need to change cars.”
“What are you talking about? I need to get—”
“The man who took Alexander is dangerous, and Milton doesn’t know where he is. He thinks he might be coming after you. He probably knows what car you’re driving. He probably doesn’t know about me.”
“I have to get to court, Ziggy. If I don’t, the case will get thrown out. We’ll lose.”
“I’ll get you there. Come on.”
There was a cacophony of horns as Ziggy went back to his car. Izzy explained to her parents what they needed to do, and they complied with her instructions without complaint, crossing over to the Hyundai and getting into the back. Ziggy opened the trunk of Izzy’s car and transferred her two heavy legal cases. He couldn’t put them into the trunk of the Sonata because Babineaux was still inside, so he hauled them into the back next to Elsie. Izzy got into the car, dropping into the passenger side.
His hands were shaking with adrenaline as he put the car into drive. This was what he had imagined things would be like when he had been seconded to the Group. Field operations, life and death, working with men and women like Milton rather than being stuck in a cubicle farm behind his computer, feeding them the information so that they could do their jobs, but never getting his hands dirty. He had tried to get involved the last time he had been in New Orleans, and that hadn’t turned out the way he had wanted. It had nearly gotten him killed. He knew that was why Control had busted him back to GCHQ, not even waiting for his wounds to heal until he was rid of him.
His failure had always bothered him. Ziggy’s childhood had been full of people telling him he wasn’t good enough, and it was something he had never been able to entirely forget. His adult life had been spent by ensuring that no one ever had cause to say that to him again. And so the incident with the Irishmen rankled. It was a failure. He had failed. He couldn’t forget it and, as time had passed, he had allowed it to reinforce the old taunts from when he was younger.
He had almost come to believe them again. He wasn’t good enough.
Ziggy was about to hit the gas when he saw the flash of blue lights behind him.
“Po-lice,” Solomon Bartholomew said, craning around to look out of the rear window.
Ziggy glanced into the mirror and saw the cruiser turn out of St. Claude Avenue and start to bully its way through the traffic.
Izzy laid her hand across his. “We can’t stop,” she said.
He looked over at her, unable to ignore how beautiful she was, her fingers around his wrist, and nodded. “We’re not going to.”
The cruiser was nearly on them. They were penned in at the front and rear by the queue. If the cruiser got alongside, it would be able to box them in and that would be that.
“Hold tight.”
Ziggy turned the wheel, punched the gas, and sped out of the queue and onto the sidewalk.
The bleeps of the cruiser’s siren imme
diately modulated into an angrier, more urgent, up and down wail.
Ziggy stomped on the gas.
#
THEY HAD to stop at a set of lights in Kenner, and Milton took the opportunity to change seats with Alexander. He floored the pedal, leaving rubber as they rushed back into the flow of traffic, cutting into the fast lane and accelerating.
Milton took out his phone and dialled the number that the StingRay had extracted from Bachman’s phone.
It rang five times.
Six.
Seven.
And then Bachman picked up.
“Who is this?”
“Milton.”
Bachman didn’t reply.
“You there?”
His voice, when it came, was flat and emotionless. “You’re a dead man.”
“You didn’t give me—”
“You know who you killed?”
“I didn’t—”
“You killed my wife.”
Milton gripped the wheel. He felt a shiver of dread ripple up and down his spine.
“I didn’t. I put her down. She took a ricochet when you fired at us.”
There was no reply again.
“Bachman?”
“You’re lying. You shot her.”
“I’m not lying.”
He didn’t hear him. “I can’t let that stand, Milton. You know that, right? There’s got to be payback.”
“No, you listen to me. You’ve got one chance to exfil. Take it.”
“I don’t think so. Not now. The job’s irrelevant. You just made it personal.”
Milton punched the gas to overtake a slow-moving truck. “You fucked up. Don’t compound the error.”
There was a cruel edge to Bachman’s voice when he spoke again. “Took your time getting out of the swamp, didn’t you? Didn’t know for sure whether I was coming after you? I heard you shooting up the trees. Do you know where your girlfriend is?”