Kill Shot

by Garry Disher

  ‘He’ll have food, fuel,’ Dusty said, eyeing the cabin cruiser. Still only one head on board.

  ‘Uh huh. But will he come to the party?’

  MAXSTEAD AND SNELL HAD grown up in Cairns with the sea in their blood—but not, Snell liked to joke, with their blood in the sea. Their parents—both sets specialised in remote parenting—paid for them to have Little Tacker sailing lessons in an Optimist dinghy, graduating to larger craft over the years. As soon as Year 12 was over, they both got marina and fishing boat jobs, with some charter work thrown in. From there to crewing on Whitsunday Islands cruise yachts. Girls, horny middle-aged women with their heavy tipping, cocaine, resort bars. Then one boss went broke, and another boss got busted for running cocaine and ice, which he’d been doing with Maxstead and Snell’s enthusiastic cooperation. They escaped charges but suspicion stuck to them and they hightailed it south to Sydney, where they begged for work at every marina they could find, finally hiring on at Rowntree Marine in Sans Souci.

  Then one day Dirk and Missy van Horen sailed in, wanting repairs. Except they were going by the name Reschke at that point. Dirk was an out of shape fifty-five. Fat, soft, a heavy drinker with a long line in bullshit. The boys loathed him. So did Missy, who was about fifteen years younger than her husband, a well-stacked bottle blonde. She liked to do both boys at once; Dirk, it turned out, liked to watch.

  The van Horens intended to sail around the world. They’d come from Tumby Bay in South Australia and got as far as Sans Souci before bad weather struck and they realised the Santa Ana wasn’t as seaworthy as she needed to be, and could Mr Rowntree carry out the repairs?

  Except that the van Horens were as cheap as old Rowntree, who paid bugger-all wages. They cut corners on the repairs and cheaped out on the equipment—but did offer Maxstead and Snell lodging on the yacht, all meals, a bed for the night and a head job whenever they wanted, as a result of which fucking Rowntree started docking their pay.

  Maxstead and Snell were on the verge of quitting when the cops started sniffing around, which also freaked out Dirk and Missy. The four of them sailed off into the sunset with the refit still half-done.

  Dirk had been cagey enough at Rowntree’s yard—which wouldn’t have been anyone’s first choice as a place to refit a yacht—and on the open seas was even cagier, avoiding other boats, avoiding harbours popular with yachting types. Sailed right by Port Vila, for example, even though they hadn’t stocked enough food.

  Missy, complaining out of earshot of her husband, told the boys: ‘It’s not actually legally our boat. Probably not ours.’

  That’s when they learned the van Horens’ real names, and how come they were flying under the radar. We’re with a wanted couple on a stolen boat, they told each other. You had to laugh.

  And it was liberating in a way. They didn’t have to take any of Dirk’s shit, and meanwhile they were getting to see the world. They sailed deeper into the Pacific…and the tearing winds, rain squalls, high seas and poor workmanship mounted up.

  A fortnight later they found themselves limping into a lagoon on Pentecost Atoll, the Santa Ana barely seaworthy and taking on water. Almost no fuel left; broken pump; torn rigging; a gash in the fibreglass hull; most of the decent food gone.

  Days passed, and no one came, and Dirk started to talk to himself and paddle about the lagoon, slashing at sharks with a machete. When Missy begged him to radio for help, he smashed the radio and tossed all the phones into the lagoon. He stopped bathing and started to accuse the others of plotting against him; then one day he came at Snell with the machete in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other.

  Maxstead was pissed off about that: he’d been told all the booze was gone. He went below and fetched the .22 rifle and came back on deck to find Snell pinned against the main mast with Dirk swinging the machete at him. So Maxstead shot Dirk in the head. Then, unable to get Missy to stop screaming, he shot her as well. Two less mouths to feed—not that anything else got solved.

  FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS it was a kind of standoff between Tremayne and the young men, who he assumed were the only other inhabitants of the atoll. They would appear intermittently, paddling, disappearing into the stands of coconut palms. They seemed to clamber like monkeys, tanned, thin, half-naked, half-wild. They frightened him; his wariness was unremitting. And the atoll was no tropical paradise. The rain pelted down every day, and when it stopped the contrast, the sudden quiet, was terrifying. He was a knot of trepidation in a landscape of silence and resignation.

