Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘Okay,’ said Mac, distracted and tired. ‘Well Blackbird tells me she doesn’t know about Boa and she never copied a document that covers it.’

‘Does she just?’

‘Yeah, but I’ll bring her in, get to the bottom of it, right?’

‘Sure, Macca,’ said Davidson, a resigned tone in his voice. ‘Let’s see what this bird sings.’ He hung up.

‘That Jim as in DIA?’ asked Robbo, surprising Mac. ‘In Denpasar?’

‘Ah, yeah,’ said Mac, who didn’t like eavesdroppers. ‘Maybe.’

‘Come on, McQueen,’ said Robbo with a smile. ‘I remember him in Jordan, after he was kicked out of UNSCOM. I heard he was in Denpasar.’

‘UNSCOM?’ said Mac. ‘What was Jim doing with the weapons inspectors?’

‘Who knows?’ said Robbo, distracted by a bird flapping noisily out of a tree. ‘I think he was on loan from Detrick – Saddam’s people challenged him and the UN asked him to leave.’

‘Really?’ said Mac.

‘Yeah, mate,’ said Robbo, turning to go. ‘All that UN political shit.’

Head pounding with the possibilities, Mac tried not to dwell on it. Detrick was the nickname for the US Army’s Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease. Fort Detrick was where you went when you wanted to know everything there was to know about biological weapons.

The Timor Sea looked oily as the sun rose above the horizon, turning the ocean from a deep vermilion to green.

Mac’s hide looked over the point on the south coast where he’d come ashore two days earlier, and as the birds started their morning song, Robbo and Beast prepared a natural crow’s nest beneath the palms. Throwing a couple of field jackets on the sea grasses, they gave Blackbird a bed of sorts – somewhere to relax and lay low till the exfil at midnight.

‘Okay here, Macca?’ asked Robbo, M4 held across his forearm, sunnies pushed up. ‘Thought we’d recce the area, see who’s who.’

‘Yeah, sweet, mate,’ said Mac with a small yawn. ‘Might get a kip myself.’

As Robbo and Beast moved out into the surrounding beachhead, Mac built a sleeping hollow for himself at Blackbird’s nine o’clock, but higher in the crow’s nest where he could see anyone approaching.

Making to lie down, he noticed Blackbird sitting up and looking at him.

‘Have a headache,’ she groaned, rubbing the heel of her left hand into her forehead. ‘Shouldn’t wake me and then make me walk so far.’

‘I know the feeling,’ said Mac. ‘I haven’t slept properly for more than two days.’

Mac gave her his spare bottle of water and dug into his rucksack. ‘We thought you were being tortured up there.’

‘They didn’t hurt me,’ she said, long black hair held up in a topknot. ‘Just lots of questions.’

‘Benni ask you the questions, Maria?’

In the slight hesitation that followed, Mac could see her constructing a lie. It was the immutable law of his profession that the true liars always believed they were going unnoticed.

‘Benni?’ she asked, sipping some water.

‘Benni wasn’t asking the questions?’

‘I not know -’

‘Florita said you knew him, Maria,’ said Mac softly, then let the silence hang. It was Blackbird’s turn to do the running.

Pulling his small first-aid pack from the rucksack, Mac found some packets of Xanax and Mogadon. Burrowing deeper into the small zippered bag, he found the Nurofens, typically used with snatchees who felt nauseous from the benzodiazepines Mac gave the uncooperative ones.

Pushing a couple of the painkillers from the foil, he passed them to Blackbird, who was looking sadly into her water.

‘You know my sister?’ she asked finally.

‘I met her a week ago, in a hut with some soldiers.’

‘Was she okay?’ said Blackbird, snapping out of her sulk. ‘Tell me she was okay!’

‘We helped her out, Maria.’

‘She okay now? She home?’ she wanted to know, concern in her dark eyes.

‘She was fine, but anything that happened was against her will, okay?’

‘You do not have to tell me that!’ she said, firing up. ‘Florita is a good girl!’

After a quiet sorry, Mac mused on the pride of the Timorese even as the women accepted the risk of official rape and the boys knew that a military execution might result from a simple cheeky comment.

Wiping tears from her cheeks, Blackbird tried to regain her composure. ‘What did Florita tell you?’

‘She told me about Benni Sudarto,’ said Mac.

‘What did she say?!’ she snapped.

‘Why don’t you tell me?’ asked Mac.

Blackbird looked away, her back heaving through the sweatshirt.

‘You have no right!’ she cried. ‘Do not come in my country and be the judge of me.’

‘It was a question, Maria – not a judgment. What is your relationship with Benni Sudarto?’

Shaking her head slowly, she gave him a hard look. ‘You people – the Indonesi, the Australi – you come to Timor and play with us like a chess game.’

‘That’s not -’

‘All I wanted was to go to the university in Surabaya, okay?’ she said, defiant. ‘First, Indonesi army say, Work for us for a year and we maybe sponsor you to Surabaya. Then Australi say, Tell us the Indonesi secrets and we’ll send you and Florita to any university you want; Surabaya, Sydney, Queensland – you naming it, Maria! Then Captain Sudarto, he take me out in his car, and he tell me, Work for me, Maria, and your family will live. Let me down, and I kill them in front of you.’ She was really sobbing now, tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘What’s Operasi Boa?’ asked Mac, thinking he might be able to unhinge her.

‘Boa?’ she said, recovering her former poise. ‘I don’t even know who you are.’

‘I told -’

‘You could be anyone, you could be working for anybody. I never met you.’

Shrugging, Mac conceded her point. His job was to bring her out of East Timor, and then her trusted controller – Atkins most likely – would run the debrief.

‘I am sorry to waste your time and make you run around in jungle,’ she said, with kind eyes. ‘But I did what you asked, I took the files and did the drop box, so please do not ask me to betray my own family.’

‘I thought the Timorese were proud people,’ said Mac, trying for one last manipulation to turn her back.

‘We are,’ smiled the young woman, sniffling. ‘And I am proud to keep my family alive.’

Looking out over the beach, Mac assessed possible problem points for the exfil. The tide was in and by midnight it would be almost back in the same place. He would have to be careful to bring the boat in between a couple of markers and, walking to the water’s edge, he identified the distinctive rocks, gave them names and committed them to memory. He wanted to be able to give the navy boat crew some basic trig points to get them to shore without being snagged on the reef just below the surface.

Looking at his G-Shock, he felt a wave of fatigue and wondered if he shouldn’t take a nap while the commandos were still guarding the perimeter.

Making a single round of the crow’s nest, he made back to his hide and slugged at his water while Blackbird slept. It was amazing how sweet water tasted when it was all you had, he mused. As he replaced the bottle in his rucksack, he noticed the water was slightly milky. Licking at his lips, he realised it actually was sweet – his thirst had nothing to do with it.

Mind spinning, Mac reached for his rucksack, eyelids starting to droop. Pulling out the first-aid kit, he clocked that one of the benzo boxes had been torn open, the half-empty foil beside it.

‘Fuck,’ thought Mac, ‘she’s used half a packet.’