Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘No, Jessica, it started with the Malay archipelago being a sought-after resource, fought over by maritime traders, Malay dynasties and pirate-kings. Asian ones!’

‘Yeah, but Europeans subjugated their culture!’

‘Really?’ laughed Bongo. ‘Ask someone from Ambon or Aceh if the Javanese culture is subjugated.’

Annoyed, Jessica turned to Mac. ‘What about you, Richard? You agree with me?’

‘Nuh.’

Bongo laughed, slapped his leg and picked a cigarette from his soft pack.

Grabbing three more beers from the towel-covered case, Jessica levered the caps and sat down. ‘You’ve been very quiet – you must have an opinion.’

‘About Indonesia?’ asked Mac.

‘What else?’ she said.

‘I agree with Manny – this region was always important because of the maritime trading routes which brought power and money. It has nothing to do with the Dutch or Americans.’

‘And now? I mean, Indonesia has been through decolonisation, and Soekarno and Soeharto and the development into a modern nation -’

‘Yes,’ said Mac, ‘and it still represents maritime power. The United States, Japan and China fear an Indonesia that can’t hold at the centre and so they usually back the military, to stop the country disintegrating.’

‘Why don’t they want Indonesia disintegrating?’ asked Jessica, puzzled. ‘I thought everyone was out to destroy Indonesia?’

‘Well, that’s a nice theory in a leftie classroom,’ said Mac, swapping a smile with Bongo. ‘But Indonesia sits across sea lanes that bring LNG, iron ore and coal to Japan and China, and crude through the Madura Straits for the California refineries. If Indonesia fell apart it would hurt the super-economies – the Chinese wouldn’t let it happen. And that’s before we get to the Yanks.’

‘That bad?’

‘One theory says that if East Timor and Aceh separated, then Mindanao would follow and so might southern Thailand and Ambon. Pakistan and Iran would aid the Muslim separatists, and there’d be pressure on nations like the Philippines and Australia to help the Christians in the South Moluccas. As far as trade is concerned, it would be a mess.’

When Jessica left for the ladies, Bongo cleared his throat. ‘Something you should know, McQueen.’

‘Yeah?’ said Mac.

‘Yeah – I agreed to do some basic bodyguarding of our princess here,’ said Bongo, gesturing with his thumb. ‘She shouldn’t be here, but since she is, she needs protection.’

Mac looked Bongo in the eye. Locals protecting foreigners was not unusual in South-East Asia. ‘So long as it doesn’t get in the way of our arrangement, that’s okay,’ he said.

Bongo stood and messed Mac’s hair. ‘Don’t need you in my room tonight, sweetheart – you snore too loud.’

‘Nah, mate,’ said Mac, blushing a little. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘Try telling her that,’ said Bongo, winking and making for his room. ‘Oh, and by the way -’ He stopped as something occurred to him.

‘Yeah?’ said Mac.

‘Be careful of Damajat tomorrow, but pay extra attention to your new friend, okay?’

‘Who, Amir?’ said Mac.

‘He’s out to prove himself to his big brother,’ said Bongo. ‘So stay cool and none of the smart mouth, okay, brother?’

With Bongo gone, Mac repeated his concerns to Jessica about a pretty white girl wandering around East Timor asking questions about her missing father. ‘But if you really have to be here,’ he said, ‘I’m glad Manny’s looking out for you.’

‘I’m trying to be careful,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want to create any trouble. But, you know, he is my father. I can’t just sit back in LA and wait for a phone call.’

Mac nodded his understanding.

Then, with a flash of her blue eyes, Jessica asked unexpectedly, ‘So are you gay?’

‘What made you ask me that?’ asked Mac, laughing.

‘Well…’ she said, indicating a pair of shapely tanned legs sticking out of her shorts.

‘Yeah?’ said Mac. ‘So?’

‘You spend two days with me and don’t even flirt?’

‘What was that first night, in the dining room? That didn’t count?’

‘Nice warm-up,’ teased Jessica, sipping her beer, ‘but no follow through.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ said Mac to the night sky. ‘I’ve been busy, okay? We’re not in high school here.’

‘I wasn’t that interested anyway,’ said Jessica.

They looked at each other for a moment and then beer spurt out of Jessica’s mouth as she laughed along with Mac, an emotional release from an unhappy, stressed woman.

‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’ she accused, looking down at the beer on her blouse.

‘That’ll teach you to keep your shirt on when you drink beer with me.’

As their laughter subsided, Jessica tucked her feet under her bum and fixed Mac with a look. She was so beautiful, thought Mac: high cheekbones, large blue eyes and thick blonde hair falling to her shoulders. Her political views were not as irritating as he pretended – they were similar to the opinions held by many Australians who worked in Canberra and dabbled in Indonesian politics.

‘Manny gone to bed?’ she asked.

‘Yep,’ said Mac.

‘Shame to wake him.’

‘What I thought,’ said Mac, holding her stare.

‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ said Jessica, putting the empty Tiger bottle on the ground. ‘Yesterday, when I was asking around, showing pictures of Dad, I ended up at a hotel called the Resende – heard of it?’

‘Sure,’ nodded Mac.

‘The manager wasn’t around and I went down this hallway, looking for him.’

‘Okay,’ said Mac, trying to sound neutral but not liking the idea of Jessica interrogating people in a hotel owned by the Indonesian Army.

‘I got talking with this Timorese woman – I think she was a housemaid or cleaner.’

‘Yep,’ said Mac.

‘I showed her the picture of Dad, and she recognised him instantly, even said Canadian when she pointed at the photo.’

‘So she knew something?’ asked Mac, alert.

‘She said Dad used to have lunch twice a week with the military, at the hotel,’ said Jessica, clearly confused. ‘What do you think that’s about?’

Mac shook his head and said he’d have a think about it. ‘Could mean his import-export work was with the army’s companies. You know they own most of the trade concessions in East Timor? That’s one of the reasons they don’t want to let this place go.’

Silence fell between them for a while until Jessica yawned, rose from her chair, then stretched and bent over Mac, putting her hands on the top of the lawn chair on either side of his head. The kiss lingered and Mac didn’t lay a glove on her – he was tired and let himself enjoy the kiss and the smell of her hair.

‘I’m off to bed, Mr Richard,’ she said as she surfaced. ‘Wanna tuck me in?’

‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘Be with you in a minute.’

Sitting back, Mac thought about how Jessica’s conversation at the Resende fitted in with the last page of the papers recovered from Rahmid Ali’s room. It was a memo saying the bills of loading and the freight contracts were written through a freight forwarder in Surabaya called Millennium Freight Inc. The last sentence of the short memo had read: Millennium has offices in Fremantle, Surabaya, Manila, Hong Kong and Osaka. Its head office is in Vancouver.

Mac exhaled and wondered how he could have missed it. Bill Yarrow wasn’t some random fool selected by the firm to risk his neck in Dili. He was more than likely the import-export arm of Damajat’s business interests. If you were a Dili-based import-export guy like Yarrow, you were doing business with the generals, and Mac should have seen that from the beginning – it should have formed part of Atkins’ work-up on the Canadian.