Headhunters (6 page)

Milton’s attention was drawn to the two guides who were sitting with them. They were authentic-looking blokes, dressed in khaki pants and shirts with the logo of the tour company stitched into the lapels. So far, so corporate, but it was the small details that Milton noticed that betrayed them: their hands were calloused, their arms and faces discoloured with small red blotches from the sun, their faces tanned a deep nutty brown apart from their foreheads where their hats would sit. They had the same complexions as Eric, Merv, Harry and Milton did. They worked outdoors. They looked tough.

Milton could see that Eric was getting worked up to start something. Harry could see it, too, and tried to redirect the conversation when Eric started making comments about how rich townsfolk would never be able to understand what it was really like to live and work in the outback.

It wasn’t a question of being able to overhear what he was saying. He was making no effort to speak quietly. The sensible thing would have been for the tourists to ignore him. Eventually, he would have become bored of his sport and allowed the subject to be changed. But one of the men took offence to Eric’s remarks, swivelled in his chair and told him to be quiet.

The mood changed.

“You what, sport?” Eric said.

“I said you ought to keep your opinions to yourself. You don’t know the first thing about us.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, see?” he said. “I know plenty.”

One of the guides stood. “Leave it out, fella. Just enjoy your beer and mind your business.”

Eric ignored the suggestion. Milton realised that he was drunker than he had suspected. He spoke quickly, his face was flushed red and there was a nervous tic in his cheek that danced up and down. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you fuck muppet.”

“What did you say?”

“Leave it out, Eric,” Harry said.

“Fuck that, skip. I ain’t sitting here and taking bollocks from a dipshit like that.”

“That’s not necessary,” said one of the effeminate men.

“Fuck off, you chocolate driller.”

Milton groaned and rested his forehead in his hand. Eric laughed, turning to Mervyn and looking for a reaction. They shared a laugh. Harry scowled at him and told him to shut up, but it was too late.

The two guides had stood up.

Milton assessed them afresh. They were both a touch over six foot and, he guessed, fifteen or sixteen stone. Big, rugged men who looked like they knew how to handle themselves. The nearest one was wearing a big belt buckle with a steer design to hold up his moleskins. There was a half-finished bottle of beer at his place at the table, but he had been sipping at it and he looked clear-eyed. He wasn’t drunk. Neither of them was drunk.

Eric most certainly was. He staggered out of his seat and bumped against the table as he approached the man. Harry tried to grab his wrist, but he brushed his hand away.

The two of them squared up.

“Sit down.”

“Don’t think so.”

Eric threw the first punch. The guide deflected it with his left hand, cocked back his right and drilled Eric in the face. There was a splash of blood and a crunch as the bones in his nose snapped. Eric’s legs went out from beneath him and he fell against an empty table, overturning it as he slid onto the floor.

“Any of you pig-ugly shearers want to make an issue of that?”

Milton was nearest to the guide. He sighed a little. This was the other reason he tried to avoid bars. He had been involved in brawls two times in the last twelve months, and both occasions had landed him in trouble.

The man was glaring down at him. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m not looking at anything,” Milton said.

“You’re looking at me, dickhead. You want some, too?”

Milton sighed again. He stood, very deliberately, and took a step to his right so that he was standing between the fallen Eric and the man. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. He was shorter and a couple of stones lighter, but there was an aura about him that made it very obvious that he wasn’t a man to be crossed. He usually hid it, but, when required, it was as effective as it had always been. There was an almost physical quality to his confidence, a manifestation that made it very clear that he wouldn’t hesitate to use violence and, if he was pushed, it would go badly for those in his way. And then there were his eyes. Pale blue, flinty, as lifeless as ice. There was no prospect of mercy or empathy or understanding. They promised pain.

The guide squared up to him for a moment, but then, as Milton cocked his head and stood his ground, the man took a step back.

“Fine,” he said, bristling. “You keep your pal in line or there’s going to be a problem.”

