by Matt Hilton
I shared an incredulous glance with Noah, before saying, ‘Believe me, a broken lock is the least of her worries right now.’
Adam grinned. ‘Can I do it? I always wanted to kick open a door.’
God spare us from over-enthusiastic amateurs, I thought. But then I decided, why not? Let the guy have a little fun. I owed him that much. ‘Kick it near the lock,’ I advised.
Adam sucked in a breath, steadied himself then lifted his heel and rammed it into the door as he let out a Bruce Lee war cry. His screech was curtailed to a muttered curse as he staggered back from the resolute door. ‘Hell, I almost put my knee out of joint. This ain’t as easy as it looks in the movies.’
Noah shook his head in disbelief. ‘Want me to do it?’
‘I’ve got it,’ Adam said, his youthful gusto undaunted. This time he stood a little further back, so that when he lifted his knee he could hop in, his entire weight behind the kick. The lock popped and the door flew inwards. ‘See, I must’ve loosened it the first time,’ Adam crowed.
Noah grunted something at Adam, but I didn’t hear what he said. I was too busy checking for any sign we’d been heard or observed. Distantly birds broke from the trees, but that was in reaction to the sudden bangs, not because they’d been startled by anyone lurking in the treeline. ‘One of you should move the Escalade,’ I said. ‘Get it out of sight otherwise they’ll know someone’s here.’
Adam stood with his hands fisted at his hips, a Superman pose. Maybe he was waiting for praise for kicking the door open; all he got was a curt order from Noah to move his ass, and he sulked off to shift the SUV out of sight. Noah offered me a shrug of shared bemusement.
Moving inside the house, I said, ‘I haven’t thanked you yet for helping me. I appreciate what you’ve done, but maybe you should get the kid out of here before those guys come back.’
‘Adam isn’t a kid, he’s twenty-eight.’
‘You could’ve fooled me,’ I said.
‘For all he comes across as a bit dim, he’s a good guy.’
‘No argument from me,’ I said, making it to the kitchen. I perched on the same chair I’d sat at while eating dinner the evening before.
‘What? That he’s dim or a good guy?’
I only offered a smile, and Noah laughed into his chest.
Taking off my jacket, I put it aside. Then began unfastening the bulletproof vest.
‘You want me to help with that?’ Noah came forward without waiting, and helped lift it from me. Again it pulled and sucked at my wet shirt, and his assistance was a great help. While Noah put the vest to one side I conceded that it had been a good idea wearing it after all, despite only doing so to make a good impression on Billie: it had definitely saved my life. Noah crouched and inspected the vest.
‘You were hit a few times, huh? Lucky that one to the gut didn’t get through or I doubt we’d have found you alive and well back in the woods.’
‘I’d have died for sure,’ I agreed as I pulled off the remains of my T-shirt. The bandage was dark with blood, but I was pleased to note there were no fresh rivulets of red tracking down my body. The smaller cut on my shoulder had congealed.
‘Who’d have thought a few sachets of sugar were worth their weight in gold?’ Noah moved to the kitchen sink, turning on the taps to get the warm water running. He ducked down to the cupboards beneath and checked for anything useful. ‘What do you need?’
‘Nothing from under there.’ At a push the bottles of bleach could come in handy, but I was hoping Billie had a stocked medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I asked Noah if he’d check, and I directed him to the stairs. ‘First door on the left as you go up.’
Without question he complied, and it made me wonder why Noah and Adam were so selfless in offering their help. An insurance company, via their broker Chris Frieden, had employed them to find proof that Richard Womack was alive. Unlike those employed by Procrylon, they had very little stake in the matter. It was as Adam pointed out, they were on a retainer fee, and were paid one way or another. Basically they could hold their hands in the air, back off from the danger and still pick up a wage while ‘enjoying a bit of hiking and camping at someone else’s expense’. I had to consider the possibility that there was more to their story than they’d let on, but I didn’t think so. The reality was that they were decent human beings, and helping came naturally to them. With that in mind I felt guiltier for dislocating his finger and then knocking Noah cold when first we met.
