Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘What did this defector see?’ Bongo continued, lighting a cigarette.

‘Antonio said they always delivering people, but the population never seemed to rise,’ said Joao. ‘That’s how the rumours started of the death camp in Memo. This place.’

A diesel engine revved somewhere over the horizon, and they all stood, following Joao in a jog towards the gates. Turning left, they climbed to higher ground and Mac crouched in the scrub as the diesel revved through a gear change.

Short of the scrub, Bongo stopped. ‘What’s that?’ he demanded, pointing at the shelter in the camp yard.

Ducking back behind the scrub, Mac couldn’t see anything except bodies in the dim light of pre-dawn.

‘What?’ asked Joao, going to Bongo’s shoulder.

‘There! There! ’ said Bongo, bringing his rifle across his body.

But Mac didn’t look where Bongo was pointing, because five hundred metres to their south a black LandCruiser was cresting the rise, followed by an army transport truck with a D6 bulldozer on its trailer.

‘Guys,’ hissed Mac from his hide, still feeling vulnerable after the beating at the Ginasio. ‘We’ve got company!’

Ignoring Mac and the two vehicles, Bongo and Joao stood in the open looking over the camp yard.

‘ Guys! ’ said Mac, desperate to stay concealed. ‘Get down – the Indonesians are here!’

Joao handed the binos to Bongo and, putting his hand on the Filipino’s big back, pointed. Bongo’s head went up and down twice and Mac heard him mutter, ‘ Yep, yep.’

Mac groaned inwardly, realising his day was about to fall apart: he wanted to get to a phone, and to Blackbird – and he wanted to get to the bottom of Operasi Boa. And then he wanted to get as far away from Bobonaro regency as he possibly could. A tall order, but one he could keep juggling and resolving if he could just keep his momentum and stay away from whatever Bongo and Joao were dreaming up.

Bongo slid in beside Mac in the hide, checking the mag on his rifle.

‘There’s a girl down there in the camp, still alive,’ he said, excitement in his dark eyes.

‘Pity about the timing,’ said Mac, wanting Bongo to drop the whole thing.

‘Timing’s perfect,’ smiled Bongo, slapping the mag into the G3.

‘For what?’ screeched Mac.

‘Save her,’ said Bongo as Joao crouched behind him. ‘We’ll just make it if we move now.’

‘We?’ asked Mac, but Bongo and Joao had already gone, leaving the three guerrillas to cover the camp yard.

Every fibre in his body wanted to turn the other way, run back into the hills and get back to the gig. But when Mac started running, it was in a crouch, behind Joao.

Landing almost on top of Joao on the other side of the fence, Mac tried to get a grip on the situation.

‘So, we got a plan?’ he asked.

‘Save the girl,’ said Bongo. ‘How’s your Beretta?’

‘Full load,’ Mac replied, looking at Joao. ‘You really want to pick a fight with the Indonesian Army? In the middle of Bobonaro?’

Slamming a new mag into his G3 and then letting the mag fall out of his Browning into his hand, Joao shrugged. ‘Did it last night to help an Aussie out of the Ginasio – now we do it to save a girl.’

‘I’m not saying it like that,’ said Mac, blushing, aware that Australians could easily sound racist to Asians.

‘No?’ asked Joao.

‘No, mate, it’s just that it would be nice to report this place to the UN or the Australians without tipping off the Indonesians, right?’

Bongo and Joao exchanged words in Bahasa Indonesia.

‘What’s up?’ asked Mac.

‘Just saying, Yeah, first we tell UN, then we tell our teacher,’ said Joao, then set off.

As he readied himself to follow, Mac caught Bongo’s eye.

‘Don’t say it again, mate,’ said Mac. ‘Don’t even start.’

‘Wasn’t gonna,’ said Bongo, close behind Mac as they followed Joao to the corner of the building they were hiding behind.

‘Besides,’ said Mac, feeling guilty about his reluctance. ‘That phrase? That thing you said before we shot those rapists? We used to say that in the marines too, but it referred to the whole troop – not to every damsel who needs saving.’

‘Must have got it wrong then,’ whispered Bongo.

‘She’s crawling,’ said Joao, pointing at the shelter. ‘Cover me.’

Moving out from behind the camp building, still in the remainder of pre-dawn darkness, they crouched as they watched the LandCruiser and dozer transport about three hundred metres away and in no hurry.

Crouching in the kneeling-marksman position, Bongo and Mac beaded up on the approaching vehicles as Joao crawled through the bodies, his rifle across his shoulder blades. Mac could now see the girl, about eight years old, dark shoulder-length hair, in a white cotton dress, obviously dazed and trying to crawl away from the bodies. He watched as Joao got to the girl and gently levered her down, stopped her moving around.

‘I don’t know about this,’ snapped Mac, a bad feeling about the whole venture. ‘How many spooks in the LandCruiser?’

‘We’ll be fine – and Benni’s mine, if he’s here. Okay?’ said Bongo.

‘That what this is?’ hissed Mac, not believing what he was hearing. ‘This is still payback on Sudarto?!’

‘That’s our deal, remember, McQueen?’ said Bongo, squinting down the G3’s barrel.

Shaking his head, Mac focused on the approaching vehicles, two hundred metres away. ‘Don’t be disappointed if you can only find Amir – you were right about Benni, he’s not coming into the open.’

Glancing back towards the girl, Mac saw her nodding at Joao, then both were crawling back, staying low. Joao and the girl were now no more than ten metres away and making good time. They might make it, thought Mac. If they worked it properly, they could stealth back behind the camp building, get the girl over the wall and just hope the spooks didn’t want to have a look around.

Suddenly, the girl looked up, saw Mac and Bongo, and shook her head. As Joao reached up to pull her back down, she whipped her arm away and started running out into the camp yard.

‘No!’ yelled Bongo, before running after the girl.

As Mac rose from his crouch, Joao dashed after Bongo and the LandCruiser slid to a halt in the dirt as the transporter slid past it on the far side, crushing corpses as it went.

Everything unfolded like a nightmare as Mac stood transfixed: the spook who he’d headbutted the day before leapt from the driver’s door of the Cruiser with his SIG Sauer and, unsure who to shoot first, shot at the girl as she ran through the spill of the 4?4’s headlights. Missing with the first shot, he lined up for another but his head disintegrated as Bongo’s G3 shuddered and spat a casing.

As the spook with the fat lip fell to the dirt, Joao opened up on full auto into the open door of the Cruiser, knocking the passenger out the other side of the vehicle, shattering the glass and tearing up the interior.

Jogging into the open, Mac saw Bongo drop the G3 and draw the SIG from under his trop shirt. Then Bongo took three running strides past the girl and leapt up onto the running board of the Mercedes-Benz transporter cab, where he tore the door open and looked in. All Mac saw was four puffs of powder and the spent casings glinting in the pre-dawn as they tumbled to the dirt.

Swinging the Beretta in panicked arcs, Mac got to the middle of the yard and saw that Joao had secured the girl. Running around the other side of the LandCruiser, he closed on the spook who’d been in the passenger seat, the same one who’d assisted Amir Sudarto in Mac’s interrogation. Mac threw himself to his right and rolled across the dirt as the injured spook got off a shot. Coming up in a cup-and-saucer stance, Mac squeezed the trigger and hit the bloke in the right shoulder, knocking him onto his back and throwing the gun five metres.