Dead Heat (45 page)

“You’re thinking invincibility is a matter of defense, but you’re wrong. You may have read Sun Tzu but you’re not a master
warrior, never will be. You’ve put yourself in an extremely vulnerable position, don’t you realize?”

You’re more vulnerable than me because I’m up a tree and you’re on-the-ground croc food.

“Haven’t you had enough?” Back to cajoling. “Don’t you fancy a nice big glass of wine and having a laugh over tonight?”

Georgia hugged the tree and longed for a croc to come along and eat him. Come on, Nail-tooth, she prayed. Nice juicy supper
here for you.

Small sound of leaves crinkling.

“Come on, Georgia. Let’s go home.”

There was a rustle of a bush to her left.

“That you, Georgia? Good girl. Just come on out, you’re safe, I swear it, just step out from where you are . . .”

Another rustle, larger this time, and, unable to help herself, she glanced down, wondering what was down there, but it was
all
black . . .

“Keep coming now, Georgia, take it gently, carefully, you’re quite safe . . .”

An almighty crashing and tearing of branches made her open her mouth and inhale sharply, but she didn’t yell.

Scrabbling sounds, another branch cracking, then a man’s grunt.

Silence.

Her heart was pounding and she felt dizzy as she craned her neck around and around, searching for what had happened.

OhmyGod. Did a croc get him? OhmyGod.

A long rustle like something being dragged.

She was gripping the tree, trembling, sweating, breathing hard.

Silence.

“Georgia? You there? You okay?”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“I whacked him. He’s out cold. Some master warrior. Master wanker, more like.”

“Dutch?” she said. Her voice came out as a hoarse croak.

“Yeah. You really think I’d leave you to face this plonker alone? I heard shots and hared back . . . He took a couple of potshots
at the boat, but I’m not daft. I wasn’t anywhere near it. I tracked you, waited up for him to track you too. Been watching
you all the time. You did real good, you know.”

She heard him clear his throat.

“Didn’t watch you when, you know . . . I didn’t look, okay?”

When she’d peed. Oh, bless him, bless him.

“He’s not going nowhere, okay? You’re safe, it’s just me here, no crocs, no nothing, just me. You wanna come down now?”

Oh yes, yes, yes. And she was wriggling in her tree, easing her legs to clamp them around the trunk, her hands reaching for
branches to lower herself.

“Here, I’m just below. I’ll catch you if you take a tumble. Oh, wait, Georgia, love, hang on . . .”

He clicked on a flashlight and shone it for her. Even with the flashlight’s beam it seemed to take an age to clamber down.
Her limbs were stiff and aching, her bottom and thighs numb. As she inched down the mangrove tree, her blood began to course,
and pins and needles prickled and sang through her veins.

When her legs touched the forest floor they crumpled, but Dutch caught her, held her upright. She flung her arms around him.

“You amazing, wonderful person.” She was half crying, half laughing, and she knew it was relief. “Dutch! I could kiss you
to death!”

“Hey, steady on,” he said, but he was grinning.

“I thought you were a croc!”

“Now that’s a real compliment. Loyal to their offspring, patient, stealthy, and cunning as hell.” He shone the torch at Daniel’s
slumped form. “Not like that wanker. Arrogant little shit thinking he could get one over us.”

Georgia gazed at the rumpled dark blond hair, the handsome face lit white in the hard light of Dutch’s flashlight. Slumped
on the forest floor, Daniel Carter looked peaceful and calm.

It is important that form be concealed . . . so that preparedness against them be impossible.

Daniel’s form had been so well concealed that she’d never once contemplated his involvement. Now it seemed obvious. He’d been
on a flaming warpath to avenge his wife.

Without Dutch and his bush-lore, she knew she’d be dead. Daniel wouldn’t have feared the jail sentence as much as being taken
from his daughter. She gave a violent shudder. She owed Dutch as much she owed Lee and Des and Stevo.

She felt the weight of
guangxi
pressed on her shoulders, but she didn’t care. She could see
guangxi
for what it was. Debts for her life that one day she would repay. She and her following generation owed four men big-time,
because without them she’d be dead and her children wouldn’t exist.

After a long while she said, “What are we going to do with him?”

