Mark Abernethy - Double back

Moving east on Hasanudin, Mac walked a conservative hundred metres behind Jim. Mac had bought a dark jacket, was wearing sunglasses, and he hadn’t been made as they moved towards the park at the river.

Mac’s biggest concern was with the underground facility at Lombok. He now replayed in his mind the conversation he’d had with Joao. The Falintil commander had told him the village clearances on the south coast had been traced to both the death camp near Memo and the Lombok facility. They were the same program, run by the same people, according to Falintil, who Mac recognised as the most authoritative intelligence source in East Timor. Testing Falintil’s intel and motives, Mac couldn’t see how they were deceiving or provoking Aussie intelligence. Joao had had no idea who Mac really was on the visit to the death camp and he’d seemed prepared to shoot Mac at the Lombok site.

If the people at the death camp and the people in the inhalation chambers were part of the same program of vaccine-testing, thought Mac, why didn’t any of the corpses at the death camp have evidence of an inoculation? Bongo had checked a cross-section of the bodies, which were naked. He’d said they were clear of any marking or punctures – unlikely for a bunch of people being forcibly injected with a SARS vaccine.

Jim turned right off Hasanudin Street and onto the paths that snaked alongside the river through the city’s parklands. Following, Mac stayed behind an entwined couple.

So if the people cleared from the villages of the south coast weren’t being tested with a vaccine for SARS, what were they dying from? The conclusions chased him around in circles about as fast as the questions, and as Jim stopped at a park bench and sat down, Mac edged behind a family group and keyed his phone. The narrow point of all the information he’d seen so far – on Lombok, Sudarto, Lee Wa Dae and Haryono – was Jim himself. Jim had apparently been at Fort Detrick at some point in his career, which didn’t necessarily mean anything. Detrick was certainly the American headquarters of research into bio-weapons, but intelligence people were regularly trained in specific disciplines before being sent into the field. Mac had been trained in economic and financial sabotage, he’d done a rotation at the US Army’s Aberdeen testing grounds and also with Israel’s domestic intelligence service. It didn’t mean much.

Mac just wanted to chat with Jim, see what was really going on. Waiting for the phone to answer, Mac sidled behind a tree and kept an eye on the American.

‘Yep,’ came the gruff reply after the phone had rung several times.

‘Scotty,’ said Mac. ‘It’s Albion.’

‘Macca!’ said Mac’s first mentor in the Aussie SIS, Rod Scott. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Good, mate,’ said Mac, glad to hear Scotty’s voice again, even as he sucked on his ever-present cigarettes. ‘How’s Canberra? Cold enough for you?’

‘Fuck, mate,’ said Scotty. ‘Jack Ormiston took me out sailing on the lake last weekend. Never been so cold, mate – had to get the barman to liberate that bottle of Glayva, didn’t I, Macca? Warm a bloke up.’

‘Doctor’s orders,’ said Mac, laughing.

‘So what can I do you for?’ said Scotty.

‘I needed a quick reminder on someone I’m dealing with up here.’

‘Yeah?’ said Scotty.

‘Yeah, bloke called Jim – DIA,’ said Mac, hoping that Scotty wasn’t going to stonewall him, pull any cellular bullshit.

‘About your size, five years older? Sandy hair, Annapolis ring?’ said Scotty, who had spent most of his career with the firm in the Middle East, ensuring Canadian and Russian wheat growers never gained an advantage over Australian exporters.

‘That’s the one – thought you might have run into him during UNSCOM or INVO,’ said Mac, referring to the weapons inspection teams in Iraq.

‘I remember him from the Rasheed Hotel in Baggers,’ said Scotty. ‘He was a funny bugger.’

‘Yeah?’ asked Mac.

‘Yeah, very intense – he played cat-and-mouse for months with this Asian guy who was working for Saddam. Next thing I heard, Jim was punching out a State Department luncher after being refused a place on UNSCOM Four.’

‘Why?’

‘State Department sided with the White House and allowed Saddam to blackball DIA’s appointments. And Jim knocked out someone’s teeth.’

‘That’s it?’

‘I was never dealing with him, Macca,’ said Scotty. ‘But Jim’s up there? Jakarta? Denpasar?’

‘That surprise you?’ asked Mac, none the wiser.

‘It’s just that – well, you know Jim’s background?’

‘Fort Detrick?’ said Mac.

‘Yeah, but I think his taskings come from the Twentieth Support Command,’ said Scotty.

‘Oh shit,’ uttered Mac.

‘Yeah, mate – that’s why the Iraqis wouldn’t let him onto that inspection team,’ said Scotty. ‘He doesn’t inspect bio-weapons – he shuts them down.’

The Balinese man in the suit but no tie walked past Jim, and Mac slipped from behind his tree to approach the American. As Mac set out, the Balinese man stopped at the railing beside the river and looked at a folded newspaper. Then Jim stood and walked to him.

Leaping behind a set of shrubs that got him out of sight, Mac peeked around and saw Jim stand next to the Balinese man, and then Jim was walking towards Mac, the newspaper now under his arm.

His breathing getting faster, Mac tried to plot the best course. But then Jim came into sight and slowed as he saw Mac.

‘Nice afternoon for a walk,’ said Mac, as they both stopped.

‘Beautiful,’ said Jim, recovering from the surprise and continuing on his way.

‘Mind if I join you?’ asked Mac, and fell in with Jim as he strolled by.

‘It’s not what you think, McQueen,’ said Jim as they walked through the park.

‘What do I think?’ said Mac.

‘This isn’t the time for games, pal,’ said Jim, lips whitening.

‘Good,’ said Mac. ‘So let’s talk.’

‘What do you want?’ said Jim, casing the park and then moving to a bench facing the river. ‘And can we make it quick?’

Sitting beside Jim, Mac tried to be clear. ‘I guess when Aussies deal with the Americans, we can get a bit dazzled by it all.’

‘Dazzled?’ said Jim, smirking.

‘Yeah, the confidence and the power,’ said Mac. ‘I’m seconded to Defense Intelligence Agency and because I trust the man who seconded me, I don’t question too much the people I’m being briefed by.’

‘I see,’ said Jim.

‘So I think I’m chasing a woman called Blackbird because she has the key to a military operation called Boa,’ said Mac. ‘But there’s also an unrelated facility I have to infiltrate while I’m over there and the only intel I’m given by the Americans is that it’s part of a vaccine program and it’s connected to a drug lord.’

‘Okay,’ said Jim, lighting a cigarette.

‘So there I am, down in this underground hell, being shot at in the darkness, and I can’t really see what’s in front of my eyes because I can only see it in the context of what I’ve been supplied. I’m looking for a vaccine program and a drug lab – and I have eyes staring back at me. Human eyes!’

‘I’m sorry -’

‘And then, after I’m back, and I’m more confused than when I started, I realise that the place I should have begun is you, Jim, and who exactly you are.’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘You’re not a DIA generalist, sent to observe the East Timor situation for the US government,’ said Mac. ‘You work for the Twentieth Support Command of the US Army.’

‘Look, McQueen -’

‘You’re a bio-weapons expert who got ejected from UNSCOM Four and you believe Lombok AgriCorp is a bio-weapons facility, don’t you?’