Still Milton said nothing. He stayed where he was, staring at the guide until he backed away, returned to his table and sat down.

Harry was helping Eric to his feet. “You got what you had coming to you, you idiot. I don’t know why I let you drink. That mouth of yours is always getting you into trouble.”

Eric didn’t respond; he was still woozy. Mervyn, who looked like he would have felt obliged to come to his friend’s aid, now appeared to be relieved that the situation had been defused.

“Jesus,” Harry sighed. “Well done, John.”

Milton waved it off. It was nothing.

THE TOURING PARTY left the room soon after that. The atmosphere had been spoiled for them and it was obvious that they had no interest in seeing whether the brawl would reignite when Eric finally came around. Harry looked at Milton and shook his head: part apology, part wry admission of the foolishness of the whole situation. Milton had seen similar attitudes during the three months that he had been working with Harry across New South Wales. As an industry, shearing was, as Harry put it, “on its arse.” It was assailed on the one side by the trend towards mechanisation and, on the other, by big corporate station owners who were determined to drive down their costs. Harry’s family owned their station and that lent them some measure of security, but, as he had admitted at the melancholic end to a previous evening, that didn’t mean that they would be around forever. Progress couldn’t be ignored. Change was coming.

All of the shearers Milton had met had felt an affinity for each other through their shared vocation and the life they eked out of the wilderness. It was a harsh, difficult place to survive, and the sight of these soft, pampered tourists, backed up by a convoy of four-by-fours in the event that they should get tired, was a thumb in the eye.

Harry suggested that they should leave soon afterwards. Eric had been cowed by his embarrassment at the hands of the guide, Melvyn was half asleep, and Milton was happy to go along with the majority view. They finished the round, bought some travellers to drink on the way home, and headed back to the Jeep.

AVI BACHMAN had never been to the Adriatic coast before. He looked down from the plane as they circled for landing, deciding that the landscape was one of the most spectacular that he had ever seen. They traversed glassy bays, craggy bluffs, hidden coves and beaches, vineyards, olive groves, and forests of cypress and pine. It was wild and dramatic, the gathering darkness gradually prickling as the lights of Dubrovnik and the surrounding towns and villages were lit.

Bachman was tired. He had been travelling for the last three days and it was beginning to catch up with him. They had driven him west from Baton Rouge, following I-10 for eleven hours. They had passed through Beaumont, changed vehicles outside Houston and then swung to the southwest. They crossed the Mexican border at Laredo. That was the moment when he had been the most anxious. The breakout had made the national news and it was obvious that they would have circulated his details to the nearby airports. The border, though? The constant stream of traffic meant that it should have been easier to sneak across. He had hidden in the trunk of the car for the hour it took to approach the crossing and then get over it and, as it happened, the scrutiny they received was minimal. He had stepped out of the trunk as soon as they were five miles inside the border. The fresh air was a boon after the stuffy interior, rendered all the sweeter by the fact that he was breathing it in as a free man.

They drove on to Monterrey. The Rabins said that they were going to investigate a possible sighting of Milton and that it would be better if they travelled separately. Bachman was fine with that. He wouldn’t have wanted them to travel with him in any event. He bought a ticket on an Aeromexico flight, changed planes at Mexico City and then, finally, managed a little sleep as he crossed the Atlantic to London. From there, he changed again to a third plane for the flight to Croatia. Bachman had travelled alone. He had no interest in a chaperone, and, although he knew that the Mossad would pick him up again as soon as he landed, it was pleasant to think, as he reclined in his first-class bed, that he had a little privacy for the first time in months.

THE PLANE landed and the passengers—a mixture of tourists and business people—disembarked. Bachman passed through immigration and, since he had no luggage, continued quickly through the terminal and took a taxi from the rank outside.

“Yes, sir?” the driver said.

“Villa Sheherezade, please.”

He settled back in the car and gazed out the windows as the driver began the twenty-kilometre transit from the airport. Bachman knew the history. This had been a rough area for years, torn apart by wars and political strife, but, since the end of Milosevic and the outbreak of peace, it had been allowed to develop and take advantage of the bountiful natural advantages with which it had been bestowed.