“Truss him up, then take him to the cop shop. How does that sound?”

“Perfect.”

Dutch shone the flashlight at Daniel’s Glock by his feet and picked it up. “Meantime, we’re not moving till it’s light. Coming
out here earlier I saw some croc tracks. Real big ones. I reckon Nail-tooth’s displaced a big bull and he’s about, and not
in a very good mood.”

“Jesus.”

Dutch patted her on the shoulder. “We sit tight until light, okay? Then I’ll scoot along and get the boat, and we’ll be having
a cooked brekky before you can say gidday.”

She gave him a grateful smile.

“Right, let’s hog-tie this fuckwit—I’ll have to improvise, use some vines—and while we wait for daylight, I’m going to light
a fire to keep that bull croc at arm’s length.”

I
t was one of the longest nights of Georgia’s life. Despite Dutch snoring like a truck engine—the first time she’d ever found
that particular noise a comfort—every dark minute seemed interminable. She was propped against the trunk of another mangrove
tree, hungry and thirsty, and she’d almost fallen asleep several times, but on each occasion she pulled herself from the brink
with a little start, blinking rapidly in the pitch, terrified Daniel had escaped and was about to kill her.

The first sign that dawn was approaching was a bird twittering in its roost before falling quiet again. A couple more twittered,
and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest when a flying fox crashed into a branch above her head.

Dutch gave a long, loud yawn, murmured, “All right, love?” and stretched. She heard a bone pop and his satisfied groan, then
he busied himself building up the fire.

Georgia squinted through the trees and could just see the faintest dusting of light on the horizon past the river. Gradually
the light thickened into a broad pale stroke of dawn, and more flying foxes flapped and crashed through the branches.

After Dutch’s efforts, the fire was crackling nicely, and she could just make out the silhouettes of bushes and trees, and
the dark shape of Daniel’s slumped form on the rainforest floor. Daniel hadn’t appeared to have moved during the night, and
was in the same position Dutch had left him after he’d bound his hands and feet. The vines looked frayed around his feet,
but since vines usually looked frayed, she thought nothing of it because his eyes were closed, his chest seemingly motionless.

“Is he okay?” she asked Dutch.

Dutch didn’t bother looking. “You care?”

“Well, not really, but—”

“And if he wakes and starts talking,” Dutch added, “don’t you even think of untying him, even if he says he’s having an epileptic
fit or heart attack or something. He’ll have you so fast, you won’t know it. Get it?”

He gave her a glare.

“Got it,” she said meekly.

Passing her the Glock, Dutch got to his feet. “See you in a bit,” he said. And with that, he disappeared.

Georgia glanced at Daniel—still motionless—and went to find a place to pee. Just out of sight, but not too far, in case she
met the big croc Dutch had warned her about, she put the Glock on the ground and squatted behind an almost impenetrable root
system of mangroves.

A leaf rustled to her right and her nerves fizzed. Jesus, it was just a skink scooting past, a bronze-colored lizard the length
of her little finger, and it had nearly given her heart failure.

God, she hoped Dutch wouldn’t be long. It was creepy being out here alone. She glanced at the Glock to one side, then saw
that her urine had drowned an ant. Tough luck, she told it, it’s survival of the fittest out here.

She was still crouched, just about to finish, when she heard a whisper of leaves behind her. She didn’t even pause. With her
mind screaming,
Crocodile,
Georgia launched herself forward at the same time as something grabbed her shirt from behind.

Yelling and screaming, she lashed backwards, heard a grunt, and then she was free, scrambling and yanking up her knickers
and shorts and she was galloping past a clump of tassel ferns, pulling her shorts over her hips, fastening the top button—

Bang!

A great flurry of wings and startled cries from flying foxes and birds, she didn’t see exactly what, her legs were already
pumping her, driving for cover.

Two more shots.

Daniel had the Glock! How the hell had he untied himself?

Head down, she blasted through a barrier of dense bushes that slashed and cut her arms, and then she was clear and running
so fast that she collided with a tree fern and sprawled to the ground. She could hear Daniel behind her, and she scrambled
up and raced across a little glade of herringbone ferns, wanting to scoop around and head for Dutch’s house, but he was heading
her off and forcing her west and deeper into the rainforest, deeper into the mangroves.