Adam backed in through the front door, while checking his surroundings. ‘Maybe one of us should keep a look-out,’ he said.
I was sitting bare-chested, covered in blood. Noah was upstairs rooting around Billie’s medicine cabinet. Adam got it. ‘That’d be me, then,’ he sighed.
As he was about to leave I called him.
‘Yeah?’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
He waited a second or two, as if mulling my words over, then a smile broke across his face. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Actually it’s the most excitement I’ve had in ages.’
He sloped outside, and I sat a moment longer, shaking my head in bemusement. A moment later my mild amusement faded; I was reminded again of how excitable Billie had grown when she’d first tasted real danger. Had I fallen into a nest of adrenalin junkies? In the past I’d often been asked why I did what I did. Some people assumed I enjoyed the violence, the constant sense of danger, and, yes, the adrenalin buzz, but there was more to it than that. Frankly, I chose to throw myself into the mouth of danger because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Soldiering had been a part of me for too many years, officially and unofficially, and was both the what and who of Joe Hunter. In the past few years I’d considered retiring, and had even toyed with the idea of opening a coffee shop of all things. ‘Joe’s Joe’, I would call it. I drank the stuff, a lot, and thought that the profits would be better returning to my own pocket. But I also knew that my business plan was a pipe dream, a non-starter.
Pushing up from the chair, I held on to the back for a moment while I waited for my head to stop spinning. I stumbled over to the sink, where Noah had left the hot water running, and fed in the plug. I leaned on the counter as I watched the water pooling, and thought how perhaps chaining myself to a small business enterprise might be preferable to being shot at on regular occasions. Teasing off the bandage, I found that the sugar had worked wonders. It was a sticky mess, but it had served to make the blood coagulate and the wound didn’t look half as bad as before. But as I’d told Noah and Adam, the threat of infection troubled me most. I leaned over the sink to splash water over my chest, allowing the dried blood to sluice away. Some of the mess got on Billie’s floor but, again, it was the least of her current problems. Washing away the mound of congealed blood and sugar set my wound to leaking again, but it was barely a trickle so I gritted my teeth, gripped the edges of the wound between my forefinger and thumb and squeezed. The pain wasn’t bad, the area around the entry wound having grown numb. I squeezed some more, and exposed the rawness of the pulped flesh below the skin. Then, while I pressured the wound open, I poured more water on it with my other hand. I kept washing until I was fairly confident I’d cleansed the wound of foreign material. I repeated the process with my shoulder wound. By then Noah had come back down from the bathroom.
He was toting a first-aid kit, and a couple of bottles. ‘Not much in the kit,’ he announced, ‘but I found some peroxide.’
‘Ideal,’ I said as he walked towards me. ‘You mind rooting about and seeing if you can find Billie’s sewing box?’
Again Noah didn’t question my instructions. I finished washing, sluicing my hair and face, using the available bottle of hand wash I found beside the sink to lather into my hair. It smelled of tea tree oil and mint and set my skin tingling. By the time I was done, Noah was back. He’d found a needle and bobbin of black thread somewhere and stood with a sour look on his face as he held it out to me. When she’d last used the sewing kit Billie had left a length
of thread in the needle: good job because I doubted either of us could have threaded it with our clumsy fingers. ‘I’d offer to help, but I’m too squeamish,’ Noah said.
‘That’s OK, I’d rather do it myself.’
Noah looked relieved. He kicked his heels as I towelled myself dry with a clean dishcloth I’d discovered under the counter.
‘Where’s Adam?’ he wondered.
‘Keeping watch.’
He merely nodded.
‘Mind if I don’t?’ he ventured after a pause.
He didn’t mean taking a stint on guard.
‘If you can help me with the peroxide, you can do what you want after that.’
His face went a few shades paler, but he didn’t back off. He began unscrewing the cap off one of the peroxide bottles as I retreated to the living room and lay back on the settee. I laid the cloth across my lower chest to catch most of the peroxide as Noah prepared himself. ‘Pour it above the wound so that it flows over it,’ I instructed, then did my thing to expose the pulpy flesh inside. I heard Noah fight down his gag reflex, but didn’t bear witness because I’d already closed my eyes in anticipation.