Dubrovnik still bore the badges of its recent travails. As they passed through the centre, he saw the pockmarks of mortar fire against ancient walls and remembered that the Old Town, garlanded but not protected by its years of history, had been shelled during a long and damaging siege.

The driver spoke good English and he kept up a running commentary as they drove, despite Bachman’s silence. The man was a proud Croat, he said, and the Dalmatian coast was destined to become one of the most popular and exclusive destinations in the Mediterranean region. He said that the Croatians had learned the lessons of those places, and would defend their town’s heritage even as they marketed it as a new destination. Bachman looked out the window and did not share the man’s optimism. The Old Town was gradually succumbing to capitalism. The menus outside the taverns were translated into English, German and Italian, and high-end boutiques had taken over the medieval lanes.

The driver tried once more to engage him in conversation, but he wasn’t interested and kept quiet. In the end, the man took the hint and they drove the rest of the way with just the radio as a soundtrack.

VILLA SHEHEREZADE was ten miles to the south of the city. Bachman observed the road behind the taxi very carefully and, as they passed into the countryside, the traffic grew less busy until there were no other cars within visible distance. It was impossible to be sure, but Bachman was reasonably confident that they were not being followed. He had made it plain to the Rabins that he would treat surveillance as a breach of his agreement with Victor Blum. He was sure that the Mossad would have had someone on the flight with him, and perhaps a
sayan
waiting to pick him up at the airport, but, as the traffic thinned out it became more difficult for a tail to remain undetected. They could have called his bluff, of course, but it didn’t look like they had. They knew he had unfinished business with Milton, and that he would need their help. Perhaps they were ready to trust that his desire to revenge himself was enough to prevent him from disappearing for a second time. That would have been a reasonable assumption. Bachman had no intention of going dark, at least not yet.

The villa was reached by way of a private road that turned off the main route and sliced a path through a copse of trees. The road twisted for the final third of a mile until it ran along the edge of a steep cliff with a precipitous drop to the wave-pounded rocks below.

Bachman surveyed the property and concluded that Meir Shavit had done well for himself since he had left the army. The villa was nestled in a small depression amid a stack of steep cliffs that were themselves topped with lush greenery. It was three storeys tall, sleekly modern, and constructed from glass and the same stone that formed the cliffs. It overlooked a wide gravel parking area. A Jaguar was parked next to the house and there was a top-of-the-range Land Rover Discovery alongside that. A path snaked through beautifully tended gardens and led around the side of the house to, Bachman presumed, the cliff edge and the sea. He saw a large picture window on each of the second and third floors. A grand residence like this, in such an expensive part of the world, must have cost several million pounds.

His old commanding officer had done very well indeed.

Bachman paid the driver, waited until he had driven back to the road, and crunched across the gravel to knock on the door. He waited for a minute, self-consciously turning to look back down the access road, half expecting to see that he was observed.

He heard footsteps approaching across a wooden floor. The door opened. Shavit stood in the doorway and gazed out into the gloom. His expression changed from one of irritated enquiry to one of open-mouthed shock.

“Avi?”

“Yes, Meir. It’s me.”

The old man reached up and placed a leathery hand on Bachman’s cheek. “Avi,” he said, “you are out.”

“I am.”

“I thought I would never see you again.”

“Don’t be so foolish,” Bachman said, allowing himself a warm smile. “I always planned to come and visit.”

“But it has been…”

“Too long.”

“Ten years?”

“A little more.”

They had spoken several times, most recently when Bachman had called Shavit from Angola. That had been only a brief conversation, necessarily so because he knew that they were being eavesdropped on by the prison authorities, and just long enough for him to provide the code word that Shavit needed in order to activate Bachman’s failsafe. Upon receipt of the code, the old man had agreed to send copies of the files Bachman had given him to Victor Blum in Tel Aviv so that his threat could be demonstrated.