Heller's Revenge (29 page)

“Okay, so why does he want
security?”

“You heard what he said. He
doesn’t
want security, even though he’s been seriously
threatened a number of times.” He paused, looking at me steadily.
“His girlfriend was murdered about a year ago. Unsolved, but she’d
been threatened too. She was a fellow warrior.”

“Oh my God, that’s terrible! Who
threatened them?”

He gave a brief laugh. “Who
hasn’t
threatened him? He’s a thorn in the side of a number
of big industries – mining, logging, fishing, whaling, not to
mention several governments as well. There’s no shortage of
suspects.”

“So why doesn’t he want security
if he’s in danger? And does he think something is going to happen
to him here?”

He didn’t respond for a while,
his eyes moving away to watch the traffic zooming past us, before
returning to me. “He’s prepared to be a martyr.”

“What?”

“He’s happy to die for his
cause. He’s resigned to it.”

“That’s insane!” I couldn’t
believe what I was hearing.

“Matilda, he’s a fanatic. He’s
probably not the most rational person around. He knows it’s only a
matter of time before ‘they’ kill him, whoever ‘they’ end up
being.”

I sat quietly for a time looking
down at my hands, before raising my eyes to him again. “Why does he
want someone with him then, if he doesn’t want to be protected? I
can’t protect him against an assassin.”

“If he’s assassinated, he wants
someone to witness it and tell everyone. He wants to ensure that
everyone knows he was murdered in the course of his attempts to
save the planet. He wants to live on through his actions. And he
doesn’t want to die alone, like his girlfriend did. So he has
someone with him all the time now, just for that purpose. And
that’s where we come in.”

I could see why no other firm
wanted to touch the job. It was a doozy.

“You’re asking me to watch a man
be murdered?” I was proud at how even and steady my voice
sounded.

“Possibly, Matilda. That’s why I
just can’t make up my mind about whether to take this assignment or
not. He assures me that he has no reason at all to think that
anything will happen to him while he’s here. He’s only taking
precautions, as he always does. He assured me you’d not be in any
danger at any time.”

“Heller, I’m
twenty-five-years-old. If I saw a man being murdered now, it would
affect me for the rest of my life. How could I ever forget it? I’ve
only recently faced death myself. Is that what you want from me?”
My voice cracked and I drew in a few ragged breaths.

“Matilda, I don’t know what to
do. That’s why I’m leaving it up to you.” He regarded me closely,
strong emotions on his face.

Oh boy!
I thought about
it carefully. On the one hand, I might have to watch someone die,
which was not something to take lightly. It would be very
traumatic. I probably would never get over witnessing such a thing.
I’d probably need counselling afterwards. I’d probably have
nightmares. And if someone was killing him, what was to stop them
killing me as well? Meili might want to leave a witness to his
murder, but the murderers might not be so generous. My life would
be in danger, no matter what Meili or Heller said.

On the other hand, Meili was a
passionate and interesting man. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to spend some time with someone who believed in his
cause so much that he was willing to risk his life for it. That’s
not something you encounter every day. And if I refused to take on
this assignment and no other firm was willing to take it on either,
he would have nobody with him when he died, if ‘they’ managed to
get him while he was here. He might die alone, like his poor
girlfriend. Thinking of his lovely warm eyes, I knew I couldn’t
deny a man his dying wish.

I looked up at Heller,
uncertainty in my eyes.

“You’re a strong woman, Matilda,
but I’m not sure you’re strong enough to handle this,” Heller said
gravely.

I bristled immediately. “You
don’t think I can do anything,” I said hotly.

“Let’s not start that
conversation again. Not now,” he insisted wearily.

“Why not now?
Now
is the
perfect time to have that conversation.”

“Matilda . . .”

“Don’t
Matilda
me,
Heller! And you’re right. I don’t want to have that conversation
either. Ring Meili and tell him I’ll do it.” He stared at me and I
stared back, defiant and stubborn. “Go on! Ring him right now.”

He stared at me for a long time,
searching my face, before taking out his phone.

