The Defector Page 13

  Chapter 14

  ‘Are you completely insane?!’

  I opened my eyes. The windscreen of the snub-nose van was three feet away from my face. I looked down, the bumper was inches from my shins. I let go a long, slow breath. My heart was trying to rip its way out of my chest. Kate was still shouting at me, half out of the driver's window.

  I found the strength to speak, ‘Move over. I'm getting in.’

  She stopped raving and glowered at me. But it was an argument I'd already won. She shuffled across to the passenger side and I leapt in the driver's seat before she could change her mind. I slammed the van into gear and hit the gas. We drove off in silence.

  I had only the vaguest idea of where we were and no idea of where I was going, but I wanted to put some distance between us and the club - I didn't want Scott pulling another cameo performance like the last one. I drove fast, taking one turning after another, not caring where I went, so long as it was away from Scott. I hauled the protesting van into one quiet, tree-lined residential street after another, stamping on brake then accelerator, revs high, tyres squealing. It was a couple of minutes before I realised that I needed a longer term strategy. But by then I was hopelessly lost. I pulled the van up in the orange pool of the street's only light and looked across at Kate. She was huddled in the corner, face pale, strained, sickly in the sodium glow. Her whole body shook with silent sobs. Silent tears are the worst. The deepest.

  ‘Let it out Katie.’ I slid closer to her, but she stayed huddled in the corner.

  ‘God, what a shambles.’ she choked out, the pent-up sobs released as the tears began to flow, but before I could say anything a violent tremor gripped her. I realised she was still soaking wet, bare arms goose-bumped, lips bloodless.

  ‘You're freezing to death,’ I said, turning back to the wheel. I clunked the van heavily into gear, ‘I'm taking you back to my hotel Katie, get you warmed up.’ Just as soon as I work out where we are, I thought to myself.

  I glanced in the mirror to pull off and saw lights approaching behind me. I hesitated, waiting for them to pass. But instead the car slewed across in front of us, trailing rubber in a black, smoking stain. I stared at the two dark figures that leapt out of the car, struggling to comprehend this sudden shift of pace, of circumstance. A thought half-formed in my head - not Scott again... Heels clattered loudly on the tarmac beside me and the door flew open. A blinding light shone in my eyes and something hard and blunt jabbed into my rib cage. A voice said, ‘Get out quick or I'll blow your fucking head off.’

  No, not Scott. The answer roared through my head before I had even asked the question. Fear rippled through my body in a paralysing wave. Kate was hauled out of the seat beside me, a stammering protest still-born.

  ‘Move!’ yelled the voice in my ear, with a more painful jab in the ribs. I started to unwrap my fingers from the wheel. Not quickly enough. A hand grabbed my shirt and pulled me outwards. I crashed to the pavement before I could get my legs out to save myself. The voice was hoarse, urgent in my ear, carried on garlic breath, ‘Move when I tell you, arsehole.’

  I looked up, Kate was being pushed into the back seat of the car ahead of me. I was hauled to my feet and sent stumbling after her. I cracked my head as I climbed in, slumped heavily into the upholstery.

  ‘Bring the van.’ yelled the driver. Something familiar about that voice. My door slammed, someone climbed into the passenger seat. The interior light glinted on the gun, revealed features distorted by a stocking mask. The black snout of the barrel was levelled at us. The engine was already running. More unhappy rubber as we drove off. Kate was beside me. I turned to her, reached out a hand anxiously, ‘You ok?’ I whispered hoarsely.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ yelled the man in the passenger seat.

  I looked at Kate and she nodded, lips a tight line, eyes big, frightened. And she was shaking uncontrollably. Jaw clenched to stop it trembling. And it wouldn't be just the cold now either. I pulled her in towards me, felt the damp of the wetsuit press against my shirt, the cold of her cheek bury into my neck. I glanced forwards. The man in the passenger seat was turned towards us, the gun wedged on the seatback, unwavering. His masked face was in shadow from the flicker of the street lights. But I could see the driver clearly; no mask and a dark swelling still around the left eye. I knew where I had heard the voice before.

