Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘You okay?’ asked Davidson, examining Mac’s face.

‘I’m tired,’ said Mac, sipping at a cold beer while the throng of Denpasar passed on the street. ‘But I’m okay.’

‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

‘Sure, Tony,’ said Mac, well aware that, in the intelligence game, emotional or psychological problems were an express lane to a desk job.

‘Okay,’ said Davidson, casing the restaurant, ‘get some rest and you’ll be contacted by your new controller tomorrow.’

‘We know who?’

‘Yep. Jim, from DIA,’ said Davidson.

‘Why the Yanks?’ asked Mac, thinking back to his chat with Jim in Darwin.

‘They’ve been on Bill Yarrow for a while, as I understand,’ said Davidson. ‘They don’t like the company he keeps. Now they hear an Aussie officer’s been in this, um, facility…’

‘Lombok AgriCorp?’

‘That’s the one – it’s of interest to the Pentagon.’

‘Why?’

Davidson took a swig of his beer. ‘When was the last time anyone from DIA spoke to you in a full sentence?’

‘Probably the last time I saw rocking-horse manure,’ said Mac.

‘Done any work on our presidential problem?’ asked Davidson, lowering his voice.

‘I haven’t been able to find Rahmid’s controller,’ said Mac. ‘Although I think he was working out of a front in KL.’

Unfolding his hotel stationery, Mac gave Davidson the phone numbers and addresses of Penang Trading and Andromeda IT, which Davidson jotted on his detective’s pad.

‘The controller is going to be difficult,’ said Mac, ‘but I think we’ve found who Rahmid was running as an agent in Dili.’

As Davidson went to write the name and address on his pad, he stopped and looked up at Mac. ‘That’s PT Watu Selatan,’ he said, looking around the restaurant. ‘That’s a company set up by Soeharto’s generals!’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Mac.

‘Good work, mate,’ said Davidson. ‘But it’s still hush-hush, okay?’

‘Sure, Tony. Are we going to approach this guy?’

‘We have to,’ said Davidson.

‘Be careful who you send,’ warned Mac.

‘Careful doesn’t come close,’ said Davidson.

Watching the All-Star baseball game on the big screen, Mac washed down shots of Bundaberg rum with cold Bintangs at the Bar Barong, a few blocks from Puputan Square. American commentators screamed about what Mark McGwire was doing wrong and what Sammy Sosa wasn’t doing at all as Mac lounged on his stool.

On the bar in front of him sat a small white envelope that Jessica had slipped into his wheelie bag at Larrakeyah. It said Richard on the front, in blue ballpoint, and had a small heart beside it. He’d avoided opening it, not wanting to get mired in distractions. The letter would either profess a love he couldn’t return or it would make him feel bad about her father, as if he and Bongo hadn’t done enough. And maybe they hadn’t. Mac had withheld information about Bill Yarrow’s whereabouts and, as much as he could justify it, he didn’t feel good about it.

‘Another, mister?’ asked the barman.

Mac nodded, dropping the rupiah on the wooden counter as the commentators turned their hysteria to Ken Griffey’s ability to hit the advertising hoardings at the back of Fenway Park.

Bundy burning in his stomach, Mac slugged at the Bintang, deciding that the last thing he needed in his fatigued state was a female complication. Jessica Yarrow was beautiful and fun but she was way out of his price-range. Jessica was going to graduate from law school, join a big law firm and move to the suburbs with the perfect husband. By contrast, Mac had a detective father and his mother was a nursing sister at Rockie Base Hospital – he was a rugby league player who went to Nudgee College on scholarship to play rugby union. Thanks to Nudgee, Mac had gained the education and the self-belief to go to UQ and apply to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. But in his heart he was still a footy player from Rockhampton who was never going to chase the kind of money that the Jessica Yarrows expected as their due.

‘Rubbish, mister?’ asked the barman, pointing to the letter on the counter after he’d picked up Mac’s empties.

‘No,’ said Mac, trying to think. ‘But it can go in the can.’

Watching the barman toss the letter in the trash, Mac felt something move inside him. It wasn’t relief.

The mango and rockmelon went down nicely with strong coffee for Mac, who was nursing a medium-sized hangover in his corner of the Natour Bali’s dining room. A Jakarta Post lay unopened at the empty table setting opposite and Mac picked it up to use as a prop to look around the breakfast crowd: corporate and government types, mostly, he surmised, and no eyes. The Natour was not the hotel you stayed in for a beach holiday. It was in the centre of Denpasar and Mac liked it because it was hard to hide behind a loud shirt or a silly holiday hat.

Jim appeared at the maitre d’s dais just before 9 am. Mac raised his hand unobtrusively and Jim made his way across the room, seeming casual but seeing everything.

‘Jim,’ said Mac, shaking hands. ‘Want to order something?’

‘No thanks,’ said the American, sitting. ‘Already ate.’

‘Hope you don’t mind,’ said Mac, buttering his toast.

‘No, go ahead. Nice place you’ve got here,’ said Jim, ostentatiously looking behind him, along the skirting board and up the walls to the ceilings.

‘Pretty sure we’re clean,’ said Mac, who’d already scouted for listening devices and cameras.

‘You’re in, I hear?’ said Jim.

‘Sure,’ said Mac, spreading honey.

‘Good. Welcome to Operation Totem.’ Jim leaned across and speared a piece of Mac’s rockmelon with his fork. ‘I guess you figured that we’re interested in that Lombok building in Maliana, right?’

‘Well, I got you a sample – the analysis says it’s a vaccine program for one of those super-pneumonias.’

‘Sure – it’s a vaccine, and it does have a WHO registration,’ said Jim.

‘So?’

‘We just want a closer look, okay?’

‘So what’s the gig?’ asked Mac, pouring coffee.

‘We’ll have a chat about the details,’ said Jim, thanking the waitress as she arrived with his cup. ‘But the number-one objective of Totem is to snatch Maria Gersao, bring her to safety.’

‘Thought you didn’t know who she was?’ said Mac.

‘You know how it is – we’ve had eyes on your Blackbird for some time, making sure she doesn’t get into trouble,’ said Jim. ‘Before we could bring her in, she disappeared.’

‘I see,’ said Mac. ‘So why is Blackbird so important?’

‘She photocopied a document at army HQ.’

‘A document?’ asked Mac. ‘What was it?’

‘It concerned something called Operasi Boa – you’re aware of it?’

‘Yes,’ said Mac, ‘but I don’t know what it is.’

‘We want any copies she made, and we’d like to talk with her,’ said Jim. ‘If we can get to her, we might just save her life.’

Tommy aimed his pointer at the large black-and-white aerial photograph being projected onto the wall of the briefing room. One of the analysts with the Defense Intelligence Agency, Tommy was a swaggering, bearish operative whose job was to track the supply chains of medical and scientific research programs.

‘This is the Maliana area of Bobonaro regency, taken ten days ago,’ said Tommy.

Mac was sitting in the first-floor briefing room of the DIA building in Denpasar with Jim and a yuppie analyst called Simon who looked as if he would be happier in a stockbroker’s office.

‘Lombok is a vaccine facility,’ said Tommy in his no-nonsense Brooklyn accent. ‘And most materiel used in this program is DPI.’