Headhunters

Chapter Nineteen

Time passed. Milton estimated that they had travelled for another hour and, as far as he could tell, they were still heading east. There was no pausing, no stopping for junctions or stop signs. There were no junctions out here, not for hundreds of miles. It was difficult to be certain, but he knew that the road was straight and he knew that he would have been able to tell if they turned around. An hour, travelling at between fifty and sixty miles an hour. He tried to picture a map of the area in his head, and tried to work out where that kind of distance would put them. In broad strokes, it was somewhere in the outback between Wilcannia and Dubbo. He tried to remember the map he had studied with Harry in the shed at Boolanga. There was nothing out here on the A32. It was just thousands and thousands of acres of outback and the long, straight arrow of the road cutting through the heart of it. It was a wilderness, one of the harshest places on Earth.

They had to be going to Dubbo.

He was grateful for one thing: it was night. It didn’t bear thinking about what the inside of an unventilated van would be like once the sun came up. They could only hope that they reached wherever they were going before dawn.

Milton wasn’t prone to worrying about things that he couldn’t control. It was a waste of energy. He had considered all the angles and concluded that there was nothing to be done. He would fall back on his training. Conserve his strength. Observe and assess. Be ready to strike when the opportunity presented itself. And there would be an opportunity. It might only be a slight lowering of the guard, but there would be a moment when his captors became more vulnerable. If Milton decided in that moment that the risk of inaction was greater than the risk of resistance, he would take his chance.

Matilda had been quiet next to him. He had no idea what she must have been thinking. She had rested her head on his shoulder and, for a moment, he wondered if she had fallen asleep. But then, he felt her shift, pushing away from him until she was upright again.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What is it with you and drink? You never really said.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you have a problem with it?”

He would have preferred to say nothing, but he felt that he owed her something.

“There are some things I’d like to forget.”

“What?”

“Some things that I’ve done.”

“I don’t understand. The army?”

He fidgeted uncomfortably. “No. After that.”

“You never told me what you did after.”

He was anxious to get her off this subject as quickly as he could. “I know I didn’t. There are some things I can’t talk about.”

“Why can’t you talk about them?”

“Legally. It would be against the law to talk about it. What I did was secret. It still is.”

That was partially true. It wasn’t the main reason, though. He couldn’t talk about what he had done because she would hate him if she ever found out.

She laughed drily. “What are you saying? You were a spy or something.”

“Or something,” he said.

The van started to slow. That was odd.

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Are we stopping?”

He doubted it. They couldn’t be near where they were going. Not yet. Dubbo was still hours away. Why would they stop out here?

He was concerned. “Is there anything else out here between Wilcannia and Dubbo?”

She thought about that. “Poopelloe Lake? That’s about it. The rest is just the outback.”

“And what’s there?”

“At the lake? Nothing really. I think you can fish. Not sure if there’s anything beyond that.”

The van’s suspension rattled as they ran off the asphalt and onto the pitted surface of a track. They started to slide forward, toward the cab.

“We’re going downhill,” Matilda said. “A lake would probably be in the bottom of a depression. Maybe the road runs above it.”

Milton hated to guess, but guesses were all he had. “The lake,” he urged. “Think. What’s there?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been. I saw something on the TV once. Something to do with fishing. That’s all I know.”

He tried to listen for anything that might give him an idea what was happening, but the only sound coming from the driver’s compartment was the muffled noise of music. The throb of the engine obscured everything else. The van bumped over uneven ground and they were thrown together. The van took a sharp corner and Milton reached out to grab the wheel arch to prevent them both from sliding across the floor.

The van slowed to a crawl and turned sharply to the right.

Matilda reached for Milton’s hand and, when she found it, he grasped it and squeezed tight.

“Try to take it easy,” Milton said.

“Are you nuts?”

“They don’t want to kill us. There’s something else that they want.”

“So what do I do?”

“Whatever they say. Don’t give them any attitude. If they think we’re going to be compliant, they might let their guard down.”

