Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

‘But why me? You guys have Jamieson in New Delhi and that bloke, what’s his name – Morrison – at the IAEA.’

‘I told you, I’m using my best guy for Indonesia.’

‘I need more, Joe. People are shooting at me.’

Mac heard Joe fi nding a new way to hold his chin.

‘Okay,’ conceded Joe. ‘Since late last year, the Americans have been raiding unsecured nuclear labs and enrichment facilities in the former Soviet Union, okay? The southern states, the central Asian republics.’

‘Who’s been doing it?’

‘Special forces under the Twentieth Support Command, US Army.

Know these guys? DIA operation, basically.’

Mac said, ‘Yep.’ The Twentieth was a global CBRNE strike force with its own Presidential fi nding, which meant it could do just about anything it wanted. Invading countries and stealing their unsecured plutonium cores sounded pretty much like the Twentieth at work.

‘Suddenly we have Hassan selling devices to terrorist organisations,’ said Joe, ‘and the Russians are saying the Americans supplied them to the Pakistanis. Now we have some of these players together in Indonesia and it’s time to move on them.’

Mac could hear Ari moving about in the next room but before he signed off he remembered something he wanted to ask Joe.

‘Mate, who was that other tango you were referring to on the phone yesterday? Might be useful.’

There was a pause. ‘Sure this is clean?’

‘Scouts,’ said Mac.

‘It’s not a person, McQueen.’

‘No?’

‘One version of events says Hassan landed in Indonesia with two devices.’

They were halfway to Belawan – the port city of Medan – when Mac’s clean Nokia rang. ‘Yeah,’ he murmured, keeping his eyes on Purni and Freddi to see if they were listening.

It was Viktor, ready to talk.

Mac didn’t like sharing too much with other spooks but under the circumstances it didn’t look like he’d be adding to BAIS’s knowledge about Hassan and what his crew had detonated in Kuta. He tried the normal etiquette among spies and made a long umm, yeah sound.

Freddi leaned forward, turned on the radio – Indonesia’s answer to Britney Spears – and gave it some volume.

‘Vik, mini-nukes,’ whispered Mac, jimmying down as low as he could into the back seat of the LandCruiser and cupping his hand over his face. ‘Tell me about them.’

‘We are talking about Kuta, yes, Mac?’

‘Shit, Viktor!’

‘Well,’ said the Ukrainian, rolling the word into three syllables,

‘we watch the CNN and there is this hole in road.’

‘Mate, I was hoping you’d tell me it’s rubbish,’ said Mac, wanting an expert to quash the nuke thing quick-smart. He wanted a reason not to believe it.

‘Well, maybe and maybe no, yes?’

‘What are the engineers saying?’

‘They are looking at image and wondering what device make this.’

Mac felt squeezed. He was being shot at way too often and now he found himself seconded to Indonesian BAIS again, while being tailed by the Russians. The confi rmation that the Sari Club might be a nuke was too much.

‘What would be the give-away?’ asked Mac. ‘What would tell the investigators in Kuta that the Sari explosion was a mini-nuke?’

There was a pause while Viktor thought, then, ‘Okay, so there would be very small traces of a material called tritium. This is easily removed with water, but then it becomes triated water.’

‘No radiation?’

‘This depends,’ said Viktor. ‘The Israelis and the Americans have a mini-nuclear device called MRR or Minimal Residual Radioactivity.

This is basically a clean explosion.’

‘Really?’

‘Fission reactions have different results. Big A-bomb releases many radiations; small plutonium cores, for local area blasts, not so dirty.’

‘So, an American or Israeli mini-nuke has no radiation?’

‘No. It has some, but very low levels.’

‘So, Vik,’ Mac breathed out, ‘could a mini-nuke make that hole in front of the Sari?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Shit, mate. Help me here.’

Viktor’s voice jumped an octave. ‘I am telling truth, McQueen.’

Through the windscreen, the security gates of the Belawan Port Authority loomed. It was Indonesia’s largest port outside of Java and was the originating point for much of the world’s rubber, coffee and palm oil, so it was heavily guarded.

‘Viktor, how do you think we got that crater in Kuta?’

‘Either very powerful device tamped on road, or under road.’

‘But not anfo?’

‘Anfo probably not powerful enough, unless there was whole truck. But anfo leaves traces that are easy to read so forensic tell us soon, yes?’

The Port Authority Prado led them across the concrete apron to a section of warehouses. They spilled out of the LandCruiser at a pale blue building with the huge painted letters, SUNDA LOGISTICS 31 across the loading bays. Two of the loading bays were in use, with large trucks offl oading containers, fl ashing orange lights everywhere and sirens beeping every time a forklift backed up.

It was in the high thirties but a breeze off the Malacca Strait provided some relief. Next to Mac, Freddi pointed to the far end of the large building, where the loading bays were locked up, and said to the Port Authority guy, ‘Let’s start down there.’

As they walked down the apron, Mac got in Freddi’s ear. ‘I thought we were working together on this, Fred – joint op, all that shit?’

‘Well it looked like you were working with Ari,’ said Freddi, inscrutable behind dark sunnies.

‘Oh, come on, Fred!’ Mac couldn’t believe the way spooks got with each other sometimes. ‘He’s down one guy – Samir’s people whacked his partner in Java the other night. And he’s on our side, right? I’m talking about BAIS failing to reveal that Hassan is probably in possession of a second device,’ said Mac.

Freddi stopped, gestured for Purni and the PA guy to walk ahead, then fronted Mac. ‘Can I get you a loudspeaker? Could you tell the whole world?’

‘Sorry, Fred,’ said Mac, scratching the back of his head. ‘I’m a little tired, confused. I can’t get my head around this thing.’

‘For a record,’ said Freddi, ‘the Samir shooter – that guy in the tree? – he started spilling this morning, about fi ve am.’

‘He talked?’

‘He screamed. That’s the fi rst time I could confi rm a second device, but yes, I suspected that yesterday.’

‘Are we chasing a nuke?’

Freddi laughed, white teeth fl ashing at the sky. ‘You been in this country too long, McQueen – you even started thinking like us.’

‘Well?’

‘It’s a possibility but it could be experimental explosive.’

‘CIA?’

Freddi stared. ‘I don’t want that getting around, understand?’

‘Orders?’

‘No, McQueen. I don’t want my guys making up stories about the Big Bad Yankee – that won’t help me.’

They watched Purni and the PA guy get to the inset door on the front of one of the loading bays. The PA guy used a master key and they went in.

‘So,’ said Mac, ‘is Hassan travelling with the second device, or is it stored?’

Freddi pointed at the warehouse. ‘Tree Guy says there were two large pale-green security cases in that storage a week ago. They delivered one three days ago, but they didn’t meet the buyers.’

‘Cellular?’

‘Totally,’ said Freddi. ‘The soldiers are separate links in the chain.

They don’t know the full picture or the whole set-up.’

‘Figures,’ said Mac.

‘Yeah,’ said Freddi, ‘that’s why they shot Akbar – he knew all the links.’