Crocs love mangroves.

Georgia swung out, racing for the river again, the muscles in her back tight, waiting for a bullet to smash into her. Legs
pounding, she hurdled fallen branches, leaves snapping against her face.

How could she outrun Daniel? How could she stop him in his tracks? Her hand-to-hand combat skills were zero. She could try
to hide again . . .

Crack!

The blast from his pistol was close. He was closing in. Daniel was moving faster than her, much faster.

Got to stop him. Got to stop him before he kills me.

Dutch’s voice in her head.

The males get real aggressive in the wet . . . The saltie will have you anytime, any place, quicker than you can say sausage
sarnie.

Nail-tooth, she thought. Nail-tooth, wake up, boy, nice brekky coming for you.

The sound of a bullwhip next to her ear, a bullet just missing her, and Georgia dived left again, saw the glistening of wet
mud ahead, and she burst onto the riverbank and immediately swung left.

The sky was turning blue, the forest lightening. The tide was out and the soft mud revealed crocodile tracks crisscrossing
the riverbank. Small tracks. She wanted big tracks.
Huge
tracks. She wanted Nail-tooth.

Up ahead a pint-size croc galloped down the muddy bank and exploded into the water. Her breath was hot and raw in her throat,
and she knew she was beginning to tire. Daniel would catch up with her soon.

She was sobbing, almost chanting as she ran. Nail-tooth, Nail-tooth, Nail-tooth.

Georgia gave an involuntary yelp as she recognized the outcrop of elephant grass dead ahead, the swathe of flattened grasses
beside it. Nail-tooth’s highway to the river. Oh shit. She was here. She was in Nail-tooth’s territory. Her legs suddenly
weakened, and she had to scream at herself to keep running,
keep running.

She hurdled a broken fan palm and ran straight down Nail-tooth’s highway. She could hear vegetation snapping as Daniel raced
behind her. He shouted something, she didn’t hear what, because she had seen a warning shiver of grasses ahead.

Suddenly the grass parted, and he was there.

Rounded shoulders above an immense, armored head. Jaws as wide as the hood of a car, filled with teeth the size of her forearm.
The crocodile faced her, ominously still, motionless.

She was screaming and yelling as they locked eyes.

The huge reptile slowly raised its plated body.

Then he charged.

The sound of grass hissing. His head snaking from side to side. His massive tail thrashing as it propelled him forward at
a tremendous rate.

Her grandfather’s words in her ears:
Look at where you want to go.
Her eyes fixed on an Alexander palm to her left and her body leaped for it, hands outstretched, knowing he would crush it
in an instant, pulverize her as fast, but reaching all the same.

Her hands brushed the bark of the palm just as Nail-tooth hit her legs, and she went flying straight over his head and shoulders,
crashing onto his spine hard as pavement before she was flung sideways and onto her left hip into the grasses.

Winded, Georgia struggled frantically to get up, her lungs shrieking for air, her legs not working properly . . .

Daniel’s scream.

She swung her head and it took her a second to take in what she saw.

A man spread-eagled in midair alongside the enormous serrated form of a crocodile. Daniel and Nail-tooth flying over the riverbank
and hitting the river with an almighty crash of spray. Daniel surfacing, choking, striking for the shore. Georgia took a huge
gulp of air and was running for him when Nail-tooth surfaced. She saw the nostrils, eyes, and scaled back protruding through
the water. Daniel suddenly puny and small and helpless against a giant reptile cruising through the water toward him.

She was on the edge of the riverbank, Daniel yelling just a few yards away, and could see the bow wave from the croc’s snout,
the water rippling around its tail as it powered forward.

Everything slowed to half-speed.

Eyes wild, Daniel was splashing frantically for the riverbank, his voice cracking from the force of his shouts. The crocodile
was coming fast for him. Then it submerged.

Georgia yelled at him to swim,
swim faster, goddammit.

Abruptly, Daniel vanished.

O
h God,” she said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. The rainforest had fallen absolutely silent.

Daniel and Nail-tooth had gone.

She’d seen the water boil briefly, as though the river had given an almighty belch, but now it was still and smooth.