Mark Abernethy - Double back

Throwing his arm over the back of his seat, Mac turned and spoke with Jessica, though his eyes stayed on the LandCruiser.

‘So, what was the disappearing act all about?’ he asked, sipping from a bottle of water.

‘Had a tip-off. Someone said Dad was in the mountains, near the border,’ said Jessica.

‘Tip-off, huh?’ said Mac. ‘From who?’

‘Well, a rumour more likely.’

‘From a little bird?’ said Bongo, looking into the rear-view mirror.

‘A local man followed me into a cafe, in Dili. He told me it was better not to hear his name.’

Mac frowned. In South-East Asia, being followed wasn’t good for the health.

‘Should have waited for us, Jessica,’ said Bongo.

‘I thought the UN option was safer, all things considered,’ she replied.

Mac and Bongo swapped looks.

‘All things considered?’ smiled Mac.

‘I don’t know how you do business in this part of the world,’ she said, levelling her gaze. ‘But what I saw in the car park last night didn’t look like a negotiation.’

Sighing, Mac turned back to face the road. ‘Sometimes, Jessica, the way business works in South-East Asia -’ Mac caught himself as he sensed Bongo hissing at him to stop. ‘Um, I didn’t mean your dad,’ said Mac, turning to look at Jessica. ‘I’m sure he’s fine.’

But the moment had gone and Jessica looked mournfully out the window, putting on a brave face.

Turning back, Mac copped a withering glare from the Filipino.

‘We okay for gas?’ said Mac.

‘Getting low,’ said Bongo.

‘Ainaro?’ asked Mac.

‘Ainaro,’ said Bongo.

The three Pertalima pumps sat on the street outside the general store on the Ainaro main street. As they pulled up, Mac and Bongo reached under their seats for their handguns.

‘My watch has fallen under my seat, Jessica,’ said Mac. ‘Could you grab it, please?’

As Jessica leaned over and searched under Mac’s seat, the Land-Cruiser pulled alongside the Camry on Mac’s side. Heart pounding up into his throat, the pistol grip slid in Mac’s palm as the driver of the LandCruiser lowered his tinted window. Holding the Beretta just below the windowsill, Mac felt a surge of adrenaline and then a flood of relief as a familiar, well-groomed Indonesian face wrapped in dark sunnies appeared. Slowly, Mac lowered the concealed Beretta as the Indon’s face lit up with a smile.

‘Mr Richard,’ said Amir, the spook he’d met with Damajat two days’ earlier. ‘Major-General Damajat extends his warm greetings and asks you to join him for lunch tomorrow.’

‘Lunch,’ rasped Mac, having dropped the Beretta into the door’s map pocket. Bongo had backed off too.

‘Yes,’ said Amir. ‘Major-General Damajat wishes to show you the facilities, sir. In Maliana, Mr Richard.’

‘Okay, Amir,’ said Mac, and listened to the directions.

As the LandCruiser sped away, Mac slumped in the seat.

‘Okay,’ said Jessica, chastened. ‘Now I see what you mean about doing business down here.’

‘Damajat runs an army-owned company on Timor,’ said Mac. ‘So if he wants to see me, I guess he’ll see me.’

‘Nice way of introducing themselves,’ said Jessica.

‘Yeah, well, I’m about ready for a few beers and an early turn-in,’ said Mac.

‘Amen to that, brother,’ said Bongo.

The Republica guest house was behind Suai’s main market area, on a small hill covered in lush greenery, beyond the wall with the graffiti reading I Love you Military. Faces peered out of shacks and tumbledown houses. Some houses had been reduced to charred stumps, others were peppered with bullet-acne. What looked like a makeshift refugee camp dominated the church grounds. It was a shanty town of blue and green tarps with scared white eyeballs staring out of the darkness beneath them. Suai’s history in the last three months had been similar to the rest of East Timor’s south coast: young men executed, women raped, houses and crops burned, markets ransacked. As if to underline the terror, someone had written Lak Saur on the churchyard fence, referring to a violent militia group operating from across the border in Indonesian West Timor.

Sitting in a lawn chair in front of the colonial-era guest house, Mac sipped on a Tiger beer courtesy of Mickey Costa, the owner. Mickey’s establishment had seen better days, with its sagging iron roof and wave in the floor. Old garden furniture was dotted around the overgrown garden and by the deep red of the setting sun Mac could make out a few posts and some chicken wire that had once surrounded a tennis court.

Mickey appeared, brooding as usual despite his pixie face and spritely movements.

‘No dessert, okay?’ said Mickey, picking up plates that had contained leftover Portuguese chicken and the B-grade rice reserved for non-family diners. ‘Keeping the fruit for breakfast, right?’

‘Sure, Mick,’ said Mac, smiling.

‘Breakfast till eight, then no more. And in rooms by ten, okay?’ snapped Mickey. ‘Don’t want soldier thinking free beers for him, right?’

‘Good night,’ called Bongo as Mickey walked away.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ came Mickey’s muffled response.

Jessica grabbed more beers from the cooler and Bongo gave her his pocket knife to open them. After a couple of laughs, Jessica paused. ‘Suppose I owe you two an apology, right? About this morning.’

‘You’d be really sorry if the militias had got hold of you,’ said Bongo. ‘I’ve seen some bad places in my time, but this one…’

‘I just got so frustrated, you know?’ said Jessica, shaking her head. ‘The Canadian Embassy in Jakarta had no idea what was happening in Dili and didn’t even want to send anyone to find Dad – said they were taking people out of East Timor, not sending them in.’

‘Smart guys, the Canadians,’ said Bongo.

‘Well, you two are here,’ countered Jessica. ‘It can’t be that bad.’

‘It’s that bad,’ said Bongo, expressionless. ‘We went through Ainaro today. Remember?’

‘Sure,’ said Jessica. ‘How could I forget that lunch invitation?’

‘A few weeks ago a whole bunch of foreign aid workers and UN people were evacuated from Ainaro because the Australians uncovered a plot,’ said Bongo.

‘What kind of plot?’ said Jessica, sipping her beer.

‘The local militia group was going to tell them that the road to Dili was closed, and send them up to Dadina instead.’

‘What’s at Dadina?’ asked Jessica, eyes wide.

‘The Kara Ulu river – the militia planned to drown the lot of them because the locals had been telling too many stories of atrocities.’

After that Mac tried to keep the talk away from the violence in East Timor. Jessica had some guts and determination about her and as much as he wanted her back in Dili and out of the way, it seemed unfair to frighten her into abandoning her search.

They’d almost finished the Republica’s beer supply when Jessica got enough momentum to hold forth on why the Indonesian military might be justified in its violence.

‘It’s all the postcolonial oppression,’ she said. ‘You know – doing unto the son what was done to the… I mean, well you know, passing on the brutality…’

‘They teach you this at UCLA?’ asked Bongo.

‘It’s just the facts – it’s a cultural renaissance after being oppressed by the European hegemony.’

‘Indonesia became a republic fifty years ago,’ said Bongo, amused. ‘And they invaded East Timor twenty-four years ago.’

‘Well, yeah -’ started Jessica.

‘So I suppose now it’s the turn of Falintil guerrillas to massacre people? ’Cos that’s been handed down, right?’

‘You know what I mean, Manny – it started with the Europeans,’ Jessica retorted.