I managed not to scream like a girl, but it was tough.
When I reopened my eyes I could barely see for the tears streaming from them. I told myself they watered because of the fumes, not because of the stinging pain. Noah was still alongside me. He’d brought over the first-aid kit. ‘Gauze pads and bandages,’ he said. ‘Also there’s some antiseptic cream.’
‘Good. I’ll have need of them,’ I said. ‘But first the nasty bit.’
I held out my hand for the threaded needle and Noah finally decided it was time to make himself scarce with a muttered curse. ‘Goddamn Rambo.’
The wound would take only a couple of stitches to close it, a small blessing. But it wasn’t a task I was looking forward to. I squeezed out some of the antiseptic cream first, and smeared it around the cut. Then I sat poised with the needle. Now or never, I told myself.
But I was wrong.
There was a clatter from outside, and I watched Noah tense. He glanced at me before his gaze returned to the front door where Adam walked inside, kind of puppet-like. His ungainly movement was down to the fact that a huge guy gripped him by the collar of his jacket, and had the tip of a blade poised under his chin.
21
‘You took your time getting here,’ I said.
Rink still held Adam’s collar, but he lowered the sharp tip of his KABAR knife so that it wouldn’t open the young man’s throat if he slumped. Adam looked ready to collapse, his eyes rolling, tongue flicking at his lips. Rink took in a steady scan of the room, briefly lighting on Noah – discarding him as harmless – before settling on me. ‘Looks like I missed a wild party, brother,’ he said, eyeing the wound in my chest.
‘I got tagged,’ I explained, ‘but it’s not too bad.’
Rink doesn’t miss much. ‘Where’s Billie Womack?’
I shook my head. Rink’s eyes grew flint-hard.
‘No,’ I quickly rectified. ‘She’s not dead. Not yet.’
Rink lifted Adam another inch on to his toes. ‘Who’s this dude?’
‘You can let him down, Rink. He’s a friend.’
Rink again checked out Noah, who had not moved or said a word since watching Rink manhandle Adam inside. ‘Take it he is too?’
‘Yeah. I owe them both. They probably saved my life.’
Rink set Adam on his feet, and the young man would have fallen if there hadn’t been a credenza nearby to lean against. ‘Jesus Christ, I thought he was going to cut my head off,’ he wheezed.
‘I still might,’ Rink growled.
Adam almost slumped again.
‘He’s kidding, don’t listen to him,’ I said and received a grandiose wink from my big friend as he slid away his knife.
Rink moved further inside the house, and I noticed that Noah and Adam gave him space; small tugs shifting around an ocean liner. They stared at Rink as if he was a force of nature, which wasn’t far wrong. Or maybe it was the bright-coloured bowling shirt he wore. It was neon blue with decals in red and green across the chest and back. They were probably trying to figure out how such a giant, wearing colours reminiscent of a firework display, had managed to get so close without Adam spotting him. I wasn’t surprised. I often believed that Rink’s Japanese heritage came with the ninja gene.
‘I take it these are the guys who you spotted watching Billie’s shop?’ Rink ventured a sniff in Adam’s direction, and maybe he is part bloodhound too. ‘You were right, brother, that one does smell like mushrooms.’
Adam frowned, took an indiscreet sniff of his own armpit.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘These are the guys. We had our wires crossed at first, but things have untangled nicely. Noah, Adam, meet my friend, Rink.’
They nodded in greeting, but still looked wary.
‘Relax, boys, I ain’t gonna eat ya,’ Rink drawled as he stood over me. ‘Dammit, Hunter, I leave you alone for a coupla days and look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself in.’
‘Stop moaning and give me a hand here, will you?’ I offered him the threaded needle. He lifted one eyebrow, turning instead to Adam. ‘Hey, kid. Why don’tcha go back outside and keep watch again, huh? And this time, keep your eyes and ears open.’
Adam offered no argument and sloped out the door. He was happy to escape for a few minutes, I guessed, giving him an opportunity to regain his composure. I held out the needle to Rink again. ‘Want to do the honours?’