Chapter 19

He took me back to the Warehouse
to pack, not saying a word the entire time. We parked in the
Warehouse’s basement garage and he turned to me.

“I don’t want you to do this
job, Matilda.” He was serious, very serious, so I paid
attention.

“Why not?”

“You’ll be sharing his room, for
one thing.”

I froze in the middle of undoing
my seatbelt. “What?” My voice was as sharp as a knife.

“You’ll have to stay with him
constantly while you’re on assignment. He’s not one of my rich
clients. He doesn’t have a suite. That hotel room is his
accommodation. There’s nowhere else for you to sleep.”

I undid the seatbelt and stepped
out of the vehicle, deliberately slow. “You didn’t think to tell me
this before I made my decision to do this job? You didn’t think
that I might have some legitimate concerns about sharing a bedroom
with a man I don’t even know?” I shot daggers at him over the top
of the Mercedes, my voice dangerously quiet.

He was surprised. “I thought you
realised that? I thought you didn’t mind.”

I was beyond angry. “I can’t
stay in a room with a man I don’t know! I have a boyfriend! What’s
Will going to think about me doing that? I don’t know
anything
about this man. He could be a rapist or a serial
killer, for all we know.
Jesus Christ, Heller!
” And to my
embarrassment, I burst into tears, holding onto the car door,
standing in that dreary basement.

He strode around to me and
placed his hands on my shoulders, concern on his face. “Matilda, I
didn’t realise . . .”

I shook off his hands in fury
and climbed the stairs to my flat as fast as I could, slamming the
door. I paced up and down my lounge room, dashing away my tears.
Calm down
, I advised myself, so I calmed down.
Take a
deep breath
, I advised myself, so I took a deep breath.
Sit
down and think about it
, so I did that as well.

Meili didn’t look like a rapist
– he was a famous person, and they don’t usually get away with that
kind of thing, or not for too long anyway, not in this day and age.
And I would take a weapon with me and keep it on me, especially at
night. I would make sure that Heller rang me constantly and also
gave Meili fair warning about what would happen to him if anything
happened to me. I would stop swooning over him and only present a
professional face to him, so that Meili had no questions about my
feelings. And as for the Will problem, I decided that I’d deal with
that by simply not telling him.

It would be an awkward and
difficult assignment, but I was too stubborn to back down now,
especially as we’d already told Meili that I’d do it.

I looked at myself in the
bathroom mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight that looked back – I was
puffy-faced and red-eyed. I splashed water on my face and adjusted
my makeup. There was a hesitant knock on my door. I opened it to
find Heller at my threshold.

“It’s okay, I’ve calmed down,” I
told him. “It’s not your fault that I’m too stupid to put one and
one together.”

“I didn’t mean to surprise you,
Matilda. I’m sorry that I didn’t realise you hadn’t understood the
arrangement. For what it’s worth, I’ve already made it quite clear
to Dr Eriksen about how much I value your safety. I don’t think
he’ll forget what I’ve said in a hurry.” I remembered the heated
discussion they’d had in that foreign language.

“You’re asking a lot of me this
time, Heller. I hope you know that,” I said, gazing up at him
steadily.

“I know, my sweet.”

I went into my bedroom and
packed quickly while he waited. I popped into the office on our way
downstairs to give Niq and Daniel a quick kiss and hug goodbye,
much to their dismay, before we continued on down to the basement
back into his Mercedes. It was a silent trip back to the hotel.

Meili greeted us very warmly
again and welcomed us back into his room. I placed my bag next to
the unused bed and thought again about how uncomfortable it was
going to be to spend a number of nights in this room with a
stranger. Meili didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest by my
presence though. I guess he was used to community living, spending
a large part of his life onboard various vessels, running
interference with Japanese whaling ships in the Pacific Ocean or
large commercial fishing trawlers and oil tankers in the North Sea.
He probably hadn’t even blinked at the thought of being alone with
me.

