Headhunters (23 page)

Matilda was still asleep.

He went to the vending machine outside the office and bought a packet of cigarettes. He went back to the room, checked that Matilda was still asleep, and then went back outside to watch the sunrise and smoke. He needed to think.

He had made his plans the night before. He knew that his best option was to run. He could slip back into obscurity again and stay out of sight. He was trained to do that and, if he determined that it was the best course of action, he was confident that he could make himself invisible to Bachman regardless of all the help that he had somehow managed to summon. He would go to Africa or South America, just as he had when he had fled from Control and Group Fifteen, and simply erase himself so that he was impossible to find. He could live out a life in Durban or Rio or Buenos Aires and never have to think about Avi Bachman again.

He
could do that.

But Matilda could not.

How could he ask her to exchange her life for one spent watching shadows? A life where she had no choice but to abandon her brother and her friends and accept that she could never see any of them again? She had done nothing wrong. This was nothing to do with her. Her involvement was because she had been unfortunate enough to have crossed his path, just as others had been unfortunate in the past. And some of those people were dead.

Milton swore to himself that that was not going to happen to her.

Thinking of Matilda had crystallised his thinking. He couldn’t keep playing defence. At some point, he was going to have to bring the fight to Bachman. The only way he could guarantee her safety was if Bachman was gone.

But to do that, they would need to travel.

The sun’s rays were already strong and he took off his shirt and hung it on the door handle. He looked out at the vast Australian landscape and the buildings in the far distance that marked the edge of the city. He thought of David and Paul Hughes and all the other
sayanim
that the Mossad could call upon to find him. He thought of Bachman and the agents with him.

Where were they?

He stretched, smoked the last of the cigarette and ground the butt beneath his shoe. He wished that he still had his copy of the Big Book, but it was still in his pack at Boolanga, most probably lost forever. He would have liked to read a few of his favourite passages, but he would have to do without it. He closed his eyes and meditated, reciting the Twelve Steps to himself and allowing himself a moment of reflection. He needed the peace and tranquillity that it brought; he knew that there would be no other opportunity for that today.

He went into the room, collected the pistol and slid it into the waistband of his jeans. Matilda had shifted position so that she was on her side, her face angled toward him. The anaesthetic had knocked her out all day and all night. She had stirred, once, at three in the morning and let out a sudden fearsome shriek that shocked Milton awake, but the moment had passed and she had quickly fallen back into the grip of her drugged slumber. Milton had rearranged the covers over her and returned to the chair.

He would have liked to let her sleep off the remnants of the drug, but they had to get moving.

“Matilda, wake up.”

She shifted, her legs sliding down the bed, her eyes opening for a moment and then closing again.

He knelt beside her and rested a hand on her brow.

“Matilda, wake up. It’s John.”

She mumbled something that he couldn’t understand, but he could see that she was starting to come around. He had left a glass of water by the bed for her, but she hadn’t touched it. He took it into the bathroom and refreshed it. When he came back into the bedroom, she was awake, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Where are we?”

“In a motel. Just outside Adelaide.”

She didn’t answer, lying there quietly for a moment, but then the memory of what had happened came back to her and her eyes went wide with fright. She pressed down with her legs, shoving her body all the way up the bed until her back clattered into the headboard.

Milton reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Relax. It’s fine.”

“They drugged me.”

“I know.”

“They were at the station. They took me. They… What happened?”

“I saw what happened. I followed them.”

“Where are they? I—I…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She looked at him and, for one heart-breaking moment, he saw that he was the cause of the fear in her eyes. “What happened to them?”

“One of them is dead.”

She remained where she was, the colour leaching from her cheeks, but then, with a suddenness that took Milton by surprise, she surged out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. He saw her fall to her knees, her head over the open toilet, and heard as she retched.

He wanted to go and help her, but he stayed where he was. She vomited again and again, eventually standing and closing the door behind her. He heard the tap run and the splash of water and, when she re-emerged, her face was wet.

“Matilda,” he said, “I had no choice. They would have killed you.”

She didn’t respond. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed, saw the glass of water, and drank it down.

“We need to talk.”

She replaced the empty glass on the table.

“Matilda, we need to leave the country.”

That brought her around. “What?”

“It’s not safe.”

“I’m not—”

Milton cut her off. “Listen to me. Please, for once, just
listen
to me.”

Fresh blood coloured her cheeks and her eyes flashed, but she stopped.

“You saw what happened. It’ll keep happening until I’m dead. They’ll come for both of us.”

“This is a big country.”

“Yes, it is. But there are a lot of them, and they have backup. Until they’re satisfied, you won’t be able to go back home. You won’t be able to see Harry. You are leverage, Matty. They know that if they have you, they’ll have my attention. They know I’ll come for you.”

Her voice was ragged. “Why did you do this to me?”

“I’m sorry. I should never have come.”

She paused, biting her lip. The fight drained out of her and, for a moment, he thought that she was going to cry. “So what do we do?”

“We leave.”

“To where?”

“Tokyo.”

“What? Why?”

“I have a friend there. Someone who can help us.”

“Tokyo,” she mumbled.

“I know I don’t deserve your trust. I’d understand if you never wanted to talk to me again. None of what has happened to you is fair. But you know I care for you, Matty. I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear it to you on my life. I’m going to fix this.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“We’re going to stop running. We’re going to fight back.”

“But we are running. You want to go to Japan.”

“We’re not running. There’s a man there who can help us. Someone I worked with before.”

She bit her lip. She looked washed out and weak, the bloom of indignation that had suffused her cheeks quickly dissipating again. The vigour and pep that Milton liked about her so much was gone now, and she looked young and vulnerable. Milton hated himself. He was the cause of the change.

