Counter Attack

by Mark Abernethy

  Blood poured across the lino and Mac panted like an animal, tasting the gunpowder residue in his throat. Rising slowly, nightclub music pounding in the background, Mac realised there was a glass panel along the wall he had rolled into. Behind the glass was another room from which two men stared back at him: Jim Quirk, seated in front of a computer terminal, and Red Shirt, who placed a handgun against Quirk’s head.

  Red Shirt smiled, his tanned face crinkling with mirth, eyes black like a shark’s. Mac moved to the door of the glass-sided room and kicked it open, keeping his weapon trained on Red Shirt.

  ‘You’re on private property, sir,’ said the man, screwing his handgun into Quirk’s head as he got a handful of the Aussie’s hair.

  ‘The only private property is the bloke sitting in front of you,’ said Mac. ‘Let him go and we all walk away.’

  ‘Ah, another Aussie,’ said the hostage-taker, manoeuvring himself behind Quirk, who was stiff with anxiety. ‘But you’ve come far enough, my friend.’

  The sound of the gun’s hammer being cocked was obvious in the confined space but Mac kept his stolen gun trained on the man’s forehead. ‘I don’t care what this is about, but it can end in two ways.’

  ‘Two?’ said the gunman, eyeing the computer screen, which had become very active, lines of numbers and letters seeming to spill down the page.

  ‘In one, you live,’ said Mac, aware that Quirk had now closed his eyes. ‘In the other, I kill you.’

  Red Shirt stayed cool. Reaching over Quirk’s shoulder, he hit a button on the computer, which then seemed to die. His hand moved lower, to a series of ports, and as he tried to pull a chip from one of the holes, the memory card fell from his fingers and bounced on the floor.

  Raising the gun in a threat at Mac, Red Shirt turned slightly and tapped a code into a keypad on the wall and pulled at another security door.

  ‘Okay, Mr Aussie,’ said the gunman in the red shirt. ‘We do it the first way – we all walk away?’

  ‘Let’s see you,’ said Mac, the SIG lined up perfectly between button-like eyes.

  It happened in slow motion, like Mac was in a dream. The man in the red shirt pulled the door back, slipped a leg through it, and then simply lifted his gun and shot Jim Quirk in the right temple.

  Leaping back as viscera flew, Mac recovered his shooter’s stance but Red Shirt was out the door, the security bolts locking as it settled back into place.

  ‘You’ll keep, you bastard,’ said Mac, grabbing the memory card and moving to the immovable security door as Jim Quirk’s body collapsed on the floor. ‘You’ll bloody keep!’

  Chapter 16

  Covering the hallway in what felt like three strides, Mac burst through the door into the mezzanine area.

  The stunned thug was sitting up, resting back on his arms, and Mac kicked him in the jaw as he ran for the stairs, bounding down them into a sea of faces looking up, confused about the gunfire.

  Mac crossed the club floor and ran headlong into the Filipino bouncer, who shouldered him into a wall in the entrance hall. Presenting the SIG, Mac shrugged: the doorman smiled and stood back. A girl waiting at the door rope started screaming as Mac emerged into the heat of the evening.

  Tranh revved the bike directly beneath the marquee bulbs and Mac leapt onto the back, telling Tranh to circle behind the club.

  Accelerating, they took the first left and motored through a darker side street, the motorbike seeming very loud among the smaller scooters and cyclos.

  ‘There,’ said Mac, pointing to a service alley at the club’s rear. Dropping a gear, Tranh leaned the bike over and plunged between two oncoming cars into the inky blackness of the laneway, the headlight barely penetrating the obstacle course of old fruit boxes, dumpsters and rotting garbage.

  ‘Slow it, mate,’ said Mac into Tranh’s ear as they neared the fenced compound behind the Mekong Saloon. Moving into the spill of the floodlights, Mac saw the open gate in the fence and three men standing on the concrete parking area. The European among them pointed at Mac, holding his jaw as he did so. Beside him, a solid Chinese man in a blue Mambo T-shirt reached for the small of his back.

  ‘Go!’ said Mac, and the motorbike surged down the alley. ‘Kill the lights.’

  Plunging them into blackness, Tranh kept the bike in second as slugs slammed into a dumpster and bounced off the bricks.

  Two red tail-lights flashed at the end of the alley as a vehicle braked. Next thing they were accelerating right, revealing a dark SUV shape.

  ‘That’s the one,’ yelled Tranh as he wound the power on, almost making Mac fall off the back of the bike as it picked up.

  Hitting the headlights again, they narrowly missed a cat and ploughed through a puddle of sewage as they reached the end of the alley. Putting his left arm around Tranh’s waist, Mac leaned into the turn as they inserted themselves into Cholon’s traffic and leapt like a salmon into a Saturday night in Chinatown.

  ‘That them?’ yelled Mac, pointing the SIG at a dark green LandCruiser Prado two cars in front of them in the inside lane.

  ‘That’s them,’ yelled Tranh, finding fourth and swerving in front of a van as he kept the momentum building straight down the double yellows, South-East Asia’s ‘third lane’.

