Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

‘Just been having a chat with John,’ said Don. ‘It’s going to have to happen in two sections. The boat in one section and the fugitives in another. Copy?’

Mac and Paul nodded.

‘So there’s going to be a pursuit by Special Forces, with some SEALs in there too,’ said Don. ‘Then there’s the matter of securing the stolen substance and securing the ship. There’s going to be an overlap there, obviously.’ He cleared his throat.

Mac scoffed his nasi goreng, ravenous.

‘I think we’ve all been very lucky so far with the VX,’ continued Don. ‘But these guys are running around with a warhead of the substance, and it’s sitting on a bomb. Please, please, leave the scene if there’s any doubt, okay?’

They looked at him, silent.

‘I’m serious, guys. I know you’ve all got the Mark One pack, but you can only do so much with the antidote. Believe me, this stuff will fi nish you in fi ve minutes. You won’t even smell it.’ He looked from face to face, making sure they all understood there were to be no crazy heroics. ‘So leave the ship to the Twentieth – just leave it – and if the fugitives have the stolen item on their person, or in proximity, stand off, okay?’

The call came at 1.58 pm local while Paul and Mac were running through the ins and outs of the M4 carbine, the Green Berets’ offi cial assault rifl e.

Brownie leaned out of the Chinook door and yelled for Mac and Paul to come into the command Chinook. Don was speaking into a phone as they entered, spittle fl ying. There were two images on the SGI screen. One was of the Hainan Star from the earlier images, the other at a different berth.

Mac got closer, amazed at the comms and imaging gear the Yanks took for granted.

‘Got a match,’ said Brownie, clearly proud of his work.

‘They the same? Hainan Star?’ asked Mac.

‘No name coming up. But, yes sir, the computers say it’s a match,’ said Brownie.

‘Where’s this one?’ Mac pointed at the second image.

‘Don’s double-checking, but the grid says the Sulu Islands.’

Paul and Mac looked at one another. Behind them Don was rousing resources from wherever he could fi nd them. The satellite imagery was being shared from Guam to DC to Manila.

Mac pointed at the time coding on the bottom right of the second screen. ‘Is that real time?’

‘Sure is,’ said Brownie, ‘we’re live.’

‘Holy crap,’ said Mac.

‘Back into Mindanao. Same old same old,’ said Sawtell.

The Black Hawks pulled out before the Chinooks, Sawtell right behind the pilot. ‘Buckle in, ladies. It’s going to be a long fl ight.’

The two Army Black Hawks lifted off. The Navy SEALs were still getting their divers out of the water. As the helo pulled away Mac saw Hatfi eld standing outside his Chinook, dressed in T-shirt and BDU pants. Tired, stressed.

Mac sat back, taking occasional sit-reps from Sawtell as it was relayed to him from Brownie. There was a special Marines recon team out of Zamboanga being saddled up to get into the Sulu Islands quick-smart. But they’d been rostered on base duties and hadn’t been prepped for quick-reaction so half of them were in the gym or at the movies in town. The two QR forces – SEALs and Green Berets – were in Singapore.

The Black Hawk chugged on over the Java Sea. Their fi rst stop would be Balikpapan on the east coast of Borneo. Then they’d hop straight into Sulu, the chain of islands joining the south of the Philippines archipelago to the top of Indonesia. Zamboanga City poked south-west into the Sulu Islands. It was darkly familiar to all of them.

The Sulu Islands had been a haven for pirates and bandits for hundreds of years. It was to this remote and inaccessible chain that Abu Sabaya had always withdrawn when there was too much heat on Mindanao. One of the biggest battles Sawtell’s Alpha team had fought was on the Sulu island of Basilan. Other sorties had taken US Special Forces and their Filipino counterparts down to Jolo, another pirate stronghold island in the chain. It was tough countryside with dense jungle and locals loyal to Sabaya. Just getting helos onto some of the Sulu Islands was perilous in itself. Locals with SAMs and belt-fed . 50 cal machine guns were not afraid of a bit of target practice at Yankee birds.

Mac leaned back, thought about how things went in circles.

Thought about that night in Sibuco Bay, just around the point from Zam. Thought about the hoaxed death of Sabaya, how he must have been laughing somewhere on Jolo or further down the islands at Balimbing, biding his time, counting his money, until that chance meeting with Peter Garrison. He could just imagine Garrison: ‘Boy, have I got a deal for you!’

Now they were going back in. The coordinates translated to an island between Jolo and Cabucan. The area was so isolated that Filipino legend had it that the Japanese generals hid a lot of their Yamashita Gold in the highlands.

Mac caught Paul’s eye. Held it. Both of them thinking, Two helos of special forces will not be enough.

Mac looked out over the Macassar Strait while the Black Hawks were refuelled at Balikpapan Air Base. He’d done as much mental prepping for their assignment as he could for the moment, and now his mind wandered to how things had ended with Diane, which still rankled with him. Wrong girl, wrong number? What was that about?

Giving it up as a distraction, Mac refocused.

It was late afternoon, clouds built high in the sky. They’d release in about three hours, but in the meantime there was a breeze that worked on the humidity.

In an hour they’d be in the Sulu Islands, and Mac was dreading it. Sawtell had tried to remain calm as they landed in Balikpapan. The early reports from the Marines recon guys was a big zero. No one on Hainan Star, no trace of gold. No VX bomb. The US Navy was getting people in there too. But the Marines were being asked to stand-by, not engage.

‘You know, you have to put that gold somewhere, right?’ said Mac to Paul. ‘It’s a physical thing, takes up space. It’s not like electronic money between computers.’

‘Well, yeah. You’d need trucks, need loading gear, need people to do it,’ said Paul.

‘Absolutely. Then you need a safe little hidey-hole to stash it.’

‘Any ideas?’ asked Paul.

Mac turned, looked around. ‘I’ve only got one idea, but it’s pretty far-fetched.’

‘Try me.’

Sawtell wandered over. Tossed them a water bottle each.

‘You know, this is Yamashita country.’

‘The Jap guy. General. Hid all that gold in caves round South-East Asia?’ said Sawtell.

‘That’s the one,’ said Mac. ‘It was stolen from their occupied territories. The OSS came through after the Japs were driven out, grabbed a lot of it.’

Paul laughed. ‘Man, I grew up on that stuff. My mum? Forget it, brother! The Filipinos love stories of hidden caves fi lled with gold.’

‘Yeah, some of it’s bullshit,’ said Mac. ‘But there were some caches found.’

‘So what’s it got to do with us?’ asked Sawtell.

‘Yamashita’s engineers found real mines and pretended to be exploiting them. That was cover within cover. Most of the Japanese Army had no idea what they really were.’

‘Yeah?’ said Sawtell.

‘The locals thought they were working in a mine,’ continued Mac.

‘But they were building gold repositories. Had false walls, booby traps, secret tunnels. They’d stash the gold, put in the false wall and drop a part of the old mine in front of it with dynamite. They’d come up with a story that the mine had collapsed, and there was no more tin or copper in there.’

Mac opened his bottle. ‘The idea was they’d go back and dig out the gold when the dust of war had settled.’