Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘Worse than what?’ asked Atkins, actually enjoying this.

‘Under cover of Operation Extermination, Kopassus could be trying to infect a large swathe of the East Timor population with a fatal disease.’

‘A disease?’ said Atkins, sitting up.

‘A powerful pneumonia, SARS.’

‘And I suppose you have some evidence?’ said Atkins, supercilious.

‘Actually, no, Marty – thanks to you.’

‘What’s that mean?’ asked Atkins, eyes narrowing.

‘Augusto Da Silva was told by Cedar Rail where the Boa file was hidden – when we got there ourselves, the Boa file was gone.’

‘Well, that’s quite a story, Macca,’ chuckled Atkins, encouraging Garvey to join him.

‘It’s the truth is what it is, Marty,’ said Mac, holding back on the burning of Boa in the hope that Atkins would slip and incriminate himself.

‘Oh really, Macca?’ smiled Atkins. ‘So let’s start with basics.’

‘Okay,’ said Mac.

‘I’m not Cedar Rail,’ said Atkins. ‘That would be Greg Tobin. I act as Cedar Rail to run assets in eastern Indonesia on Greg’s behalf. All messages are coded – anyone could be Cedar Rail.’

‘I -’ said Mac.

‘No, McQueen,’ snapped Atkins. ‘My turn. The second point is, why the surprise that Da Silva is looking for Boa, or that he found it? He’s been under instructions to find it for weeks now, since the Canadian went missing.’

‘I didn’t say you were Cedar Rail, Marty,’ snarled Mac. ‘I’m saying that an Australian who Augusto believed to be Cedar Rail called him this morning and sent him to retrieve Boa.’

‘And you believe Augusto Da Silva?’ sniggered Atkins. ‘That little worm?’

‘Little worm?’ said Mac. ‘He was our little worm, mate – can’t just write him off like that.’

‘Can’t I Macca?’ said Atkins in a quiet voice. ‘But you can just write Rahmid Ali out of the story? Pretend you never met him, that he never handed you a document?’

‘That wasn’t my call, Marty,’ snapped Mac, blushing with embarrassment.

‘Of course not, mate,’ said Atkins, smiling. ‘It was Davidson’s good judgment to save you the humiliation.’

‘Screw you, Marty,’ said Mac, seeing Garvs chuckling.

‘Whatever,’ said Atkins, having some fun. ‘So an Indonesian spy hands you secret papers from the general staff, which have been translated for your convenience, and now you’re on a personal assignment to save the president?’

As Mac looked out the window over Denpasar, the laughter burned into him like a welding torch.

Lying back, gazing at the ceiling of his bungalow, Mac listened to the television reports of East Timor being overrun my violent militias. Atkins had given him two days off before starting on the Banda Sea assignment, a rest he needed. What he hadn’t needed was being banned from entering East or West Timor.

The meeting had gone well if keeping his job was the measure of success. Atkins had played him perfectly, even avoiding the issue of asking Da Silva to destroy the Boa document. Mac was certain that Atkins had made the call as Cedar Rail, and given the order to destroy the document – he and Greg Tobin were the only people who knew the call signs and coded sequences for running the ASIS assets in this part of the world.

Mac wasn’t ready to let things go until he’d achieved some objectives. First, ask Davidson who he’d told about Mac’s hunch that the copy of Operasi Boa was in the old drop box in the Resende. Second, find a phone log that showed Atkins made that call to Da Silva. Most important, try to stop Operasi Boa before the weather was right and they started spraying that crap on civilians.

Keying his replacement Nokia – the one in his pocket had died during the swim to the DIA boat – Mac tried Davidson. It was almost 2 am in Auckland, so Mac left a voicemail message.

Then he tapped into Canberra’s secure lines and got Leena, the researcher, on the line again.

‘They got you on the night shift?’ asked Mac after she’d cleared his credentials.

‘I’ve lost track,’ she said.

‘I’ve got a mission for you, Leena – I need you to tap our best contacts in TI, find the source of these calls between six and nine, this morning, to these numbers, okay?’ asked Mac, before reading Da Silva’s mobile phone and work lines, given to him by Jim. ‘Then I need you to check the Dili home number of Augusto Da Silva – big D – and give me every phone call made to that number during the same period, okay?’

‘Okay, Albion,’ said Leena. ‘You on this phone?’

‘Yes, hear from you soon.’

Lying back on the bed, Mac tried to work it out. With Moerpati and Rahmid Ali dead, he’d lost his connection to the Indonesian President’s own intel operation. The assassins had basically smashed it, and almost taken Jim and Mac along for the ride. The assassination of Augusto Da Silva removed the person who had written Operasi Boa and Mac had no doubt that Blackbird was either dead or so scared for her life that she’d never resurface.

He had ways of going forwards, but had no way to the Indonesian President’s operation.

Or did he?

Rolling off the bed, he went searching through the pockets of his chinos, coming up empty. Cursing his haphazard filing system, Mac tried to remember: he’d shown Davidson a list of the names, phone numbers and addresses associated with Rahmid Ali, and Davidson had said that none rang a bell. Then he’d pocketed the list, taken it back to the hotel…

Rummaging though his main wheelie suitcase, which had been sitting at the Natour for a week, he pulled out the plastic pillow filled with US dollars and found his piece of paper from his first phone session with Leena. Flattening it on the writing desk, he took another look, through new eyes. The addresses he had for Andromeda IT and the entities associated with the phone calls made from Rahmid Ali’s phone were still there: he had an address in KL and one in Singapore. There was also the extension of the chief of staff’s number in the presidential building. Mac had dismissed it as being too high profile, but now he might have a look at it.

But first, he took a quick shower and restored his hair colour, using an N10 blonding rinse.

After drying off, he lay down and sleep came fast.

The Nokia’s singsong ring tone woke him from a nightmare of Mickey Costa scratching at the glass door.

‘Yep,’ he rasped into the phone, trying to sit up but so bruised he was only able to roll onto his side.

‘McQueen!’ came the man’s voice, South-East Asian accent with a touch of American. ‘That you?’

‘Yeah,’ whispered Mac, still half asleep but fully dressed. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Bongo, brother,’ roared the big ape cheerfully. ‘Time for a beer?’

‘Shit, Bongo,’ laughed Mac, relieved and happy. ‘Thought you’d carked it.’

‘I’d what?’

‘Dead, mate.’

A pause, then, ‘You being funny?’

‘No, mate,’ laughed Mac. ‘I’ll tell you about it.’

Walking to the Bar Barong through the fragrant evening air of Denpasar, Mac felt elated. He didn’t make many friends in his profession, and most of them were embassy colony types – cops, customs and diplomats. The idea that Bongo was dead had affected him more deeply than he was comfortable with, and finding that he was alive was like a gift. And not just because he liked him – but because right now he needed someone on his side. Someone who knew how to look after himself.

Standing at the end of the bar that Mac always held up, Bongo was nursing a beer and watching TV when Mac arrived.

‘Hey, bro,’ said the big Filipino as they gave each other an open-palm handshake. ‘Been fighting again?’ He nodded at Mac’s facial injuries.