Mark Abernethy - Double back

Bongo smiled and held out Mac’s Beretta and Rahmid Ali’s papers. ‘Thought you might want these, brother.’

‘Better watch it, Morales,’ said Mac, jamming the papers in his chinos pocket. ‘Someone might think you’re a professional. What happened to you guys, by the way?’

‘We lost you after we dealt with the rapists, then we picked up with these guys.’ He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That’s what the gunfight was about – these guys and the Lintar militia. They weren’t after us, we just got caught in it.’

Taking a deep breath, and preparing for the worst, Mac got a question off his chest. ‘Mate, the kids – did they make it?’

‘They made it,’ said Bongo.

‘Are you sure?’ said Mac, wanting to be absolved. ‘I mean -’

‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ said Bongo, laughing. ‘That girlfriend of yours made sure of that – she’s a real tigress, that one.’

‘So where’s Jessica?’ asked Mac as they started walking under a half-moon.

‘She’s safe,’ said Bongo, who had his own rifle – a Heckler amp; Koch G3 by the look of it. It was old now but still a good weapon, and the best you could buy in the 1970s.

‘Where?’ asked Mac, checking his Beretta for load and safety.

There was a loud throat-clearing sound and the guerrilla leader was suddenly in Mac’s face. ‘Simple rule when you travel with Falintil,’ said Joao, ‘don’t ask where you going, don’t say where you been. Okay?’

True to his word, Joao made them walk through the night. Mac had it as westward, which worried him. He’d hoped to be tabbing east, away from the paranoia and malevolence of Bobonaro.

They spent two hours climbing into the mountains, Joao handing Mac a heavy drill shirt as it got cold and damp. Then they were descending, into a landscape that was punctuated with greenery but with rolling alpine grasslands and outcrops of rock between the stands of bush.

Finding a river bed in the lowlands, they drank and rested under a stand of trees for fifteen minutes, speaking in low tones.

‘Probably wondering why we going west, right?’ asked Joao, opening a parcel of waxed paper and sharing out a carcass of cold chicken.

‘Sure,’ said Mac, chomping on the spicey wing but tasting only gasoline soot. ‘Thought you guys liked to travel through jungle?’

‘Got something to do first,’ said Joao. ‘Mr Manny asked if we could get you on our way, okay?’

Mac nodded then checked the vial in the laces loop of his boat shoe. It was still there. ‘So, Joao, what’s your story?’

‘Just doing my part,’ said Joao, his eyes not leaving Mac’s.

‘You military?’

Smiling, Joao turned to the other guerrillas and rattled off something in Tetum, and they all laughed.

‘What’s funny?’ asked Mac.

‘He’s a teacher,’ said Bongo quietly, ‘but trained in the seminary. Joao’s ordained, okay, brother?’

They reached their destination and lay behind a bushy spur while Joao and Bongo moved to the ridge and took turns with the binos. Mac’s G-Shock said 4.41 am. He yawned and shivered, a little unsettled at being out of the loop.

Returning to the main group, Joao did not look happy.

‘It looks abandoned,’ said Joao. ‘Gates hanging open, and, um

…’ he cleared his throat and looked away.

Mac got a look from Bongo and decided to stay quiet.

‘What Joao’s saying is there seems to be bodies in there,’ said Bongo softly.

‘Bodies?’ asked Mac.

‘Yes!’ said Joao, chest heaving. ‘Lots of them.’

The camp was deserted but the barracks and the offices had been left, with all of the furniture and beds removed. The ablutions block – built for at least thirty men – was cleared of everything, including the taps and shower heads.

‘Left nothing but the bill,’ muttered Mac as they followed Joao’s torch outside.

‘The Java way,’ snorted Bongo, lighting a cigarette. ‘Why give when you can take? My mum told me that, and she should know.’

The six of them stood on the veranda of the main office and looked over the camp’s outdoor area. There was a large open-sided shelter to the right – iron roofing held aloft on telegraph poles – and a cyclone fence around an open grassed area of about six hectares. To the left, the cyclone gates hung open, a dirt approach road shimmering in the gloom of pre-dawn.

As they walked down the slight slope, bush rats fled across the ground like a dark carpet. The first bodies were two women and three children – all naked. Mac crouched, inspected the younger of the two adult corpses, looking for a cause of death. On the other side of the group of corpses, Bongo was doing the same thing.

‘No bullets,’ said Bongo. ‘No strangulation. No struggle, no violence. No obvious lesions or punctures.’

Waving for Joao’s torch, Bongo had a closer look at the female corpse’s face. The lips were swollen.

‘Poison?’ asked Mac.

‘Probably, but let’s look, okay?’ said Bongo, moving off.

‘Guess you’re not a salesman either, right, Mr Richard?’ asked Joao, but not challenging.

‘Like the wise man says,’ said Mac, moving behind Bongo, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’

As the light increased, the scale of the deaths became apparent. As many as a hundred and thirty naked bodies lay across the grassed area.

‘It’s like Jonestown,’ said Mac, panting slightly as they got to where the bodies were most numerous, under the shelter.

‘All Maubere,’ said Joao, meaning they were Melanesian Timorese locals, as opposed to the Portuguese and Indonesians.

Two shoes lay on the ground just outside the shelter, worn and mismatched. Looking around at all the barefoot bodies, Bongo spat. ‘Java thieves – even took their shoes.’

They stood staring, overwhelmed by the combination of evil and pettiness.

‘What is this place?’ asked Mac finally. ‘Concentration camp?’

But Joao didn’t respond because he was on his knees, vomiting.

They sat around the communal water pipe, drinking water and eating the last of Joao’s chicken from the waxed paper lying on the dirt. From the east, Mac saw the line of pale blue and red pushing at the horizon.

‘This wasn’t what you expected?’ Mac asked Joao, trying to work it out.

‘No. We’d been hearing about this refugee camp since early this year,’ he answered in a faraway voice. ‘The militias and soldiers have been clearing the villages and moving displaced people up here for months, but no one ever came back – it was all rumour.’

‘Refugees? From where?’ asked Mac.

‘From the south coast, Mr Richard,’ said Joao, slightly sarcastically. ‘You know, Cassa, Betano, Same, Suai? Anywhere they burn the house, steal the animals, kill our people.’

Mac nodded. ‘So the rumours? What were they?’

‘Our people in FPDK,’ said Joao, referring to the pro-integration movement that opposed independence, ‘they tell us that the military is up to something in Bobonaro, something that they not telling.’

‘Jakarta’s keeping it secret from the local pro-integrationists?’ asked Mac, surprised that FPDK wasn’t more involved with plans to keep East Timor in Indonesia.

‘Yeah, and maybe a secret inside of military too,’ said Joao. ‘We have people inside army and they didn’t know. Then we get some defections, right? From the 1635 Regiment.’

Mac nodded; the Indonesian Army’s biggest locally raised regiment in East Timor was the 1635.

‘This defector – Antonio – he really upset when he gets to us, tells about the camp south of Memo where he drove a truck,’ said Joao.

‘That where we are? Memo?’ asked Bongo.

‘Yep, about twelve kilometres south.’