  He had a pistol, though. Was there a way to replace his propellers with theirs? Then what—take them with him?

  He had a pistol.

  But there was only one of him and two of them. No way he could hold a gun on both of them twenty-four seven.

  After lunch on the third day there was a gentle bump on the starboard side and they were there: on board. Hard, simian, teeth gleaming through their beards, the light of recklessness in their eyes. Tremayne was a crook, he knew that. He was dishonest. But his universe was orderly: he had a place in (or outside) the law. These kids were literally feral.

  He stood back, fear jumping in him. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What do we want?’ one of them said. He was scrawny when you had a closer look, with the offended air of a beggar who’d expected you to drop five bucks, not five cents, in his greasy cap.

  Tremayne tried for a smile. ‘Let’s start again. What can I do for you boys?’

  ‘Got any food?’

  Tremayne’s mind hunted. Food? Stacks of food. Tins, packets, frozen. ‘Sure.’

  ‘We’ll swap you,’ the second boy said. He lifted a rotting cane basket—probably things rotted very quickly here—and said, ‘Fresh fish.’

  ‘Fish, excellent,’ Tremayne said. He pictured a fried fillet, his teeth chomping on a .22 bullet. ‘What would you like in return?’

  ‘Fruit. Got any fruit?’ the first boy said.

  ‘And, like, steak,’ said the second. ‘Got any steak? Potatoes?’

  ‘And beer. Beer would be good.’

  Tremayne felt like a stern parent. ‘Beer’s probably not a good—’

  ‘Party. We could have you over for a dinner party.’

  ‘Yeah. We’ll cook, you row on over this evening. We’ll do fish in coconut milk, then tomorrow night you cook for us.’

  Tremayne found himself saying, ‘Okay.’ It would give him time to think.

  ‘Here. Put these in your freezer. We’ve got more.’

  The basket of fish. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Bring beer, mate. We’re gasping.’

  38

  ACCORDING TO THE GPS tracking app on Wyatt’s phone, Tremayne’s boat had stopped at Pentecost Atoll, a speck in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator and south-west of Hawaii. That was a week ago. He could wait to see if it sailed on to some place easier to reach. Or he could act now.

  Physically, he wasn’t ready to act—his flesh was still healing, and to reach the atoll would mean hours in cramped seating. Mentally? That was another matter. Too much could go wrong if he waited. Tremayne sinks in a storm, runs into pirates, is arrested by local police. And I go mad with the waiting, he thought.

  He checked the internet. The quickest route was via Honolulu, then island-hopping by boat or plane. But that would mean going through US customs and immigration scrutiny. He didn’t want to try that on a fake ID.

  And so he flew to Vanuatu first, then island-hopped using a series of progressively smaller and dodgier aircraft. He didn’t set foot out of the airport at Port Vila. He’d been there years earlier, on the hunt, but was incurious about how the place might have changed since. And he’d sailed home on a yacht back then. He wouldn’t be tracking Tremayne by yacht, though. Time, distance, his injury. Too much to go wrong.

  After landing on Tarawa, in Kiribati, he spent half a day talking to charter pilots. Why the hell did he want to fly out to Pentecost Atoll?

  ‘Nothing there but rain and sharks and fucking birds all o
ver the airstrip,’ one pilot told him.

  ‘The strip’s a mess anyway,’ another said. ‘Covered in cracks and uprooted coconut trees.’

  But they were landing-strip pilots, airport pilots. They gave him the name of a man who flew seaplanes around the islands: tourists, anthropologists, environmentalists, a bit of import and export. ‘Mick’s rough as guts. But he does know what he’s doing.’

  WYATT FOUND MICK FLEMING in a bamboo and coconut-frond bar on the waterfront. A New Zealander, about sixty, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. A weathered face of lopsided charm and cheerful vigour. Wyatt looked more closely: a face of scars and pockmarks.

  Fleming, noticing the scrutiny, grinned: ‘Pretty, aren’t I? Overshot a runway when I was a stupid kid.’

  He toasted the memory with a beer glass held in a big blunt hand. A steady hand, steady eyes. Not drunk, or not yet; and maybe he wasn’t a drinker.

  ‘Pentecost Atoll,’ Wyatt said.

