Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

‘Macca, I have a partner, okay?’ she snapped. ‘But that doesn’t involve me in the same bed, or running around pretending to be his wife.’

‘I wasn’t in the bed with -‘

‘Oh whatever!’

He tried to think of something to say but there wasn’t much point. Jenny had hung up.

Carl wasn’t guarding Diane’s room and there was no sign of Danny Fitzgibbon, so Mac pushed at the door to Diane’s room with one arm, keeping the chocolates and the fl owers hidden behind his body.

Peeking around the door he saw an elderly Indon woman sleeping on her back. Pulling back out into the hallway Mac looked around, wondering what the hell was going on. It was a new shift and nurses and orderlies rushed past him like he wasn’t there. Down at the nursing sister’s station, the supervisor didn’t know who he was and didn’t want to give out any information about a patient to a non-family member. Tired and confused, Mac turned from the station to fi nd a younger nurse approaching him. ‘Hello mister. You Mr Richard?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘Miss Diane give me this,’ she smiled, pulling something from the pocket of her tunic. It was a piece of folded paper of newsprint quality. Bloody Diane had torn a page out of her Gideon’s.

Written in dark blue biro was the message, Dad wants me in the compound. Sorry. Beneath were an address and phone number with the Sydney 02 prefi x and the words Sarah + Felicity.

He thanked the girl, and asked her when Diane had left.

‘Hour go, mister,’ she said.

On the way out Mac saw a young woman with a shaven head, gaunt face and sunken eyes. She was being pushed the other way in a wheelchair.

‘G’day,’ he said, smiling.

‘Well, hello,’ she gushed with a big American smile that lit up the corridor. Mac had her as northern California.

Mac presented her with the fl owers and chocolates. ‘Don’t eat them all at once. Might get fat,’ he said with a wink.

She was still laughing as he got into the lift.

The Nokia trilled as they stopped and started through the Jakarta traffi c.

Snapping out of his reverie about Diane and Hassan, Mac looked at his phone. ‘Hi, Jen,’ he mumbled, wary of another attack.

‘Sorry about before. I forgot to ask – how are you, darl?’

‘I’m fi ne, really,’ he said.

‘You sure?’ she pushed. ‘Is the gig over?’

Mac wiped his face as if the harder he pushed the more he’d drive away the fatigue. ‘Some loose ends. Another two days, max,’ he said.

There was a long pause, then Jenny spoke. ‘I’m sorry about Diane.

I mean, you know, is she okay?’

‘Yeah, she got one in the shoulder but it was the one in the stomach that was tricky.’

‘Ouch!’

‘Yeah, there’s a lot of internal bleeding and they had to operate on the intestine – took three inches out of it, apparently. She’s in a lot of pain but the liver’s only grazed and can heal by itself.’

‘Shit, Macca!’

‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, trying to stay strong despite his fatigue.

‘So, the shooters got away?’

‘For now, but she hit one in the leg -‘

‘Good girl.’

‘And we know who they are.’

Silence stretched between them.

‘ We? ‘

‘Well, you know, the guys.’

‘Chrissakes, Macca. What happened to due diligence and a bit of low-risk corporate cover?’

‘Jen…’

‘Don’t Jen me! When we went out the other night you said it’s like being a lawyer or an accountant, only not using your real name.’

‘Well, look…’

‘You said it wouldn’t be like the old days.’

Mac slumped in the Mercedes’ dark leather seat, knowing he had said exactly that.

‘So, what’s the latest with George and the Cambodian?’

‘Gone to ground – the Cambodian, anyway. George has an alibi, doesn’t want to press charges.’

‘ Charges?!’

‘Yeah – his lawyer said his client was prepared to let it go.’

Mac humphed. Here they were, the cop and the spy, thousands of miles apart, and each scared of the danger their spouse was in.

‘Oh, by the way,’ said Jenny, changing her tone to conversational.

‘We have a guest.’

‘Yeah?’ asked Mac.

‘Yeah, young Thai boy. They found him wandering around out the back of here, in the middle of the night, virtually naked.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Ke – but we’re not sure. He got handed to the AFP as a foreign national and they asked us to take him while they talk to DFAT and Immigration.’

‘He getting along with Rachel?’

‘ She likes him, but he doesn’t talk at all.’

‘No?’

‘No. He’s very scared of something.’

Mac’s breathing started getting shallow on the third unsuccessful call to Tony Davidson. In his profession, when something potentially random happened three times in sequence, it was never a coincidence.

Spies who believed in mere coincidence and synchronicity either got shot or outsmarted. More worrying than the three strikes, Davidson’s voicemail was no longer activating. The phone was just ringing out. In the Commonwealth’s secure phones, you had to input your security PIN to clear voicemail. If you tried to tap into one of those voicemail accounts without the PIN, the system would shut itself off automatically and the phone would ring out.

So there were two scenarios: someone had stolen Davidson’s phone and was trying to access his voicemail. Or an unfriendly was hacking into the ASIS voicemail servers, trying to have a nosey-poke but closing the system in the process.

Nervous, he dialled and waited. Joe Imbruglia’s mobile went straight to voicemail, so he left a message and then rang the embassy in KL. He was put through to Joe’s offi ce but the assistant said he wasn’t around. She was probably lying, but Mac let it go and left a message.

He needed to widen his cell but his instincts told him not to call Garvs or Atkins. In the Royal Marines they’d told the lads that the best soldiers balance instinct with training, self-preservation with teamwork. Mac never got to be the best soldier but he had learned to move with his instincts rather than against them.

‘Everything okay, Mr Davis?’ asked Edwin, coming out of chauffeur mode, his inner-cop emerging.

‘Yeah, mate.’ Mac exhaled, looking out his side window.

Edwin looked at him, questioning.

‘Actually, no, Edwin – it’s not,’ said Mac.

Edwin looked back at the boulevard. ‘Just checking, Mr Davis, ‘cos we got us a tail.’

‘How many and for how long?’ asked Mac, as he pulled the Heckler from his backpack, checked for safety, checked the mag, checked for load and held it low.

‘One car, two people,’ said Edwin, very calm. ‘White Toyota, three cars back. They been with us since before the hospital, now they back.’

‘Pro?’ asked Mac, not turning.

‘Yes,’ said Edwin, looking in the rear-vision mirror.

‘Can you give me a mirror, mate?’

Edwin adjusted the passenger-side mirror until Mac said, ‘That’s it.’ The two men tailing them were in a Camry and Mac made a mental note of the numberplate as they came to a red light on Sundiraman.

Mac asked Edwin to fi nd the worst traffi c snarl in Jakarta and make no attempt to lose the tail. They moved off, drifted left into Bonjol, and moved into traffi c that worsened as they went south.

‘We’re looking for a blind corner, mate,’ said Mac and then pointed at a left turn that was particularly congested, probably people lining up to get into one of the fi nance district parking buildings. There was a big bank on the near corner, and if the traffi c moved as expected, they’d lose the tail pretty fast.