Authors: Matt Hilton
Benjamin fled to the boulders, but there was no way he could climb over them, so he bolted to the left, surprisingly fleet for his age. However, he lost a slipper, and his next few steps were completed with a limp. Harvey scooped the boy up, and held him, while the boy howled like a coyote seeking the full moon. Kirstie recalled that horrible dream where she’d been chasing the boy as she clattered up to Harvey and reached out for her son, feeding his slipper back on.
‘Let me go,’ Benjamin bleated, and tried to strike at Harvey with his balled fists.
‘I’ll take him,’ Kirstie said.
‘I want to go home,’ Benjamin continued, his fists drumming on Harvey’s chest with as little force as hummingbird wings.
‘I’m taking you home, Benjamin. Mommy’s taking you home.’ Kirstie’s voice broke on the final syllable.
‘Maybe you should let him settle first,’ Harvey said.
‘He’s my son. I’ll take him.’
‘I want my daddy,’ Benjamin sobbed.
‘Benjamin . . . don’t you know me? It’s me, your momma.’
‘I’m Benny. I’m Benny. I’m
Benny
.’ The little boy kicked and squirmed. Kirstie moved in close, and Harvey allowed her to take the boy; she swung him round so that they were chest to chest and she held his head to her shoulder. She smoothed down his hair, petted his shoulders. McTeer and Velasquez came up, the loose dirt crunching underfoot.
‘Everything OK?’McTeer asked.
‘Yes, everything’s fine now,’ Kirstie said, though it didn’t feel that way to her. She hugged Benjamin tightly, smoothing his hair under her palm again, feeling his tears hot against her neck. ‘Let’s just get back to the car and get going. The sooner we’re out of this godforsaken country the better.’
‘Couldn’t agree with you more,’ Harvey said.
It was as if Benjamin had used up all his energy because he was floppy in her arms as Kirstie carried him towards the car. But he wasn’t finished yet. ‘Why are you doing this to me? Why have you took me from my daddy? You’re bad.
You’re all bad people
.
I hate you!
’
The nightmare came back to Kirstie once more, and if ever Benjamin could spear her on a blade, his accusation had just done so. A sob broke from her, one that carried echoes as she slid into the back seat and held tightly to her son. She had never hated her ex-husband as much as she did now.
Harvey slid in beside her while the others switched driving duties, Velasquez now at the wheel. Kirstie could feel Harvey’s gaze as the car began a crawl along the mountainside. She looked up. The dome lights had gone out, but she could make out Harvey’s angular features, the glint of his eyes. Harvey placed a consoling palm on her forearm.
‘He needs time to adjust. Believe me, once we’re back home, he’ll familiarise himself with you and your surroundings and it’ll be like he was never gone.’
Benjamin had succumbed to exhausted sleep, his mouth hanging open, a bubble of saliva softly cracking with each exhalation.
‘Did you hear what he said back there?’
‘He doesn’t hate you, Kirstie. He’s a small child. He’s confused and doesn’t have the necessary words to explain his feelings. He’s frightened, mixed up, doesn’t know how to describe those emotions except in basic terms. He doesn’t hate
you
, he hates what’s happening to him. But once things calm down, then he’ll show his feelings towards you in other ways. Give him a few days and he’ll be saying he loves you.’
She knew that Harvey was speaking the truth, of course. But he hadn’t taken her original question the way she’d intended.
‘I meant the bit about us being bad people.’
‘It’s a fine line when you work in this business,’ Harvey said.
She felt him shift alongside her. He didn’t seem at ease with whatever conclusion he had come to. ‘It’s no easy thing, killing,’ he went on, ‘but sometimes you have to satisfy yourself that you do so for the greater good.’
‘You don’t strike me as a killer,’ Kirstie said. Fleetingly she thought of Joe, and how she’d seen in him a man who did have the necessary cold edge to kill a man in combat.
‘I’ve had to be,’ Harvey confessed. ‘Both as a soldier and since. It’s not something I’ve ever got used to, but it’s something I’ve come to accept.’
‘Rink strikes me as being of a similar mind,’ Kirstie said.
‘Yup. In an ideal world, Rink would have no need for violence. He loves life, sees it as a gift to be cherished. Despite all those goofy one-liners of his, he’s a real poet at heart.’
‘What about Joe?’
‘He’s a good man.’
‘You sound convinced of that.’
‘I am.’
‘Yet he is violent, and has no qualms about killing?’
‘Only for the greater good,’ Harvey said, labouring the point.
Kirstie considered his words. She was attracted to Joe Hunter, as she’d been to Jorge. Was that a fault in her psyche, that she was drawn to dangerous men? Like Hunter, Jorge Molina was violent and – as she’d come to learn –?also had no qualms about killing. Where was the difference? There was only one answer: Jorge’s ‘greater good’ was directed to his own benefit, Hunter’s to everyone else’s. They were opposite sides of the same coin, she decided. After everything had gone so disastrously wrong with her previous relationship was it any surprise that she’d be attracted to a man that was the exact opposite of her ex-husband?
Harvey’s breathing had changed, and it took Kirstie a moment to realise that he was laughing.
‘You like him, huh?’
Kirstie blushed and smiled, breaking the crust of drying tears on her cheeks. It felt good to push back some of the sadness Benjamin’s unsettling words had created.
‘Do you think he . . . uh . . . likes me?’ she ventured.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Harvey asked. ‘I mean, yeah, he’d go out on a limb to save any woman’s child, but I’ve never seen him this determined before.’ Harvey laid a hand on Kirstie’s forearm a second time, squeezing it gently. ‘You ready?’
‘Can I ask you something first?’
