Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

Now he was on what felt like a quad bike trailer travelling at about thirty miles an hour. He was lying on his side, his wrists lashed in a St Andrews Cross on his chest. When they went over a bump his head banged on steel and his eyeballs ached. The back of his brain felt bruised.

Mac tried to get his mind into gear. Listened for the voices: Tagalog.

Tested his brain for drugs: could count, could rattle off ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Tried to sense direction: west? Same direction as the main tunnel. He didn’t know.

He’d know soon enough.

Mac woke up to hands pushing him upright, dry vomit clinging to the right side of his face. Someone whipped the sack off his head. He blinked, tried to look around, felt sea air on his face. A Filipino was in front of him, holding a Ka-bar. Lowering it, he cut Mac free.

Blood surged into Mac’s hands. It hurt and he rubbed his wrists, looked about. He was sitting on a steel trailer hitched to a Honda quad bike. They were on a spur and down beneath them, to what Mac thought was the north, waves washed into a small bay. It was night, there was an almost-full moon and the thromp of helos sounded from a few miles away.

His hand went up involuntarily to the back of his head. Sore as.

‘Hit yourself real good, bro.’ The voice was Filipino with an American accent.

Standing right there, not three feet away, was Abu Sabaya.

They eyeballed one another and then Sabaya smiled, put his hand out. ‘Aldam.’

Mac took it. ‘Mac.’

Sabaya laughed, yelling, ‘I told you they called him Mac.’

A white man in a polo shirt and chinos spoke from the seat of a quad bike. Peter Garrison. ‘McQueen’s what the Agency calls him.

Thought we’d stick with the program.’

Sabaya was in his trademark black T-shirt, Levis and runners. His black sunnies were pushed up on top of his head. In the moonlight Mac saw what Paul meant by the southern Filipinos looking more Polynesian than Asian.

Mac looked from Garrison to Sabaya. ‘This when I die?’

Garrison lit a smoke, pointed at Sabaya, like it was his call.

‘Small chat before we get to all that drama, hey McQueen?’ He sniggered, sucked on the smoke. ‘All Aussies this persistent?’

‘All Yanks this greedy?’ asked Mac.

Garrison laughed, shook his head. ‘Shit, McQueen. You go down there? To Kaohsiung’s warehouse?’

Mac nodded.

‘Don’t think they had enough of the stuff?’

Mac shrugged. ‘Weren’t they paying you anyway, to stage the Golden Serpent thing?’

Garrison laughed, slapped his leg. Looked at Sabaya. ‘Didn’t I tell you AT? Huh? I told you this guy was pure Tintin, didn’t I? Hundred per cent boy scout.’

‘You honestly thought the General Staff was going to wear that?

Write it off to spillage?’ asked Mac.

Garrison grimaced, changed the subject. ‘Hey, McQueen, you get my present? That fucking dog? Little Snowy? Decided not to shoot it.

Just for you.’

Mac nodded. ‘Found the dog.’

Garrison giggled, sobered up. ‘No, I was happy with the dough.

Fifty million US was fair. Chinese have always treated me okay. Good payers.’

‘So?’

Garrison pointed at Sabaya. ‘So our God-botherer here took exception to certain investments the PLA General Staff is committed to. Went all religious on me.’

Sabaya looked into the American, the way Sonny Makatoa could look into a man. ‘Sometimes the only way to control demand is to control the supply. That’s economics.’

Garrison laughed. ‘Yeah, but economists don’t heist the Chinese generals’ gold stash just to stop a casino being built. Shit, messing with a Chinaman’s gold – that’s an unhealthy way to live, bro.’

‘Macau isn’t a casino. It’s an entire zone. It’s going to be fi ve times the size of Las Vegas.’

‘So it’s big?’

‘It’s an affront.’

Garrison shrugged at Mac as if to say Silly Muslims.

Mac thought about what Sabaya had said. The Chinese government had given the go-ahead to develop Macau as a huge ‘lifestyle resort’ zone. Roughly translated it meant a place where you had casinos, horse tracks, prize fi ghts and poker tournaments, all in the same area.

It would be fed by low-cost airlines from around Asia. The deal would be: if you gamble enough money, we’ll comp you a fl ight in from China or the Philippines or Burma. The General Staff were probably as cornerstone investors, like the mafi a was in Las Vegas.

Conservative Muslims thought gambling was against God.

Thought it tore apart families and kept poor people poor. Same as what some Christians thought.

Mac looked at Garrison. ‘You still Agency?’

Garrison sucked smoke. Exhaled. ‘Then I’d have to fuck ya.’ He laughed, slapped his leg again. ‘It’s not what it seems, kemosabe.’

‘No?’ said Mac.

Garrison shrugged, fl icked the smoke without looking where it went.

‘Look, Singapore is going to have a Chinese naval base on it regardless of what the Indians like you and I do about it. You may not understand this, Mr Boy Scout, but there are Americans – Agency big-wigs, swinging dicks from State – who think the world would be a better place if the Chinese Navy could deploy in the Malacca Strait.’

Mac couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Oh, really? The Americans?’

Garrison pointed at Mac with his lighter. ‘You gotta stop with the Cold War theory, bro, and think about the future. No nations, just economies.’

Mac shook his head. ‘Sounds like something they’d teach you in a third-rate business school.’

‘You’re laughing, McQueen. But you’re just a worker bee like me.

I bet there’re people in your government who’ve already decided it’s a no-contest if the Chinese want warships in Singapore. Shit, I know a lot of Singaporeans who would sleep easier if the Chinese Navy was camped on the perimeter.’

Mac shrugged. He knew there were those theorists. Knew about the theory that Singapore was too small and vulnerable to control the economic and geopolitical importance it had inherited. That neither India nor China wanted Singapore and the Malacca Strait being the weak link in what would be the world’s biggest trade partnership within two decades.

Mac’s eyeballs pulsed and he winced. The Big Picture theorising of spooks was a well-worn cliche for Mac. Some spies were never happy just doing their job.

‘Look, the geopolitics is great, fellas. But about the VX…’ said Mac.

Garrison got serious. ‘Insurance, bro.’

‘Against what?’

‘Green Berets. DIA. SEALs. You been asleep?’

Mac looked around. Realised there were three more quad bikes parked on the trail. One had an object the size of a couple of basketballs strapped to its trailer, under a blanket.

Mac looked at Sabaya. ‘Please. Tell me that’s not the nerve agent.’

Sabaya deadpanned Mac.

‘Sure is, bro,’ said Garrison.

Mac held Sabaya’s stare but spoke to the American. ‘You know, Garrison, I may be a boy scout, but that’s a frigging warhead.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘So, if it goes off it kills everything. Keeps on killing till it dissipates in the sea. And in the sea it becomes harmless in – what

– six weeks?’

‘Well then, DIA better back off, huh?’ said Garrison.

‘Think that’s going to protect the locals? Any kids live round here?’

Sabaya sneered at Mac.

Mac saw an opportunity. ‘Of course, a child’s welfare isn’t really your concern, eh Peter?’

Garrison looked confused.

‘I mean, with all those Cambodian kids locked in that container in your warehouse?’

Mac had a sudden fl ash of Jenny’s strength with those kids.

Garrison gulped, fl ashed a sideways glance at Sabaya, who stared at him. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, kemosabe.’