Legacy by Chris Hammer Extract
- Allen & Unwin
- Aug 29
- 8 min read
Updated: Sep 8
Read an extract of Legacy by Chris Hammer.
The sealed highway finishes at Bourke and the dirt begins, the out back proper. Martin drives through town without stopping, crossing the Darling River, an opaque brown gutter, the water motionless.
He passes through North Bourke: a pub, an oval, an airstrip, a spattering of houses— the edge of the connected world. The last vestiges of irrigation slip past, leaving only mulga and red dirt.
The horizon expands and the surface beneath the Subaru’s wheels turns from dirt to dust. There is no traffic on the road, no clouds in the sky, the world split in half: blue above, red earth below, his car caught between.
Fifty kilometres on, Martin slows, one eye on the rear-view mirror, one on the way ahead. Nothing. No cars, no trucks, no telltale swirl of distant dust, just a willy-willy raising a russet spiral off through the scrub. He watches it pass, sputter into nothing, another taking its place, rising further away, gathering strength before it too loses momentum and wafts into the sun-blasted void. He finds a side track, dead straight, some sort of survey line running off to nowhere, and eases the four-wheel drive down it a kilometre or so. He brings the car to a halt, and climbs out.
The heat hits him, pushes down on him like a physical object. It’s eleven in the morning and the temperature is already in the mid-thirties. Another couple of hours and it will be into the forties. February hot; desert hot, where the air temperature doesn’t come close to explaining the force of the sun. Mad dogs and journalists. And fugitives. The light is too sharp out here, the red dirt road too saturated with colour, the contrast to the blue sky too vibrant.
There is no wind, no moisture, no airborne dust to soften the blue, just the sun, bleeding the colour from the firmament as it fades to white at the horizon.
A trickle of sweat descends from his hairline; he wipes his brow, checks again that he’s alone, then sets to work. He removes the fake licence plates with a Phillips head screwdriver, the rear plate still coastal clean, the front caked with the desiccated remains of insects embedded in red dirt. He takes the plates, walks into the scrub, uses a stick to scrape away at the dirt. A pair of feral goats watch curiously, unperturbed by his presence, chewing on a spiky bush. He places the plates in the shallow hole, pushes the earth back over them with his boot, stamps it flat, pulls a dead branch across to disguise the spot. It takes him five minutes, no more, a rough and ready effort, yet his t-shirt is soaked and sticking to his back. He knows it’s not a convincing job, but the chances of the plates being found out here are minimal. This will all be over before anyone finds them. Whatever this is.
Summer. Challenging enough out here in winter, but summer.
He cocks an ear. No sound at all. High in the sky, there’s a wedgetail eagle, and its mate, circling. He’d be lucky to last until nightfall without a car. Without water. Back at the Subaru, he fetches his drinking bottle, drains half of it, pours the rest over his head. It brings scant relief. Then he crouches by the car and screws another set of plates into place : the set Jack Goffing had given him.
Goffing. Protector, enabler, source. And friend, hopefully. The intelligence operative had shepherded them out of Port Silver, driving his rental, Martin and Mandy and their boy Liam following in Mandy’s Subaru, driving through the night, arriving at a hastily arranged safe house west of the coastal divide as dawn was breaking. An Airbnb, booked under a false name, an anonymous account, an untraceable credit card. A converted farmhouse, high on a hill, approaches visible, the key in a lock box.
Goffing had taken them through it, speaking in that low voice of his, honed by years of confidential conversation. He’d explained in dot points; Martin and Mandy struggling to comprehend. It was less than twelve hours since they’d fled Port Silver.
‘There is an app. Encrypted. Anonymous. Used by the worst of the worst. Airtasker for the underworld. Armed robberies. Abductions. Murders.’
‘You’ve hacked it?’ Mandy asked.
‘Unhackable,’ said Goffing. ‘We have human intelligence. A source with access.’
‘You’re saying that attack last night was outsourced?’ asked Martin.
Goffing looked him in the eye, expression hard. ‘Not sure about last night. I’m talking about the next one.’
‘Next one?’ Mandy was on the couch, face alive with trepidation.
Liam was asleep, his head on her lap. Martin was glad the boy couldn’t hear their conversation.
The ASIO man’s face was so serious he looked sorrowful.
‘A contract. Taken out on you, Martin. In the early hours.’ Goffing’s tone was professional but his eyes were brimming with disquiet.
‘A contract?’ Mandy gasped, appalled; it was a word from a gangster movie, from Chicago and New York, not rural New South Wales.
Goffing didn’t respond . The word spoke for itself.
‘Who?’ asked Martin, mind reeling. He’d run up against some tough people before. As a correspondent, it had been dangerous at times, always with the risk of becoming collateral damage, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even in Australia, there were plenty of people unhappy with his reporting, who would wish him ill: scumbags and killers and conmen and ruthless tycoons, financial fraudsters and psychopaths. That was the problem with the old journo creed of speaking truth to power: power didn’t always like it. True crime, his stock in trade, was an entertainment, a diversion— until they wanted you dead. And were willing to pay for it.
‘Don’t know,’ Goffing said. ‘That’s the defining characteristic of this app. Total anonymity, people hiding behind fake names.
Don’t know who’s commissioning the hit, who’s bid on it, who’s won the contract.’ He let that sink in. ‘All I can tell you, all our sources can tell us, is that the job was advertised, there were bids, and the job was taken by someone calling themselves the B-team. It’s live.’
‘Fuck,’ Martin said.
‘We need to go,’ said Mandy. ‘Hide.’
‘Exactly,’ said Goffing.
‘Protective custody?’ asked Martin. He looked about the farmhouse.
Good for a few hours, maybe overnight, but not more than that.
The ASIO man shook his head. ‘Not so easy.’