‘I thought you already were asking me stuff.’
‘It’s not about Joe. The man who sent you here to help get Benjamin back . . .’
‘Walter?’
‘Yes. Walter Conrad. Is he my grandfather?’
Harvey didn’t reply. The only light inside the car was the occasional backwash from their headlights as they passed large roadside boulders, so she couldn’t make out his face for a clue. Finally he exhaled. ‘No one has said as much to me,’ Harvey said, ‘but I’m not an idiot. I only have to look at you to tell that you’re Walter’s kin.’ Harvey gently touched Benjamin’s sleeping head. ‘And the little one.’
Kirstie exhaled, a weary sigh of resignation. ‘If I were to ask you if Walter Conrad is a good man, what would you say?’
‘I’d ask you if you really wanted to hear the answer,’ Harvey said.
Kirstie chose not to ask.
Chapter 34
Like many people, I’d formed misconceptions about Mexico. It wasn’t a country I’d visited during my military career, and my wanderings since hadn’t brought me this side of the border. My idea of Mexico was that it was an arid land, dominated by sand and grit and cacti, where poor people lived in adobe huts and made their way around by donkey or mule: shame on me for my ignorance.
We were in the high Sonoran mountain range, and here the land was verdant, with tilled terraces bursting with crops. River courses were few, but they had to be there, perhaps hidden by the greenery. The homes that we passed were a mixture of humble dwellings, productive hill farms, and exclusive millionaires’ pads. I didn’t see a single donkey or mule, but plenty of horsepower in expensive SUVs and saloon cars. The highway was well maintained, and the tyres of our borrowed Subaru station wagon ate up the miles. The rain was now many miles behind us, and the sky was a star-studded fresco. On our left I caught fleeting glimpses of the constellation Ursa Major – the ‘Big Dipper’, or ‘Plough’, depending where you came from – standing almost end on end in the northern heavens. To my right was Orion, the stars that formed the belt some of the brightest objects in the sky. Forgetting for a moment that we were only minutes ahead of men intent on killing us, it was easy to soak up the grandeur and beauty of the scene.
Ahead of us twinkled lights of a town. I couldn’t recall the name of it from Harvey’s map.
‘More trouble?’ I ventured.
‘Best we prepare for anything, brother.’ Rink eased up a tad on the throttle as he surveyed the town. It didn’t look very large and was set to the right of the highway in the natural wedge of a valley between two hills.
‘I’m not sure the road even enters the town,’ I said. ‘We could keep on going.’
‘We need food and water,’ Rink reminded me.
‘I’m good for a while yet,’ I said. Pursuit would be fast and determined, I assumed, and we’d no time for tending to our basic needs.
‘Thought you’d be dying for a coffee by now,’ Rink said. ‘What with your caffeine habit and all.’
To be honest, my head was thumping with withdrawal symptoms, my vision tunnelled, my fingers shaking. But those symptoms could equally have been down to adrenalin dump after our many hours of running and fighting.
‘I’ve got my name on a gallon of espresso when we arrive in Douglas. Keep going, Rink. Unless you need something . . .’
‘I’m good,’ he said, but he couldn’t disguise the rasp of a dry throat.
We bypassed the unknown town, both of us glancing longingly at the lights and the promise of sustenance, and discovered that the road began to climb higher, going into the first of many curves that took us through the range. Within minutes we were at an elevation many hundreds of feet higher. I craned round, checking behind us, but the road was lost to sight by the bends and steep cliffs. A long way back in the valley headlights twinkled momentarily, but then the lie of the land hid them again. No way could I be sure it was the lights of our pursuers but the odds were high.
Rink grunted something unintelligible, and I shifted my gaze to the right to see what caused his mild concern.
‘Helicopter,’ I said unnecessarily.
A chopper was skimming through the sky, coming at a right angle to us. Had the craft been higher, or had we been still way down on the low part of the road, I wouldn’t have been able to discern what the craft was, but here I could make out the wasp-like shape and the configuration of its running lights.
‘You think it’s them?’
‘We’ll know soon enough,’ Rink said, ducking for a view past my body. ‘At least it doesn’t look like a gunship.’
‘Doesn’t mean they haven’t any guns onboard,’ I cautioned.
Our handguns were largely ineffective against a helicopter while we were driving, so I leaned in the back and grabbed the M-4, preparing it for action. There was no sign of aggression or even interest from those in the chopper yet, so I kept the machine-gun hidden down on my lap.
Rink remained at a steady speed, unalarmed and unhurried. We’d look like local night workers out on an errand.
The helicopter zoomed closer, and now I could make more out of the shape of the craft, even some dim colours – red and white – against the star-flecked heavens. Wasn’t a police or military chopper, I was pleased to note, but a commercial type that I recognised from the Bell catalogue. I’d learned more about helicopters since Harvey had acquired one as his ultimate man-toy, though he’d recently used it to bolster his income offering flying tours around his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. He’d had me out on a few pleasure flights with him, and not too long ago had also drafted his helicopter in during a rescue attempt when some of our old enemies snatched Rink. I’d been thinking about taking flying lessons, but time hadn’t allowed yet.
The chopper suddenly changed its flight path.
‘Crap,’ Rink muttered under his breath. I adjusted the M-4.
The helicopter banked towards us, then levelled out and began flying parallel to the road, and I sneaked a look to check that a door wasn’t being opened to allow the barrel of a rifle to poke out. There was no way to discern faces inside the craft, but I counted a half-dozen figures seated front and back.
‘Play it cool,’ I said, over the chopping of the blades, ‘they’re just checking us out. We don’t seem to be causing too much of a stir.’