Alan McQueen - 01 - Golden Serpent (32 page)

Mac was amazed how easy the stories were to write. Academics spouted forth to him, statistics could be pulled out and twisted to mean what he wanted and social workers would say anything to get in print. He even won an award from a Sydney ‘peace institute’ that had been set up as a KGB front in the 1960s and had somehow become self-perpetuating after the Soviet Union imploded.

One day the letter from the People’s Republic of China arrived, containing the kind of fl attery and enlisting techniques that Mac knew well. It even quoted lines of his stories back at him. Mac got into character with a shabby suit and a bad haircut, developing a dreamy yet self-righteous manner that he remembered from the socialists at UQ. The Chinese interviewers saw a bloke who started every second sentence with, ‘I feel it’s so important that …’ and appended anti-capitalist remarks with ‘not that I’m really an average Australian’. The panel were impressed, looking at each other and nodding at each other as if to say,
He’ll do
.

In hindsight, the MSS probably knew who he really worked for before he landed. And wouldn’t you know it, Mac was bedridden with gastro four days into the junket and was assigned a woman to keep him company while the main junket pack moved on into the interior to look at hydro dams and tyre factories. So Mac lived in Beijing’s Palace Hotel for a week with a woman whose fi rst name contained a jumble of
x
s and vowels, but who was known in intel circles as Daisy Dau.

Daisy’s basic approach was to have lots of sex, drink lots of wine and fl atter a man or woman into incriminating confessions. The Palace was part-owned by the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, and it was wired like a recording studio.

When Mac got back to Canberra and debriefed, the older guys got a laugh out of that for a while. Every young Westerner got pounced on by Daisy Dau. She was beautiful, smart and sexy and renowned for comparing her male companions to Kevin Costner.
Ooo, you such strong
man, you so handsome, like Krevin Cottner.

Those had been early days. The Service wasn’t trying to trip him up. He was allowed to call it a learning experience. He didn’t know much and wasn’t a great pillow-talker anyway. He joked with the guys that the MSS listening post had a stack of tapes of an Aussie bloke growling energetically for about thirty seconds, followed by hours of snoring.

This Diane thing was in a totally different league. It had completely blind-sided him. Through her he had glimpsed a new life, a new way to be in the world. It wasn’t just her sexiness. She was the kind of woman you could have a laugh with and be serious with inside the space of fi ve minutes. She had an appetite and loved a drink, she was shallow
and
deep. When Mac was a teenager he used to fl ip through Virginia’s magazines, the ones with the sealed sections. He remembered the fresh-faced girls with their clean lines, tans and their fl ashy, confi dent smiles. He’d thought girls like that didn’t actually exist in his world, and even if they did, a boofhead from Rockie wasn’t allowed to meet them. Diane was one of those girls, and he hadn’t had to change a thing about himself.

She was the only woman in Mac’s adult life who had got him up for a dance. Even though she’d regretted it.

He’d wanted to go civvie for her.

He’d bought her a ring.

And she was screwing a rogue CIA agent.

Looking back now, there’d been lots of small clues, of course.

There were the subtle defl ections from Mac meeting Diane’s father which, in retrospect, shouldn’t have been a big deal. There were smaller things he could have picked. The fact she thought the ‘A’

in ADSL referred to ‘advanced’. Or the time he’d made a joke about IUDs - the contraceptives - and Diane, a bit drunk, continued what she thought was the joke, but punchlined with something about using Nokia phones for detonation. Mac had been confused until it clicked: she must have thought he’d said ‘IEDs’. There were only three types of people who really spoke in terms of IEDs: cops, military and spooks. Certainly, you’d have to be one of those to refl exively translate IUD to IED. You must have it in your head, on your brain, recently been at a symposium or rotated through one of the Israelis’ excellent specialist courses. The ones where they make you dress like a terrorist, show you your raw materials and then get you to make your own Improvised Explosive Device, just like they would in Syria or Malaysia.

The thing that Mac should never have overlooked with Diane was the occasion when he knew she was at a big IT trade show down at the Jakarta Convention Centre. He’d found her at the Atlas Network Security stand and surprised her. Atlas was in the same area as the stand for a computer security organisation called ASIS.

Mac had looked across, seen the ASIS - ADVANCING SECURITY

WORLDWIDE signage and quipped that the name certainly had a ring to it. Diane had touched her nose, eyes darting to the left and back again. Now why would a Pommie IT maven have even a clue what Mac had been smiling about, let alone react to it like that?

