Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

‘Sure you do, Peter. There were about seventy of them, mostly seven-, eight-, nine-year-olds. They were in your warehouse, mate.’

Sabaya talked soft, said to Garrison, ‘I told you not to use any place belonging to the Amron brothers.’

‘Yeah, but I just needed to get a place with no leasing problems.

I didn’t know they were still doing that shit. Honest to God, AT.’

Sabaya turned back to Mac, a new look in his eye. ‘I’ve heard enough. Time to move.’

Sabaya put his hand out and one of his sidekicks slapped a Browning in it. He held it up to Mac.

Mac took a breath, closed his eyes. Thought about a cold beer but saw Jenny instead.

There was a gunshot.

Mac was still alive. He opened his eyes, gulping for breath, and saw Garrison slumped on the quad bike. Saw him slip off and hit the ground.

Sabaya gave back the Browning, looked at Mac.

‘Here’s the deal, McQueen. You get the US Army to get that thing the hell out of my country. And I’ll let you do the same thing.’

Mac said nothing, thinking.

A sidekick went to the quad bike, unhitched the trailer with the VX on it.

Sabaya shook his head. ‘Never wanted that thing. Just wanted the gold.’

‘Pretty large stash to put in one place, isn’t it?’ asked Mac.

‘That’s why we’ve been dropping it all the way up here,’ said Sabaya.

It fi gured. Mac didn’t think that what he was seeing in the tunnels added up to what was stolen from Kaohsiung Holdings.

The thugs unhitched the trailer Mac was sitting on and started their quad bikes. The fi rst two accelerated away, along what in Queensland was called a fi re trail.

Sabaya found fi rst gear, but didn’t let the clutch out. ‘I heard you were the one who got the bodies out of the water. Arranged them on the deck?’ he said.

Mac didn’t know what he was talking about.

‘Tino’s mum thanked you at the funeral. Gave her a body to bury.’

Sabaya accelerated away, leaving Mac standing there in the jungle.

He walked over to Garrison. Ratted his SIG. Checked for load, checked the spout, made to walk away but thought again. He ratted the American’s pockets, found some money, found a Bic lighter. Turned him over, patted the rear chino pockets, felt something in the right one, undid the tortoiseshell button and shoved his hand in. Garrison was still warm.

He came out with a piece of white paper. Golden Dragon Line letterhead. Three lines of numbers. Coordinates in nautical format.

Trousered it.

Then he sat down. Vomited.

Mac staggered and fell, staggered and fell. Something wasn’t right in his head. With his arms out he blundered through scrub and jungle, following the trail in the moonlight only to be plunged into blackness through stands of forest.

At one point he was so disoriented that he went over like a caber, smashed his face on a tree. He did the whole thing without the slightest sensation of falling.

Occasionally, the thromp of a helo would get louder and he’d get a fl ash of a big searchlight going round the top of a hill. Then it was gone.

At nine pm he gave himself a break, sitting on a log in a clearing and looking what he assumed was north over the Sulu Sea. Scores of tiny islands were dotted as far as he could see. Two ships steamed between them. US Navy or Chinese Navy? Maybe Philippine Navy.

Bats squabbled in the trees behind him, a macaque talking to itself.

He moved on, his head pulsing like his heart had decided to relocate. By the time the trail led him straight into the secret back entrance of the tunnel system, the agony in his head was subsiding, but the nausea was still there. It had taken an hour to cover the four miles.

There was a rusted hatchway door, larger than the ones they’d seen in the auxiliary tunnel. Mac grabbed the locking wheel, but he needn’t have bothered. The thing swung open. There was a wooden ramp on the inside, obviously there for the bikes.

He could hear activity echoing and vehicles revving, the SIG held in front of him he walked down a long downward-sloping tunnel, bulbs on the ceiling spaced every thirty metres. Sabaya may have been out of the tunnels, but his MO included booby traps and surprise visits. Mac had no idea who was still running around down there.

The tunnel opened into a room. Mac smelled gasoline and two-stroke mixture. He followed a smaller corridor back from the room.

It was low and tight, his shoulders rubbing both sides as he walked.

Abruptly the tunnel came to a right-angle turn. Mac paused. Head-out, head-in, did it twice then looked around and saw a dead end three metres away.

He walked towards the sound of American voices. There was a steel frame and a steel panel inside it, a six-inch lever too. He pulled it up and the steel panel swung away from him.

He was in the command centre of the tunnel, in front of him a fi gure in a Level-A bio-hazard suit. They looked at each other and Mac lowered the SIG. Three other people in bio-hazards were doing something at the far wall.

‘McQueen. Anyone got some water?’ said Mac.

Mac briefed Don in person and Hatfi eld over the radio system. The US Army didn’t like its generals wandering around in tango cave systems.

Wasn’t what they paid them for.

Mac pinpointed the VX bomb as best he could, told them they’d fi nd Garrison there too. And no, he didn’t do it.

Then he gave enough of a debrief so Don could do his paperwork.

He’d grown to like the bloke, had come to realise the kind of stress these CBNRE blokes lived under. Stealing a CBNRE device might take some doing. But once you had it, the scale of destruction was huge compared with the resources required to use it.

Don wanted to run a tape, but Mac declined the offer so Don took notes. Mac sensed he was only double-checking Sawtell’s account anyway.

After they’d fi nished Don led him through to the main tunnel.

Sawtell’s boys were slumped on and around the white LandCruiser.

Mac heard someone say, Shit, it’s Chalks!

The cab door opened and Sawtell stepped out, eyes red from the concrete dust. ‘McQueen! Good to see you, my man,’ he croaked.

They did a thumb-shake.

Sawtell shook his head. ‘Man, we’ve been turning this place over like a crack-head looking for rock.’

‘Sabaya and Garrison had me,’ said Mac.

Sawtell’s eyes widened. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘I got knocked out on that bear trap in the offi ce.’

Sawtell sniggered. ‘Spikey slipped on that too.’

‘Well shit – I didn’t know,’ came a voice from behind.

Mac turned, saw Spikey. They shook. Spikey pulled him in, touched chests. ‘I mean, who puts a spring-loaded ramp in their fl oor?’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ said Mac.

Sawtell wanted the story. ‘So, they let you go?’

Mac nodded. ‘Sabaya shot Garrison.’

‘No shit!’ said Sawtell.

‘Yep. Did it in front of me. Out the back here, out near the sea, on the other side. Some kind of dispute about those kids in the container.’

They stared at him in disbelief.

‘Sabaya didn’t know about it. He does now.’

‘But he didn’t shoot you?’ asked Sawtell.

Mac looked away into the middle distance, thinking about it.

Realised he was talking with veterans of that night in Sibuco Bay. ‘You remember when we did the Sabaya thing in ‘02?’

They nodded.

‘Remember how I wanted that tango’s body pulled out of the water? Wanted him on deck?’

Sawtell snorted. ‘Sure do.’

‘Well word got back to that bloke’s mum. She mentioned me at the funeral.’

They stared at him.

‘Funny old world, huh?’ said Mac.

Mac pulled himself onto the fl at deck of the LandCruiser as Spikey fi red it up. He shook with Fitzy and then looked down. Paul’s body was lying there on his back, grey ovies, Hi-Tec Magnums. One of Sawtell’s boys had draped their BDU jacket over his face, and the chest wound. The blue G-Shock on Paul’s wrist was ticking over.