Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

‘Look, Edi, why don’t I tell you what I know and you tell me how we’re going to catch these pricks – fair?’

Edi shrugged.

‘So what are the cops saying about the bodies up there?’ asked Mac.

‘Dunno, Mac. They not talking with us.’

Same old same old, thought Mac, wearied by it all: cops, spooks and military refusing to speak to one another.

He reckoned a solid police ID on Garrison’s thugs – the ones who didn’t make it past Sawtell’s boys – might be useful.

‘You got anything on the BMW?’ asked Mac.

‘Corporate registration in the name of a shelf company. Import/ export. All the usual shit. Nothing linking it with Garrison, but we’re following up right now.’

‘So, how’d it go down in Singapore?’ asked Edi, pushing for his own information.

Mac felt like Edi was going too far.

‘It was a decoy, mate. Sure of it.’

‘Decoy for what?’

Mac shrugged. ‘Just didn’t feel like real terrorism.’

Edi made a humming sound deep in his throat. ‘Funny timing though, eh Mac?’

‘Timing?’

‘You know, with Xiong in Singapore the same morning.’

Mac looked at him, his interest aroused by the Indonesian perspective. ‘Tell me.’

Edi shrugged. ‘Probably nothing. What do the Americans call it?’

‘What?’

‘Inciting incident? Something like that?’

Mac was so tired, but he smiled. ‘Inciting incident?’

Inciting incidents were what the CIA created in order to justify a response, usually of a military nature. They’d get their contractors to stage an atrocity somewhere and then false-fl ag it – get the media and other governments to pin it on the government they wanted to invade or launch a coup against.

Mac was running fl at-out trying to see where Edi got Singapore into the mix. ‘You’re not telling me the CIA is in this? Garrison is a black sheep, far as I can tell. He’s not with the program – is he?’

Edi smiled. Big Javanese smile. ‘Mr Mac, inciting incidents don’t have to be Agency. Just see this from Asian eyes. Which country wants a reason for Singapore to embrace its military? Perhaps in the form of a naval base?’

Mac clicked. ‘So the Chinese get an incident that focuses the need for their military presence in Singapore. What do Garrison and Sabaya get?’

‘Don’t know,’ Edi mused. ‘Some of that Chinese gold?’

Mac thought about it. The Chinese economy was the world’s fastest-growing, but at the highest levels of its government, everything was still transacted with gold.

‘You saying the Chinese paid Garrison and Sabaya to pull that thing on Golden Serpent?’

‘Sure. Does the CIA use its own people or offi cial budget to pull its stunts? Remember Irangate? That was an off-the-books funding operation to get money to paramilitary contractors in Central America.’

Mac nodded. ‘I guess it was.’

‘Garrison is probably tolerated in the Agency because he’s their funding guy,’ said Edi.

‘Know what, Edi? You in the offi ce tomorrow morning?’

Edi shrugged.

‘I might call you,’ said Mac.

‘You do that.’

Mac noticed one of the POLRI women had given Paul a bottle of water, but he wasn’t drinking it. Mac opened it, gave it to him. ‘Keep the fl uids up, mate.’

Paul had been strapped by the medics and was referring to his rib-wound as a ‘nick’. He drank, his face a mask of impassivity. Mac wondered if everyone still had that taste in their mouths.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Mac. ‘We’ve forgotten about some thing, haven’t we? The other hostage, the offi cer from Golden Serpent.’

Paul shrugged.

‘Well, what’s that about?’ asked Mac.

‘Either they’re going to make more demands, or they’ve got another ship,’ said Paul, then looked away, wincing with the pain in his ribs. ‘You saying that there’s no more demands? What they came for is actually on a ship somewhere?’

‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, if we agree the Singers thing was a hoax?’

‘A decoy.’

‘Okay, decoy,’ said Mac.

‘So why did Garrison come to Jakarta?’ said Paul, suspicious.

‘Don’t know, mate. Take care of business? It’s where his hostages were.’

‘And where’s Sabaya gone?’

‘What if where he’s gone has nothing to do with it? What if the key to this is what’s on the ship he’s hijacked?’ said Mac. ‘Remember Wylie saying the third hostage is a Canadian bloke with a lot of experience in these waters?’

‘And Sabaya referred to the Canadian as the “asset”,’ said Paul, his face lighting up. ‘You know, there was that strange thing in Singers.

Remember, when Weenie came on the radio and told us that all those ships were demanding to get out of the port?’

‘Sure do.’

‘And you called it a stampede.’

‘Yeah.’

Paul looked into the middle distance, thinking. ‘You know, you create a lot of confusion by getting that kind of exodus in a major port. But Garrison and Sabaya weren’t pulling a real hostage crisis, were they?’

‘Nah.’

‘So why did they need that chaos?’ asked Paul.

That’s what I’m getting at,’ said Mac. ‘I think they staged that thing to get hold of a ship. They knew the MPA would be looking elsewhere. The Coast Guard were obviously focused on one thing. US

Army could only think of nerve agent. Same with the cops.’

‘Get the attention on one thing…’

‘… steal a totally other thing.’

‘Then, once they were standing on their new ship, they trigger a race for the exits, give themselves a head start,’ said Paul.

‘No ship owner is really going to know what’s going on till this dies down,’ said Mac, ‘and it won’t be over for another two hours or more.’

Paul swivelled, eyes ablaze. ‘If your theory’s right, they’ve given themselves a head start of – what? – ten hours, eleven hours?’

‘Depends on exactly when they left Golden Serpent and went to Brani Island with -‘ Abruptly, the last few days tumbled over and things fell into place. Mac sifted his subconscious.

‘What is it, Mac?’ asked Paul.

Mac shook his head slightly. ‘This may sound crazy, but I think we saw the ship they hijacked. I think they were on it.’

‘When?’

‘When we came out of our swim to Brani and came up alongside her.’

‘That white thing?’

‘Yeah – roll-on/roll-off. I thought I saw something on the upper decks but I couldn’t confi rm it. What I remember now is that the tailgate was down on the dock. Remember that?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘When we were taking off, there was a sound in that building, remember?’

‘No, I don’t. You saying they were in there?’ said Paul.

‘I think they were waiting for us to go so they could continue loading it up. They’d already put out the scare story to all the ships. We stumbled into the middle of it.’

‘So that’s our ship?’

‘Dunno. Might have to tip the Singaporean cops to it.’

Paul looked at Mac. ‘Not our fi ght, mate.’

‘Not our fi ght,’ echoed Mac.

Mac thought about fi nding a cab, going south, booking into the Marriott or Regent with his DBS Visa card, and sleeping solid. If he could get through on a phone call fi rst time, he might tip the Singapore cops off. But he doubted they’d listen. He’d play it by ear.

He couldn’t see anyone from the Aussie Embassy. Looked like he’d got lucky, sidestepped the paperwork. He’d catch up with all that later.

Pop in on his way to Soekarno-Hatta.

As he eased weight on to his legs to test how his knee was doing, Jenny came over, sat between Mac and Sawtell.

‘You okay, Mr Macca?’