Eventually, she gave a small nod. “Okay,” she said uncertainly.

“You’ll come with me?”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, but she nodded.

He was relieved: he had anticipated that it would be more difficult to persuade her. But securing her assent was just the first obstacle to clear.

“How do we get there? I don’t have a passport.”

“I know a man. We need to get to Perth.”

“How are we going to do that? Drive?”

“No. I don’t think that would be safe.”

“How, then? I can’t fly. I’ve got no money.”

“No,” Milton said. “I have an idea.”

MILTON WENT outside, checked that they were unobserved, and started the car. Matilda was watching through the window and she hurried out at Milton’s gesture and strapped herself into the passenger seat. He put the car into drive and they set off.

He had noticed the goods yard as he had driven to the motel. It was in Regency Park, toward the northern edge of the city, a confluence of railroads that accommodated several big diesel engines, each of them at the head of a long line of freight boxcars. It took half an hour to drive there; traffic had slowed to a crawl as rubberneckers gawped at a wreck on the side of the road. Milton drove carefully, watching his mirrors, but he noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

They arrived at the yard. The facility was protected by a wire fence, but stretches of it were in poor condition. There was a tyre iron in the trunk of the car and Milton was able to use it to prise the fence open wide enough for them to ease through. He knew that the yard would be protected, especially after 9/11, and he waited to ensure that there was no one in sight. Finally satisfied, he led the way and they hurried across the open ground, stepping across the lines, and reached the nearest boxcar without being seen.

The boxcars were identical. They were fifty feet long, with aluminium panels fitted to a yellow steel under-frame, and two big wheels on the front and rear axles. There was a door in the middle of the car in front of them. Milton unlatched the lock and hauled himself inside. The boxcar had been loaded with sacks of cereal. Milton examined the sacks until he found a bill of lading that identified the destination.

“We got lucky,” he said as he reached down to help Matilda into the boxcar.

“Melbourne?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“The delivery date is for tomorrow. So I’m guessing it’ll be soon.”

THEY HAD TO WAIT. Milton kept the door open just a crack, not quite enough to be noticed from the outside but enough so that he would have warning if security drew too near. A white pickup went by on two separate occasions.

It was dusk when they finally heard the hoot of the horn and, with that, they felt the jolt as the boxcars were heaved into motion. Milton had wedged the door open with the tyre iron and opened it a little more now so that he could watch as the train picked up speed. They crawled through the suburbs, but, as they broke out into the outback once again, the engine opened up to full power and they accelerated.

It was more than seven hundred kilometres to Melbourne, and Milton estimated that it would take the train eight hours to cover the distance. They sat with their backs to the wall of the boxcar, the rumble of the wheels settling into an even and almost hypnotic rhythm. They had stopped at a garage shop on the way to the freight yard, and Milton took out the supplies he had purchased and arranged them: two bottles of water, packs of sandwiches and bars of chocolate. He tore the wrapper off a Cherry Roll bar and started to eat.

“How long did you do what you did?”

“Ten years.”

“And why did you stop?”

“Because I hated it.”

“But only after ten years. You didn’t hate it before?”

He thought about that. “I thought I was doing the right thing. The people… the targets… they were bad people.”

“So?”

“I didn’t ask questions when I started. You didn’t. You got your orders, you carried them out, you were debriefed and then that was it. You had a break and then it started again. I was a soldier for a long time before I was transferred. You don’t question orders, not unless you want a court martial.”

“You haven’t answered my question. Why did you stop?”

“Because I
did
start to question my orders.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I haven’t spoken about it before, not to anyone.”

He paused then, wondering whether he should go on. He hadn’t spoken about it, not to the psychologists who were employed by the British government to make sure the agents remained sane, or to the drunks who were in the meetings with him after he quit. But Matilda was watching him, her face open, softer than it had been since they had been abducted. He remembered the mantra that ran through every meeting:
we are only as sick as our secrets
. Milton had had too many secrets for too long.

“There was a job,” he said. “There were two scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program. They were set up. They thought they were meeting someone who would supply material for them. But it wasn’t what they thought. They were meeting me.” He paused again, his throat dry, and took a swig of the water. “I was waiting for them. I shot them both, and then I shot a policeman who shouldn’t have been there.” He stopped again, looking to her face for a reaction, but there was none. “I went to check the car that they arrived in, and there was a kid in the back. A little boy. He was just staring at me. Standard procedure was clear: you didn’t leave witnesses. Didn’t matter who it was: no one who could identify you could be left alive.”

Now she reacted; her lips parted a little, and there was the glint of something—horror?—in her eyes. “You—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. He reminded me of another kid I saw, just like him, years ago, with your brother. When we were in the desert.”

“I know about that,” she said quietly. “The madrassa.”

“Harry told you?”

“He said you were nearly killed trying to save him.”

“I don’t know about that.” Milton was silent for a moment, just listening to the rattle of the wheels on the track.

“What happened next?”

“I went back to London and told them I quit. They didn’t like it. They tried to persuade me it was a bad idea, and when I told them I wasn’t going back, they tried to kill me. More than once. It would have kept carrying on, with me hiding and them trying to find me, but my old commanding officer died and they replaced him with someone who trusts me. I thought I might get some peace, but then I ran into Avi again.”

The train rumbled on. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. It was dark now, and Milton slid the door all the way back to let in some air and what little illumination was still in the day. When he turned back into the boxcar, he saw that Matilda’s eyes were closed. When he went over to check, he saw that she was asleep. The dregs of the sedative, perhaps. He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders, and then went back to the open doorway and sat with his feet over the edge. He had bought cigarettes at the shop, too, and he lit one, blowing smoke out of the door. The smoke was torn to pieces in the slipstream.