Without any hesitation, Heller
launched directly into what sounded to me like a lecture in that
other language. Meili listened politely, nodding when appropriate,
interjecting once or twice apparently to clarify, casting his eyes
in my direction every now and then. I think Heller was giving him a
list of dos and don’ts, and the tone of his voice suggested that
Meili would face an earlier, slower and much more painful death
than he was expecting, if he failed to strictly comply. Meili’s
face was serious and there was no doubt that he was paying close
attention to what Heller was saying, but I’m positive I could
detect the faint humorous twitch of his mouth on occasion.

Heller eventually finished and
stood, legs aggressively apart, regarding Meili frostily, before
adding a postscript, looking over at me.

“Oh, I think that would be
obvious to anyone,” said Meili, smiling.

It was frustrating not to know
what had been said. How would I know if Meili was following the
ground rules if I didn’t even know what they were? I decided then
that I would make sure he followed
my
rules, if Heller
wasn’t going to bother telling me what his were.

Heller made moves to leave,
shaking Meili’s hand again, shooting him another hard look. He
glanced at me, inclined his head towards the door and grunted,
which I gathered was some kind of ancient caveman language for
“could you please accompany me to the door for a few private words
before we part, my dearest Matilda?”

He pulled me out into the
corridor. “I’ve laid down the law with him. He’s an honourable man,
I’m sure. I’ve researched him thoroughly, including police records
and some other more secret records. I’m confident there will be no
problems with him, Matilda. I wouldn’t let you stay alone with him
for a second if I thought there was any chance of trouble in that
way. Do you trust me to do the best for you?”

I searched his eyes, uncertain,
before nodding. “Yes.”

His smile was fleeting as he
pulled me close to him in a crushing hug that threatened to
re-crack the ribs that had only barely healed.

“Heller, I can’t breathe,” I
managed to squeak.

“I don’t want you to be away
from me, not even for a moment, my sweet. Not after everything,” he
whispered in my ear.

“Too late for that. Here I am.”
And I didn’t mean to sound tart, but I did. He released me, looking
down grimly.

“Ring me eight times a day. If I
don’t hear from you, I’ll be here with a team of men in minutes.
With guns. Do you understand? I’m
not
kidding.”

“Not eight,” I complained. “I’ll
be on the phone to you all day if I have to do that. I won’t have
time to do anything else. Four times a day.”

“Six.”

“Four! You said there was no
problem with Meili.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about,
Matilda. He could be assassinated.”

“You told me there’s not much
chance of that.”

“There isn’t. Forget I said
that.”

“Well I can’t, can I? You said
it and I heard it. Are you seriously worried?”

He only hesitated for a few
seconds. “No.” He placed one palm gently against my cheek and
leaned down to give me a kiss. “Goodbye for now, my sweet.”

“Bye Heller.” I watched him walk
to the lift.

After pressing the button, he
turned back to me. “Make sure you ring me, Matilda. I mean it.”

I nodded impatiently and
re-entered the room to find Meili sprawled on his bed watching TV.
It was the midday news and he was fully occupied taking in the
day’s quota of local murders, bashings, rapes, car crashes, arson,
political machinations, celebrity gossip and sporting achievements.
He smiled at me as I rejoined him. I flopped onto my bed and
watched as well.

“I love this country. Your news
is so provincial. There’s almost nothing about the rest of the
world in it. The only international news I saw was a story about
Lindsay Lohan.” He smiled again. “I don’t even know what a Lindsay
Lohan is.”

I laughed. “It’s not that bad,”
I replied, compelled to defend my nation’s journalists, although I
secretly agreed with him. Our news was truly dreadful.

He sat up suddenly and turned
off the TV. “Let’s go for a walk. I’m bored here. And I had a long
flight. I need to stretch my legs.” He bent over to slip on his
running shoes.

“Okay,” I agreed, and we headed
out to spend the next few hours strolling around the botanical
gardens, the harbour and the city centre. He was an amusing and
intelligent companion. I enjoyed his company and only hoped I
compared favourably.

“I hate being cooped up,” he
confided as we walked, and I knew this assignment was going to be a
completely different experience to the one with Clarrie. He had
five phone calls while we walked, shrugging apologetically at each
interruption to our conversation, chatting vivaciously to his
callers, sometimes in another language, laughing frequently.