‘I’d rather stand over here and watch you blubber like a little baby.’ He crossed his arms over his expansive chest, offering a sly smile at my misery. Then he shook his head, snapped his fingers. ‘Give it here. You never could darn your goddamn socks, let alone stitch your own hide.’
As Rink set to closing my wound, I distracted myself by bringing him up to speed on what had happened through the night. I managed not to cry out, which was a bonus. Noah assisted, handing over clean gauze and bandages, but it was Rink who fixed them. ‘You were lucky,’ he said as I tested my shoulder for movement.
‘Not the way I saw things,’ I admitted. ‘Everything was going to shit, and fast.’
‘That’s what happens when you’re shackled by rules.’
He was talking about Agent Cooper’s instructions.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But it didn’t take me long to break them.’ I told him about the meathead whose neck I’d broken by accident. I didn’t look directly at Noah, but was surreptitiously checking out his response. He hung his head momentarily but that was the extent of his shock. It told me that he, and Adam no doubt, had seen what happened on the mountain road, but had concluded that I was the lesser of two evils they should ally themselves to while chasing Richard Womack. Yes, Noah and Adam thought they could use me, but I didn’t hold it against them. There was more than a little selflessness in their willingness to haul me to safety as well. Plus, I was obviously using them too.
Perhaps Noah had been thinking the same thing. ‘So where do we all go from here?’
‘We bring Billie home,’ I said.
‘Good plan,’ Rink said, and he didn’t sound the least sarcastic.
‘I need to speak to Brandon Cooper,’ I said.
‘Yup. That’d be a start. And while you’re at it, ask the frog-gigger why he hung you out to fucking dry.’
I already had my suspicions. His claim that the ATF couldn’t be seen to be involved in protecting a suspect was bullshit. He’d more or less intimated that there was a mole in his organisation, and it had led to the murder of an undercover agent; putting in another undercover agent would have been a waste of time. But – despite me being his inside man to watch out for Richard Womack – it wasn’t as if he was using me as a spy per se. I was supposedly a bodyguard for Billie, and any number of his own team could have performed the same role.
‘But first,’ Rink went on, ‘you need to sleep, eat and pull yourself together.’
�
�I’m OK.’
‘No. You’re not. You’re ready to drop, and I’d prefer it was on your own terms than me having to pick you up off the floor in the next ten minutes.’
‘While I’m sleeping, Billie could be hurting,’ I argued.
‘Trust me, brother,’ Rink said. ‘Billie’s a civilian. They’ve had her what, ten hours or more? By now they’ll have learned everything they need to know from her. She’s either sleeping things off or . . .’
‘She’s already dead,’ I finished for him.
‘Not necessarily,’ Noah interjected. And he was right.
Rink nodded. ‘If they intend using her to draw in her husband, they’ll keep her alive. They’ll be figuring a way to get their message out. It’s not as if they can broadcast the fact they’ve kidnapped his missus on the TV news channels.’
‘If it were you, how would you use her?’ Noah wondered.
‘I wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘But I get what you mean. I’m not sure. But I’m guessing if Richard used to work for them they had some kind of communication network in place. Maybe they’re trusting him to check in on his messages the way he used to.’
Rink grunted in agreement. ‘We need Harvey’s expertise on this. Joe, brother, go get your head down and leave it to me. I’ll wake you as soon as we’ve got a direction to follow.’
I was loath to give in, but he was correct. Although I’d slept through the night, it hadn’t been healthy. I’d passed out from my injuries, and it had done nothing for my fatigue. I required regular sleep. Now that my bullet wounds were cleaned and dressed, and liberally smeared with antiseptic cream I could ignore the dull throb. My head was still thumping from being pistol-whipped, but a handful of the painkillers from Billie’s first-aid kit would deaden the pain, and probably put me into a deep sleep. ‘The second you get a lead you wake me, OK?’
‘Yup, you’ve got it.’
I knew he was being conservative with the truth, but wouldn’t push it. I was dead on my feet and had to rest. Billie would need me firing on all cylinders if I’d any hope of bringing her safely home.
