by Alex Hammond
‘You killed Aaron,’ he said.
Caja didn’t move. ‘The family did.’
‘You didn’t need to do it.’ Will’s voice was strained, the words barely formed as he spoke. Aaron – his head collapsed, his blood spilling into a toilet bowl. He could try to convince himself that Aaron had made his own bed, but the truth was that Will had tucked him in.
‘It was decided. By Milivoje.’
‘Ramir have anything to say about this?’
Caja hissed. ‘The boy is weak. He told the old man everything. For a place at his table.’
‘It’s not right, Caja. I did everything to make sure he didn’t speak. He wasn’t going to talk. I honoured the deal.’
‘He knew about the girls.’
The pieces of the puzzle had been hanging over him, but now they fell into place.
‘And now I do too.’
Caja tilted his head forwards and back. ‘That’s right.’
The leash was still there. He hadn’t managed to break free of it at all; it had just been let out. The heat of his anger came flooding into the void. The numbness evaporated.
‘Then fuck you. Fuck you and Milivoje and the fucking Ivanics. You gave me your word, Caja. But it looks like that doesn’t mean shit. It looks like the old man tells you to change your mind and you change it.’ Will clicked his fingers together. ‘Like that.’
Caja’s stony demeanour cracked. The sides of his face wrinkled and his eyes flashed.
‘What do you know of me?’ he growled. ‘I didn’t agree with the old man. I told him Aaron wouldn’t speak. I agreed with Ramir, as he begged like a child. It would draw too much attention to his activities. Make the police think that he had something worth knowing.’
Fuck you.
‘Well, that’s exactly what they are thinking. You were right and Milivoje is an idiot.’
As they lowered, Caja’s heavy eyebrows threw shadows over the recesses of his eyes. ‘He is far worse. Remember that.’
Fuck you.
‘But you’re even worse. Aren’t you? Not an Ivanic. Not blood. Worse than they will ever be.’
Will felt as though he were looking into the eyes of one of Caja’s ancestors – men for whom daily violence had ground out their humanity.
‘You are afraid. You are thinking if I couldn’t protect Aaron, I can’t protect you.’
Will remained still. His fists were pulling his skin tight across his knuckles, his fingernails digging into his palms.
Caja sighed. ‘You need only ever talk to me again. No one else from the family.’
Will shook his head. ‘I need more. No more threats. No more turning up unannounced.’
‘Agreed. In future you will hear from me only over the phone.’
‘No more surprises.’
‘None.’
‘And if I don’t? If I don’t agree to this?’
‘If he killed the closest friend of his own brother’s son, do you think he would spare a thought for you?’
As much as Will tried to remain calm on the outside, he had no doubt Caja could see through him. Will’s contained anger was like a tightening coil, threatening to snap. His hands were shaking, his foot tapping.
The phone buzzed in his pocket: an incoming message.
Will took it out, hoping the distraction would ease his foot from the throttle. The message was from O’Dwyer. Two words that changed everything:
Found them.
His mind moved quickly, making links and connections. The Zamberlans were now his priority; the Ivanics instantly became an afterthought.
‘It needs to be more than that,’ he said to Caja.
‘More than your own life? What else could there be?’
‘The police already assume we’re connected, so we need to formalise it. You’ll put me on retainer. That way I’m your lawyer and you, and the old man, will have lawyer–client privilege. That way I can’t be required by the police to reveal what I know about your dealings. This should be our standard fee. Not more, not less.’
‘I understand.’
‘That’s not all.’
‘No?’
‘No. The other thing is a more personal matter. I need you to help me with an issue I’m having.’
‘Why would we do this?’
A good point.
‘Because it is a criminal activity and it will give you more to hold over me, should you ever need it.’
‘Why would you even offer that? When I know that you want to be rid of us?’
‘My immediate needs outweigh the long term. Anyway, why do you care?’
‘I don’t. But I made an agreement and that was broken.’