“And then?”

“I won’t need asking twice.”

“To do what?”

“To get us out of here.”

The brakes applied again and the van rolled to a full stop. The engine was still running. Milton heard the passenger door open and then, shortly afterwards, the sound of rusty hinges squeaking.

“It’s a gate,” he said.

The passenger door slammed again and the van set off. The surface beneath the tyres was gravelled, crunching as they proceeded onward, the driver keeping to a slow speed. Milton estimated that they travelled for another ten minutes, although there was no way of telling whether it was to the north, south, east or west. Finally, the engine changed back down through the gears and the brakes were applied again. This time, the engine was switched off. The two doors ahead opened and slammed shut and they listened to the sound of footsteps on the gravel. After that, too far away to decipher, came the sound of voices. Milton held his breath and tried to listen, but it was just a low murmur.

The conversation stopped and footsteps approached the rear doors.

Milton squeezed Matilda’s hand.

The mechanism cranked and the door was pulled back.

Blinding light.

A powerful flashlight. It lit up the interior. Milton couldn’t see anything behind it. He looked down quickly, knowing that he would compromise his vision for moments that could prove to be crucial if he looked into it for too long. He raised his hand to shield his eyes and, as the flashlight jerked down a little, he looked up again. He thought he caught sight of trees and, perhaps, a body of dark water.

“We’re here,” the man holding the flashlight said. Milton recognised the voice: it was the man who Milton guessed was in control.

“Where’s that?”

“Doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that we’re finished for now.”

“Can we get out?”

“You’re staying in there tonight.” A jerk of the flashlight indicated the van.

“Come on,” Matilda protested.

“No arguments.”

“What are we waiting for?” Matilda snapped.

“You don’t have too much longer to wait. This will all be settled tomorrow.”

“What does that mean?”

Milton squeezed her hand again. He knew that there was no point in trying to negotiate. Better to focus on the concessions that he could win. “We need water,” he said. “And if we’re staying in here, we’re going to need somewhere to relieve ourselves.”

“Piss in the corner.”

“At least let her have a moment outside,” he said. “I’ll stay here.”

There was a momentary pause as the man considered the request.

“All right,” he said. He jabbed the flashlight at Matilda. “Come forward.”

“Go on,” Milton said, wishing that he could tell her what he needed her to do, and trusting that she was smart enough to do it without needing to be asked.

Matilda shuffled to the door. Milton had to move with her.

“Far enough,” the man said.

Milton stopped and stretched out his arm so that Matilda could continue far enough to allow her to dangle her legs over the tailgate. His eyes had adjusted to the glare. There was another man next to the man with the flashlight. He was carrying a shotgun and it was aimed into the back of the van. It was level with the floor. If the man pulled the trigger, the buckshot would pepper his legs and stomach. If it didn’t kill him outright, the injuries it would cause would end him soon enough. He would bleed out in the back of the van. There would be a chance, but this wasn’t it.

The man with the flashlight took a key from his pocket. He had to lower the flashlight to get to it and, while the glare was out of his eyes, Milton took the opportunity to look around properly. It was dark, but the moon was high overhead and that, plus the glow from the flashlight, cast out enough illumination for him to see that the van had come to a stop in a wide clearing. There was a fringe of straggled underbrush and then the occasional black stripe of a tree trunk. The ground looked like the orange-red gritty sand of the outback, gradually becoming less arid as the ground dipped down to the body of water that spread out to the left of the van.

The flashlight was brought back to bear and Milton had to look down again.

The cuff was released from Matilda’s wrist and she dropped down to the ground.

The shadow of a woman appeared behind the beam of the flashlight. Milton recognised her: the woman from Broken Hill. She stepped forward, into the light, and tossed a big two-litre bottle of water into the van. It bounced once and then rolled to a halt against Milton’s legs.

“Take her around the back,” the first man ordered.

“Come on.” The woman grabbed Matilda by the forearm and led her around the side of the van.

