Mark Abernethy - Double back

Grabbing at Amir’s SIG Sauer, Mac leapt to his feet as Augusto Da Silva’s gun levelled at him. Tossing the SIG Sauer to Da Silva – as if giving it to him – Mac used the lawyer’s momentary confusion and inexperience with a gun to launch himself across the desk at the man.

Bringing his left forearm down hard on Da Silva’s wrist as he landed on the other side of the desk, Mac knocked the handgun from his grip.

Spinning expertly, as if matadoring a bull, Da Silva let the bulk of Mac’s momentum go past him, taking only a minor hit from Mac’s left shoulder. Picking himself off the floor, Mac took a kick in the jaw which staggered him back towards the still-smoking rubbish bin. Wanting to reach in there and pull out whatever was burning, Mac could only steal a quick peek before Da Silva lashed out with a roundhouse kick to Mac’s mouth followed by a perfectly balanced one-two-three punching combination, which Mac managed to block and back away from.

Great, thought Mac as he heaved for breath: a lawyer who knows kung-fu!

‘It’s over, Augusto,’ barked Mac through his mashed mouth. ‘Just let me have the file.’

‘Think you’re the big man, eh?’ snarled Da Silva, advancing with equal parts poise and desperation. ‘Locking a man in a car trunk? Well where’s that big ape to save you now, McQueen?’

Blocking Da Silva’s thigh kick with a raised knee, Mac jerked to his right as a straight left sailed half a centimetre past his nose, giving him an opening to Da Silva’s exposed left temple. Mac lashed at the open target with a straight right but Da Silva was quicker, simply shrugging enough to glance the punch off the point of his shoulder. Mac still had momentum on his side, and followed the failed straight right with an elbow to the teeth, which turned into a forearm to the throat. Grunting and staggering back, Da Silva didn’t see Mac’s stamp kick to the groin, a shot that connected with the pubic bone, bringing Da Silva down to Mac’s height and allowing Mac a big uppercut off his left hand. Connecting perfectly on the point of Da Silva’s chin, the tall lawyer briefly lost his balance but collected himself as Mac tried to force the advantage and get a choke-hold on the bloke.

Throwing a fast round-fend with his left hand, Da Silva whacked Mac’s right hand out of the way and flat-handed him on the bridge of the nose, forcing Mac’s face upwards against the set of his neck and his body. Falling to the side, Mac struggled for balance, his nose busted and eyes filling with tears as he tried to keep contact with Da Silva. The bloke liked to swing those long arms and legs, and if Mac could stay close he might just out-mongrel him.

Grabbing a handful of Da Silva’s silky hair, Mac endured three fast punches in the face in order to get a second hand onto the hair and use the double-fist hold to tug the head around. Swinging punches wildly, Da Silva connected with Mac’s cheekbones and chin. Suddenly, Mac jerked upwards with the hair, and then pulled downwards with a snap of both hands, driving Da Silva’s face into the corner of the glass-covered desk, spraying blood across the files and blotter.

Hands writhing up, Da Silva clawed for eyeballs but Mac twisted his face away from the long hands and pulled back on his hair-hold. Then, throwing his hip into the taller man, he used the leverage of the hair to initiate a hip-throw, tipping the taller man over and slamming his head into the floor with a sickening crunch. Mac knew he’d hurt him enough to finish this if he wanted Da Silva dead.

‘One of these would have been cleaner,’ came Jim’s voice from behind as Mac stood over Da Silva, heaving for breath and pinching his nose to stop the bleeding.

Jim had his gun on Amir Sudarto, whose fingers had stopped a centimetre short of retrieving Mac’s Colt. Pushing Amir away, Jim threw Mac’s gun back to him and rushed to the smouldering rubbish bin. Kneeling at the wastepaper bin, the American reached in and came out with ashes.

‘Shit!’ he growled.

‘Watch the other guy, mate,’ said Mac, pointing to Amir. ‘I think Augusto wants to speak.’

‘Fuck you,’ mumbled Da Silva. There was a huge gash across his forehead from his collision with the desk and his voice was slurred.

Kicking him hard on the point of the chin, Mac watched a tooth fly as the lawyer’s face snapped back, laying him flat on his back.

‘No, Augie – fuck you.’

Moving to the desk, but keeping his eyes on Da Silva, Mac checked the drawers of the desk. There were calculators, cell phones, dictaphones and statements from the Bank of Singapore, a Darwin branch of the ANZ Bank and a weird-looking bank statement from the Phnom Penh branch of Koryo Bank – the Koryo had been established by North Korea’s general staff, for what was officially called ‘joint ventures with foreign countries’.

‘Thing I love about you lawyers,’ snarled Mac, waving the statement at Da Silva as he tried to sit up, ‘you want to get paid by everyone – coming and going.’

‘Fuck you, Skippy,’ mumbled the lawyer through his hand.

‘Am I going to find Operasi Boa in this desk?’ asked Mac.

Da Silva laughed, and Mac stood over him, looking him in the eye.

‘I won the fight, Augusto – without the big ape. So now I’m asking and you’re telling, okay?’

‘Gotta go, buddy,’ said Jim.

‘Okay,’ said Mac, still panting. ‘Let’s take them with us.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Jim.

‘These guys are all we’ve got – besides, I think I’ve worked out what was happening,’ said Mac.

Amir suddenly rushed at Mac, Jim swinging his gun to take a shot. Gunfire resounded in the office and then a window was breaking. Shards of glass exploded as Jim and Mac swung their guns and fired, but Amir was horizontal through the space where the window had recently been.

Moving to the jagged hole, Mac looked down and saw Amir Sudarto climbing out of a hedgerow. Jim fired and shots hit the concrete car park as Amir sprinted out of view.

‘Shit,’ said Jim. ‘Was that Amir Sudarto?’

‘That’s him,’ said Mac, heaving for breath.

‘Then we’ve got about five seconds before Kopassus arrives,’ said Jim.

Mac grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the desk and stemmed his nose. ‘We can’t leave him,’ he said, nodding at Da Silva.

‘Okay, we take him. But if he causes trouble, I’m gonna whack him, okay?’ asked Jim, loud enough for Da Silva to hear. ‘No one – especially not some failed lawyer – is going to hold me for one second longer than I have to be in this hellhole.’

‘That’s the choice, Augusto,’ said Mac, ‘and you have one second to decide.’

‘I liked you better as a blond,’ said Da Silva, spitting a chunk of flesh from his mouth as he stood. ‘But you must do me favour.’

‘What?’ asked Mac, checking the Colt.

‘Hold the gun to my head when we leave – these malai have no sense of humour.’

Jim’s driver pulled the Mitsubishi into the shade of some trees after a twenty-minute drive east of Dili along the coast road. Any further east and they’d start running into army and militia roadblocks.

The support staff at the law office, and Senor Carvalho, were locked in a storage room and now Mac pulled Da Silva out of the back of the car by his hair.

Moving down to the beach, they found a secluded place behind a stand of trees, and sat Da Silva down on the grass while Jim’s driver stood guard by the road.

‘You wrote Operasi Boa, didn’t you?’ said Mac, his nosebleed having finally set.

‘No comment,’ said Da Silva, not so brave now.

‘That’s a nice lawyerism, isn’t it?’ said Mac quietly. ‘But it wasn’t always Augusto the lawyer, was it?’