Mark Abernethy - Double back

There was nothing left in the car – not even a chewing gum wrapper in the rubbish bag hanging from the glove box.

‘Let’s do the boot,’ Mac whispered as he pushed his hand under the driver’s seat.

‘Hello, mister,’ came a woman’s voice, very close. ‘You want the bag?’

‘Shit,’ hissed Bongo, hitting his head on the inside of the windscreen as Mac threw himself flat on the back seat, grabbing at the Beretta in his waistband.

Looking out from where he lay on his back, Mac saw the shape of a large head on narrow shoulders peering down on him.

‘Mrs Soares,’ he said, trying to sit up and get his Beretta under his leg, his pulse whacking against his temples. ‘Nice to see you again.’

‘Mr Davis,’ she bowed, already in her silk housecoat, her hair in a net. ‘And Mr Alvarez. You must want Mr Rahmid’s bag, yeah?’

‘Bag?’ said Bongo, getting out of the car and pouring on the charm.

‘He left a bag with me, in the safe,’ said Mrs Soares. ‘You with him, right?’

‘A bag?’ smiled Bongo. ‘Gee, he confused us, right, Richard?’

‘Yeah,’ said Mrs Soares. ‘He not come back, I think, but you all friend, right?’

‘Sure,’ said Bongo. ‘Shall we take a look?’

The safe was an old black German two-key hotel lock-box, about a metre high and covered in brass plates and filigree. Opening the heavy door, Mrs Soares pulled out a black leather overnight bag with a shoulder strap and side pockets and handed it to Bongo.

Taking the bag, Bongo sniffed the air and spoke rapidly in Bahasa Indonesia. When Mrs Soares showed no interest in his sniffing, Bongo produced a US twenty-dollar note and Mrs Soares led them into the dining room, which had obviously been closed for the night.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Mac, his heart still going crazy from the fright in the car compound. ‘Intel will have eyes.’

‘They won’t think we’ll come back to Dili, let alone the Turismo,’ said Bongo, just as Mrs Soares appeared with two Tiger beers. ‘Besides, we gotta eat brother.’

Going through the bag, Bongo turned up a manila dossier that had probably once contained the papers found in Rahmid’s room, and a copy of the orders that Rahmid had translated and given to Mac at Santa Cruz.

After giving the documents to Mac, Bongo continued searching while Mac had a quick look at the dossier. It was in Bahasa Indonesia but all of the papers carried official Indonesian military and government letterheads. He’d get it translated at the section in Jakarta.

Pulling out a manila envelope, Bongo handed that over too and they both covered up as Mrs Soares delivered the evening meal. As she walked away, Mac pulled out a thin stash of eight-by-five black-and-white photos.

‘Jesus,’ he breathed as he saw the shots: Mac wandering through the Bali Museum in Denpasar; Mac being walked into an entrance way of an apartment building in Denpasar, Bongo close behind with his hand on something in his waistband; Mac standing in front of the sliding glass doors of Bali International Airport, looking around with a black wheelie bag in tow.

Each of the pics had a thin white tape along the bottom with date and location printed in black.

Shuffling through them, Mac stopped at the last two, checking back and forth, making sure he was seeing what he was seeing. One showed an Asian man in sunglasses at an outdoor table under a Vittel umbrella – a man Mac knew as the Korean, a guest at the Turismo. The tape along the bottom gave the date as a month earlier, the location was HCMC – Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon.

The first photo showed the Korean remonstrating with someone, his cigarette hand pointing at a person obscured by a waiter. The second photo showed another man, a middle-aged Anglo with thinning hair and sunnies, shrugging at the Korean with a smile.

Mac had never met the man, but he’d been chasing his ghost. It was Bill Yarrow, the Canadian.

‘This is that Korean bloke,’ said Mac, too tired for this. ‘Did you meet him?’

‘Sure,’ said Bongo. ‘Jessica had some words with him when you had the heat exhaustion.’

‘Jessica?’ asked Mac.

‘Yeah, this guy thinks she a prostitute – asks her how much,’ said Bongo.

‘And?’ smiled Mac.

‘Jessica said, At least seven inches, buddy – sorry ’bout that.’

Bongo killed the lights and brought Rahmid Ali’s Camry to a quiet halt on the west side of Comoro, opposite the military annexe where they could see the white United Nations C-130 being loaded under floodlights.

‘That’s your ride, McQueen,’ said Bongo. ‘Better get moving – I don’t want to be here all night.’

‘You not coming?’ asked Mac, confused.

‘Nope – heading north, I reckon,’ said Bongo, exhaling cigarette smoke.

Suddenly feeling emotional, Mac opened his door.

‘Got enough?’ asked Bongo, pointing at Rahmid’s bag. It wasn’t a ton of stuff, but along with the Operation Extermination papers and the work-ups on the Lombok and Sumba companies, it might put some pieces together for someone in Canberra, especially on the eve of the independence ballot. It might even persuade some of the politicians that East Timor needed peacekeepers.

‘It’ll do for now,’ said Mac, though he felt piss-weak. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said, and they shook.

‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ grinned the Filipino, plunging his hand into his breast pocket. ‘Half is yours,’ he said, fanning the thousand-dollar bills.

‘You keep it,’ said Mac, getting out of the car.

‘What?’ said Bongo, leaping out into the balmy night air. ‘Finders keepers, brother – you gotta take yours!’

‘What were they paying you? To bodyguard the Canadian?’ asked Mac.

‘Three hundred Aussie a week,’ said Bongo, flicking his ash.

‘You took a bullet for that, Bongo. What about this gig? The same?’

‘Sure,’ shrugged Bongo.

‘You saved me from the interrogation, mate, and then you got me out of Bobonaro with my nuts still attached,’ said Mac, wanting to be serious but chuckling. ‘That’s the bonus, okay?’

Shrugging, Bongo walked Mac to the hole in the security fence.

‘What will you do with the car?’ asked Mac.

‘Dump it on the north side,’ said Bongo. ‘But you know what?’ he asked, turning back to the Camry.

‘What?’

‘You could do with a change of clothes,’ said Bongo. ‘You look like shit. Rahmid’s about your size – perhaps a little skinny. Could be some clothes in the trunk?’

Walking to the back of the Camry, Bongo looked over his shoulder. ‘By the way, McQueen, no one can handle that stuff we saw this morning, okay?’

‘The -?’

‘That camp, okay?’ said Bongo, putting the key in the lock. ‘Too much death hurts a man here,’ he said, tapping his chest.

Bongo lifted the boot lid open and they both jumped back.

‘Fuck!’ said Bongo as they looked down at the illuminated interior. It was the Korean with two bullet holes in his forehead.

The Camry’s engine pinged as it cooled in the night air, punctuating their ragged breathing as they stared at the corpse.

‘Bloke from the hotel,’ mumbled Mac finally. ‘Ali did this, right?’

‘Sure,’ said Bongo, reaching across the corpse and grabbing the handles of a black Adidas sports bag.

The Korean’s pockets yielded a Motorola mobile phone, a money clip containing US dollars and a small leather fold with a DBS Visa card and an American Express card, both in the name of Lee Wa Dae. Reaching into the pockets under the card slots, Mac pulled out a stash of paper and unfolded it.

‘Bloke’s name is Lee Wa Dae,’ said Mac, ‘and judging by his love of the Hotel Maliana, he’s based in Kupang, or spends weeks there at a time.’