Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘Macca!’ said Atkins, reaching out a hand of greeting in the lobby. ‘Sorry about the change of plans, but someone flew in overnight.’

Leading Mac through to the meeting room, Atkins chirped on about the weather and Indonesian politics. Mac’s heart sank as a fifty-something Anglo male with a bullfrog neck stood and held his tie to his stomach.

‘G’day, Alan, how’s it going?’ said the bloke, trying an overhand shake.

‘Not bad, Carl,’ said Mac, looking into the wonky eye of Davidson’s long-time rival, Carl Berquist. ‘Didn’t expect you to be here.’

‘Oh, you know, mate,’ said Berquist, trying to be chummy. ‘Just keeping an eye on what we’re up to.’

Mac managed not to snigger at the optical reference – Berquist’s punter’s eyes could be disconcerting if you hadn’t been around them for a while.

‘And I guess Tony’s in Canberra, keeping an eye on your analysts, right?’ said Mac, trying to make it light but failing.

Atkins gave Mac a death stare.

‘Alan’s been in the field for a while – tough time in East Timor,’ said Atkins, then held up a finger to Berquist. ‘One minute, Carl?’

Turning to Mac, Atkins was white-lipped as he led Mac out of the room by the elbow.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, McQueen?!’ he hissed as they reached the water cooler in reception.

‘Me?!’ said Mac, furious. ‘What the fuck are you doing, Marty?’

‘I’m debriefing you on fucking Masquerade, McQueen. It’s what we do, mate!’

The receptionist, a young Anglo woman, cleared her throat and disappeared through a door behind the desk.

‘See what you’ve done now?’ said Mac, aware that a couple of former footy players arguing might seem intimidating.

‘Grow up, Macca!’ said Atkins, as he straightened his tie.

‘I don’t need to be lectured on how debriefs work, Marty,’ said Mac, pointing at the meeting room door. ‘But we don’t debrief to the analysis and assessment people.’

‘Gee, sorry, Macca. Didn’t know you were making the rules for Aussie intelligence now.’

‘We do it the way we do it so I can say things to you informally that might not go into the CX.’

‘You think Carl can’t tell the difference?’ demanded Atkins, as furious as Mac. ‘He’s a director, Macca! He was spooking when you were in primary school.’

‘So they say, but Tony’s the relevant director,’ said Mac.

‘ Relevant?! ’ growled Atkins. ‘Try some relevant manners.’

‘ Me?! ’ snorted Mac, breathing shallow. ‘That’s rich.’

‘Yes, manners! You’re not going to come into my office and speak to the director of analysis like that, mate. Not how it works,’ said Atkins, his face red.

Taking a breather, Mac and Atkins put their hands on their hips.

‘You could have told me, mate,’ said Mac, taking the edge off his voice. ‘Frankly, I would have liked some warning that I was going to be discussing Masquerade in front of someone like Carl Berquist.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Atkins.

‘Come on,’ said Mac, trying to push Atkins back to the meeting room.

‘No,’ said Atkins, shrugging off the hand. ‘What did you mean by that comment?’

‘Come on, Marty – Berquist is pure Jakarta Lobby.’

‘ What lobby?’ snapped Atkins.

‘You know, the ones who say there are no militias in East Timor, and if there are, they’re not connected to the military, and even if they are connected it’s a rogue element, but even if they’re not, they’re a calming influence on the violence, et cetera, et cetera

…’

‘Oh, that lobby! You mean the people who want some kind of evidence of homicidal militias controlled and funded from Jakarta before we write reports that the Prime Minister is supposed to rely on? Is that the conspiracy we’re talking about?’

‘Marty – it’s a mess over there, mate. I wanted to debrief, just a couple of field guys talking it through.’

‘Fuck’s sake, McQueen! Berquist was a field guy.’

‘Oh, really?’ Mac goaded. ‘He had a few lunches in Beijing or Tokyo?’

Sighing, Atkins shook his head. ‘I know you get stressed, okay? You get the worst gigs and it must be mentally tiring…’

Mac nodded, needing air. Atkins was playing the stress leave card.

‘But not everyone’s out to get you, Macca,’ said Atkins. ‘So let’s go and do the debrief and show me what you’ve got.’

Nodding again, Mac bit his bottom lip and turned towards the meeting room.

‘And Macca?’ said Atkins, lowering his voice. ‘Just so you know – he’s here on authority of the DG, okay?’

‘The DG?’ asked Mac, confused. ‘What, our DG?’

‘Yeah, mate – I think they want to retrieve you.’

As he turned away, Mac managed a snigger at the intel-speak. But it didn’t matter what pseudo-American terminology they used, Atkins was saying the Director-General of the firm wanted him back in Canberra.

By the time Mac was five minutes into his run-through, the meeting had become Berquist’s debrief, and every point Mac tried to make became an exercise in Canberra’s scepticism.

‘No, Carl, I have no evidence linking the death camp to Jakarta, except the bulldozer on the army truck,’ sighed Mac for the umpteenth time and sick of the questions framed for the listening posts. ‘It’s corroborated by third-party intel from a Falintil commander.’

‘The terrorists?’ said Berquist, his wandering eye starting to annoy Mac. ‘You had good reason to trust these terrorists? Their bona fides check out?’

‘Let’s just call them Falintil, okay, Carl?’ said Mac, refusing to be baited. ‘They got word of a refugee camp for the villagers moved out of the south coast – a camp that no one seemed to return from.’

‘We confirmed this?’

‘They took me to the camp,’ said Mac. ‘I sighted as many as a hundred and thirty bodies.’

‘But we didn’t confirm that this was the camp?’

‘Falintil identified it.’

‘What about the identity of this Antoine, Ant -’

‘Antonio? No, I didn’t confirm his ID but I sighted the camp and the bodies and the bulldozer was on an army truck and the intel spooks escorting it were -’

‘We know who ran the camp?’ interrupted Berquist.

‘Antonio was a soldier in the local regiment, the 1635, and he was ordered -’

‘But we didn’t confirm who Antonio was, or if he even exists?’ asked Berquist.

Mac felt physically exhausted and overwhelmed by Berquist’s relentless style. Worst of all, Berquist may have been right: all Mac had was a visit to what he thought was a death camp, a run-in with some Kopassus spooks and a bulldozer driver. The only evidence for Antonio’s identity was the say-so of a guerrilla commander.

‘You’re right, Carl,’ said Mac, beaten.

‘You obviously saw a lot of corpses at that camp,’ said Berquist. ‘And it’s affected you. But that doesn’t mean foul play, does it? Perhaps they were sick?’ He turned to Atkins, who nodded.

‘Here’s another scenario,’ said Berquist. ‘The militias clear some villages on the south coast, the refugees are walking west and they catch, say, typhoid, and the Indonesians try to quarantine them in a remote camp.’

Remembering Davidson’s warning to do the debrief in a friendly manner, Mac shifted the focus of the conversation.

‘I’ve told you about the Lombok AgriCorp facility, Carl. What do you make of that?’ said Mac.

‘Could be legitimate, yet confidential,’ said the director of analysis. ‘Most armies have R amp;D programs. The Australian Army spent years trying to develop counter-malaria medicines, all of it hush-hush.’