But what’s behind it?
He searches for a way to find out.
~ * ~
Red scans the ground for the landing position he prepared earlier. The parachute’s maybe a hundred metres off the hard deck now, but it has such great lift, and is so easy to manoeuvre, that there is plenty of time to find the spot. As expected, there are only a few people about and none of them have looked up. Now all Red has to do is land this thing without twisting an ankle, breaking a leg or hitting a tree, then leave and link up with the others. An entry gate.
It’s built of stone in a grand style. Billy sees it’s open and turns into the long red gravel driveway that leads to a large, single-storey building.
What is this place?
A pair of elderly ladies crunch along the gravel pulling golf buggies behind them.
It’s a bloody golf course. What a fantastic place to land a parachute. Plenty of space, few people around and most of them old and dressed in pastel, some trees to give you cover, but not too many to cause a problem when you’re descending. Very clever.
To the far right he glimpses the parachute, then loses sight of it behind a line of trees. Billy angles the bike towards a narrow tiled path, zips past the pair of ladies, one of whom flicks him the bird in annoyance, then searches for a way around the building at the end of the walkway, a building that can only be the clubhouse. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an obvious way to circumnavigate it.
I’ll have to go through it.
The front doors to the clubhouse are glass. He skids to a halt in front of them, leans forward, pushes one open, rolls the idling motorcycle inside, then lets the door swing shut behind him. He’s greeted with a gust of chilled, fragrant air. Very pleasant. The place is beautiful. Rustic leather sofas, antique furniture, Malaysian artefacts hanging on the walls. Everyone inside, about ten people in total, turns to look at the shirtless man on the dirt bike.
Billy’s suddenly very embarrassed. ‘Sorry to disturb.’ He can see the French doors on the far side of the clubhouse. Best to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. He revs the bike and rides across the large room. ‘Pardon me.’
Halfway across he remembers he can’t let the parachutist see his face. If, somehow, he doesn’t arrest him, the guy can’t know what Billy looks like, otherwise the whole undercover operation will be blown on the first day. He needs some kind of disguise. But what?
He immediately sees what he needs. He swerves across the room, narrowly misses an ornate table supporting a large vase full of flowers and plucks the item off the wall. ‘Just gonna borrow this.’ He then swerves back towards the French doors. Thankfully an old guy sees him coming and opens them for him.
‘Thanks mate.’ Billy accelerates across the patio, jumps down a flight of three steps, cuts across the practice putting green, manages to avoid everyone’s golf balls, ignores the cries of anger from the members, then scans the sky.
There. To the right, the parachute disappears behind a tree line. He sets a course for it, can’t believe he’s so close. He’s going to capture this prick!
On my first day!
~ * ~
Red looks down at the perfectly manicured grass as it whips past thirty metres below. The designated landing spot is just ahead. It’s all working out beautifully —
A noise, below. The throb and whine of an engine echoes across the golf course. It sounds like a two-stroke, except more urgent. Is it a lawn mower? Or a whipper snipper? Red glances down, searches for the source, sees nothing. He then looks behind.
What is that?
One hundred metres away a white dot races along the fairway towards him. It moves fast. Really fast. It’s not a lawn mower or a whipper snipper. It’s a dirt bike.
And the devil rides it.
~ * ~
6
The tribal mask Billy plucked off the wall of the clubhouse is tied onto his head with two fat ribbons. It is blood red in colour, has a shock of long dark hair, thick black eyebrows, giant mouse ears, flared nostrils and oversized ivory teeth that look like the fangs of a cartoon werewolf. The plaque said it represented the Malaysian version of the devil, which will do just fine for his camouflage requirements today.
The Australian wrenches the throttle back and gives the dirt bike full power. The parachute is close, barely twenty metres off the ground and forty metres ahead.
Adrenaline surges. He can see the bloody guy and his red helmet, the Schumacher helmet. He laughs, delighted by his own awesomeness. ‘Billy Hotchkiss, you magnificent bastard!’ It’s the same bloke from Collins Street but this time Billy has his gun so arresting him will be easy —
‘Oh no!’ Billy remembers he left it back at the Iron Rhino motorhome. ‘Come on!’ He takes a deep breath, can’t believe it. Yes, it’s a bit of setback, a huge one actually, but if he tackles the guy the moment he touches down he’ll still have the advantage. There’s no need for a gun. He’s got this far without one, hasn’t he?
Well sure, because I haven’t needed one yet.
He takes a breath. He just has to forget about it and move on. What’s done is done.
The parachute is now twenty metres ahead and ten metres above, and descending steadily. He can see the guy expertly work the canopy’s steering lines.
Where’s he headed?
Billy’s eyes scan the fairway ahead.
There.