  ‘Alex.’ I breathed, ‘What the hell is going on?’ I felt Kate move underneath my arm.

  ‘Shut up!’ yelled the other man again, his grip on the gun tightened.

  Alex glanced over his shoulder, then back to the road. ‘You fucked up Martin. Should have just done as Janac said, made the delivery and kept your mouth shut.’

  I stared at him, my mind refusing to comprehend the obvious, the grotesque extent of the catastrophe. It was all over. Now I would have to pay. And Kate, oh god, the nausea swept up and choked me. What had he said? 'The fear of the death of a loved one is as strong as the fear of death itself'. That was what he would want now. I pulled her in tighter with a sudden strength and she gasped as I squeezed. The gunman hissed threateningly at the noise, but before he could do anymore, the car bumped hard on a deep pothole. I slid against the door as we swung fast into a turning and through a half-open, wire-link gate. We had entered an old fairground, the headlights lit stalls and booths with blistered paint and faded shutters. We drew up beside a more substantial building with grey concrete walls, mesh covered windows.

  The doors opened, hands pulled us apart and out of the car. The van lurched to a halt behind us as we were pushed towards

  the entrance, the flashlight flickering to show the way. I moved beside Kate and put a protective arm around her shoulder. My mind screaming at me that it was an utterly worthless gesture. I could no more protect her from what was coming than I could feed the world or heal the sick. We stumbled down a dark corridor, crashing into unseen objects every few feet, until we were shoved into one of the rooms. The door slammed shut behind us.

  Kate was in my arms, still shivering uncontrollably. My eyes started to adjust to the moonlight that slid tiredly through a small window high up on the far wall. We were in some kind of a storeroom, empty shelves filled the space. Just the one door, the only other way out was the window and it was too small for either of us. No escape.

  ‘What the hell is going on Martin?’ said Kate in a shaky, desperate voice.

  I pulled away from her, took off my shirt. ‘Here, put this on. It's dry, it might warm you up.’

  She took it, turned away and peeled down the wetsuit top and tugged the shirt on over her head. She looked small and vulnerable, shivering in the oversized shirt.

  I pulled her back in towards me, trying to warm her body with mine, and whispered quietly in her ear. ‘Alex, the cop you went to, works for Janac. It was a set-up, in case I decided to go to the police and succeeded in doing it without the minders knowing. Alex was fed to me as the obvious place to turn for help, but he's one of Janac's men. And I fell for it.’ I lifted my eyes to the dark ceiling, ‘Janac promised me that the penalty for doing the right thing, giving the drugs up to the police, would be death. The minders should have killed me as soon as they knew that you'd called Alex. He can't have got the message to the flunkeys in time - otherwise I'd be dead already. Then they must have screwed up by losing me when I dropped the drugs off. After that, the only link they had with me was you. And they knew where you were, so they just watched and waited until I showed up.’ I shook my head, feeling her wet hair rub against my face, ‘And I thought I'd fooled them. I never stood a chance.’ My voice was cracked, bitter, broken. I remembered the bruising still visible on Alex's face. At least Janac had hurt that bastard making the show look real enough in the nightclub. Or maybe it was during the beating afterwards that they turned him. Either way, it made no difference now. There were only consequences left.

  ‘So now he will punish me for trying to turn the drugs over to the cops. I thought I could outsmart the bastard. I thought, god forbi
d, that I could do some good for once. But I've been a stupid, blind fool and all I did was get you involved and I'll never forgive myself for that. But I swear nothing will happen to you. I'll get you out of this Kate, somehow, there has to be a way...’ I couldn't go on, couldn't get my mind round the enormity of what had happened.

  After a while, I wasn't counting time, her body warmed up to mine and she stopped shaking. She pulled away and I let her go, moving slowly to the nearest shelves she slumped onto the floor in front of them. I couldn't see her expression in the half light. Her voice was hoarse, tinged with despair. ‘So what's he going to do with us?’ she asked.

