Headhunters

Chapter Fifty-Two

The fastest route back to Australia was to fly from Split. A coach ran from the Dubrovnik bus station, but they had just missed the last of the day. Instead, they bought tickets for the next to leave, departing at just after four the following morning. They had returned to their hotel to get a little sleep. Ziggy had wondered whether Matilda would make their rendezvous in reception at three thirty, but she was there. They returned to the station and boarded the coach. It was quiet, with just a handful of passengers aboard with them, and they had been able to take two seats each.

Matilda had been quiet ever since they had left the restaurant the previous evening, and her pensiveness continued during the journey. She had been angered by Milton’s abrupt departure, and her anger had been deflected onto Ziggy when he had explained what had happened. Her initial reaction had been to refuse to leave the city. She said that she would find Milton, that it wasn’t right to leave him alone. Ziggy, mindful of his promise, had persuaded her that all they would achieve by staying was to risk the success of whatever it was that Milton was planning. She pressed him for details and he had responded, honestly, that he did not know what Milton intended to do. He told her about the hack that he had prepared for him, but when she asked him for more, he had been unable to elaborate. The lack of information was deliberate. Milton had kept the precise details to himself because he knew that Matilda would insist upon being involved. The less Ziggy knew about what was about to happen, the less he could tell her and the safer she would be. It was sound thinking, but it didn’t make for a particularly pleasant evening: she had railed at him for withholding information and, when he had convinced her that he really did know nothing, she had stopped talking to him.

She was asleep now, laid out across the seats with her head rested against her balled-up sweater. Ziggy looked through the window as they headed north, heading through the towns of Neum and Ploce. The dark sea was to their left, with the ghostly shapes of the islands of Otok Sipan and Mljet just visible against the dawn’s light on the horizon.

Milton spent two hours searching the house for anything that might be useful. He had the shotgun and plenty of ammunition, but there were no other weapons to be found. He located the burglar alarm, worked out how to isolate the motion detectors in the garden and activated them. He went from the ground floor to the top, checking that all the doors and windows were locked. Bachman was coming, he knew, and he wanted to make sure that he would not be able to mount an attack without him knowing about it first.

He found a roll of duct tape in a cleaning cupboard. He went back to the kitchen, opened the larder and marched Shavit outside again.

“Sit down, please,” he said, pointing to a wooden dining chair.

The old man did as he was told. He saw the tape and realised what Milton was planning. He didn’t need to be told what to do; he rested his arms on the armrests and positioned his ankles so that they were pressed up against the chair legs. Milton picked at the end of the tape and wrapped it around Shavit’s wrists and ankles, then took the rest and spooled it around his midriff and the back of the chair. When he was done, the old man couldn’t move.

“This isn’t very comfortable,” he said.

“Sorry about that.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

“So you keep telling me. It’s getting tedious.”

“Just run. Give yourself a chance.”

“Be quiet,” Milton said.

“Put some distance between you and Avi. You know what’s going to happen if you stay here. He’ll kill you.”

Milton sighed. He tore off a final strip of tape and stuck it over the man’s mouth.

They arrived at Split at a little after six in the morning. It would be a long trip back to Australia. The best route appeared to be to fly Qatar Airways to Doha, lay over there for five hours, and then continue on to Melbourne. The trip would take thirty hours, and the first flight out wasn’t for another six.

They queued at the Croatia Airlines desk, but then, as they were the next to be called up, Matilda turned and walked away. Ziggy paused, caught between the clerk beckoning him to step forward and the need to follow Matilda. He turned, shrugged an apology, and hurried away to the seating area where Matilda was pacing back and forth.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I can’t do this.”

“What?”

“Leave. I can’t.”

“We have to leave. You heard what he said.”

“I know what he said. But…” She paused. “Look, you know him better than I do, right?”

“Maybe.”

“And you’re okay with just leaving like this?”

“Milton knows what he’s doing. And he can definitely look after himself.”

“But you met Bachman.”

Ziggy tried not to think about what had happened. “Milton knows what he’s doing.”

Matilda sat. “What if Bachman doesn’t come alone?”

“Look, I don’t like it, either.” He sat, too. “But you think either of us would be able to help?”

