Headhunters (18 page)

Too dangerous.

“When does the Indian Pacific leave?”

“They’re just resupplying it.” She looked up at the clock on the wall behind Milton. “It’ll be off in thirty minutes.”

“Two tickets, please.”

“Where to?”

“Perth.”

Milton took the money. The tickets cost $295. He pushed the notes beneath the window and watched as the woman counted it out, returning a single five-dollar bill. That was all they had to last them until he could find another source of funds. He would worry about that later.

“Enjoy the trip, sir.”

MILTON WENT back to the car.

“We’re good,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“Perth.”

She leaned forward and rested her head against the dash. “Perth,” she mumbled.

“We need to get as far away as possible. And we won’t make it if we drive.”

“I don’t believe this is happening to me.”

“I’m sorry, Matty, but it is happening. The train leaves in twenty-five minutes. We’re going to be on it.”

He took the keys from the ignition and went around to the rear of the car. Twenty-five minutes was good in that it would allow them to prepare for the trip, but it was bad in that it might be enough time for Bachman to find them. He thought about that again. Would he guess that they would risk the train to increase the distance between them? There was no way to predict that.

They had twenty minutes. He got back into the car and drove the short distance into the centre of town. They found a clothes store and quickly found fresh jeans, shirts and shoes. They got changed in the dressing rooms and then walked out of a door at the back of the shop. The proprietor was taking a delivery and didn’t notice them. They hurried back to the car and Milton drove them back to the station, parking in a side street a hundred yards from the building. He would have preferred to have left the car a little further away from the station—if Bachman found it, it would be a simple enough deduction to guess where they had gone—but he was happy enough. It was obscured from the main road and would be difficult to find.

They walked briskly across the parking lot. The station building was empty and the only people on the platform were a family who were transferring their luggage inside. A guard poked his head out of a window three carriages ahead of them and a cloud of diesel fumes from the engine drifted back to them. The heat was crippling, almost dizzying, and Milton was anxious to get inside. He checked again that they were not observed—the family were too chaotic to be anything other than authentic—and, satisfied, he opened the door and waited for Matilda to get inside.

A guard emerged onto the platform and put a whistle to his lips. He blew, long and shrill, and the engine grumbled as the driver increased the power. Slowly, and with rattles and jangles as the carriages were coaxed into motion, the huge train parted ways with the station and continued its long journey to the west.

THE TRAIN ran between Perth and Sydney, taking three days on a mammoth trip that also included stops in Adelaide, Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie. It was 2,698 miles from point to point, one of the longest railway lines in the world. The train was, in effect, a rolling hotel, with rooms, a restaurant and several lounges.

There were three levels of travel: economy, gold and platinum. Economy had open seating, and gold cabins were split into twins and singles. Milton had paid for a gold ticket. He found their carriage and opened the door. They had a twinette sleeper. The sleeping car had a corridor along one side, with compartments opening off it. Each compartment had an upper and lower bunk that folded away to reveal a sofa for daytime use. There was a tiny private bathroom with a hot shower, toilet and washbasin. It was neat and tidy and clean. It would serve them well enough, he thought.

Matilda went inside. Milton followed and closed the door.

She sat down on the sofa. “All right, John. You need to tell me now.”

“Tell you what?”

“Who was that?”

“I’ll give you everything,” he said. “But I’m tired. You’re tired, too. Can we get some sleep first?”

“No. I need to know.”

“Please, Matilda. I’m exhausted.”

“John—”

“I’ll tell you everything, I promise. I just need to close my eyes for a couple of hours.”

She looked at him, and, eventually, she relented. “Fine,” she sighed.

Milton reached up and lowered the top bunk. There was a metal ladder beneath the bottom bunk, and he fixed it into its brackets and clambered up. It was a narrow cot, with a miserly mattress, but, after the events of the last few days, it felt luxurious. He lay down, feeling the aches and pains in his body from where Bachman had beaten him, the throbbing from his cheekbones and nose and eye socket. He had taken a lot of punishment and he would, he knew, look even worse as the bruises came out properly. No time to worry about that. There was nothing he could do.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the clatter of the train as it ran across the rails. It was regular, almost hypnotic, and he was aware of his breathing as it went from deep to shallow, ushering him ahead into sleep.

IT TOOK MILTON a moment to realise where he was. He looked up and saw a ceiling that was close enough to touch with his arm only halfway extended. He closed his eyes again and heard the wheeze and rumble of wheels passing across track and then heard the blare of a horn.

He remembered.
The train.

He turned onto his stomach and reached down for the curtain that he had pulled across the window. He twitched it aside, just a little, and looked out to a burning hot afternoon. He looked at his watch. It was half past twelve. He had been asleep for five hours. They were passing through a red and orange landscape, rocks and boulders strewn by the side of the track and, beyond them, the gentle ascent of uplands that were dotted with the occasional clump of desert pea or blaze cassia. He saw one tree, a myall, atop a hill that looked down over the wilderness like a sentinel.

That’s right. They were on the train, headed west.

And then he remembered.

Bachman
.

He winced from the aches in his hips as he swung his legs off the side of the bed and descended the ladder. Matilda was asleep in the bottom bunk. She had taken off her shirt and the dark nutty brown of her shoulders was vivid against the thin white sheets.

Milton hopped down to the floor as quietly as he could and went into the tiny bathroom. It was designed with some ingenuity so that it could fit into the compact space. The toilet bowl folded down for use and there was also a fold-down sink. There was a vanity with power points, a small cupboard and, overhead, a showerhead. Milton took off his new clothes and stood under the shower for five minutes. He found a sachet of soap and used it to scrub the dirt and dried blood off his skin. The water that ran into the drain was a mucky brown, and it took a minute to run clear. He scrubbed at his scalp, feeling the grit of the sand. There was a disposable razor in the cupboard and he used it to shave away his bristles.

