Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

Mac said, ‘Beckham? Rooney?’

That triggered off an excited exchange between the two boys.

Mac was amazed at the global reach of soccer. The passion was just as strong in Makassar as in Rio or Liverpool. Mac asked when Indonesia was going to a World Cup fi nal and Brazil shook his head slowly.

‘No good. No good.’

Mac turned to go. Saw the MPS warehouses had a gantry along the roof line. Realised those glass panels in the roof were hinged. He’d been ten once and he’d poked around where he shouldn’t. With half a hunch he turned to Brazil and asked if he had the courage to climb the building. Mac pointed. ‘Too high?’

The boys arced up, ten-year-old egos worn on their sleeves. Mac tried to get them going. They smiled secretly at one another. Mac pulled out some rupiah. ‘How much is one of those World Cup footballs

– you know: the Adidas ones. Silver, aren’t they?’

Brazil looked at the rupiah with eyes that said, The whole lot should cover it.

Mac folded it, handed it over. ‘We go all time. All time,’ Brazil said, swinging his hand outward, like it was no big deal.

‘Yesterday?’ asked Mac.

Brazil shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘Must see interesting things?’

Brazil shrugged, said, ‘Sure.’

Mac looked over at MPS. Noticed a yellow tractor unit parked beside the back of warehouse 46. He pointed at the tractor. ‘Interesting things in that one?’

‘Sure.’

‘Like what?’

The boys got coy, looked at each other like, You tell. No, you tell.

Mac smiled. ‘You climbed in?’

‘Sure.’

‘See?’

‘Sure.’

Mac put his hands on his hips and did the disbelief-at-their-bravery tone. ‘Get some?’

‘Sure.’

‘No!’

Brazil nodded frantically. ‘Sure. Had lots. Much.’

Mac went for goal. ‘Show me.’

Brazil led them across the concrete boulders of the breakwater, England smiling at Mac. You’ll see how cool we are.

They got to a point where the huge boulders didn’t meet along their fl at planes, revealing a gap that made a sort of cave. Well, cave enough for a ten-year-old boy. Brazil went into his cubby-house, England smiled at Mac. You’ll see!

Brazil came out with his haul.

The blood drained from Mac’s face and he gestured urgently for Brazil to put the fucking thing down. Slow!

Brazil’s eyes went wide with fear and he lowered it, staring at Mac.

Scared. Mac called the boys to him. They were shitting themselves.

Mac could have done with the rubber undies himself. His heart jumped as they reached him. In a few years’ time they’d be fi nding human teeth on the moon, he thought.

Sitting on the concrete boulder in the early afternoon was a yellow plastic box with a built-in handle. It looked like a tradesman’s drill case, with a bit more grunt. CL-20: the planet’s most powerful and unstable non-nuclear explosive. Enough to vaporise the three of them.

Mac walked the boys back up to the MPS sheds, still panicking.

There were two ultra-high-yield explosives Mac was aware of: CL-20 and Octanitrocubane. Both of them had about twice the expansion rate of Semtex and C4, which in turn had about three times the power of TNT.

He tried to remember back to one of his specialist rotations with the Americans. They’d been shown CL-20 and Octanitrocubane and the difference between them had been explained. One of the super-explosives was highly stable and could be burned without exploding.

They used it to detonate thermonuclear warheads. The other was lighter and odourless but was highly unstable. Mac was stuffed if he could remember which one was which, but the skull-and-crossbones on the CL-20 box was enough for him.

As they walked up to the guardhouse, he kept the conversation going. Diffi cult when a couple of young boys think they’re in trouble.

He wanted to know who they’d seen around the warehouse.

Brazil managed to describe a tall Anglo man with dark hair.

‘Merry Carn.’

Garrison.

England perfectly described Abu Sabaya: the teeth, the hair, the general aura. Abu Sabaya, here, in Makassar!

Mac tried to stay calm. He didn’t want to spook the boys into silence. They were almost at the guardhouse. He stopped, asked Brazil, who had better English: ‘When were these people here? One day?’ He held up one fi nger. Then two. Then three.

Brazil thought about it, rolled his eyes like he was looking for the word.

‘Morning!’ He was proud of getting it out.

‘Morning? Which morning?’

‘Today morning, today,’ said Brazil.

Mac just stared, horrifi ed, both boys recoiling from his look.

He looked Brazil in the eye, pointed both index fi ngers at the ground. ‘This morning? Today morning?’

Brazil nodded furiously, scared.

‘Two men?’ Mac held up the two fi ngers again.

Brazil nodded. Held up one fi nger and said, ‘Lay.’

Mac shook his head.

Brazil used both hands to make the international sign of the female fi gure.

‘Lady?’ Mac asked.

Brazil nodded.

Mac asked what she looked like but Brazil looked confused.

‘Mama? Mak?’ asked Mac.

Brazil and England laughed at each other. Giggled.

So she didn’t look like anyone’s mother.

Brazil did his hourglass signal.

So there were three of them. He wondered where the bird fi tted in. With Judith Hannah safely back in Jakkers, he wondered who it could be. Maybe just a gangster’s moll. Some girls would put up with anything to get some excitement in their lives.

Mac thanked the boys. Pulled out some dough, but he was all out of rupiah. He showed them each a twenty-dollar greenback.

They grabbed for the dough. Mac pulled it back. Twenty dollars US in Makassar was like having a thousand dollars in Sydney.

‘You promise – give to Mak, right? To Ma,’ said Mac.

The boys rolled their eyes, looked at each other. So Mac pulled the money back, pretended to put it back where it came from. They chorused that yes, the money would be going to their mothers.

After doling it out, Mac shook their hands and then shooed them away. He wanted them off the docks as quickly as possible.

Mac got to the guardhouse, got in the Commodore and asked for the Pantai Gapura.

Mac waited until they’d driven away from the port area before he fi shed out the mobile phone and made a call. From his recollection, sensitive explosives could be triggered by something that disturbed the atmosphere. Cellular systems ran on microwaves which did plenty of atmospheric disturbing.

He patched through to Cookie’s compound in the foothills of Mount Malino. A local took the call, patching him on, probably to Cookie’s sat phone. Cookie came on the line. Clear, but with noise in the background. A helo or a logging site.

‘Yeah?’

‘Mr B – it’s Mac. Alan McQueen.’ He still didn’t have the ticker to call him Cookie.

‘Ah, Mr Mac. How’s it going?’

‘Yeah, good mate,’ he lied, his wrist throbbing and his eyelids heavy with exhaustion.

‘So you’re in town?’ asked Cookie.

‘Um, yeah, arrived yesterday, Makassar. Been busy.’ Mac tried to work out how much of a lie he could tell. He was cut off from the Service, chasing a CIA bloke and the former number one terrorist in South-East Asia. Or were they chasing him? He needed the reach that Cookie could bring.

Cookie laughed, loud, like a pirate. ‘Just checking, Mr Mac. Knew you wouldn’t lie to me.’

Mac expelled a lungful of air. He needed someone on his side, couldn’t do this by himself.

‘Mr B, I need to talk.’

‘Don’t we all.’

‘Remember that hocus-pocus a couple of years ago? The story about the cache of hazardous materiel found in a secret bunker at Clark? You remember that bullshit?’