Mark Abernethy - Double back

Bongo gave a low whistle as he pulled a transparent plastic Ziploc bag from the Adidas bag and handed it to Mac before grabbing another. The size of a small cushion, the bag was filled with wrapped stacks of used US dollars, mostly hundred-dollar bills from what Mac could see.

‘Must be fifty, sixty thousand in here,’ said Bongo, checking the extremities of the sports bag and coming up with a stainless-steel Colt Defender – a compact automatic pistol favoured by women because it fits in a purse.

‘What’s this?’ asked Mac, holding the plastic bag in front of Bongo and pointing at the Thai or Cambodian script stamped in blue ink on the bag. ‘That say Palace or something?’

Nodding, Bongo traced his finger under the lettering. ‘Yeah, brother – I think it say Vacation Palace Hotel and Casino, Poi Pet, Cambodia.’

‘Isn’t that…?’ asked Mac, his voice trailing off as he saw lights moving through the trees at the other end of Comoro’s runway. They had company, probably military security.

Heart thumping, Mac shut the trunk, plunging them into complete darkness. About a mile south a Toyota 4?4 with the military police light-bar on the top motored across the base of the runway. It slowed, then turned left towards Mac and Bongo.

‘Gotta go, brother,’ said Bongo.

‘Want some?’ said Mac, pointing at the Korean’s money as he picked up Rahmid Ali’s overnight bag.

‘Only if you take some too,’ said Bongo.

‘Not for me personally, mate, but take a bag for yourself.’

Grabbing a cushion of money, Bongo hustled into the Camry. ‘I’ll put some into that safe-deposit box of yours. Remind me – Pantai in Makassar, right?’ he said, referring to a hotel in Sulawesi where Mac kept money, guns and alternative identity documents.

‘Don’t get cheeky,’ said Mac as Bongo started the car. ‘Get out of here, and call me in a couple of days, huh? Let me know you made it.’

‘Sure, brother,’ said Bongo, then floored the Camry onto the ring road, keeping the lights off.

Grabbing both bags, Mac ran in a crouch to a small hole in the fence, where the cyclone wire had peeled back from a concrete post. The military police vehicle revved louder, its headlights splashing around the scrub as Mac pushed the Adidas bag and Rahmid Ali’s leather hold-all through the gap and made to go through himself.

Putting one foot through the hole and then ducking down to push himself through sideways, Mac had his back to the concrete post as the MP 4?4 slowed, its tyres crunching on the gravel. Lurching away from the hole, Mac aimed for the drainage ditch where he’d already thrown the bags, but came up short.

‘Fuck!’ he muttered to himself as his belt caught on the concrete post.

As he struggled to free himself, the military police vehicle came to a stop, pretty much where Bongo had parked the Camry. Mac lay down as flat as he could, hoping the grass around the fence line would cover his body. The vehicle’s engine whirred and Mac listened to the voices of the soldiers chattering as a hand-operated searchlight strobed back and forth along the fence, illuminating Mac as he hovered above the ground, held by his belt.

Gulping, his heart going crazy, Mac slowly reached behind to the Beretta in the small of his back as the military police radio crackled close by. Getting his fingers around the grip, Mac eased the handgun out of his chinos and brought it around under his face, so he could smell the gun oil. Then, without moving his head, he looked back at the 4?4 and was instantly blinded by the searchlight as it penetrated his grass cover.

Trying to control his nervous panting, Mac stretched his right thumb over the cocking hammer of the Beretta and drew it down as slowly as he could, the clicking sounding louder than a drum solo to his ears. He assumed there were two MPs, perhaps a dog. He brought his handgun down level with the headlights, ready to take out at least one of the soldiers if he heard a rifle being cocked or footsteps getting too close.

The adrenaline pumped inexorably, and then came relief as one door slammed, muffling the military radio, and then another, before the 4?4 was put into gear. Finally, Mac exhaled as the engine tone changed and they were accelerating away.

Mac waited until he could no longer hear the 4?4 before sticking his head up over the grass. The night had returned to tropical stillness, a faint breeze from the Banda Sea gently touching the trees and scrub.

Working himself into a kneeling position, he unhooked his belt from the bolt that had a large washer on the end of it, and crawled into the drainage ditch. Standing straight, he tried to breathe deeply and calm his nerves – he wanted to have his shaking hands under control before he presented at the UN’s airport depot.

Mac made his way to a canvas hammock seat inside the C-130 and put the two bags between his feet. Trying to sleep, he sat back and let the events of the past four days roll over him while the Dutch aircrew loaded the cargo plane. There was a story somewhere in all that information, he thought, but he had to sleep before he could put it all together.

Voices sounded at the rear of the plane, and a tall Anglo man and a Timorese woman holding a baby in her arms approached the seating area.

‘G’day,’ said Mac, taking his hand off the Beretta. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Not bad, if we get out of here before the Aitarak arrives,’ said the man. ‘Ansell – Ansell Torvin,’ he said, offering his hand.

‘Richard Davis,’ replied Mac, shaking Torvin’s hand as he tried to place the familiar name.

‘What’s your story?’ asked Torvin, helping the woman belt herself into the opposite hammock seat.

‘Businessman in Dili, threatened by the militias,’ said Mac. ‘And you?’

‘I run an NGO – Rural Rehabilitation International – in Lospalos.’

‘Dangerous part of the world.’ said Mac. ‘What’s happening out there?’

‘The militias lure poor young men with money that comes from Jakarta,’ said Torvin wearily. ‘They hold big rallies in the soccer stadiums where they indoctrinate these youngsters against independence and give them automatic rifles and cash – it’s disgusting.’

‘You reported this?’ said Mac.

‘Yes, we’ve told DFAT about it,’ said Torvin.

‘And what do they say?’ asked Mac.

‘Ha!’ said Torvin, looking down at the woman, who smiled back. ‘They tell me I’m too close to the East Timorese.’

‘Discredited you?’ asked Mac, sleep coming on him.

Ansell Torvin laughed. ‘They’re such cowards, those Foreign Affairs bastards. They know the Prime Minister won’t hear a word against a Catholic NGO like ours, so they smear me politically.’

‘How?’ asked Mac, a little embarrassed.

‘They said I’m a mouthpiece for Falintil,’ said Torvin. ‘Can you believe these people? They called me a commie!’

Waking to the smell of bacon, eggs and coffee, Mac stretched and glanced at the Timor Sea through the window of his apartment. Breakfast usually finished at 9 am at Larrakeyah Army Base in Darwin, so he showered and shaved quickly, trying not to dwell on his battered face when he looked in the mirror.

Registering at the mess, Mac waited to be assigned a table as an athletic woman in civvies was leaving.

‘Macca,’ she said softly, as she came alongside.

‘Badders,’ said Mac, disappointed he’d missed the opportunity to have breakfast with Gillian Baddely, one of the few female officers in Australian military intelligence. ‘My timing sucks.’

‘As usual,’ said the cute brunette, giving him a look as she walked away.

Perusing the Australian while he ate toast and nursed a plunger of coffee, Mac pondered on how his life could have taken a different course. Gillian Baddely was the woman who’d told the Australian Army to go screw itself after it agreed to an Iraqi demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors should all be male. Gillian had dug her heels in and won the appointment, which had not made her many friends among the diggers.