Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘At least one transmission is working,’ said Robbo, pointing at the American sat phone which Mac was trying to connect to the Nikon.

‘It was working,’ said Mac, failing to connect the data cable to the mangled jack in the camera. ‘Teach me to go dropping the damn thing on a concrete floor.’

‘So what did the Falintil bloke say?’ asked Robbo, crouching.

‘You mean after he told me he was going to execute me for not letting those people go?’ said Mac, putting the data cable and camera into his rucksack.

‘Yeah,’ said Robbo, with an edge.

‘He decided that two million US dollars into Falintil’s pocket was a good exchange for our lives,’ said Mac, not mentioning that he also wanted the mule line of money heisted to further break the connection between North Korea and the Indonesian military. ‘Rodrigo and Yohannes are going to be helpful on that score.’

‘So he’s out of our hair?’ said Robbo, looking suspicious.

‘Don’t know for certain,’ said Mac truthfully. ‘But he knows we have business in Maliana, and I’m pretty sure his crew will leave us alone.’

‘So, we’re still going in? To Maliana?’ said Robbo.

‘Yep,’ said Mac. ‘I’m thinking this mess is as good a distraction as we could have hoped for.’

‘In that case, we’d better move now,’ said Robbo, standing. ‘By the way, about before – I know you don’t dream up these operations, but I need warning -’

‘Would it make the boys any happier?’ asked Mac.

‘Not happier, mate, but you holding back reflects badly on me.’

‘Can you imagine tabbing all the way across Timor when the boys know that the target is a facility that grows a deadly disease?’ said Mac, drinking water. ‘Next thing you know, you have soldiers drawing straws and getting all political with each other, see who gets to suit up and who doesn’t, right?’

Robbo nodded, conceding the truth of what Mac was saying. In general, soldiers did not like going into the environment that existed at Lombok, regardless of their training.

‘I needed to be down there with the best, not with the guy who got the short straw or who’s out of favour with Robbo,’ said Mac. ‘Maybe even the person who was taking a piss when the warning order was made.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Robbo.

‘You simply gave me the best, and we did the gig, mate,’ said Mac, checking his rucksack. ‘I’ll buy you a beer if we nail it – but you know what, Robbo?’

‘What?’

‘I’d do it the same way again,’ said Mac.

Spirits lifted among the troop when Beast and Johnno reappeared, having been cut off from the base by the gunfight. As they regrouped and checked their gear, Robbo told them that the time to hit the Kopassus compound was now, while the distraction at Lombok was active.

As they walked through the darkness, tension high, Mac went over the recent events, trying to piece them together. The Americans at DIA had briefed Mac on the possibility of a secret facility underground at Lombok but, having found it, he wasn’t sure that Lee Wa Dae and Ishy Haryono were making nightclub drugs for Australia and Japan. He’d never heard of a drug lord using inhalation chambers – that sort of terminology was associated with vaccine testing on animals. What had Haryono got himself into at Lombok, wondered Mac. It was either illegal vaccine testing or it was bioweapons. And the scientists packing up to leave? Had they succeeded or failed in their research?

There was one thing that niggled at Mac. The people still alive in one bank of inhalation chambers were all Portuguese and mestizo – straight-haired East Timorese. The bodies that Mac saw loaded onto that Hino truck came from the other bank of inhalation chambers, and they all seemed to have been Maubere – the native Melanesians of East Timor. It was probably nothing, thought Mac.

At a little after 9.30 they entered the farm belt that surrounded Maliana.

Didge halted at a ridge and looked down. ‘That’s it, boss,’ he said, pointing.

Stepping up, Robbo peered through his field-glasses at a large compound with a main group of buildings next to a smaller compound of buildings – the Kopassus camp.

‘Looks quiet,’ whispered Robbo, handing the glasses to Mac. ‘And I never trust quiet. Check the main gate – I make it three, regular infantry.’

Mac nodded.

‘Behind all that, you have that secondary compound which is the Kopassus intel base,’ said Robbo. ‘I’m assuming that any prisoner would be kept in the interrogation centre right inside the entrance, that white building with the six windows. See it?’

‘So what’s the call?’ asked Mac.

‘Go in the fence nearest to the jungle,’ said Robbo, pointing, ‘and make it real fast. Lightning raid – just rush ’em.’

‘Who?’

‘Johnno, Beast and me,’ said Robbo. ‘The rest covering with rifles and grenades.’

‘I’m going in,’ said Mac. ‘If it goes to shit, I have to be there.’

‘No – we need you out here,’ said Robbo. ‘If we have to get out of Timor with that girl, I want you running it, not lying in a Kopassus camp with a bullet in your head.’

Mac lay on the knoll overlooking the Kopassus intel camp, observing the action through his Leica binos. Below him, Beast and Johnno covered Robbo, who stood in the lee of the main building, examining a little screen he held in two hands. Having augered through the side of the building and pushed a fibre-optic camera through the hole, Robbo was now looking at the screen to see what was inside.

‘Come on!’ hissed Mac, checking his G-Shock. It was 12.11 am.

‘Worth getting this part right,’ whispered Didge, lying beside Mac, his M4 shouldered, ready to create supporting fire.

‘I know,’ said Mac. ‘But I’d like to have a few hours’ start on these guys before sun-up. I hate -’

‘Look,’ said Didge, interrupting Mac.

Robbo slowly pulled his fibre optic from the hole in the wall and gestured for Beast, who turned around so Robbo could put the screen and camera in his pack. Robbo then gave a hand command which led to suppressors being screwed onto handguns and Johnno drawing his black Ka-bar combat knife. Next thing, they were moving out of sight around the front of the building.

Raising himself from his prone position, Didge groaned slightly at the pain in his leg. Then, assuming a kneeling-marksman pose he shouldered the M4. Adrenaline rising, Mac swung his Leicas to the left as Mitch emerged from the tree line – weapon at his shoulder – and stealthed further along the security fence. Toolie remained absolutely still in the standing-marksman pose, still looking like a bloke going fishing. It was a classic supporting-fire configuration, covering the raiding party from both inside and outside aggression.

Mac forced himself to stay calm. If the snatch didn’t go well, he reckoned they’d get about five hundred metres before they were taken apart by the Indonesian military. Their only advantage was that the base seemed deserted while the Kodim Maliana took care of the Falintil problem at the Lombok facility.

Didge nudged Mac and pointed at the Kopassus camp entry. Two soldiers in red berets and jungle cams walked up the slight rise into the camp.

‘Blue Dog, this is Albion – two Bandits at your four o’clock; repeat Bandits at your four,’ said Mac into his radio mic.

The soldier nearest the intel building suddenly swivelled, looking at the building the commandos had just entered. Suddenly, his eyes widened and Johnno appeared from the shadows, slapped a hand across the Indonesian’s face and brought his knife quickly across the bloke’s throat. As the soldier sagged in Johnno’s arms, the second Kopassus soldier froze, then fell to the ground as three shots tore silently into his chest. Suppressors were a hassle to configure and to carry, but they were amazingly effective.