Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘Okay, priority one,’ said Jim, holding his left thumb. ‘Snatch Blackbird and do so with minimum heat. Priority two: get as much intel on this Lombok facility as we can. Who knows what they’re making down there?’

‘Okay,’ said Mac.

‘And let’s remember that, as things stand,’ said Jim, ‘McQueen’s sample from Lombok shows that Indonesia has a legal and WHO-registered vaccine that could inoculate millions of Asians against a SARS-like respiratory disease. How many Western politicians want to claim responsibility for destroying that?’

‘So, who’s the cavalry?’ asked Mac.

‘Aussie special forces,’ said Jim. ‘Technically 4RAR Commandos – if that means anything – but for our purposes, known as the Six-Three Recon, okay?’

‘Where we meeting?’ asked Mac.

‘They’re in Timor.’

‘Cheeky buggers,’ said Mac as he stood.

Mac left the officers’ mess of the east-bound Madura Star – a Malaysian-registered container ship – and made his way to the guest stateroom. Shutting the door softly and snibbing the lock, he hauled a large green canvas kitbag from the floor onto the bed.

The locks were untouched and there were no signs of tampering. Jim had packed him two sets of drill fatigues, one in black and one in tan, as well as a black field jacket. There was a large digital camera and accompanying cable in a Ziploc bag and a black sat phone with which Mac could transmit digital pics. Spare batteries for the phone and camera were provided in their own ziplocked plastic bags along with a full set of marking flares. The single item Mac had requested – a Heckler amp; Koch P9s automatic pistol – was nestled in an aluminium gun box with two spare mags and a box of Ruger loads. Also in the box was a large screw-on suppressor that was longer than the gun itself. The P9s was no longer the weapon of choice in Mac’s circles because the fifteen-round Glocks and SIG Sauers – with their longer barrels for accuracy – were superseding the seven-round, close-range Heckler. But in Mac’s opinion the Heckler was still the most robust handgun you could buy, and its slide action worked best for sound-suppression, which was why the US Navy SEALs still used a version of it. Putting the box back in the bag, Mac noticed a pair of black Altama boots and a nylon bag containing two biohazard helmets – rubberised grey face masks with two breather cylinders sticking out of the jawpiece and a kind of hood that fell down the sides and back, making the wearer look like Darth Vader.

At the bottom of the bag was a packet of disposable rubber gloves and a small samples kit, not much bigger than a travelling first-aid kit. If he could manage to get into Lombok’s underground facility, DIA wanted samples of what was there, with the correct labelling protocol. There was also an electrical engineer’s work-up on the Lombok AgriCorp facility. It didn’t mean much to Mac, although the notes attached indicated that while DIA had no blueprints for the actual buildings, the wiring schemata showed PIN-enabled security doors, but no motion sensors in the buildings. However, it appeared there was circuitry for a security camera system.

Jim had also included a bulk pack of Hershey chocolate bars, about thirty of them in a sealed brown plastic bag. It was a reminder that, in the end, most spooks were shameless charmers and manipulators.

Dressing in the black fatigues, Mac put his boots beside the bunk, hit the bedside lamp, lay down in the dark and let his mind drift with the soft roll of the ship.

There’d be plenty of time for the cold, single focus of the gig. For now he thought about a girl named Jessica, and wondered at how she affected him. He’d always seen women as smart or hot or funny. They either ran rings around Mac, or they had him in stitches, or they looked great in a bikini. And sometimes they were all three. But Mac actually admired Jessica – she was a UCLA law student wandering around a war zone, demanding answers about her father; she had the strength to shoot a man dead, and the compassion to feel bad about it. As he dozed off he was wondering if he only liked her so much because it could never be, or if it could never be because he liked her too much.

Some time later a rap on the door woke Mac and for a moment he didn’t know where he was.

‘Ready, sir?’ came the first officer’s voice.

‘Yeah, mate,’ whispered Mac, looking at his G-Shock. It was 10.02 pm. Time to go.

The Royal Australian Navy’s submariners already had the flyingfox line over Madura Star ’s sides where it had been lashed to the poop railing. As Mac got to the edge of the decking he felt the warm sea breeze from the Indian Ocean. Slinging the kitbag over his shoulders he put on the harness, looped the pulley wheel over the rope and put his weight on it to make sure the wheel sat snugly.

Leaning forward, he swung first one leg then another over the railing, before pushing off from the side of the Madura Star. He felt the acceleration as he hurtled into the night, his feet held out in front of him like shock absorbers. Halfway across the gap, the submarine loomed out of the black, and Mac’s speed was slowed by the safety ropes. His bum fell slightly until he thought he was going into the dark, oily water below, then he was being hauled to the sail of a sub with a large 62 emblazoned on its side – it was the last of Australia’s Oberon-class boats, soon to be scrapped in favour of the Collins class.

‘Thanks, boys,’ said Mac to the crew who dragged him up to the duckboards and unfastened his harness.

Below decks, Mac was led to the officers’ wardroom, where he took a seat on a sofa that curved around the main table. Accepting the offer of coffee, Mac pulled the sealed manila envelope containing Jim’s work-up from the bag.

The envelope contained a plastic-covered map of the Cova Lima and Bobonaro districts – those areas immediately east of the West Timor border – and a list of the objectives that corresponded to designations on the map. By earlier agreement with Jim, the Americans had changed Blackbird’s location to Mars and the Lombok AgriCorp site was labelled Saturn.

A third marking on the map, labelled Neptune, was a recon target-of-opportunity. In the DIA briefing room, Tommy had two indistinct U2 fly-over pictures of Neptune which showed what looked like a small airfield, high in a valley in East Timor, near the border. There had been some radio and cell-phone chatter from around the site in which the word Boa had been detected, and they wanted Mac to take a look.

There was also a pocket-sized GPS device with the coordinates pre-programmed, although Mac trusted that with the 4RAR Commando boys the GPS would be redundant.

A muffled knock at the wardroom hatch was followed by the appearance of a smiling XO, who introduced himself.

‘Cranleigh – XO, sir,’ said the trim, fortyish bloke, before grabbing a coffee and sitting at the table opposite Mac. Pushing a piece of paper across the table, Cranleigh retained the one he was carrying.

‘Won’t be landing you by tender tonight, sir,’ he said in a cheery voice. ‘Indon Navy’s sweeping the south coast so we’ll go to Plan B, if that’s okay, sir?’

Mac read the message quickly and pushed it into his pocket as the sub eased over, as if it was freewheeling down a hill. The final orders – held back till he was on the sub – gave him an exact landing point on the shore, the E amp;E call sign of ‘Chinchilla’ and the colour blue. If the whole thing went pear-shaped, they’d go to an ‘evade and escape’ plan where he’d use the Commandos’ radio, issue ‘Chinchilla’ as the call to the Royal Australian Navy, give his coordinates and then throw blue flares when the helo got close. If he got it wrong, triggered red or orange flares, the helo would abort and head back to its ship.