Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

They followed the Vitara east towards the river. As they got to the Denpasar side of the bridge, the Vitara slowed. Ari hit the brakes as they saw tail-lights glow. The Vitara’s silver paintwork fl ashed white as it turned left and was caught by the glare of headlights.

‘Okay, to the river,’ mumbled Ari as cars sounded their horns at his cautious speed. Mac liked that – didn’t want to go jaunting into an ambush. The Vitara’s red lights headed through an area of warehouses and loading bays down to the piers on the river. Ari headed into the same dark street, then stopped and killed the lights. Pulling their P9s from their holster-bags, they checked and cocked them. Neither said a word as they went through their drills, steadied their breathing, psyched themselves, Mac trying to envisage a successful outcome.

The Dr Khan connection had come as a shock. After Khan was stung by the Yanks and Israelis, his operation had been partially shut down. But questions had remained within the IAEA, including the identity of Khan’s intermediaries. Who in the Pakistani military was protecting Khan and were there really elements in the ISI who worked for the Khan set-up? It was a time when Pakistan was being protected by the Americans, and the British were bringing Colonel Gaddafi in from the cold. Western intelligence was supposed to play along, but the Russians, Indians and Israelis despised the deal. They wanted Khan’s apparatus shut down, not just a few guys at the top paraded for the media.

So what was the story now? Mac wondered. The Sari bombing was a nuke? That’s how they got that crater? There was something so strange about the idea that he just couldn’t digest it.

Ari coasted the Camry down the gentle rise between single-level warehouses and parked trucks and vans. As it got darker, Mac’s heart rate increased and his senses became heightened. He could smell Ari’s aftershave, smell the nicotine in his sweat. Up ahead, the Vitara swung right and disappeared. As Ari put his foot down they were overtaken by the squealing of engines. Mac fl inched and turned his gun at the driver’s side window. Ari shouted and swung the Camry to the kerb, raising his gun.

They both winced, waiting for the hail of lead, but it didn’t come.

Two black LandCruisers, with what sounded like souped-up engines, screamed past with the high-pitched wailing of transmissions and drive shafts. Mac gasped for air and looked through the rear winds creen. Nothing. Ari took his foot off the brake and followed the LandCruisers.

Mac didn’t like it. ‘Mate, let’s hang back.’

‘We’re here now, McQueen, yes?’ Ari fi red back.

They accelerated and, turning the right-hander, came to a waterfront street. A gunfi ght was underway between the men around the two black LandCruisers and the Hassan crew behind the Vitara, which was another fi fty metres away. It was assault weapons on full-auto, tracer rounds fi lling the air, lead whistling and splatting against concrete warehouse walls. One round shattered a LandCruiser’s windscreen and Ari fl oored the accelerator to get behind the LandCruisers, which were parked in an arrowhead.

Leaping from the Camry, Mac ran doubled over to where Freddi Gardjito was shouting into a hand-held radio. Protected in a blue Kevlar vest, Freddi was crouching behind the hood of the left-side Cruiser, an M4 carbine assault rifl e standing on its butt beside him.

BAIS used LandCruisers with tricked V8s and armour plates in the doors and fl oor pans and Mac was glad of the extra cover.

From the right-side Cruiser the BAIS operators returned fi re at the Vitara, their M4s spewing brass cases, the static yell of voices sounding over the radio system. The fi re came back at the LandCruisers like hail, before slowing.

Putting his head up, Mac saw the Vitara’s tyres had been blown out and Hassan’s crew were running for the piers behind.

Freddi gabbled into the radio and the BAIS team stood and assessed the ground. The throb of what sounded like a helo grew closer and Ari bolted for the Camry.

‘Ari, what’s up?’ yelled Mac as the BAIS operators fi led around the Cruisers and moved across the ground and down to the pier. Ari didn’t respond, just opened the boot of the Camry, put his hands in, and then walked towards Mac with a large black assault rifl e in each hand, a Kevlar vest hooked over each barrel.

Handing one of the vest/gun sets to Mac, Ari threw on his own black vest. Mac’s weapon looked like an American M16 but heavier, and with a grenade launcher under the main barrel.

‘Safety is off,’ said Ari, fastening his vest. ‘Just cock and fi re.’

Mac put on the vest, slid the rifl e’s cocking lever back and followed Ari, who was jogging behind Freddi towards the pier. Temples pounding, Mac wondered fl eetingly how a little message-tweaking for DFAT could have turned into this.

A helo came into sight over the river, its searchlight scanning the piers along the bank. A shot sounded, the searchlight went dead, and bits of glowing lamp cascaded over the water. There was a sudden whooshing sound, then a missile sailed through the night, gaining speed on the helo. The shooters on both sides seemed to hold their breaths and Mac winced as what he assumed was an SA-7 missile fl ew into the helo. Mac gasped – couldn’t help it – but there was no explosion, only a loud clanking sound and the missile turned and powered into the water at top speed. Its tail had probably hit the undercarriage and simply defl ected.

A yelled series of messages sounded out of Freddi’s radio as he stopped in front of Mac. The Indonesian nodded and signed off and the helo rose up and away, the pilot clearly wanting to stand off.

They kept running and, as the BAIS team rounded a corner of a warehouse, the fi ring started up again, this time with more force.

Some of the Indonesians came running back the other way to get behind the warehouse as chunks fl ew from the concrete wall, a different thumping sound now accompanying the shooting.

‘Fifty-cal,’ said Freddi as the concrete dust fl ew like a sandstorm.

‘Where did that come from?’

One of the BAIS guys rabbited something to Freddi. Mac craned his neck around the corner and then saw the problem. Hassan’s crew had a large black powerboat – big enough to be a navy patrol boat

– with a crew of fi ve or six and a bow-mounted, box-fed machine gun that was hammering out loads in their direction.

The boat’s engines throbbed as they pulled away from the pier.

When two of the BAIS operators opened fi re again, the incoming from the. 50-cal came back twice as hard and they all leaned back for safety. As soon as the fi re rate died Ari said, ‘Cover, please,’ and ran to a hip-high brick wall appended to another small building about twenty metres away. Mac and Freddi laid down fi re and return fi re came back as the boat left the pier and surged up onto a plane. Ari knelt, marksman style, and emptied his magazine at the departing boat, his head steady and focused. One of the Hassan guys dropped his rifl e and sagged to the rear decks as the boat roared into the night.

Another SA-7 missile sailed upriver, forcing the Indonesian helo to back off even further. Freddi worked the radio in what Mac assumed was a call for the navy, given that the boat was heading towards the river mouth and the sea.

Mac tried to breathe deeply, to get on top of the shakes before they set in. He didn’t like gunfi ghts – he’d gone through the Royal Marines Commandos and the SBS selection, but fi rearms were something he used as a threat, a way of controlling people. He didn’t like the way soldiers used them. Didn’t like incoming, didn’t even like paintball.

Mac made to go to Ari, who was sitting against the wall, but Freddi grabbed him fi rst. ‘Next time we’re looking at the same person, maybe we should swap notes, eh McQueen?’