Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

He’d sold the idea of reaching Idi, rather than turning back, on the basis of not wanting Anwar to wonder why they were going the wrong way. But it was simpler than that: Mac wanted to join with Freddi and get in front of Hassan Ali.

The eastern Sumatran coastline was essentially hundreds of miles of beaches and palms, making every section of coast look the same as the next. But landmarks became clearer after twenty minutes and Mano mumbled about the long jetty off the point. Mac saw it, lying low in the humid sea haze, and aimed for it, glancing over his shoulder every thirty seconds to see if Anwar had picked up their trail.

They pulled in to the Idi jetty at 1.18 pm and Mac hoped it wasn’t so far beyond the appointed hour that Freddi and the BAIS team had pulled out. The jetty was almost a kilometre long and Mac found a mooring close to the beach. He checked on Mano again, made sure he was drinking water, then fi shed his Nokia from the backpack. Holding it up, he checked if he had a signal. The signal was good, impossible as that seemed, and he wondered if he was connected to a TI tower in Sumatra or to another cellular network from across the Straits.

Freddi’s phone rang twice before it was picked up. ‘Yeah?’

‘Freddi,’ rasped Mac, still a little scared and not entirely sure of what he was doing. ‘Mac here, mate.’

‘McQueen, you late.’

Gulping, he tried to shift the conversation. ‘Mate, I’ve got a bloke critically injured. Gunshot to the leg.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Come on, Fred,’ said Mac, rubbing his temple and feeling a cast of dried blood. ‘He’s my driver; he got shot trying to protect me.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Jetty.’

Mac heard muffl ed conversations, and then Freddi was back. ‘Stay there, McQueen. Be with you in fi ve.’

‘Did you fi nd the stuff?’ said Mac, hoping that the Indonesians had moved fast enough to get the mini-nuke from wherever it was stored.

Freddi paused, then said again, ‘See you in fi ve.’

Freddi walked away from the old parade ground at the Idi airfi eld.

Mac followed, slugging on a large bottle of water, while Mano got medical attention from a soldier in one of the Hueys.

It was humid and hot among the jungle scrub as they strode to the same bunker system they’d checked out fi ve years ago. Birds and monkeys screeched and the insects laid a humming foundation to the whole din. They got to the fi rst concrete pillar box, which had been stripped of its vines and the doors blasted off. Freddi led the way down the tractor ramp, pushing his sunnies into his hair and turning on his Maglite as they descended into the gloom. The Japanese had built underground storage bunkers at their forward military bases during the Pacifi c War, to keep their gasoline and food supplies out of the sun and inconspicuous to aerial surveillance.

Freddi was in a foul mood, and when they stopped in the middle of the large bunker, and he swung the Maglite around him, it became obvious that not only was there nothing down here, but there hadn’t been anything down here more recently than 1944, maybe the mid-1960s if you assumed the Indonesian military used it during the Konfrontasi paratrooper incursions into Malaya. It was fi lled with dust and sand, but no mini-nuke.

‘So, McQueen,’ said Freddi as Mac followed the torch beam around the bunker. ‘That what we got, right?’

‘Nothing.’

Humphing, Freddi turned off the Maglite and walked back towards the light of the tractor ramp. They came up outside, walking into a wall of humidity and bird noise. Mac was a little hungover from the night with Benny and Suzi, and the early start and the hit on the head hadn’t helped either. He had a buzzing sensation in his head and estimated the temperature at thirty-nine or forty degrees as he walked briskly to keep up with Freddi.

Mac sped up, and asked if they could talk. Freddi stopped in the shade of a palm and put his hands on his hips, tense in the shoulders and neck. ‘Okay, so?’

‘Mate, before we get back to all the listeners, thought we might have a chat,’ said Mac, slugging at a bottle of water.

‘Okay,’ nodded Freddi, but looking away.

‘So,’ said Mac, ‘the hotel pad had latents, a phone number?’

‘Yep.’

‘And you ran it, found the owner?’ Sweat mingled with Mac’s head wound, stinging beneath the dressing the soldiers had given him.

‘Yep.’ Freddi reached for the water.

‘Who was he?’ asked Mac.

Freddi returned the water, moved his left toe in a fi gure of eight in the sand. Embarrassed.

‘What’s up, mate?’

Freddi changed his stance, shook his head and looked everywhere but Mac. ‘Can’t talk about that, McQueen.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know why,’ he said.

‘Your guys in on this, Freddi?’ Mac pushed, and the next thing he knew there was a hand around his throat, perfectly poised on his carotid pressure points. Then the hand wasn’t there and Mac’s own hands were in the surrender pose and Freddi was looking at the sky, chest heaving with adrenaline and stress.

‘I’m sorry, mate,’ said Mac, rubbing at his throat. He hadn’t wanted to smear BAIS but he was tired and confused.

‘No, McQueen – I’m sorry,’ said Freddi, trying to deepen and lengthen his breaths as he stood in front of Mac. ‘I am so sorry.’

Mac took a gamble. ‘Purni?’

Freddi sagged, his shoulders dropping and his hands turning up, as if asking why? ‘You were right, McQueen and I am very ashamed.’

‘Mate, don’t be -‘

‘No, I am ashamed,’ he insisted. ‘After that ambush here in ‘02, I could only see the Jew and the Australian – that’s what went in my report, McQueen, but I knew. I knew and I ignored it to show hate for foreigners. I took the easy way, the wrong way.’

‘Look, it happens, Fred -‘

‘No, McQueen, because you knew about Purni. You warned me, remember?’

Mac nodded, looked away.

‘And later, back in Jakarta, I realise it must be Purni. Who has military radio? Who can tell Hassan and Gorilla where we are and what we doing? After we do latents, we ran the number and pick up Purnoto. Purni want to talk, he so scared – he ashamed of that girl being shot and the boy. You know. He want it to be over.’

‘What did you get out of him?’

‘Ha!’ snorted Freddi, shaking his head with a bitter smile.

‘What happened?’

‘We get Purni down in the basement and he talking, right?’

‘Yeah?’

‘And we were just talking, talking, trying to fi nd where second device, right?’ said Freddi, getting worked up again.

‘And you did – this is it.’

Freddi nodded. ‘He told us it was stored at this air base, in the underground magazine. But we only talking to him twenty minutes, and he scared, McQueen – I mean real scared. All of us guys was thinking this could be a session where we solve many secret, yeah?’

‘Yeah, and?’

‘And down come deputy director of operation, not even eight o’clock in morning,’ said Freddi, disgusted.

‘Shit, Freddi – you worked through that entire night?’

Freddi nodded.

‘And down comes the brass?’

‘Yeah, and take him,’ said Freddi.

‘What, away?’ Mac couldn’t believe it.

Freddi nodded. ‘This is problem for Indonesi. It not American fault, it not fault of Jew or Australian or Chinese.’

‘Why was Hassan calling him?’

‘Purni say they want inside help, protection from BAIS, because you and me in same hotel – they smell the rat.’

‘Oh shit, Freddi!’

‘What I said. Purni say he want to be left alone, he in love with a girl now. But these are scary people, and Purni want to tell me.’