“Maybe we could—”

He spoke quickly, cutting her off. “I thought I could help him, a long time ago. My leg, the reason I walk with this limp — that’s what happened when I tried. It took me a long while to realise it. I’m not a hero. I’m not suited to it. And if we go back there, I can tell you what’s going to happen. We’re not going to help Milton. Not at all. We’re going to get in the way. We’re going to give him a distraction that he doesn’t need, and we’re going to make it more likely that we all get killed.”

Her eyes, which had been bright and lively, lost their spark as he spoke. Her face drained of animation and, as he finished, her hopeful expression was replaced with disappointment.

“Come on,” he protested. “You know this is the best way.”

“I can’t,” she said and, before he could say anything else, she turned and walked back to the exit.

“Matilda!” he called.

She didn’t turn back.

Once again, Ziggy was caught. He watched her as she pushed the doors that opened into the bright sunlight outside and knew that he should follow her. But then he remembered where following her would lead — and, more importantly, to whom it would lead — and he was frozen to the spot. She paused and, finally, looked back at him. She saw that he was not minded to follow and, without any change in the determined set of her expression, she turned away and walked out into the sunshine.

Avi Bachman and Malakhi and Keren Rabin landed at Split airport. They had flown on diplomatic passports, and Keren Rabin had carried her bags in a white sack that had been printed with diplomatic stamps. The sack was tightened with a drawstring and then secured with a padlock. They had each been scanned, but, thanks to the ersatz letter from the Israeli embassy in Canberra, the diplomatic bag had not been searched. They passed through immigration without incident and made their way into the busy arrivals lounge.

“We need to go south,” Bachman said. “Dubrovnik.”

The two of them exchanged a nervous glance, and Bachman could see that something had changed between them.

“What?”

“We’re done.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our instructions were to make sure you arrived here, but that’s it.”

“Your instructions? Instructions from whom?”

“From the director.”

“You spoke to him? When?”

“Before we left Australia. He was very clear. You’re on your own now.”

“Has he thought about that? Has he thought it through? Has he forgotten what I can do with one fucking phone call?”

“That’s not for us to say.”

They backed away from him. He felt a blast of heat in his cheeks and he was gritting his teeth so tightly that his jaw started to ache. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he was able to manage a bloodless smile.

“What are you going to do?”

“We’ve been recalled. We’re flying back to Tel Aviv.”

He nodded. He didn’t need them. He didn’t need anyone. He would do it alone.

He took the white diplomatic sack and turned away. He left them behind him without another word.

Ziggy Penn was stuck in a slow-moving queue for security. He had already checked in. He had purchased a ticket to Seoul. It was a long flight, with a four-hour stopover at London Heathrow, but he had started to look forward to setting up a new life for himself in Korea. There would be opportunities for him there, chances to build something new without having to worry about the foolishness that he had allowed himself to slip into while he was in Japan.

He took his boarding pass from his pocket and ran his finger against the edge of the paper. He was excited by the possibilities of what he might now be able to do and, yet, there was something that was making him uncomfortable. There was an ache in his stomach. He knew what it was.

Milton.

He thought of what Matilda had said to him before she left to go back to the villa.

He had retorted that Milton could look after himself, and he could — so why did he feel so bad about leaving?

Milton had saved his life in New Orleans all that time ago. He had ignored strict protocol to locate him and then he had ensured that he received the medical attention he needed to save his life. Ziggy had worked with him again in an effort to repay the debt, and maybe he had done that. There had been the situation with the gangsters in Tokyo, and, again, Ziggy had reciprocated with the hack on the Mossad’s systems that had led them all to this juncture. They were square. Milton had said so, and Ziggy agreed. He didn’t owe him anything.

And yet… why did he feel like such a louse for leaving like this?

“Excuse me,” said the traveller behind him. Ziggy looked at the weary impatience on the man’s face and then turned back to see the gap that had opened up between himself and the rest of the queue.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and, instead of following the others towards the X-ray machine, he stepped out of line.

The man raised an eyebrow in surprise, but quickly hurried forward. The gap in the queue closed as the travellers jostled for position to present themselves to the ministrations of the machine and the indifferent attendants beyond it.

Ziggy turned his back on them and hurried to the exit.