Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

Behind him, someone groaned. A long, animal-like exhalation of pain.

‘Mr B, the secret cache at Clark – what was it?’ demanded Mac.

‘Oh that. About four thousand tons of VX gas,’ said Cookie. ‘Nerve agent. Nasty shit.’

Mac tore the grey duct tape off Ray-Bans’ mouth, sliced the white fl exi cuffs from his wrists, and watched him slump to the carpeted fl oor of the HiAce van. It was late afternoon, the temperature was low thirties, and dust seemed to fl oat on the heat. Wafts of kerosene and scorched rubber came from the helos and military air-lifters around Hasanuddin Air Base and the F-111s from the Indonesian Air Force’s Eastern Command screamed as they took off.

The HiAce sat beside Cookie’s LandCruiser in a private hangar that looked over the whole spread of Hasanuddin Air Base and the airport.

A security bloke strolled with a German shepherd about eighty metres away near the huge sliding doors.

Mac put a bottle of water in front of Ray-Bans. Watched the guy squirm and wriggle to get comfortable. Blood was smeared down his dark red polo shirt and across the thighs of his cream chinos, and his right eye was puffed, dark purple and about to get a nice yellow yolk in the middle. Struggling onto his right elbow, he pushed himself up against the wall of the HiAce with his boat shoes. He put his hand out for the water, revealing a heavily muscled arm. Couldn’t reach it, so Mac opened the top and gave it to him.

Mac stayed at arm’s length. The guy was an athlete and Mac was in no shape to go close-range with him.

Ray-Bans drank, convulsed slightly, then wiped his mouth and spat. A tooth bounced on the black nylon carpet.

‘This when I die?’ he asked, in a London accent.

‘That depends on both of us,’ said Mac.

Mac had developed paranoid ideas about Ray-Bans for the last couple of days. It wasn’t just that the bloke was put together and looked like he knew what he was doing. It wasn’t just that from Minky’s place and all the way up Sulawesi and into the highlands the two had been playing cat and mouse. It wasn’t even that Mac had fi nally clicked and realised that the bloke was part of the Sabaya retinue during the Mindanao Forest Products infi ltration. The big thing Mac had been overlooking, and which hadn’t occurred to him during this totally out-of-control mission, was that Ray-Bans might be a lot more like him than he was comfortable with. He had the same aura Mac drew around himself in the fi eld: the unknown quantity, the person who could be from anywhere, doing anything. About the only people who noticed the kind of blandness Mac affected were other spooks.

‘Smoke?’ asked Mac.

Ray-Bans nodded.

‘Bad luck, I don’t,’ said Mac.

They both laughed, Ray-Bans through a busted-up mouth. He stopped himself quick.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Mac.

‘Call me Paul. Yours?’

‘Then I’d have to kill ya,’ said Mac.

Paul snorted, looked out the HiAce window, still casing his surrounds. He was a good-looking man up close, even with the facial he’d got from Hemi. He could have starred in General Hospital, sort of an Asian Rick Springfi eld.

‘You knew during the Mindanao Forest thing that I wasn’t a forestry consultant,’ said Mac.

Paul looked at the fl oor. ‘Didn’t know what the fuck you were, tell the truth. You were a pretty good deal-maker for an impostor.’

‘You liked that?’

Paul looked at him with one eye, nodded. ‘Chinese liked it too.’

‘And Sabaya?’

Paul grinned, looked away. ‘Embarrassed him, getting a pale-eye to broker something between a Filipino and the Chinese. Didn’t really live up to some of his ethnic ideas…’

‘But you let it go.’

Paul shrugged, slugged at the water, winced slightly.

‘You NICA, one of Garcia’s boys?’ asked Mac, referring to Philippines intel.

Paul shrugged.

Mac waved the Browning. ‘I’m the one with the gun. In the movies, that’s good for me, bad for you.’

Paul smiled, looked Mac in the eye. ‘I’m not NICA.’

‘Agency?’

Paul shook his head.

The van was getting stuffy and Mac got up, pulled the sliding side window back. Let some air in, sat down.

‘Paul, there’s something worth knowing. I’m really tired, really stressed. I’m even a bit emotional,’ he said, looking down at the Browning on his lap. ‘I’m not going to sit here all day asking questions like I’m on a date with a diffi cult bird. I’m sure you’d like to get on your bike too, huh?’

Paul nodded, said, ‘Mate, I’m Old School.’

Mac looked at him. Old School was intel-speak for MI6 – the oldest intelligence organisation in the Western world and the one that most others were in some way modelled on. ASIS, the CIA, Mossad and the Canadian SIS had all turned to MI6 for guidance during their set-up phase.

‘SAS, paras?’ asked Mac.

‘You’re quick.’

‘The looks and the accent…’

Paul shrugged. ‘Mexican father, Filipina mother. Grew up in Manila, high school in London. Usual shit.’

‘Spanish, Tagalog, good Yankee accent?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Useful guy.’

‘The expendable ones usually are.’

‘Tell me about Garrison,’ asked Mac.

‘The American?’

Mac nodded.

‘Don’t know much. He’s apparently Agency but a bit unortho dox.

Likes money.’

‘Weren’t briefed on Garrison?’

‘Basic fi le. I know he was in Burma doing stuff with the junta and the Chinese. But my entry point was Sabaya. He’d been off the map since you fi nished him.’

‘Wasn’t me.’

‘That’s not what they say.’

‘What do they say?’ said Mac.

‘Then I’d have to kill you.’

They looked at each other for two seconds.

‘Sabaya came back on the map again in ‘05,’ said Paul. ‘He’d been lying low down in Sulu for a couple of years. Been into Burma, somehow hooked up with Garrison. But Garrison was never my end.

Sabaya was my end.’

‘Where does the girl, Judith Hannah, fi t in?’

‘We met them at the airport ten days ago,’ said Paul, pointing out the window. ‘Garrison was shooting her up with something, so I hear.

He wanted something from her.’

‘What were they using?’

‘Don’t know – scopolamine, I guess. That’s the Agency thing, isn’t it? But I wasn’t around. I was chasing you round the manor, remember that?’

‘What did they want from her?’

‘Don’t know. I never got to Sabaya’s inner circle. He thought I was a mercenary, hired muscle.’

Mac suspected the guy was stonewalling, but he pushed on. ‘What about the other girl?’

‘I tried to stop that, believe me. I’m Army, mate – got a policy about kids.’

‘No, not Minky’s girl. Adult, blonde, English. Calls herself Diane.’

Paul shrugged. ‘Who’s she with?’

‘Garrison, as far as I know.’

Paul made a face. ‘Just ‘cos she sounds English, mate, doesn’t mean she works for the English. Know what I mean?’

‘It’s important.’

‘Sorry, mate. Don’t know about an English girl.’

Mac thought about it. ‘So what are these blokes up to?’

‘You can’t ask that in the Sabaya camp,’ said Paul. ‘They’ll drop you for that.’

‘What’s in that old mine?’

‘Nothing. Fucking beats me.’

‘Nothing?’

‘I had a quick look a week ago – empty. They’ve laid track in there, but there’s nothing in it.’

Mac was exhausted, close to passing out. He stood to a crouch, pulled the sliding side door back, got out backwards and gestured for Paul to follow.

They walked to the hangar door. Mac reached into his chino pockets, came out with about four hundred US dollars. Handed it over.