The Devil's Anvil (22 page)

‘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.

22

I woke on Billie’s bed with no recollection of how I’d got there. Last I recalled was bedding down on the settee where I’d dozed last night before trouble came to the farm. At some point Rink, and possibly Noah or Adam, must have got me to my feet and steered me to the bedroom where I’d less chance of being disturbed while they went about their business in the living room. Either the drugs had affected me more than I thought or I’d been semi-delirious from my injuries. It didn’t matter which, only that I woke feeling better than I had since the blazing gun battle in the forest. As I shifted there was some mild pain in my wounds, but not enough to keep me on my back much longer. Something else was more apparent than the hurt: I could smell Billie’s perfume wafting off the throw and pillows as I adjusted my position. It was an intimate aroma and I was uncomfortable having invaded her private space without invitation.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

A faint qualm moved through my body; a gentle shivering I hoped wasn’t the beginnings of a fever. But my flesh was cool and dry to the touch, and the shiver was simply down to the evening chill in the room. I was still wearing my jeans, but was bare-chested save for the bandages. My ripped and soiled Homer Simpson T-shirt had been consigned to the trashcan. I had a spare shirt in my bag, but it had been dumped back in the forest, or taken by those who’d left me for dead. I trusted that Rink had brought fresh clothing with him, and hoped he had something less gaudy than his usual attire. Muted conversation drifted from below, two voices, one of them Rink’s Arkansas drawl. He’d have set one of the other guys on sentry duty. I took it there’d been no trouble while I slept. That thought made me wonder what time it was. The light beyond the drapes was fading and I’d already subliminally deduced it was evening due to the chill in the air. An alarm clock sat on a bedside cabinet, but apparently there’d been a power cut at some point because the LEDs flashed and said it was 2:17 a.m. I glanced around looking for a more reliable wind-up clock, but my gaze caught on something else. On the opposite wall was one of Billie’s paintings. I recognised the style from her works of art displayed at her boutique in Hill End. I also recognised the landscape depicted in the painting as being the southern shore of Baker’s Hole and the hills beyond. An indistinct figure in red stood beneath the trees at the lakeside. The dash of vibrant colour among the other muted shades held my gaze, and my thoughts, for a long time.

Rink came in the room, and I realised I’d been lost so far in thought that I hadn’t heard him ascend the stairs. If he meant to be silent he would have been, but not under those circumstances. ‘What you doing sitting there like a toad on a lump of driftwood?’ he asked. ‘I heard you up and about minutes ago.’

‘Just gathering myself.’ I indicated my state of semi-undress. ‘Do you have anything I can put on?’

‘Hell, you expect me to give you the shirt off my back?’ He was joking, but that was his way.

‘No thanks,’ I quipped in return. ‘I’d rather keep with the Tarzan look than be seen in that monstrosity.’

He shook his head in remorse. ‘I finally have the opportunity to get you into a splash of colour and all I’ve spare is a grey undershirt.’

‘Suits me fine.’

‘It’s in the bathroom waiting for you, with some spare socks and underwear. Thought you might want to shower before you present yourself to your adoring public.’ He chuckled. ‘Don’t know what you did but those guys have a serious case of hero worship for you. I had to remind them that
actually
you got your ass kicked, so they should be lavishing all their adoration on someone else more deserving.’ He slapped his own chest for emphasis.

‘Arsehole,’ I called him.

He grinned, flashing his pearly white teeth. ‘It’s nice to have the old Joe Hunter back. Now come on. Hit the shower and we’ll see you downstairs. Grub’s cooking, mate.’ His last was a poor impression of my Brit accent, sounding more like John Lennon, but meant as a piss take.

‘Did you get hold of Harvey?’

‘He’s on the case, buddy. Now come on, get up, lameass.’

I chuckled at his final command.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘When I was back in the woods, almost dead, I dreamed about you.’

‘Jeez, I don’t wanna hear,’ he said.

‘Don’t flatter yourself. It’s just you used those same words then: “Get up, lameass.”’

‘And they were as pertinent then as they are now. Do as you’re told.’

Rink went back downstairs while I eased up from the bed. There was some creaking and groaning and not all of it from the mattress. Testing my footing, I found I could stand still without my brain doing loop-the-loops. I concentrated my vision, again zoning in on the figure in red in the painting. I guessed what it represented to Billie. The undefined, almost spectral figure was her daughter, Nicola. I just wondered what the girl was pointing at between her feet. Probably nothing, I decided, and headed for the shower.

23

Billie had lost all sense of time or place. It didn’t help that she’d slept on and off on a number of occasions, with no real idea how long for: each nap could have been hours or indeed only a few seconds. The first she suspected had been much longer because it was an unnatural slumber, induced by a drug administered to her by one of her captors. As she’d been dragged from Joe Hunter’s side she’d fought her captors, clawing at the face of one of the rough men. He’d slapped her across the mouth with the back of his hand. Perhaps he thought his disdainful smack would be enough, as if she was the browbeaten wife of a violent husband, but he didn’t know Billie Womack. She’d smacked him back, and the full weight of her arm had been behind her clenched fist. The man had sworn savagely, covering his bleeding mouth while his friends laughed at his downfall. When next he struck her it was with his open palm and the force of his slap almost took her off her feet. She was positive he would have kicked her if one of the others hadn’t intervened.

‘She’s no good to us if she can’t speak,’ a bespectacled man with a poorly set broken nose snapped. ‘Hit her again and I’ll do the same to you.’

Her attacker was immediately cowed, but he glared at her, his eyes furnace-bright. ‘She’s a fucking wild animal. Needs putting in her place or she’ll cause more trouble.’

‘Try to hurt me again and I’ll show you how much trouble, you bastard,’ Billie snarled.

The man who’d come to her rescue hadn’t done so through pity. He grabbed her by her hair, twisting it savagely, and forced her to her knees. ‘Hey, Danny, bring me that syringe.’

Another man approached, who looked like a younger version of the one holding her. His face was less beat up, and he didn’t require glasses to squint down at her. From his pocket he took out a small leather case, enjoying the fear he induced in her as he took his own goddamn time about unzipping it. When a hypodermic syringe was handed over the first man was more perfunctory about his actions.