Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

‘Mate, didn’t know about Hassan till twenty minutes ago.

Honest.’

Freddi cocked his head to the radio then turned back to Mac.

‘Why don’t we stay in a loop for the next stages? Okay, McQueen? No point being at a crossroad.’

‘Cross-purposes, and you’re right, Freddi. Sweet as.’

‘Your man got one of them, I think,’ said Freddi, before one of his guys asked him something in Bahasa.

Dismissed, Mac went over to Ari, who was still sitting. ‘How you doing?’ asked Mac.

The Russian pointed to his Levis, which now had a rectangular hole down the side of the calf and blood pouring over his boot into the dirt. ‘I put on the vest but it is shooting me in the leg, eh McQueen?

I am getting angry with these sons of a fucking camel.’

Mac sat with Ari in a corridor at Kasih Ibu Hospital in west Denpasar

– the closest medical facility to where they’d been. Quickly cutting off the leg of Ari’s jeans, the nurse swabbed the big bullet graze, which glistened and ran steadily with blood. The top layers of muscle tissue had been torn open yet although the Russian grimaced at being touched there, he didn’t say a word.

The hospital was packed: people with burns, people blinded, people having amputations, kids lying on gurneys in the corridors, female burns victims having breasts removed, people wandering around with hastily printed pictures of friends, kids, spouses. Everywhere smelled of death and hope.

Having seen her white AFP Commodore in the car park, Mac assumed Jenny was about and went for a look while the nurse started on Ari’s stitches. The second fl oor was less crowded and Mac moved past the private rooms, some of them two-bed, some three, all of them occupied. He wondered why there were so many women in the place. Neither the Sari nor Paddy’s had been particularly female drinking holes.

Unable to fi nd Jenny, Mac returned as Ari got the last of his stitches.

Looking down, Mac noticed a clipboard on the nurse’s station with Bronwyn in the name box. Below was the Bahasa word Australi, then a box that said ‘2-6’ and some clinical notes. Mac asked the sister where room two-six was, and she pointed upstairs. ‘Number six.’

Mac sprinted up the stairs and tapped on the door of suite six.

A local nurse opened it and Mac introduced himself, pulled his DFAT lanyard from under his overalls and said he was looking for a girl called Bronnie, or Bronwyn.

The nurse smiled, nodded and opened the door wider for him.

‘She just woken up, Mr Alan.’

Inside was a woman lying supine on a bed, bandaged like a mummy, wires holding her hands up in muslin slings. Her face seemed fi ne but there was a lot of bandaging and cotton netting around her head which suggested bad burning. Mac sensed from the profi le of the bandages that she’d lost her left ear.

‘Bronwyn Bruce?’ asked Mac.

The girl nodded, whispered, ‘Yes.’

‘I’m Alan McQueen, Australian Foreign Affairs.’

‘Hello,’ came the whispered reply.

‘I met your brother and husband and mum this morning – they were looking for you. They thought the worst, so I’m going to tell them you’re here, okay, Bronwyn?’

She nodded, and Mac let himself out into the hallway, fi shed for the card in his breast pocket, found David Bruce’s hotel number and called. The desk guy put the phone down and three minutes later David came on the line. He sounded empty, fl at.

When Mac told him the news, he started crying.

‘Thank you, thank you, Mr McQueen,’ he managed when he got his breath back. ‘Thank you so much. Is everything fi ne? I mean -‘

Mac told him as much as he knew, told him the suite number and let himself back into the room. ‘They’re on their way,’ said Mac.

Bronwyn nodded slowly and Mac was going to let her get some rest but noticed her hands were moving about on the wires, trying to touch her belly. Then Bronwyn’s eyes darted down to her stomach and they went wide, like she’d been slapped. ‘My baby,’ she whispered, her bandaged hands straining to reach her belly. ‘My baby’s gone.

My baby!’

Mac didn’t understand and looked at the nurse.

‘Bronwyn come in with baby,’ said the nurse, making a shape of a pregnant woman.

Mac looked down at Bronwyn’s abdomen, which was fl at, and the nurse gave him a look that said more than a million words.

‘ My baby, my baby, my baby, where’s my baby? ‘ Bronnie’s face was screwed up in anguish, her voice getting louder. ‘ I want my baby, oh God, God, oh my God, my baby, I want my baby! ‘

Mac stood there feeling as sad and useless as he’d ever felt.

He couldn’t do anything for the woman – couldn’t even hold her bandaged hands for fear of hurting her, and he couldn’t say anything.

What was there to say? It’s okay? It’s going to be all right? It wasn’t okay and it wasn’t all right. She’d been fi re-bombed and lost her baby. It was all wrong.

Bronwyn’s voice was becoming hysterical, building and building like a storm. Soon she was screaming for God, for her mother, for her baby, then demanding she be allowed to die. Her screams were so loud and disturbing that a doctor and nurse ran in to see what the commotion was about, by which time Bronwyn’s face was purple and she was trying to pull off her bandages.

Mac backed out of the room into the corridor, where staff were gathering. Other patients emerged into the corridor, worried by the cries that signalled pain well beyond the physical. Mac saw Jenny approaching down the hall and told her what was going on. She walked into the room and a few seconds later Bronwyn’s screams had subsided into loud sobbing. As the noise level got lower Mac heard Bronnie crying, I can’t, and Jenny saying, Yes you can.

Mac couldn’t get enough air and, fi nding a rubbish bin, vomited into it through mouth and nose. His knees were weak so he sat on the lino fl oor and prayed for that girl. From inside the room, he heard Bronnie beg to be allowed to die.

The nurses cleared the corridor and Mac was about to check on Ari when the Russian limped up to Mac’s end of the hallway, ashen-faced. When Mac told him what was happening, Ari shook his head at Bronnie and Jen’s conversation, which seemed to echo through the wards. ‘It is not right to make the womens sound like this,’ he said, looking up at the ceiling.

Just then Mac saw Bronwyn’s mother, husband and brother at the end of the hall. He stood in a hurry, opened the door to the room and motioned Jenny over. Bronnie’s lips were swollen – she didn’t take her bloodshot eyes off Jenny.

‘What is it?’ said Jenny as she stepped outside.

Mac tilted his head. ‘This is the husband, mother and brother.’

Jenny nodded. ‘Which one’s the husband?’

‘The taller one, Gavin.’

Jenny walked up to the party and gave her AFP title. ‘Bronwyn is doing well but Gavin, I’m going to have to ask you a favour.’

‘Yes,’ he said, laden with fl owers but his mood switching to fear.

‘I’m going to need you to be strong for your wife, okay? This is a time for Bronnie, not for the rest of us. Can you do that for her?’

Mac moved away, grabbed Ari and left. As he went through the swinging exit doors at the end of the ward, he looked back and saw Gavin sagging, David and Jenny holding him up by his armpits.

Flowers spilled on the lino.

Ari stopped outside the hotel and Mac started to get out then paused and looked back at the Russian – one leg of his Levis looking like shorts, the other like jeans.

‘So, what have we got, mate?’ asked Mac.

Ari shrugged, chewed his gum.

‘We’re chasing Hassan, who apparently works for Khan,’ said Mac.