‘Without your consent.’
‘Without my consent.’ Caja sighed and ran his hand across his shaved head and down around the stubble of his face. He closed his eyes, recalling something, perhaps his ancestors, perhaps regrets.
When he opened them again, the fire was no longer there.
‘My word means something to me. So I will help you with this. No Ivanics, just me. You don’t want Milivoje having more to hold over you.’
‘Fine.’ Will held out his hand. ‘It’s urgent and dangerous.’
If Caja registered Will’s words, it didn’t show on his face. He reached forwards, the smell of cinnamon, lemon and cumin rising up from the cuff of his jacket. He shook Will’s hand. ‘What is it that you need?’
FORTY-SIX
The Porsche slipped in and out of traffic as Will followed the CityLink towards the airport. A light rain was falling, slicking the asphalt, and there were already signs of one minor accident at the side of the road. Will didn’t slow the car; the timing was too critical. Instead, he gripped the wheel tighter and focused all his attention ahead of him.
He didn’t like the mad rush, the overwhelming feeling of being unprepared, the gnawing gut-twist of apprehension and fear. Yet it was the only way he could find forwards. He would confront the men who had set him on this path, the men who’d savaged Eva, who’d destroyed their future. He would confront them and out the truth.
He swallowed a codeine. It didn’t block out the pain entirely, like the tramadol, but it did bring with it a greater alertness that buzzed at Will’s fingertips.
There was a constant stream of cars, taxis mainly, heading to Melbourne Airport. Will followed them most of the way, before taking an earlier exit and winding his way through the avenues, with their wide-fronted houses that fed a dozen dead ends of courts and closes.
Will overshot the street he was looking for and turned into the next close over. The streets were narrow and he had to park the car partly on the nature strip, behind a ute whose owner had done the same thing.
Will pulled out some latex gloves he’d found under his kitchen sink and an old blue baseball cap from his gym bag. He sat for a moment looking at himself in the rear-view mirror. The cuts from the accident had all but faded from his face. Only three weeks, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. He tried to slow his breathing, slow the beating of his heart, but sitting there contemplating the moment was only increasing his anxiety.
He stepped out of the car and started down the street.
Movement, forward motion – if he could commit to that, the rest would follow.
Hopefully.
Behind the black and red tiled roofs of the squat brick houses rose the curved glass of clustered gantries – Melbourne Airport. All around it the land had been cleared to make way for runways and access roads. The wind carried the sound of plane engines and the smell of jet fuel.
Will jogged up to the green Prius at the top of the close and ducked behind it, tapping on the driver’s window.
He listened to the thin hum of an electric motor before O’Dwyer looked out at him. New, dark rings had formed under his eyes, adding some contrast to his ruddy, alcoholic’s skin.
‘You took your time.’
‘The rain,’ Will said, holding his palm upwards towards the sky. ‘I needed to grab a few things.�
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‘Well, you’re lucky. No sign of crew cut. Beard is still inside.’ He nodded in the direction of the houses at the end of the street.
‘Which one?’
‘The one with the white Honda parked out the front.’
Will looked down the road and saw a small, curved hatchback parked outside the garage of a brown brick house. In the front garden, tall weeds swayed in the wind while the rain fell on windows with their curtains drawn.
‘Are they taking precautions?’
‘No. Nothing I can see. Nothing in the window to signal to one another.’
‘I wonder why?’
‘Because they’re not in fucking Basra. They’re not worried about being found out because they’ve kept their identities hidden. Who the . . .’ O’Dwyer flicked his eyes to the rear-view mirror before turning his head sharply.
Will swivelled on his heel, almost falling over when he saw Caja standing at the side of the car.
‘Jesus,’ Will said, exhaling. ‘It’s okay,’ he said to O’Dwyer.
O’Dwyer frowned, his lips pursing. ‘Caja,’ he finally said from the car window.