  I stared at her in silence for a moment, leant back against the shelves opposite, still standing. ‘It'll be some kind of a game.’ I shook my head, I didn't want to think about the game.

  ‘A game?’ she sounded surprised.

  ‘You remember I said back on Ko Samui that he had sucked me into this through the games?’

  She nodded.

  ‘After I told him about what had happened to me in England, he started these games: the last one was a Prisoner's Dilemma. He wanted to see how I would react. I'm sure he'll do something similar now.’ She shifted, I felt her looking at me, ‘What did happen in England? You never told me about that.’ there was a tiny spark of life, curiosity, in her voice.

  I sighed heavily, hopelessly. I had thought about this conversation so much; my chance to convince her that I had changed, finally, from the man she knew and rejected. But these were not the circumstances I expected to be doing it in. Damn you Janac. Slowly, painfully, wishing with every word that it was happening differently, I told her all that had passed since that terrible day on the motorway. About the crash and how it had affected my work, getting suspended from the job after the ERM disaster, leaving England and meeting Janac. I told her about the Prisoner's Dilemma machine with its options to cooperate or defect. The parallel moral issue he had made of the drug smuggling choices, and how seeing her had helped me to do the right thing.

  I watched her carefully as I finished up, ‘Seeing you again made me realise you were right, not me, three years ago. That lifestyle, those values, they're completely shot, there's no future in them. You can't just care about yourself.’ I hesitated, she was silent, but tucked her knees up to her chest and started to rock gently to and fro. ‘And the conflict that drove us apart - whether to cooperate or defect, to act selflessly or selfishly - that conflict is the point of all his games, including whatever we're now going to face.’

  Kate remained silent, head down, rolling her weight off her toes; backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. I listened to a train rattle across the Harbour Bridge, the sound layered onto the background hum of traffic. Somewhere else in the building there were footsteps, a shout. I heard another car approach, the lights flicked momentarily through the window. A lighthouse beam, a warning flash in the night. It would be Janac, this was what we were waiting for.

  Kate was still rocking herself gently, showing no interest in what was going on outside the room, or outside her own tightly wrapped universe. I moved over, sat down beside her and put my arm around her. But she didn't respond, shoulders set, hard and unyielding. She stared ahead, biting her lip. I spoke softly, ‘I think he will make us play the Prisoner's Dilemma game, with the machine. Maybe we'll play each other, maybe we'll play him, or one of his men. He may try to hurt you to get at me. But whatever happens you're going to make it, you're all that counts. It's my mess and I'll do whatever it takes to get you out.’ I squeezed her to me - but still she was unresponsive. I took my arm away.

  Suddenly she looked up, eyes glistening, ‘When I first started with Scott we had everything we wanted. A simple, good life; working on the boat, a little money, each other. Compared to living with you, with all that greed, it was wonderful. And now,’ she hesitated, ‘it's not that I want riches or luxury, just a few basics, some security, somewhere to call home other than... other than that damn boat.’ she stopped as her voice broke, choked back a sob, ‘So I push Scott to get his shit together, to get ahead. But then he just slips back, happy as he is, with what he has. And then I push a bit harder and we end up with a fiasco like tonight.’ She stopped, looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time, and shivered. ‘And now with this...’ she swallowed, waved her arm at the room. ‘I see so clearly how I've changed, how that's what's screwed it up for me and Scott. And you, of all people, want to tell me that I was right before - here, now? Jesus...’ she shook the blonde hair, tears starting to roll, dropped her head into her hands.

  I saw how she was hurting; that the blame for tonight's row could get confused with this new, infinitely more dangerous situation. I had to make her understand the danger. ‘Kate, listen to me. You have to deal with this differently. Forget Scott. Forget your world. Think about getting out alive. When I played Janac before, I knew it was crazy to keep defecting, but there was no choice. No other rational choice. That is the brutal reality of the game. In a world where everyone is selfish, you have no choice but to defect. It would be great if it was different but it isn't - certainly not in Janac's world. He uses the games to force you into his world, into his way of thinking. To force you to defect.