By the time he was done, he almost felt human again.

The towels were in the compartment. He opened the door a little and peered out. Matilda was awake and staring right at him.

“Towel, please?”

She smiled at him, the first that he had seen from her for what seemed like an awfully long time. “Come and get it,” she said.

“Matty, come on.”

She grinned, relented, and tossed one of the towels across the room.

He snagged it, wrapped it around his waist and came back into the compartment. He dressed while Matty used the shower, and then he called through the door that he was going to go and find coffee.

HE FOUND a café at the end of the third carriage along. There were four tables between seats upholstered in blue and yellow material. He gazed out the window while he was waiting and watched as a kangaroo kept pace with the train for fifty yards before losing interest and coming to a stop.

He spent the rest of his money on coffee and Danish pastries and asked the server how long it would be until they were in Adelaide. The woman said that they arrived at three. Not long. Milton thanked her and returned to their compartment. Matilda was sitting on the lower bunk.

Milton gave her the coffee and pastry.

“So?” she said.

Milton knew what she meant. He sat down next to her. “His name is Bachman. Sometimes he goes by Boon. I knew him a long time ago.”

“Who is he?”

Milton sighed. There was no way he was going to be able to change the subject this time. She had just been abducted, hauled across the outback and threatened with death. She deserved to know everything.

“He used to work for the Mossad. You know what that is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“The Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. Their Secret Service. Israel’s not exactly in a friendly neighbourhood, and they’ve always fought dirty. Very dirty. The Mossad is one of the most dangerous organisations in the world. I’ve been around them, once or twice, and they scare the shit out of me. They have a lot of blood on their hands.”

“So why are they involved with you?”

He shrugged. “Bachman hasn’t worked for them for a long time. He was supposed to have died in Cairo, years ago. That’s what they said, and it’s what I thought, too, until I saw him again in Louisiana.”

“That’s where you were—before here?”

“I was helping a friend. She runs a charity replacing houses that were wrecked by Katrina. She got into trouble with a corporation who wanted to build on the charity’s land. She wouldn’t do what they wanted, so they hired a man to get rid of her. That was Bachman.”

“I still don’t understand. Get rid—”

“Bachman is a hit man. He kidnapped her brother. I found him and got him out. There was a firefight. Bachman’s wife was killed. He thinks it was me, and now he wants me dead.”

“But it wasn’t you?”

“No,” Milton said. “He shot her. There was a ricochet. I’ve tried to tell him, but it’s the last thing he wants to hear. He’s angry and someone has to pay. He thinks it has to be me.”

“And he’s dangerous?”

“Very.”
The most dangerous man I ever met
, he thought. A psychopath, a killer who kills because he likes it. It would be difficult to pick a worse man with whom to have a feud.

She paused and bit her lip. “The Mossad. You said they had a lot of blood on their hands?”

Milton knew that they were coming to a crossroads. He knew where the conversation was going, and, knowing that it was about to become difficult for him, he answered quietly, “Yes.”

“And him?”

“Yes.”

“Like you?”

There was a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous: they said that you were only as sick as your secrets. Milton determined that he would have no secrets with her. She didn’t deserve dishonesty. He would tell her the truth and whatever happened, happened.

He took a breath. “Yes,” he said. “Like me.”

“What he said was true?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand…”

“After the SAS, after I met your brother, I was recruited to join an organisation in London. We called it the Firm. The part of that I worked for was called Group Fifteen. Some people in the Firm called us headhunters. I suppose you could say Group Fifteen was similar to the Mossad in that regard.”

“You killed people?”

“Yes,” he said.

“How many people?”

Milton looked out of the window.

“How many, John?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“How many?”

“A lot.”

He could remember them all.

She stood, a look of disgust and terror on her face.

“Please, Matty. Sit down. Let me explain.”

She backed away.

Outside their compartment, a conductor opened the door to the car. They heard him call out that he was going to need to inspect tickets, and then heard him knock on the door of the compartment next to theirs.

“Please, Matty,” Milton said. “Sit down.”

“No!”

She flung the door wide. The conductor was standing there. She hurried out.

“You all right, miss?”

“What’s the next stop?”

“Adelaide in five minutes.”

“Thank you.” She took out her ticket and showed it to him.

The conductor took the ticket, stamped it and handed it back. “Is everything okay?” he asked, looking into the compartment at Milton.

“Thank you,” Matty said again, hurrying away down the corridor.

The man stepped into the compartment, bracing himself against the doorway to anchor himself against the swing of the train.

“I don’t want any nonsense on my train.”

“It’s fine,” Milton said, handing the man his ticket.

The conductor looked at it dubiously, as if there had to be something wrong with it. Unable to find a fault, he stamped it and gave it back.

Milton stood and the conductor put out his arm and rested his hand on Milton’s shoulder.

“Like I was saying, no trouble.”

Milton clenched his fists, but took a breath to stay his temper. “There won’t be any. Now, please—get out of my way.”

The conductor held his hand there for a moment before he looked up into Milton’s eyes. The authority of his position melted away; he stared into Milton’s cold, implacable gaze, and decided that if there was going to be any trouble, he didn’t want any part of it. He stepped back out into the corridor. Milton thanked him and walked quickly to the next carriage.

Matilda was ahead of him. He made his way as quickly as he could. He caught up to her just as she opened the door to the carriage with the café.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Then just listen.”

“Does Harry know? About what you did?”

“Not as much as you do.”

She turned, ready to walk away again. Milton reached out and took her shoulder.

“Let go of me!”

“I can understand why you’re angry with me.”

“It’s not just anger, John. I’m scared.”

“You don’t need to worry about Bachman.”