  Mick rubbed thumb and forefinger down his bony nose a few times as he gathered his thoughts. ‘It’s a fair old hike.’

  Wyatt waited.

  ‘Thousand bucks?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Mick laughed, shook his head. ‘Should’ve asked for more, right?’

  ‘It might be my last thousand.’

  ‘In which case,’ Mick said, ‘you want to go to that shithole pretty badly.’

  Wyatt smiled. Let it fade into his hard face, and Fleming seemed to see him clearly for the first time. He showed a moment of hesitation. ‘Ask why you want to fly there? I could put you on to a fishing charter guy.’

  Wyatt had known to expect the question. And that his answer would depend on who was asking: their level of curiosity or acceptance. How closely they skirted around the edges of the law and responsibility. Whether they were thieves themselves.

  Mick Fleming seemed shrewd, curious and more or less honest. He might act where a straighter or more timid pilot would fear to tread, but he didn’t strike Wyatt as a man who habitually broke the law.

  He took out the Probity Commission ID. ‘Time is the crucial factor. A man of interest to us dropped anchor there a week ago. I need to serve a warrant on him and seize certain documents.’

  Mick gave him a brooding scrutiny. ‘You know he’s there for sure?’

  ‘GPS tracker says so.’

  That reassured Mick. ‘No place to hide, huh? Is he dangerous?’

  Three bodies in his wake? I’d say so, thought Wyatt. ‘If there’s any doubt, I’ll call for reinforcements.’

  Mick Fleming smiled into his beer. ‘Out in the middle of the drink.’ He looked at Wyatt again. ‘It’s just that I’ve got an old .303 rifle.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Mick, as if putting that one word together with the shut-down face he’d seen on Wyatt a minute earlier.

  FLEMING AIR CONSISTED OF Mick and a ten-seater Otter. They took off the next morning in calm, cloudless conditions, with no separation between the sky and the ocean that Wyatt could see. It was just a hazy blue.

  ‘It can be deceptive,’ Fleming agreed. ‘Even for an experienced pilot. Your mind tells you one thing, the instruments another.’

  ‘So, always trust your instruments.’

  Fleming grinned. ‘Generally trust your instruments.’

  Wyatt dozed. He struggled to find a comfortable position. And Mick said, ‘What kind of cop are you?’

  ‘Not a cop in the usual sense.’

  ‘You’ve been hurt.’

  Wyatt nodded, offered nothing.

  ‘Like I said, I’ve got a .303 you can borrow.’

  He didn’t say where he’d stowed it. ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ Wyatt said.

  Time passed, and they seemed not to move through the sky, except that the combination of blue and green in the water below changed from hour to hour, and there were tankers and rocky outcrops fringed with coral where the water whitened.

  Eventually Fleming said, ‘Here we go,’ and he was sideslipping in the air, bringing the Otter around and down, into a shallow landing approach. ‘I clock two boats, mate,’ he said.

  Wyatt had seen them: one at either end of a lagoon. A yacht with a narrow hull and masts, and the squatter shape of Tremayne’s Alaska.

  ‘Which one are you interested in?’

  ‘The cabin cruiser,’ Wyatt said, ‘not the yacht.’

  ‘Think they’re in it together?’

  ‘Anything’s possible,’ Wyatt said, believing it just now.

  ‘I can’t put down in the lagoon.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘I’ll get as close as I can. You can take the inflatable.’

  That suited Wyatt. He didn’t want a witness to whatever might happen next. And he didn’t want Fleming to get hurt.

  Then they were planing along the surface of the water, the nose dipped, and Fleming coasted towards the coral reef at the entrance to the lagoon. ‘This is it for me.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Fleming fished under his seat. ‘Take the blunderbuss.’

  A Lee-Enfield .303 with a bolt action and a ten-cartridge clip. Dating from one of the world wars, Wyatt thought, turning it over in his hands. Heavy, the stock chipped and worn, the barrel showing signs of rust.

  ‘Works like a charm,’ Fleming said, watching Wyatt. ‘Looks like you know your way around a rifle.’

  ‘Army,’ Wyatt said. He removed, checked and replaced the clip.