A large, dense thicket by the side of the course, about a football field away. It looks like—is that a motorcycle hidden there?
So that’s his getaway plan.
Not today. Billy’s right on his tail. The guy won’t even get a chance to climb on that thing before —
The Australian’s dirt bike engine coughs.
‘No.’
Then splutters.
‘No!’
Then dies.
‘Please no!’
It’s out of gas.
‘Oh no no no! Not now! Not now!’
But that nice old Malaysian man said: ‘Yes, fuel enough, yes!’
Well, clearly not.
The bike freewheels, then slows, and the parachute flies on, drops lower but doesn’t touch down. It’s thirty, forty, fifty metres ahead now. It just keeps on gliding towards the thicket and that motorcycle.
‘Dammit!’ Billy jumps off the bike, lets it drop to the grass, then sprints after the parachute. It’s so bloody fast there’s no way he can catch it. Now he wishes he had his pistol so he could shoot it out of the sky. But he doesn’t so he can’t. And running with this mask on is a pain in the arse too. It’s made of solid wood, smells like old bones and cuts into his face like the facehugger from Alien. This whole situation is unravelling very quickly. What the hell does he do now?
There. He sees something that might save the day. He veers across the fairway, cuts through a line of trees and sprints hard.
~ * ~
An old couple slide their golf bags into the rear of the golf cart —
It’s electric motor spins up and the tiny vehicle lurches away as quickly as a golf cart can, which isn’t very, and leaves them behind. Billy feels terrible and looks back at them: ‘Sorry! It’s an emergency!’
‘Ahhh!’ The old couple recoil in horror.
Billy thinks the reaction is a tad melodramatic, then he remembers the scary mask he’s wearing and raises a hand apologetically. ‘Bring it back in a sec.’
He drives on and quickly realises the cart isn’t as fast as he had hoped. He’s not even sure it’s faster than running flat out. His eyes lock on the parachute as it swoops low, picks up speed, skims the ground for twenty metres, then smoothly touches down.
~ * ~
Happy to be on solid ground, Red looks back along the fairway, searches for the bare-chested devil on the white motorbike —
There he is. Mask still on, it seems he’s swapped the dirt bike for an electric golf cart which buzz-whines towards Red.
But why? And why is he wearing that mask?
None of that matters. What matters is getting out of this chute and making a clean getaway. In a flash the chute’s harness is off and Red runs to the motorcycle, kneels beside it. He deposited it there late last night and is glad to see nobody has messed with it. That might have something to do with the fact it’s chained to the tree and secured with a combination lock. 3-7-4 is the number to unlock it. He works the three rollers and pulls down on the barrel —
Clunk. It doesn’t open. Christ. He looks back to check where the golf cart is. It’s closer but still a good fifty metres away. He turns back and checks the numbers on the combination lock. 3-7-5. That’s not right. The 5 is adjusted to a 4 and the barrel is pulled down again —
Click. It opens. Red drags the chain through the back wheel, discards it, grabs the motorcycle by the handlebars and push-runs it onto the fairway. Red planned the route out of here meticulously, though at no point was being chased by a shirtless man wearing a devil mask driving a golf cart figure part of the scenario.
Red glances at the guy again. Oh, he has exited the golf cart and now sprints towards him. Red climbs onto the bike and kick-starts it.
That guy will never catch this.
~ * ~
Billy’s so close to catching this Schumacher bastard he can taste it. He’s decided to call him Schumacher from now on, along with his mates Hunt and Senna, just to make everything simpler. Strangely, he finds the names easier to remember than the colours.
Billy abandoned the golf cart because it was too slow and now he’s running as fast as he can, almost too fast, his steps unbalanced as one hand steadies the wooden mask on his face and the other holds the Taylor Made five iron he borrowed from the old couple.
Schumacher is just ten metres away, but he’s on the motorcycle and its engine is running.
Seven metres away.
The motorcycle’s rear tyre spins on the slick grass—then grips and launches the bike forward.
Three metres away.
Schumacher is getting away.
After all this he’s bloody getting away!
Billy dives, swings the five iron —
Wham. It slams into the spokes of the motorcycle’s rear wheel —
The club snaps with a whip-crack and the bike wobbles, keels over and disappears from view. Billy thump-skids across a grassy knoll.
Where did it go?
Billy scrambles to his feet and looks over the edge of the knoll into a kidney-shaped bunker. Schumacher lies in the sand with his left leg caught beneath the motorcycle.
I have you now.
Billy doesn’t hesitate. He leaps into the bunker and lands beside the tangle of man and machine. The mask rubs on his nose but he doesn’t care. This is almost too easy.
Almost.
Schumacher swings an arm and releases a handful of sand straight at Billy’s devil mask and through the eyeholes. Momentarily blinded, Billy pushes a hand under the mask, furiously rubs away the grit.
