Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

Mac’s neck crawled with fear. Something was wrong. He turned from the desk without another word and rushed across the enormous marble lobby, aiming for a side door and shooting out to where the lagoons and palms formed a sort of oasis.

Sprinting around the pools, he searched for the tennis courts, praying that Diane was safe. As he raced past the picnic tables on the far side of the lagoon pool, he heard two shots, then screams and then several more shots, one after the other. He sped across the lawns, through the palm trees and then took some steps three at a time to the tennis court complex.

The screams got louder and he saw a hotel employee coming out of her offi ce in the tennis pagoda, her hands up to her face. Mac sprinted past a middle-aged Anglo couple in tennis whites who were clinging together, shouting, ‘Get down, both of you!’

The screaming hotel employee was standing over the face-down form of Alex Grant, blood pooling around his face. A pitcher of water, some glasses and a silver tray were scattered around him, his white legs a pathetic tangle.

‘Get in the offi ce, call security,’ said Mac to the hysterical woman.

‘And hurry!’

Removing his backpack, Mac carefully surveyed the scene. He hadn’t seen anyone leaving the area and they could still be around.

He assumed there’d been at least two shooters by the sounds and their frequency. It was very hard to put so many single shots together so quickly when you had to aim and move about at the same time.

He moved past the clubhouse cottage and looked around the corner, head out, head in. At the end of the fi rst tennis court – where Grant, Vitogiannis and probably Diane had been playing – he could see a collapsed male body.

‘Fuck!’ he hissed to himself as he realised it was Vitogiannis. Mac wasn’t armed and it looked like he was dealing with at least two hit men.

Stealthing onto the tennis court, Mac’s heart lurched as he saw Diane lying on her side, her white shorts bloody. Taking another look around for shooters, Mac ran across the court, ducking down on the other side as he got to Diane. She was slumped on her right hip and Mac gently pulled her over to face him. She was alive, saliva running out of her mouth.

‘Diane, Diane!’ he breathed, sitting down so he could get his knees under her and hold her up straight. ‘Shit! Fuck!’ he muttered as he scanned for threats, then checked her wrist for a pulse. There was a weak one. She groaned, her head lolling. A dark stain soaked her tank top.

‘It’s going to be okay, Diane. I’m here. We’re going to get you to hospital, you’re strong, you’re going to make it.’

He pulled up her tank top and saw a hole in her stomach oozing blood at a rate that would see her dead within fi fteen minutes. There was another gory mess in her right shoulder. Her eyes rolled back and her hands gripped him momentarily, then she went limp.

‘Where’s that fucking ambulance? Ambulan! Mari! ‘ he screamed.

Scanning refl exively for the shooters, Mac saw Diane’s chromed Colt Defender on the court surface behind her. Palming it, he checked the spout and the mag and shoved it into his belt at the small of his back. Standing, he pulled Diane up into a fi reman’s lift and started across the tennis court for the hotel. Employees were running across the grassed area around the lagoon pools and the girl from the tennis clubhouse watched mutely as he jogged past the middle-aged couple.

‘Can we do anything?’ asked the bloke in a reedy American accent.

‘Pray,’ mumbled Mac.

During his time in the British military they had to do their two-up drills at least once a week. Most of the guys hated them, never saw the point. Now he was tabbing two-up and wondering if there were enough minutes left to let Diane survive. Wasn’t supposed to be how it worked.

He raced to the side entrance of the hotel as the conference goers moved tentatively out into the sun, eyes agog as he ran at them.

‘Freddi!’ yelled Mac, his voice verging on the hysterical. ‘Freddi Gardjito! Freddi!’ he screamed, the crowds parting in front of him.

Then suddenly Freddi was there, SIG Sauer in his right hand.

‘McQueen, what happened?’

‘Two shot, dead. We’ve got to get this one to the hospital. Please, mate – please! ‘

Freddi spun around and led them through the lobby into the hotel’s underground car park, yelling into his lapel. Another BAIS guy appeared and Freddi issued an order before the bloke ran off.

Mac sat in the back of the LandCruiser with Diane, laying her down to stop the blood pumping out and talking her through it as her eyes rolled back in her head and her lips turned white.

‘It’s okay, mate. You’re going to make it, Diane,’ said Mac, cradling her head on his lap.

In front of them a POLRI Jeep Cherokee and a POLRI motorcycle led them to MMC, the big Western hospital on Rasuma Said, next to the Aussie Embassy.

The emergency crew at the ambulance dock seized on Diane immediately, dragging her onto a gurney and slapping a breathing mask on her even before the LandCruiser had fully stopped. Freddi and Mac jogged behind the gurney as it was taken through to the emergency ward and into an operating theatre.

Sitting outside with Freddi, Mac looked down at his feet, things suddenly seeming hopeless. The tears came and he put his hands over his face, embarrassed. Freddi’s hand touched his right shoulder and Mac took his hands from his face.

‘ Shit, Freddi,’ he said through his tears. ‘I mean – shit.’ He sniffl ed and felt Freddi’s hand grip him harder, give him a shake.

‘I know, mite. I know.’

It was 9.21 pm when the nurse came out of the recovery room and said, ‘The patient would like to see Mr Richard.’

Mac got up like he had three tonnes on his shoulders and turned to Freddi, who just shrugged. ‘I’ll be here, McQueen. Take as long as you want.’

Mac walked like a robot behind the nurse and stood at the end of Diane’s bed. Her face was so pale it had fl ushed out her tan, a tube went into her nose, a machine bellowed in and out beside her and another tube was connected to her arm.

After a while, her eyes fl uttered open and Mac went to her left side. She saw him, and her face screwed up as she started crying.

She put her hand out and Mac held it as he perched on the edge of the bed and felt her weak sobs. Her grip was strong and desperate and she pulled him down to her.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Love you.’

‘Yeah, I love you too, mate,’ Mac whispered. ‘You got a shot at the bastards?’

Diane nodded. ‘Out-fucking-standing,’ said Mac.

‘Handbag from the hotel,’ she rasped, really faint. ‘Bring Filofax, need to talk.’

Mac nodded, glad he was all cried out. He wanted to at least appear strong for her. ‘Will you be okay?’

‘Just bring it.’

Nodding, he stood. ‘Back soon, Diane. You’ve been so brave but please rest now?’

She nodded, her eyes closing again as Mac left.

Mac and Freddi talked through the scenario in the LandCruiser on the way back to the Lar. Mac didn’t want to hand over everything he knew, but Freddi had a personal stake in this thing too – he’d also been badly affected by what’d happened out at that old airfi eld in Sumatra all those years ago. Freddi had taken administration duties at BAIS for six months afterwards and Mac had gone back to Manila with a lot of pain inside. He had blamed himself for Merpati being shot to pieces and her brother, Santo, being snatched. He had promised them safety if they just did what he said. They were good kids, they did as they were asked, but they’d been let down badly.

Mac had hit the booze back in the Philippines, but after a six-week binge he sobered up and did something he’d vowed never to do in his life. He found a shrink in Mataki, off the beaten track for expats and embassy colony types, and went twice a week for eleven weeks. Her name was Lydia Weiss, a Canadian psychotherapist who was about ten years older than Mac and bore a striking resemblance to Barbra Streisand. She was smart and funny and on their fi rst meeting Mac, who was a bit vague with the world, had called her Barbra by mistake.