Mark Abernethy: Double back

‘We did,’ said Tobin, gulping at his beer, avoiding Mac’s eyes.

‘And?’

‘And we need a good operator to replace him,’ said Tobin, now looking at Mac.

‘Replace him? What happened to our guy?’ said Mac, his gut turning icy.

‘Don’t know,’ rasped Tobin, ‘but we’d like to have a chat.’

Garvey came back to the table with two Heinekens and switched the discussion to the rugby league action of the past weeks.

‘The problems started with those hits on Martin Lang,’ said Garvey before he found his seat. ‘Can’t run around with your head sticking up like that – did you watch it?’

‘Highlights on satellite,’ said Mac, his mind elsewhere.

Garvey scoffed. ‘Cowboys game was okay, but shit, Macca – losing to the Roosters?! That hurt.’

‘Why not get us an HR course in Oz for the grand final,’ said Mac, sipping at the beer, ‘if Tobin’s game?’

‘Might work – get you retrained on the expenses protocol, mate.’

‘Get you an equity officer,’ said Mac. ‘Rid you of these negative gender-based attitudes.’

‘I’ll write a memo, get it moving,’ said Garvey. ‘By the way – see fucking Hugh Jackman’s doing the grand final anthem this year? That bloke a poof?’

‘Nah,’ said Mac. ‘It’s just the teeth, and he can dance.’

Around them the patrons in the Bavaria Lagerhaus – mainly expats from the embassy precinct of south Jakarta – were getting drunk and yelling at huge TV screens broadcasting sports from around the world. Europeans pointed in disbelief at Steffi Graf playing in a tennis final, North Americans barked at a NASCAR race at Michigan and the Aussies were glued to Aussie Rules footy.

‘So, Garvs – what’s with Dili?’ asked Mac. He was fairly strong on the Jakarta political economy side of it, but the TV reporting showed the island itself in meltdown and he needed some more background before reporting to Martin Atkins in Denpasar.

Looking at the label of his beer, Garvey made a face. ‘You heard Tobin. We had someone – a Canadian businessman, actually – keeping an eye on things for us, but he’s dropped off the map.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘It started with a meeting,’ Garvey shrugged.

‘You asked him to do something?’

‘Yeah, we picked up on Indonesian chatter and we wanted him to ask Blackbird about -’

‘Blackbird,’ interrupted Mac. ‘The girl who works for the Indonesian military?’

‘That’s her,’ said Garvey, nodding. ‘She’s been feeding us for a few months – works in the admin section of the TNI headquarters in Dili.’

TNI stood for Tentara Nasional Indonesia, the armed forces of the Republic and known until recently as ABRI. The military stood to lose the most from East Timor voting on independence from Jakarta, partly due to loss of power and partly because they owned most of the commercial concessions in the province. The logging, the coffee plantations, the oil and gas, and the sandalwood exports were all owned or controlled by military brass or Soeharto cronies. The new president, BJ Habibie, complicated matters: he was a non-military politician removing the army’s lucrative Timorese concessions.

‘So, Garvs, let’s get it straight. Was this Canadian treading on the army’s toes? I mean, was he messing with the generals’ interests?’

Looking uncomfortable, Garvey tried to avoid the question. ‘Look, Macca, let’s just say it was our fault, okay? We asked him to make a simple inquiry and he disappeared.’

‘Was he alone?’

‘Fuck, Macca!’ said Garvey.

‘What?’ said Mac. ‘What’s the secret?’

‘No, Macca, he wasn’t alone. Least, I don’t think so.’

‘So?’ said Mac, looking around to make sure no one was listening in; the Lagerhaus was owned by a former Indonesian intelligence agent and you never quite knew who was lurking.

‘Look,’ said Garvey, ‘Tobin wants to keep this simple – find what happened to the Canadian, find Blackbird, debrief and get out of Dodge. That’s the gig.’

‘Who was with the Canadian?’ said Mac, knowing that Garvey would break.

‘Shit, Macca. I’m actually not supposed to know that.’

‘So who told you?’

‘Scotty.’

Mac laughed. Rod Scott was one of the Old School of Australian intelligence, from the Cold War days. After his recruitment and his year with the Royal Marines in Britain, Mac had been rotated into the end of the first Gulf War where Rod Scott had been his mentor and guide. Scotty had showed him where to burrow into a government structure as a war ended, how to get the files and the influence you wanted, how to apply for and get the appointments that would ensure wheat contracts, oil concessions and construction work for Australian interests in the post-war rebuilding. His outrageous stories about Imelda Marcos were legendary and Mac knew that if a rumour came from Rod Scott, it was probably true.

‘Who, exactly, was there?’ asked Mac.

‘Well, Blackbird, for a start,’ said Garvey. ‘Like Tobin told you.’

‘She was there when the Canadian disappeared?’

‘Could be like that – or the Canadian never got to the meet.’

They stared at each other, Mac giving his old mate the don’t-fuck-with-me look.

‘This is why they want it kept simple,’ said Garvey. ‘The last thing we need is you chasing ghosts all over Timor, doing your superhero thing.’

‘Might help, that’s all,’ said Mac.

‘Mate, Marty will take you through that – he’s your controller on this, okay?’

‘Who else was there?’ Mac pushed.

‘Tobin will have me shot if I tell you that.’

‘I never liked you much anyway.’

‘I’m not saying any more,’ said Garvey, standing to go. ‘Let’s just say we’re fairly certain he had muscle with him at the time.’

‘Who?’ asked Mac, getting annoyed.

‘Don’t make me say it, mate,’ said Garvey, grabbing his mobile phone from the table.

Watching Garvey move towards the exit beneath the faux Bavarian tack hanging from imitation hewn wood beams, the picture finally came together, and Mac knew why the firm wasn’t admitting to the full scenario.

‘Not Bongo?’ Mac called to his friend’s back.

As Garvey hit the swinging door with his shoulder, he raised his middle finger without looking back.

Mac waited seventeen minutes for the signal from the Lagerhaus security guy that Saba – the bar’s owner – was ready to see him.

Bongo Morales was a former Philippines NICA operative who’d been trained in special forces by the Americans for CT work in Mindanao. Because he had a Javanese mother and spoke fluent Bahasa Indonesia, he’d later worked as a freelance hit man in Aceh, hunting the separatist GAM guerrillas for Indonesia’s military intelligence. Bongo was smart and dangerous, with a reputation that could easily hurt politically ambitious people like Tobin – hired guns were always the easy way of getting violence off the books, but when things turned bad they could be a liability. Mac suspected that Bongo was being excluded from the official record because the ASIS lunchers didn’t want to justify his presence in a ministerial memo, known as a CX. If Bongo was being excluded, it was because something went wrong in Dili and Mac didn’t want to land in that disintegrating city with Bongo holding a grudge against Australian intelligence.

They moved down the corridor and the Lagerhaus security guy searched Mac for weapons before leading him into Saba’s office, a white-tiled bunker with a desk at one end and a sofa and armchair set-up in the middle. A middle-aged Javanese man walked around the desk and shook Mac’s hand, gesturing to the sofa.