It was amazing how much information a bit of love could gloss over. But it sat there in your subconscious, waiting for the moment when you were ready. And suddenly there was the information, clear as day. A warning light you’d never miss if the agent was a hairy fella with bad breath.

It reeked of the old squirrel-grip. That and Chanel No. 5.

Sonny leaned around from his position in the front passenger seat of the LandCruiser. ‘Any big ideas, Chalks?’

Mac shook his head, ‘I’m waiting for a call from Zam. I don’t know what’s going on.’

‘That doesn’t help me, does it?’ said Sonny.

Mac shrugged, overcome with exhaustion, suffering excru ciating pain in his wrist and still in shock at the news about Diane. He was rooted.

‘Let me say that another way,’ said Sonny, getting annoyed. ‘It doesn’t help
us
much, right?’

‘I’ll talk to Cookie if you want, say it’s my fault,’ said Mac, looking out the window at the passing scenery.

They were on their way to Hasanuddin Air Base, the military facility that fringed the commercial airport outside of Makassar.

They’d opted for the scenic route to the Eurocopter because of certain cargo in the luggage compartment - a bound and gagged bloke Mac knew as Ray-Bans.

Sonny ignored Mac’s offer. ‘You get something out of that cunt back there and no one will have to take the blame for anything.

I mean, you’re the spook, right Chalks?’

This was the time that the military guy looked at the intel guy and said,
Okay smartarse, do your thing
.

But Mac had no answers. He wasn’t a torturer, didn’t get off on that kind of interaction. Hemi and Sonny had already beaten their captive to a bleeding pulp and it was amazing the bloke was still alive, let alone conscious. Mac had no insights into what the guy might know or not know. Garrison was Agency and Sabaya’s techniques were notoriously cellular, so they’d both be secretive. And Diane was starting to look like a very smart operator who would not be giving much away to the hired help. If Ray-Bans said he didn’t know what was going on then Mac was inclined to give him a fi fty per cent assumption of honesty. He didn’t think the bloke knew anything.

He was a Sabaya henchman, hired to get Mac out of the way.

‘The answer is in the Macassar Strait. Garrison and Sabaya are out there, you can bet on it,’ said Mac.

‘I don’t want to bet on anything, McQueen. Understand?’ Sonny fi red back.

Mac could see why Cookie used him.

Sonny and his team were being called back by Cookie for a mining situation - something that required a little more pressure than the local cops could exert. They’d want to know that they’d taken care of their excess baggage problems before they left.

Mac had got Boo and his boys spared on the basis that they weren’t so unlike Sonny and his boys. Mac had had to work on that, emphasising that dead APS blokes would bring POLRI’s Criminal Investigation detectives in from Jakkers. But he didn’t know about the bloke in the luggage compartment.

They drove past the turn-off to a popular family swimming hole where the waterfall emptied straight into a big pool. Mac’s mind worked overtime, struggling to work out what Garrison and Sabaya were doing, what the missing container in Manila contained and why Garrison had Diane working as a double agent months before this thing had gone down. He had to stay clear on that without the feeling of betrayal muddying everything.

His immediate goal was to create a scenario where the guy in the back didn’t have to die.

Mac leaned forward, whispered in Sonny’s ear, ‘I reckon I can get something out of this bloke if we’re alone. You guys go on, leave him with me. Whaddya reckon?’

‘I don’t care if you want to fuck him, make him your missus. All I want is something I can take to Mr B. Got that?’

Mac nodded.

Sonny’s sat phone trilled and he took the call before passing it back to Mac.

‘Hello,’ Mac rasped.

Cookie Banderjong wanted Mac to stay in touch. Reckoned there was still life in the Garrison-Sabaya thing. Said, ‘Don’t be a stranger, mate. Remember your friends.’

Cookie was really saying,
The trail’s dead for now but if you come back to
this island, you’re dealing with me.

Mac’s head spun and he struggled to breathe properly.

As Cookie was signing off Mac had a sudden thought. ‘Mr B, if the US military is shipping something to Johnston, what are they doing?’ he said.

Cookie chuckled. ‘They’re burying their mistakes, mate.’

Mac said nothing; he was beyond riddles.

‘Johnston Atoll is a US Army base about two hundred miles south of Hawaii. It’s a huge incinerator plant out there in the Pacifi c. Hush-hush, run by DIA,’ said Cookie.

‘What do they burn?’ asked Mac.

‘All their CBNRE stuff - diseases that don’t work, explosives that don’t meet stability specs, dogs with two heads. All that scientist shit.’

Mac was totally awake again, his heart thumping.

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.