Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘She got mind of her own?’

‘Knows everything there is to know,’ said Mac.

Pulling another eight-by-five black-and-white from the envelope, Sudarto glanced at it and then held it in front of Mac’s bleeding face.

‘Taken four days ago – Denpasar,’ said Sudarto, exhaling smoke.

Mac’s heart sank as he looked at it: a telephoto shot of Jessica Yarrow, dark sunglasses and a white polo shirt, talking with a man under a Bintang umbrella at an outdoor cafe. Mac knew how to cover his feelings and use a poker face, but his mouth must have gaped.

‘Looks like it’ll be a fun night with Benni, eh McQueen?’ chuckled Sudarto, sliding the photo back in the envelope. ‘So much to catch up on.’

Mac tried to make the pieces fit. Mac knew the man in the photo as ‘Jim’, and although he didn’t know his surname he certainly knew his employer: Defense Intelligence Agency, the Western world’s most powerful spy network.

Sudarto was right. This would be an all-nighter.

The explosion came at what Mac reckoned was 6.30 pm. The blast shook the walls and a flash of brightness came through the high windows. As Mac tried to get his head around to see what was happening, Sudarto lashed out with his foot and caught Mac on the corner of his left jaw, increasing his agony.

‘You move when I tell you to move,’ snapped the big Indonesian, a new tone in his voice. The sidekick hadn’t returned from his errand and Mac had noticed Sudarto taking a couple of furtive glances at his wristwatch.

A dull glow filled the room and they heard panicked voices from outside as tendrils of smoke started coming in under the fanlights. Standing, Sudarto whipped a Nokia from his pocket and hit a speed dial before snarling at the machine. Wherever he was, the sidekick wasn’t answering his phone.

‘Guess we pick this up later, okay, McQueen?’ said Sudarto.

‘What?’ said Mac. ‘And leave me to burn?’

‘Said you didn’t want the fast way, yeah?’ said the Indonesian, the orange of the flames reflecting on his slab-sided face. ‘But Catholics make you a saint if you burn, right?’

‘Fuck you, Amir,’ said Mac, struggling as more smoke trickled into the room. ‘And that’s a martyr, not a saint.’

As Sudarto picked up the tray with the phones and photos, there was a new sound of automatic gunfire. Freezing, Sudarto dropped the tray and, pulling his SIG Sauer from his hip rig, ran out of the room.

Mac struggled with the flex holding his wrists down onto his ankles, but couldn’t budge it. They’d crossed his wrists and tied them down to his ankles by lashing the cross-brace created by his hands. It was a professional job, and with the flex also holding his head back by the throat, he couldn’t make any headway.

Mac attempted to calm himself, knowing it was easier to get out of a bound position if you were relaxed. But he just couldn’t do it: the gunfire continued, occasionally splattering across the concrete of the Ginasio and shattering the glass at the top of the wall. Not even able to duck as the glass showered around him, Mac struggled to keep breathing, the smoke growing thicker and the roar of flame now audible over the sounds of gunfire. He suspected Falintil guerrillas on a raiding party had torched either a couple of trucks or a fuel depot, and then opened fire when the soldiers came out of their chow tent to fight the fire.

The fire got louder and brighter and the smoke became oily, choking Mac as the room filled with floating gasoline soot.

Coughing, tears pouring down his face, Mac resigned himself to death and found himself thinking about the events that had brought him to this point: the decision years ago to take a UQ campus interview with what he thought was DFAT; the way they’d whisked him into the Royal Marines to undergo Commando training, which he’d pushed so far that he’d ended up doing the SBS survival course in Brunei; the stress of his job, the lying and pretending, the cajoling of people into betraying their employers and their governments; the lack of real relationships and the loneliness that went with it. He thought about the night at the Republica guest house in Suai and a beautiful girl who was so sad for her father. Mac knew Jessica had slept with him because he cheered her up, not because he was in her league.

And he thought about turning around in the car to face a girl who wanted to help some victimised women, and telling her to be ashamed and alive, realising in his heart how totally inadequate that philosophy was.

As the smoke entered his lungs, Mac sagged forward, tightening the flex on his throat. It was over, he was sliding into black. If he could do it all again, he’d tell Bongo to stop the car, put a gun in that militiaman’s mouth and let Jessica poke the bully in the chest, let her tell that cocksucker to hand the dammed chicken back to the old woman. Now! Drop his professional hardness for thirty seconds, and let the good guys win one back. For once…

And then Mac was turning, pleading… Sorry, Bongo. Shit, I’m sorry. Mac felt himself crying. Tell her I’m sorry, Bongo, fuck I’m sorry…

He must have slipped into pre-death unconsciousness before a large hand slapped at him, and he awoke in the heat of the dark room, spluttering and disoriented.

‘You okay to move, brother?’ came a voice as his wrist and ankle flexes were snipped. Then there was the feel of steel against his neck and a snipping sound and the flex came loose and, next thing, Mac was on his side on the wet concrete, coughing and vomiting, his stomach and lungs heaving.

Strong arms helped him up and then a voice he knew well was in his ear as he staggered forward on creaky knees, groping for something to hold.

‘It’s Bongo, okay, brother? Can you hear me?’

‘Yep,’ rasped Mac, clinging to Bongo in the dark.

‘We’re outa here, brother,’ said the Filipino. ‘You okay to walk?’

‘Yep,’ nodded Mac, his stomach convulsing, his eyes feeling like they were on fire.

‘Okay to run?’ asked Bongo, as they moved out of the room and into the blackness.

‘Yep,’ said Mac.

‘Sure?’ asked Bongo as they entered the Ginasio’s main stadium and headed right for the exit.

‘Good as gold,’ Mac replied, clinging to Bongo’s shirt like he was holding on to life itself.

They gave him five minutes’ rest in a small copse overlooking Maliana. Retching until he thought his jaw was going to seize, Mac allowed Bongo and a guerrilla named Joao to wash his eyes with bottles of water from the creek.

‘Don’t rub, Mr Richard,’ said Joao, a straight-haired mestizo local who was built like a middleweight. ‘Just let water do the work, okay?’

As they got the petroleum soot out of his eyes, Mac saw that Bongo had re-dyed his hair to black. His eyes slowly stopped running with tears and he became aware of three other men crouched around him, dressed in various combinations of jungle fatigues and armed with automatic rifles.

‘Ready, brother?’ asked Bongo, looking at his watch.

‘Well, I can see. Does that count?’ said Mac, throat like sandpaper.

They stood to go and Bongo did the introductions, at which point Joao took over, saying, ‘We travel all night, okay, Mr Richard?’

It was one of those South-East Asian statements made as a question in order that everyone save face.

‘That would be fine, Joao,’ said Mac, still croaky. ‘Thank you. Obrigado.’

‘And, not the offence to you, sir, but please – no question about where we going?’

‘That’s fine, mate,’ smiled Mac as he tested his knees again. ‘Anywhere out of Bobonaro is good with me.’

Joao packed water bottles into a small rucksack and they got into formation, one of the guerrillas at point with Joao in behind, and Mac sandwiched between Joao and Bongo. Turning to Bongo, Mac remembered something: ‘Mate, we need to get back to the Camry -’