Mark Abernethy - Double back

‘McQueen, you need some fresh air!’ said Jim, coffee mug poised an inch from his lips.

‘You’re the inside guy for the Koreans. I just came from Haryono’s 2IC.’

‘Are you drunk?’ said Jim.

‘You heard from ASIS that I thought the Boa file was at the Resende, so you called Augusto Da Silva as fast as you could. Next thing I know, the Operasi Boa file is being burned.’

‘McQueen, slow down -’

‘You had him destroy the Boa file.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yeah, really, Jim. DIA has been bugging Atkins’ office for months – he knew it and was worried about it. You got the control codes for Cedar Rail’s agents, right?’

Jim shook his head, looked away.

‘Look me in the eye, Jim, and tell me you guys don’t spy on us.’

‘Don’t Pollyanna me, McQueen,’ snapped Jim. ‘Why don’t you look me in the eye and tell me how the Aussie media knew we were siphoning data out of Larkswood?’

They both stared at images of women running down a street in Maliana. Larkswood was a huge facility in Darwin that intercepted radio, telephone and satellite communications across South-East Asia – the Americans had hacked its systems and found a way to get the feed before it went through Canberra, and the firm had found out by spying on the Yanks in Jakarta.

‘So what was in Boa that linked the Pentagon to the bio-weapons program?’ asked Mac.

‘You are drunk, aren’t you?’ said Jim.

‘You whacked the Korean, Chloe, Moerpati and then Augusto – just as he was going to spill, and then, hey presto, there’s an unmarked US gunboat to take us off the beach.’

‘They were shadowing us all morning, McQueen,’ said Jim, eyes rolling. ‘You can’t take a shit at the Pentagon anymore without three HR forms – that boat was SOP.’

‘How did you know about the Korean money coming across into Lombok?’ asked Mac, praying for Bongo’s call to come through to one of Jim’s sat phones so he could nail this shut. ‘Come to think of it,’ taunted Mac, ‘how did you guys know so much about Lombok AgriCorp?’

‘We’re DIA – we cut our teeth in UNSCOM and the Twentieth Support Command. This is what we do, mate. The Korean money? We have agents at their casinos in Poi Pet – we trace that cash from source, okay?’

‘You have to trace it?’ said Mac. ‘I thought Lee Wa Dae was your agent?’

‘Not ours, McQueen,’ said Jim. ‘Langley once used him as a banking front and a conduit for their black funding, especially around Korea. He created the money-laundering schemes for heroin money through those banks in Macao – remember?’

Mac nodded. A bunch of North Korean military accounts were found disguised in apparently legitimate banks in Macao.

‘When the CIA realised that Wa Dae was putting the North Koreans’ drug money and the Agency’s corporate fronts through the same banking scams, they cut him loose,’ said Jim. ‘So, he was a US intelligence asset, but not now and never DIA.’

The sat phone trilled on a table by the door. Mac smirked, waiting for Jim to pick it up and hear someone call him ‘Champion’. He wanted to see Jim’s reaction, the reaction of a liar.

Standing, Jim looked at the ringing sat phone and leaned out his door. ‘Simon – your phone, buddy!’

Mac watched, stunned, as Simon picked up his sat phone and turned away.

‘Uh-huh,’ said the DIA analyst, stress in his voice. ‘Um, yeah, so I think… can I just… I’ll call you… and, yeah, so

…’

Looking at Jim, Mac said, ‘D20.’

Turning first to Mac, then to Jim, Simon’s face was a study in guilt as he hung up and folded the aerial.

‘Who was that?’ asked Jim, furious.

‘Umm, I don’t know -’ started the analyst.

‘So why’d you answer to Champion?’ asked Mac.

‘Look, you don’t know -’ stuttered Simon, the yuppieish know-it-all act crumbling like a sandcastle.

‘Answer the question, buddy,’ said Jim, very softly. ‘Why would you answer to Champion?’

Simon kicked at the carpet, face reddening.

‘Why wouldn’t you express surprise when a stranger tells you that another copy of Operasi Boa has turned up?’ asked Mac, feeling the anger well in him.

Lurching sideways, Simon fumbled in the coat rack and came out with a black Beretta 9mm handgun, which he waved back and forth between them while backing up for the door.

‘Don’t try anything,’ he spluttered, nervous but quite steady with the gun.

‘I don’t want to try anything,’ said Mac. ‘I came here to get you to reverse the green light on Operasi Boa. You have to stop this madness.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, buddy,’ said Jim. ‘You can’t go killing civilians just to prove a concept. Is that what you’re involved in, Simon, a clinical trial that got out of hand?’

‘Stop!’ Simon yelled at Jim. ‘You never understood, man!’

‘Understood what?’ asked Jim, trying to keep his voice calm.

‘The importance of the science! What else?!’ he yelled.

‘When the science is a disease falling from a chopper, believe me, buddy, I know the importance,’ said Jim.

‘Shit, man,’ said Simon, smiling grimly. ‘The Koreans have been hounded for decades because of their Ethno-Bomb research, but you two aren’t scientists, you have no spirit of curiosity, no purity of -’

‘Ethno?’ said Mac. ‘What’s -’

‘Look at you, Jimbo! You’re just a spook, a spy! You tear everything down to the worst human motivations, but Saddam was trying to build some -’

‘Saddam?!’ interrupted Jim, his hands lowering. ‘You little cocksucker – it was you! You got me barred from that team in Iraq!’

‘We needed a scientist, Jimbo – UNSCOM did fine without you.’

‘You little -’ snarled Jim as he moved at Simon, fists clenched.

A shot fired and a lump of plasterboard leapt out of the wall behind Jim.

‘Don’t get confused, Jimbo,’ said Simon as Jim froze. ‘You might be the tough guy, but I have the gun.’

The glass of the entry door caved in with an explosion of glass, and Bongo Morales emerged in his tradesman’s overalls, swinging the A4 from his hip. As Mac saw the gun aimed at Jim, he realised Bongo had been prepped to go for the wrong guy.

‘No, Bongo,’ yelled Mac, trying to cross in front of Jim.

In the moment of hesitation, Simon turned and shot at Bongo, the first one missing, the second one hitting him in the throat. The A4 spewed bullets as Bongo keeled over and Mac dived for cover as Jim took a bullet in the thigh from the A4 jammed on full auto. Crawling under the cordite and smoke, Mac made his way into Jim’s open office, gunshots from Simon following him.

Crawling to Jim’s desk, Mac stood and fumbled manically at the drawers till he found a hip rig hiding beneath a bunch of files.

Wrenching the Beretta from Jim’s holster, Mac turned and found Jim standing in front of him, Simon’s handgun pushed into the back of his skull.

‘Drop it, McQueen,’ said Simon.

The safe door swung shut, plunging the three of them into darkness. Around Mac, Jim and Bongo, shelves reached to the ceiling, packed with American files, photo satchels and state secrets.

‘Reckon we’ve got three or four hours of oxygen in here before it gets grim,’ said Jim, his teeth chattering from the shock of his bullet wound.

‘Got a lighter?’ asked Bongo, still holding the bleeding graze on the side of his neck. ‘Left mine in the van.’

Jim pulled a lighter from his chinos and lit it. Standing, Mac looked around the tiny room, hoping for an air vent or trapdoor in the ceiling that they could use to attract attention. The ceiling of the safe was sealed but Mac noticed a red marker pen attached by string to the shelving. Grabbing a piece of paper from a file, he wrote Help, we’re in here on it and slipped it under the door.