‘Why not?’ Mandy asked, an edge of confrontation in her tone.
Goffing met her gaze with his steady look. ‘Not my call. Management doesn’t want to risk it.’
‘Risk what?’ asked Martin.
Goffing looked grim. ‘Anyone learning that we have intel on the app.’
‘What? That’s more important than my son’s safety?’ said Mandy, anger flaring. Liam stirred in his sleep.
The agent examined the ceiling, avoiding eye contact. ‘There was a suggestion of using you as bait. Putting you in a safe house, staking out the place. Seeing who turned up. Putting the heat on them.’
Martin could see Mandy was fighting to control her emotions.
‘And were you planning to capture the assassin before or after they’d fulfilled their mission?’
Goffing had smiled then, a wan and fatigued expression. ‘There was some debate.’
But Mandy wasn’t finished. ‘They blew up the community hall. Gunshots in the street. Isn’t that reason enough for protective custody? You don’t need an app to justify it.’
Goffing said nothing, just wore it. Martin wondered if he was sharing all he knew.
‘You’re here now, with us,’ Martin said to him. ‘Thank you.’
Mandy looked from one man to the other, then her shoulders dropped, the fight going out of her. ‘Yes. Thank you, Jack.’ She took another breath. ‘I hope we aren’t putting you in any jeopardy. Career-wise, I mean.’
‘I think that ship sailed long ago.’
‘So are you here as ASIO, or the federal police?’ asked Martin.
‘Might be handy if I’m neither. Not sure any of them want to know me right now.’ Martin laughed at that. The first rule of the bureaucracy: cover your arse. Didn’t matter if it was the town council or counterespionage.
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Split up. Mandy should take Liam and go somewhere far away.’ The ASIO man looked about, as if searching the shadows, before turning back to her. ‘I doubt you or your son are in any direct danger. But if you are with Martin, there’s always the risk you could get caught in the crossfire. And even if you aren’t with him, there’s the risk someone could abduct you, use you to flush out Martin.’
Martin and Mandy exchanged a long look then. No words were spoken, but Martin nodded his concurrence, and Mandy eventually signalled her own assent.
Goffing spoke directly to Mandy. ‘My suggestion would be overseas. Hawaii would be good. Put it on social media once you’re there, so people know. Then bounce out again. The Americans can help cover your tracks. I’ll request their help. They’re good at that: whisking family members of various tyrants in and out of their country when it suits their diplomatic game.’
‘I hear we’re not too shabby at that ourselves,’ said Martin.
Goffing offered his wan smile again. ‘Is that what you hear?’
‘What about Martin?’ Mandy asked.
Goffing addressed him directly. ‘Take your car. Leave today. I’ll drive the first little way with you. Mandy can take my rental. We’ll get you a burner phone and fake licence plates in Moree. I’ll take your real phone with me when we split. Leave a false trail.’
‘You’re not telling us everything,’ Mandy said, eyes narrowed.
‘How could they possibly track his phone?’
‘We don’t know if they can or they can’t,’ Goffing said. ‘That’s the point. We don’t know anything about them.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Mandy. ‘It’s obvious. It’s the fucking mafia. Out to punish Martin, retribution for his book.’
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Goffing with a shrug.
‘Surely it has to be them,’ Martin said.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Goffing. ‘Think about it. Bombing a community hall, shooting up the main street. Sales of your book will go through the roof. Why would the mafia want that?’
‘A warning against prospective informants, then,’ Mandy suggested.
‘That makes more sense.’
The conversation lagged then as they each considered the implications, Liam snuffling in his sleep.
‘You think they have someone on the inside, in the police, don’t you?’ whispered Mandy.
‘What makes you think that?’ asked Goffing.
‘You said management thought about using us as bait in a safe house. See who turned up. How could assassins possibly learn the location of a safe house?’ Her gaze was unwavering. ‘That’s got nothing to do with any underworld app.’
Martin gave Goffing a sharp look. ‘You think your own organisation has been compromised, Jack?’
Goffing sighed heavily. ‘It’s possible.’
There wasn’t a lot to say to that. Martin turned off his phone, handed it over. ‘All yours.’
‘Thanks.’
Now, a full day later and seven hundred kilometres further west, Martin is back in Mandy’s Subaru, white and ubiquitous, the aircon struggling but arctic cold compared to the burning desert. He negotiates a three-point turn, carefully makes his way back to the main road, weaving through the sandy drifts of the survey line. Back on surer ground, he checks the burner phone. It’s a new iPhone, not a cheap service station throwaway; something to do with encryption and security. Untraceable and untrackable. But despite the latest tech, there’s not a single bar. Nothing. Only spitting distance back to Bourke, and he’s already off-grid. Like a medieval sailor heading off the edge of the world. He opens Signal, types a last message to Mandy, phrasing vague. Safe for now. Love you. He adds a heart emoji, then another, then hits send. Somewhere, sometime, the phone might pick up a connection, send it off through the ether.
He’s about to drive on when he notices a message. It must have arrived as he was passing through Bourke. He thinks it might be Mandy, but it’s from Goffing, the only other person with the number.
Careful. B-team in country.
He stares at the phone. In country. A shiver runs through him despite the heat.
Whoever it is who wants him dead, they’re not mucking about. He sends a thumbs-up emoji, knowing the symbol is an empty gesture, going nowhere. Around him the landscape shimmers: a hellscape of reds and oranges and yellows.
Extracted from Legacy by Chris Hammer.
Legacy
by Chris Hammer
Martin Scarsden flees an assassination attempt but lands in even more trouble with a deadly family feud leaving him at death's door in Chris Hammer's next blockbuster crime novel.
PURCHASE YOUR COPY FROM THESE RETAILERS:
Comments