  ‘So you defect and you both get zapped time and time again, much worse than if you were cooperating. It's crazy. I kept thinking this is insane, but could see no way out. We could have gone on taking level three shocks till it killed both of us. At that point you have to wonder what sort of thinking produces solutions like that. But that's what so much of the world is like now. The world of the stock markets, tax dodges, insurance scams, cutting down rainforests for cash. It's all the same thing. The overwhelming acceptance of the defector's attitude is dragging all of us down. But that's the way it is - especially with Janac. You have to understand that. You have to remember Kate, if you play him, he'll never cooperate. He'll break you if you don't remember that.’ I looked at her intently, tightly wrapped up in herself. ‘Promise me Kate, if you play Janac or any of his people, you will defect.’

  There was a long silence. Kate sobbing quietly now, her face in her hands, rocking on her heels. But gradually she grew still and the crying stopped. Suddenly she looked up, ‘But it has to start somewhere, somebody has to be first if the world is going to change. We won't all start cooperating at the same time, it has to grow from the people that believe.’

  ‘This is not the place for that. No stupid heroics Kate.’ I said harshly.

  She was watching me with those ocean clear blue eyes, the brightly burning intelligence. Finally, she took a deep slow breath and wiped her cheeks, before she said, ‘It's ok. I understand.’

  I smiled with relief. ‘But it doesn't have to be like that for us. It's more likely we'll play each other. If we do, we can both cooperate. If he makes us play against each other, we can make it.’

  The eyes stayed on me for a second before they moved away, back to the window. The blonde hair hid her face, but slowly she nodded. The silence and the gloom descended back on us. After the flurry of activity a few minutes earlier everything had gone quiet again. What the hell was he planning? I tried to work tired, stiff muscles, thinking about the pain, thinking about what the game might be. I had to be strong enough. Whatever he had planned, I had to be strong enough.

  There were heavy footsteps in the hall, the snap of a bolt, then the door crashed back with a tinny rattle of the shelving. Two flashlights flickered around the room, one found myself and the other settled on Kate. I squinted into the hallway, only shadows, but the voice belonged to Alex, ‘You first Cormac. Outside.’

  I stood, this was it. Now was the time. I squeezed Kate's shoulder, but she made no response. I stepped into the hallway with the flashlight still in my face, my teeth clenched, emotions locked down tight. No fear. Show them no fear.

  ‘Search him.’

  I was pushed and spread-eagled against the wall. Hands swiftly traced every fold of cloth and flesh. I thought about them touching K
ate and felt the first trace of anger emerge.

  ‘Just a wallet and passport.’ said another voice, the one that had hauled me out of the car, a pause, then, ‘Fuck, there's thousands of US and Aussie dollars in here.’

  ‘Leave it.’ said Alex.

  A grunt, dissension crackled in the air like static.

  ‘Leave it, boss's orders. If he lives he gets to keep it, part of the game. If he dies the boss wants it found on the body, then we're going to spread some of that shit in the car around to make it look like a drug deal gone bad.’

  ‘Waste of money and good dope if you ask me.’

  ‘You want to take it up with Janac?’

  Another guttural grunt, but the wallet was swiftly pushed back into my pocket. My hands were pulled down, arms twisted behind my back, a rope bound them.

  ‘So I'm not dead yet then Alex.’ I muttered grimly.

  ‘Not yet. But I wouldn't put a cent on your odds.’

  Before I could reply a hand grabbed the ropes and tugged backwards - hard. I yelped at the pain, as bones twisted up in their sockets, into places where they didn't belong. Then the hands pushed forward and down. There was a blow at the back of my knees and I crumpled.

  ‘Ok, now the girl.’