Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

‘Okay, McQueen.’

‘And I’m thinking to myself, This can’t be right; surely the organisation that missed two Bali bombings, an embassy bombing and a hotel bombing can’t now be wasting resources tailing one of their own

…’

‘I said okay!’ snapped Atkins.

Mac took an extra-loud slurp of tea, hoping to make Atkins wince, which he did.

Atkins put his foot down from the desk and sat upright. ‘Where’s Garvs?’

‘Chasing dandelions.’

‘I mean, he’s okay?’

‘Sure,’ shrugged Mac, ‘but you should be more careful. This is Jakarta. You follow the wrong guy in this town and you end up in the dentist’s chair, maybe a surprise visit from Captain Crocodile Clips.’

They stared at each other, Atkins looking away fi rst. ‘Look, McQueen, fact is they’ve pulled the plug. Canberra wants you on the next available.’

Mac’s heart sank: that’s why Joe and Davidson weren’t talking. The word had gone out and the Service was doing what it so often did to its own people.

‘Why?’

‘I just took the call,’ Atkins said, palms turning up. ‘You know how it is.’

‘Do I?’ said Mac, face icy. Atkins would almost certainly have made the call to Canberra himself, demanding the authority to have Mac recalled. The whole thing had been hatched from Jakarta, and the way these things worked, it could be a case of ASIS being asked to back off by the Americans, the Indonesians or the British.

Mac stole a look at the time: eighteen minutes til Garvs put in a call, did some heavy breathing.

‘So,’ said Mac, ‘who are we protecting today? Musharraf? Khan?

Hassan?’

Atkins’ eyes fl ickered at the mention of Hassan, but he recovered quickly and laughed. ‘That’s quite a collection, McQueen.’

‘Well?’

Atkins stood, looked at this own watch. ‘There’s that eight o’clock fl ight into Perth, right? Then a connecting to Sydney.’

‘Make that Brisbane.’

‘Sure – make it anything you want, McQueen. As long as you’re going out to Hatta this arvo, we don’t have a problem, okay?’

Mac stood and affected body language that said, I get it – I’m no longer a threat.

‘And by the way,’ said Atkins, softening. ‘That thing about, you know, cowboy? I didn’t mean that. Just the booze talking, eh?’

Mac wondered if Atkins had been in counselling too.

‘Yeah,’ said Mac as he opened the door. ‘That stuff about Dunford deserving a shot? I meant every word.’

They pulled in behind a superette in Central and Mac fl icked the driver a wad of rupiah to get him two pre-paid phones, six cards of recharge, a TI card and a car recharger for a Nokia. Once the driver had scrammed, Mac called Garuda on his Nokia and booked the eight o’clock fl ight to Perth, used Richard Davis, the Davis passport number and the Richard Davis Visa card from the Commonwealth Bank. They confi rmed him and he even asked for his seat in the business-class section of the Garuda Airbus. Then he took a last check of the numbers he needed – Davidson, Joe and Freddi – before switching the profi le to ‘silent’. Ringing his own number he heard the voicemail kick in, then pulled down the rear centre armrest of the Nissan Maxima, put his Nokia up the back of the cavity and returned the armrest to the up position. Intelligence organisations bugged their own mobile phones for voice and position and Mac was going to allow ASIS – and whoever else was getting nosey – to think he was still in Jakarta.

The driver came out with a white plastic bag of phone goodies and tried to give Mac the change. Mac waved away the money and asked to be driven into downtown. They pulled up at a commercial mail centre and Mac asked the driver to keep the motor running and, putting his Heckler in the white plastic bag, he walked inside, gave the bag to the owner – Georgie – and asked him to stow it in Mac’s locked mail box.

They pulled up to a huge mall at 2.09 pm and after Mac paid the guy he shot into the vast, glass-domed space, his backpack over one shoulder. At a newsstand near the entrance, he picked up a Jakarta Post and waited for fi ve minutes. Seeing no eyes, he paid for the paper, turned and strolled down the mall concourse and out the other entrance into the heat and haze of downtown. Walking north he used both sides of the street, stopping suddenly as if taken by a window display. Striking left into the local rent-a-car alley, he walked past the Avis, Hertz and Europcar franchises and walked into the courtyard of Hadi Rentcar.

The Americans, British and Australians had good data feeds for rental-car outlets and the credit cards used with them. So Mac always went with the rental company least familiar to someone like Isla, sitting at her desk in the section, scanning for aliases and credit cards.

After navigating the Kijang Innova onto the Trans-Java Highway, Mac got the anonymous two-litre people-mover into the rhythm of the freeway – a two-lane carriageway to Surabaya at the far east of the island. As the new pre-paid phone sat charging next to him on the passenger seat, he sipped on water and munched on small Javanese oranges to keep his energy up. He was aiming for a six-thirty pm fl ight into Singers. Allowing for only half an hour of delays, he should make it. He had called SIA and made a fl ight inquiry but hadn’t booked. If anyone was getting really smart and knew he had a card in the name of Brandon Collier, then at the very least he wanted them scrambling in Singapore, not waiting outside the terminal at Juanda.

Mac pulled off the freeway into a Pertamina gas station in Mojokerto. Inside, he bought some green tea and a tray of chicken salad, took a seat at the window and had a good long look at the layout: one CCTV camera aimed at the service counter, but he couldn’t see any more. It wasn’t busy and he waited until there were no cars in the forecourt and just one bloke in the eatery. Then, letting himself out, he grabbed the black toilet bag from the Kijang and made for the restrooms. There seemed to be no surveillance cameras either outside the door or in the lavs, but he still made double sure before going into a cubicle and shutting the door. Opening the toilet bag and placing it fl at on the cistern, Mac pulled out the poncho of clear plastic, stretched it out and put the yoke over his head. Digging his fi ngers into one of the small jars, he rubbed the creamy contents into his hair until it was slick all over, then combed it through. Inside one of the smaller plastic packets, he found a black moustache. He treated it gently with his fi ngertips – a wonky mo was worse than useless – and, squirting clear theatrical glue from a tiny tube onto the back of the mo, he carefully put it on his upper lip. Next, pulling out two rupiah coins, he put one under his heel in each shoe. Finally, everything went back in the toilet bag, which went into the pack, and Mac emerged cautiously to check himself in the mirror.

His black mo really suited his new black hair.

The fl ight was on time and Mac made it through immigration with no problems. Because Singers was one hour behind Surabaya, Mac was walking along the Changi concourse at much the same time as he’d left Indonesia. He felt tired but okay. Having adjusted to being back in the fi eld, he’d replaced emotions with the coldness he liked when he worked.

Emerging into the early evening heat of Singapore, he stood in line for a cab, acting casual but looking for eyes. Along the arrivals apron he saw Bruce Thorn, the friendly Canadian IT executive he’d sat next to on the fl ight, walking behind a chauffeur to a navy blue 7-series. Bruce waved as he dipped down into the BMW and Mac waved back. Mac was pleased to have the SIA computer-generated boarding pass Bruce had left in the pocket in front of his seat. Mac had taken it for later use.