“There’ll be someone outside all night,” the man with the flashlight said. “If you or the girl try to get out, you’ll be shot. Understand?”

“Who are you working for?”

The man ignored the question.

“Come on. Throw me a bone.”

“You know better than that, Milton.”

“Look at me. What am I going to do?”

“The less you know, the better for everyone. All you need to know is that if you do anything stupid — and I mean anything—I have authorisation to finish you right here.”

“Authorisation from who?”

“Forget it.”

“Who are you waiting for?”

“Enough talking, Milton.”

Milton shuffled back a little. “You killed anyone before?”

The man laughed. “Come on. Seriously? What is that? You trying to get into my head?”

“Would that be a waste of time?”

The man with the shotgun joined in the laughter.

“Here’s a bone for you, Milton, since you asked. Yes, I’ve killed before. Not as often as you, maybe, but enough that it doesn’t bother me. Pulling the trigger on you would mean nothing. I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep.”

The man with the shotgun emphasised the point by shouldering the weapon, raising the muzzle to aim squarely at Milton’s chest.

The woman returned with Matilda. Her hand was clasped around Matilda’s bicep and she hauled her forward, sending her stumbling against the tailgate. Milton saw that Matilda’s lip was cut, with a gobbet of blood rolling down her chin.

“Get in,” the woman said.

“All right?”

“Little bitch thought she’d make a run for it. She won’t do it again.”

Matilda pressed up so that she could get into the back of the van. Milton caught her beneath the shoulders and helped her the rest of the way.

“I was going to let you have the cuffs off,” the first man said to Matilda. “You’ve blown that. Put them on again.”

Milton took the open bracelet, fixed it carefully around Matilda’s wrist and pressed it closed. He held up his hand, demonstrating once again that the cuffs were properly fastened.

The first man closed the door and Milton heard the lock slide home with a metallic thunk.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she muttered.

“She hit you?”

“Not before I got one in myself.”

“I told you,” he said, as calmly as he could, “no struggling. We do as they say.”

“Until when?” she fired back. “What are we waiting for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I saw a chance. I thought if I could get into the scrub—”

“No, Matilda. What would you have done? There are at least four of them. They would have locked me in here and all of them would’ve gone after you. We don’t even know where we are.”

She didn’t answer immediately, hawking up a mouthful of blood and then spitting it away to the side. “I do,” she said. “I know where we are.”

“Where?”

“It is Poopelloe. I saw a sign. We’re next to a fishing cabin.”

“What else? Everything, Matty. Everything you saw.”

“The water is twenty feet to the left of us. There’s a clearing and a track heading south — that’s what we came in on.”

“What’s the cabin like?”

“Small. Looks basic. One room, from the look of it.”

“Any other vehicles?”

“The Navara.”

“How many of them?”

“The two who stayed with you, the woman who took me, and one other in the Nissan. He was speaking to someone on a phone. I don’t know how — there’s no signal out here.”

“How big was it?”

“What?”

“The phone? How big?”

She parted her hands. “This big.”

“A satellite phone, then.”

The more Milton heard about their captors, the more he was convinced that this was a government-sanctioned operation. The organisation, the equipment. It all suggested it.

“What do we do now?” Matilda asked.

“We sleep.”

“You think I’m going to be able to sleep?”

“You need to try. We both need to be rested.”

She sighed, but fell silent. Milton shuffled back to the side of the van and, as the cuffs went taut, she followed. They both arranged themselves against the metal walls. Her breathing deepened and then grew shallow and, as she slipped into slumber, her head fell against his shoulder. Milton closed his eyes and listened. He heard the murmur of conversation from outside, but it was too distant for him to be able to make anything out. After a while, even that noise stopped. He heard the hungry calls of dingoes and the chatter of a nocturnal cuckoo. Milton directed his thoughts to the Twelve Steps, and, as he recited them back to himself, he only made it to the Seventh Step before the words became a jumble in his mind and, finally, he slept.