Caja nodded to him. ‘O’Dwyer. You are no longer a police?’
‘Retired. I work for myself now.’
Caja nodded as though this were plainly evident. Over his shoulder was a small backpack.
‘Which house do you need to get into?’ he asked Will.
‘That one.’
‘Will,’ O’Dwyer said, ‘I thought you were going to call this in to Haigh, get the cops on it?’
‘I need a direct link, physical evidence in plain sight. So she can justify getting a search warrant.’
O’Dwyer’s frown deepened. ‘Physical evidence?’
‘We should do this quickly,’ said Caja.
‘Agreed,’ Will replied.
‘Harris,’ O’Dwyer said, shaking his head, ‘this is how you cross the line.’
Will started towards the close. Caja grasped him on the shoulder.
‘This way,’ he said, nodding back down the street at a gap in the fence line.
Will followed him there to an open stormwater drain, dark grey with the rain, its graffitied walls glistening with lurid colour. The drain ran between the houses. Caja walked quickly, scanning around him. These movements were not furtive but, rather, firm decisions set in motion.
‘What did you do before this?’ Will whispered. ‘Back when it was still Yugoslavia?’
‘Things you don’t want to know.’ Caja sucked air through his teeth and kept walking.
The drain disappeared underground at the barren scrubland surrounding the airport. Here Caja turned left and started down the path behind the houses. He kept his head low. At six foot five he could see over the fence line.
Will counted the properties. One. Two. Three. With each increasing number his heart rate started to build. His hands were trembling now, despite the heat trapped in the latex gloves he was wearing.
Caja held up his hand and squatted at the back of the house, placing his back against the fence. He looked through a break in the wooden palings.
Will crept up next to him.
Caja nodded towards a hole in the fence and Will looked through it to the back garden.
A rusted half-drum barbeque stood in the centre of a field of weeds. On the washing line hung a few damp, frayed towels. Two plastic garden chairs lay on a narrow tiled patio where a closed security screen door barred the rear entrance. The curtains in the window were drawn.
Caja pulled his backpack off his shoulder and placed it on the ground. He unzipped it so that it lay open to the sky. Three shining black objects rested before them – a curved stun gun, a Smith & Wesson revolver and a lock pick gun. Out of his pocket he pulled a fistful of heavy-duty cable ties and dropped these into Will’s hands. Before the raindrops could colonise them, he handed Will the stun gun and revolver. He took the small drill-like lock pick one. He re-slung the backpack and looked through the fence.
Will examined the gun in his hand. He’d never held one before. He was numb with its deadly potential and felt a growing paranoia that it might fire of its own accord.
‘Is it empty?’
Caja nodded.
‘And it can’t be traced?’
Caja frowned.
Will tucked it into the back of his belt. He held the stun gun in his hand and turned it over.
‘These outer electrodes, they are what work on a person. You must make contact with those.’
Will nodded back to Caja and slipped the stun gun into the front of his belt.
‘I think we are ready to go,’ Caja said.
Will felt his chest tightening.
‘If anything goes wrong, I will not be there to help you. I will be gone. You understand this?’
Will nodded again.
He was shivering all over now.
Caja slowly stood and poked his head over the fence. When he didn’t duck back down, and instead grabbed the top of the fence to haul himself over, Will could no longer deny the pressing reality of his situation – he was about to break into a house and attempt to subdue a trained killer.
Will watched as Caja disappeared over the fence.
Seconds later he was following him.
Will hunched low as he ran after Caja, who was already up against the back wall of the house and looking through a window.
‘Anything?’ Will whispered.
‘Dark. Maybe he sleeps?’
Caja lowered himself down, lunging sideways in front of the security door. Putting his gloved hand on the screen, he pulled it open.
In only a few seconds he’d unlocked the back door with a faint ‘click’.
Caja flicked his head at the door handle above the lock. Will reached forwards and grasped it.
‘Go,’ he whispered.