He clears it as Schumacher pushes the bike off his leg, draws a pistol from a calf holster and swing it towards the Australian —
Thwump. Billy kicks the weapon so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t sever the other man’s hand from his wrist. The gun rockets over the top of the bunker and disappears.
Schumacher scrambles to his feet, legs pumping hard to find purchase in the sand. Billy lunges for him—and misses, watches him clamber out of the bunker and sprint towards, he is sure, that pistol. The Australian wrenches himself to his feet, finds the edge of the bunker and runs after him.
~ * ~
Who the hell is this guy? Why did he attack me? And what’s the deal with that mask?
None of that actually matters. Schumacher just needs to find the gun, shoot him and be done with it. He has a Swiss Army knife in his pocket as a fallback but the pistol is what he needs. He sprints up a slight incline, reaches the top and looks for the weapon.
‘Damn.’ There’s a small lake in front of him. Actually it’s a water hazard, but it may as well be an ocean as far as finding his pistol is concerned. It could be anywhere in the water —
There it is. Fifteen metres away, on the grass at the very edge of the waterline. He sprints towards it, ten metres, five metres away, bends to pick it up —
Crunch. Jesus H! It feels like he’s been hit by a train. He gets a hand on the weapon but it’s immediately knocked free as he’s driven into the water hazard by the masked man.
He swings his left elbow at the guy. Unfortunately his funny bone connects with a sharp edge of the mask and he instantly feels seasick. Then his head is dragged under the surface and the cool water on his face snaps him out of it.
~ * ~
If he can’t swim then why, exactly, did Billy decide to tackle this guy into a large body of water of unknown depth? He can only put it down to being overzealous.
Schumacher twists out of his grip and slips away. Bugger. Billy’s furious, but it doesn’t last long. It’s immediately replaced by survival instinct. He thrashes his arms and legs, hopes that will keep him afloat. It doesn’t. He sinks like a stone and wishes he’d spent one fewer days driving at the racetrack and one actual day learning to swim.
His head goes under.
This is it, baby, this is it.
He’s not going to solve the case on the first day, he’s going to drown while failing to solve it —
His feet touch the muddy bottom. He pulls his body upright and stands. The water barely reaches his waist.
What the hell?
He turns, sees Schumacher sprint up the fairway. He’s slow, his clothes and shoes heavy with water. Billy wades across to the edge of the water hazard, sloshes out and chases him.
~ * ~
Schumacher sprints as fast as he can in his wet clothes, which isn’t very. He heads up the fairway and passes the bunker. He doesn’t bother trying to retrieve the motorcycle. He’d never get it out of the sand before the guy in the mask reached him. No, Schumacher has another form of transport in mind for his getaway.
~ * ~
Billy watches Schumacher head towards the golf cart.
He’s going to drive that bloody thing out of here.
The Australian’s pretty sure he can run as fast as the cart, but with that head start, which is about twenty metres, he’s not sure he’ll be able to catch it.
~ * ~
The golf cart is close but it’s taking Schumacher an eon to reach. It feels like he’s running up and down on the spot in these wet clothes. He can hear the masked guy’s footsteps on the grass behind him and they’re getting louder.
Schumacher reaches the cart, slides in and stomps on the accelerator. The golf cart jolts forward with a high-pitched whine, the instant torque of the electric engine propelling it to its twenty-four-kilometre-an-hour top speed in seconds. It’s not fast, but it’s fast enough. There’s no way the masked guy will catch him in it. Schumacher glances back to check how far away he is.
The gruesome red mask is right there, the guy only a metre from grabbing the cart. I got you now.
The golf cart is right there. Billy is going to get this done on his first day after all. His legs and back, every part of his body, screams for him to stop but he pushes the pain from his mind and ups his pace one last time, reaches out, extends his arm as far as it will go, touches the back of the cart, grabs hold of it.
Schumacher turns the steering wheel and the cart is yanked from the Australian’s grasp. Billy lunges at it again, misses, tries once more, gets his hand on it, drags himself on.
Schumacher turns and throws a fist.
Oof. It hits Billy in the gut. As it connects he glimpses something on Schumacher’s forearm. A small tattoo. Billy’s knocked backwards but just keeps hold of the cart.
A flash of sunlight from the right side of the fairway. Billy’s eyes flick to it. It’s a reflection off a car that punches through the tree line and speeds to
wards the cart.
It’s Claude’s Hyundai.
~ * ~
‘Oh merde!’ Claude realises the golf cart is dead ahead. He stomps on the brakes but the Hyundai’s tyres don’t grip the fairway’s closely cut grass and it skids. He tries to steer but it makes no difference to the vehicle’s trajectory. He really hopes it will stop in time.
Time slows.
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