  They manoeuvred a little inflatable into the water and Wyatt paddled around the curve of the coral and through a gap into the more sheltered lagoon. The water was clear. Full of fish with clean sand below. He looked back: the Otter rose and fell gently in the open sea. Fleming stood on a float, watching. Waved lazily when he saw Wyatt turn.

  Wyatt resumed paddling. He was in a cocoon of silence. Nothing moved except for the minute lapping of the water and the motions of his arms. No wind. The two boats were utterly still. But he sensed eyes on him. The birds for all he knew, in among the coconut palms. No human that he could see, anyway.

  He drew closer to a dinghy roped to the stern of Tremayne’s boat and tied up. Blood: on the seat of the dinghy and on the steps leading onto the deck. Slinging the rifle across his shoulders, he climbed aboard. More blood, a trail leading across the deck. Wyatt followed it to the wheelhouse, which looked like it had been stripped of equipment. The blood trail took him below decks then, and he found Tremayne on the floor of the main sitting area, his torso saturated in blood.

  Wyatt stood and watched and listened for signs of life, signs that other people were on board. Hearing nothing, he crossed the carpet, knelt, and touched his fingertips to Tremayne’s neck. A thready beat. The man was barely alive.

  Then Tremayne moved, grinding the barrel tip of a small pistol under Wyatt’s ribcage. Wyatt stiffened, but that was all Tremayne had to offer. His arm went slack, flopped, the pistol tumbling from his nerveless grasp. Wyatt snapped it up, slipped it into a pocket.

  Meanwhile Tremayne was struggling to speak, his breathing shallow and panting, the rise and fall of his chest barely discernible. Wyatt leaned in to listen.

  ‘I went…dinner…shot me.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Kids…Got one of them in the chest…’

  Wyatt went back on deck and stared across at the tattered yacht. A hint of movement, as if someone was watching from a porthole.

  He went below. The storage bay had been tidied, the drainage pipes concealed again since the last time he’d been here. But the panel was cracked, leaving a gap at the top, so he levered it off with the barrel of the rifle. The broad-diameter pipe came away easily, a black nylon bag nestled inside it. He tumbled the contents onto the floor: large denomination euros, pounds sterling and US and Australian dollars; rings, necklaces, a Rolex; bearer bonds. He repacked it all, shouldered the bag and returned to the main deck. Tremayne not forgotten, simply irrelevant.

  A throaty rattle out on the ocean. Mick Fleming had fired up the Otter
.

  Wyatt ran across to the rail to look. The seaplane turned lazily away from where it had been floating but made no attempt to take off. It paused, moved further away, paused again.

  Then, through a gap in the rocks, sand and coconut palms, Wyatt saw why: Mick Fleming was playing catch-me-if-you-can with a man in a dinghy. The survivor from the yacht? As Wyatt watched, the rower paddled madly, stood brandishing a small rifle, sat and paddled again. Mick gave the Otter some revs, moved away again.

  Wyatt climbed down into the inflatable and paddled hard, the motions pulling at his twin bullet wounds. He felt faint and nauseous. When he was back through the lagoon entry, heading for the Otter, he saw that the drama was on hold. The Otter rested some distance from the gunman, propeller spinning lazily, the gunman sat slumped, dinghy drifting in a weak current.

  Wyatt paddled again, drawing nearer. Reaching hailing distance, he called, ‘Throw the rifle away.’

  A face racked with distress stared back at him. Young, no more than twenty-five, with a wispy beard, salt-encrusted hair and sunburn. He caught the flat, hard look of Wyatt and broke, slumping. He looked at his hands on the oars. ‘It’s empty anyway.’

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Am now.’

  They both bobbed in the water a while and the Otter burbled, watching. ‘There’s food on the other boat.’

  ‘I know, that’s all we wanted, something decent to eat.’

  Time passed, and the kid said, ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘If not,’ Wyatt said, ‘he soon will be.’

  ‘He’s got a gun.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ Wyatt said, and he started paddling again. Like Tremayne, the kid was irrelevant.

  Mick Fleming in his Otter watched Wyatt’s advance across the stretch of sea. He did nothing: simply floated there, in the middle of nowhere, a continuing sign of life in the presence of death.

  Nothing was said, the inflatable and the rifle were stowed, and they took off. They were halfway to Kiribati when Fleming said, ‘He could have taken a shot.’

  ‘Empty.’