Will turned the handle and stepped into the dim house.
He was standing in a spartan kitchen. In the darkness he could smell cooked meat and stale beer. Under this was the faint odour of rising damp. A lime-green counter wrapped its way around the wall below the windowsill and under cabinets that hung on the opposite wall. He slowed his breathing as he tried to hear the noises of the house.
Nothing.
It was silent.
Will quickly glanced behind him, looking for Caja.
He had disappeared. All that remained of his presence was a loose brick he’d propped against the screen door to stop it from swinging shut. Will moved forwards, begging his wet soles not to squeal on the tiled floor.
Through an open plan archway he could see the beige walls and corduroy sofas of a dank living room.
Stepping from the tiles to the thick pile of a shag carpet, Will heard a faint noise – the sound of fabric sliding against plaster.
He didn’t reach the stun gun. His hand was snapped wide while the point of an elbow struck him under the chin, ramming into his windpipe. Will felt a sharp pain and reeled backwards. He saw another elbow rocketing towards his face and pulled his guard up, just in time to feel the backs of his fists spasm as they were driven into his own nose.
The Zamberlan moved low, using the same hip throw he’d used on Will in the tunnel. For a second time Will felt his legs go out from under him as his shoulder dropped towards the ground. He kicked out a foot and felt the shuddering pain of bone on bone as his shin hit his attacker in the face.
It was, however, immaterial.
The bearded man was on top of him, the sour-milk smell of his breath billowing over him as he dropped with Will onto the ground in a controlled fall.
Will hit the floor and felt the air rush out of him. As he tried to recover it he realised he was choking, his windpipe swollen.
The man had him by either side of his shirt now, his arms crossed in front of Will’s neck in a chokehold, putting dizzy pressure on the arteries on either side of his neck.
Will felt his head going light. He reached a hand to the side of his belt. The stun gun wasn’t there.
Will squinted sideways, scanning the floor as the muscled vice on his neck closed tighter. The stun gun was centimetres from Will’s right hand.
He twisted again, the familiar bite of pain in his abdomen shuddering through him as his right hand strained for the stun gun. The Zamberlan kicked it out of reach, the reinforced plastic skidding across the carpet. With his left hand Will gripped metal and brought the side of the Smith & Wesson revolver into the face of the man above him.
The crack of steel on bone rang through room. Will slammed it again, gashing open the man’s forehead. He rolled sideways under him as his attacker sat backwards. Will lunged again for the stun gun, its plastic handle cold in his hand.
Somehow he’d managed to position it higher than the insulation of the cold weather boot. The metal prongs of the main electrodes dug into the man’s shin. The gun sparked and one hundred and fifty thousand oscillating volts leapt out of the device and through his attacker’s body.
The Zamberlan jerked backwards, kicking onto his back, his foot catching Will across the face.
Will rolled over and scrambled forwards, jamming the stun gun against the exposed muscled torso of his attacker. He hit the trigger again and the man shuddered under him, pupils rolling into his skull, saliva foaming at the sides of his mouth.
Will got to his feet and dropped the revolver onto the couch. Taking the plastic ties out of his pocket, he bound the man’s hands and ankles.
Will was heaving, drawing air back into his lungs, when he saw his phone on the ground. It had fallen free in the struggle. The light on the screen was dimming from a recent call. Will picked the phone up. Three missed calls from O’Dwyer.
He heard the flyscreen door swing shut behind him.
A solid man in a crew cut, a long scar beneath each eye, charged towards him from the kitchen, grabbing him around the waist and lifting him into the air. He was a ball of solid muscle.
He dropped Will’s spine onto the back of the couch. Will felt the timber snap beneath him, the ripping fabric releasing musty spores into the room.
He now had Will in a headlock. He started to drag him backwards towards the kitchen, Will’s feet slipping under him. The light-headedness was faster this time, rushing up from his feet.
He dropped the stun gun.