  Worrying about how many shooters might be in the LandCruiser, Mac motioned for Tranh to get alongside the vehicle. Moving over a lane, they got behind a small car which was going too slow. Stepping down a gear, Tranh swerved into the inside lane and poured on the power, accelerating past the small car and swerving in front of it, allowing them to ease adjacent to the LandCruiser.

  Keeping the SIG behind his back, Mac waited until the bike was alongside the 4x4 before slowly turning to look at the driver. Through the open window Mac saw a Mediterranean heavy – Italian or Croatian – with a mo and earring.

  Thinking they might have the wrong vehicle, Mac looked away momentarily and then looked back. The driver’s lips had been moving, meaning someone was in there with him. The driver sneaked a quick look at the motorbike and then the passenger was leaning forwards and Mac was suddenly locking gazes with those dark eyes.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Mac, as Red Shirt’s handgun came up in front of the driver’s face and the bike surged ahead with such a blast that Mac’s knees lifted up under Tranh’s armpits.

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ said Tranh, who’d obviously seen the gun too.

  The tail-light of the car in front of them exploded with a burst of red plastic and someone on the footpath screamed as Tranh screwed on the revs. It was almost nine o’clock and Cholon’s entertainment district was just getting busy.

  Now they were in front of the LandCruiser and another shot sounded as the bike careened down the crowded boulevard, its big engine thumping. Mac tightened his left arm around Tranh as they swerved out of their pursuers’ headlights and into the third lane. The back-lit speedometer read ninety-five kph and Mac looked over his shoulder, saw the LandCruiser falling back in the traffic.

  Ahead, a major set of lights had turned red and Mac realised they must be travelling eastbound, about to cross the major intersection which signalled the end of Cholon.

  ‘Duck down there,’ said Mac, pointing to the right side of the intersection.

  Riding slowly in first gear, they moved with the pedestrians into the cross street, where they stopped and waited for the main boulevard traffic to go again.

  ‘You can leave if you want,’ said Mac, dismounting and checking the borrowed SIG. ‘But I’ll need the bike.’

  ‘I’m driving,’ said Tranh, no emotion.

  ‘Shit,’ said Mac, finding an empty clip and one round left in the spout.

  ‘You want to follow them?’ said Tranh, oblivious to their lack of firepower.

  ‘Yeah, mate,’ said Mac. ‘Wait there.’

  Pushing the SIG under his swea
ty trop shirt, Mac walked to the corner. Peeking around the brick building, he saw the green LandCruiser in the middle lane of the boulevard.

  ‘They’re moving straight through,’ said Mac, breathless as he got back on the bike. ‘Let’s see where they’re going. I’m betting they’ll change that vehicle.’

  After one more block in the mainstream traffic, the LandCruiser turned right and moved into the dark colonial streets that led to the river. Intermittently killing the headlight to disguise their whereabouts, and drawing on a local’s knowledge of which parallel streets would meet up, Tranh managed to stand off while also keeping contact with the 4x4.

  Mac’s mind raced. Who were this crew? What was Quirk involved in? What was familiar about Red Shirt? What was it about that guy?

  Stopping behind a parked minivan, Tranh killed the engine and they watched the LandCruiser pull into an old-fashioned parking garage.

  ‘Parking,’ said Tranh, pointing. ‘If they want new car, maybe from here.’

  ‘Are there any other exits?’ asked Mac, looking up the four levels of the building’s glass and concrete sides.

  ‘Don’t know,’ shrugged Tranh. ‘Usually come in, go out the same way.’

  Lights shone through the frosted-wire glass on level two as a large engine revved.

  Mac readied himself. ‘Think we’re in business, mate.’

  Twenty seconds later a white Ford Explorer bounced out of the garage, turned away from Mac and Tranh’s position and accelerated, its V8 engine screaming in the quiet street.

  ‘Gotta be them,’ said Mac, making a mental note of the whereabouts of the garage.

  Losing the Explorer as it disappeared down a secondary street, Tranh accelerated to the point where they’d last seen it. As they leaned into the corner to follow the Explorer, a set of full-beam headlights were switched on directly in their path, blinding them. As Tranh straightened to go around the obstacle, the driver’s door of the white vehicle flung open, knocking Tranh and Mac to the tarmac.

  Bouncing on his right shoulder, feeling his shirt tear loose, Mac gained his feet as the bike slid along the street on its foot pegs.

  Pulling the stolen SIG from the small of his back, Mac stood, his left knee almost giving way as he straightened.

  The driver raised his handgun and Mac fired instinctively. The shot missed, but the driver reflexively looked away, allowing Mac to race in with a kick to the bloke’s groin, which the driver easily deflected and countered with an open-handed strike to Mac’s face.

  Finding himself stunned and sitting on his arse, Mac looked up in time to see Tranh throw a perfectly balanced roundhouse kick to the driver’s gun hand, and as the weapon landed on the hood of the still-ticking SUV, Tranh threw a kick to the bloke’s kidneys followed by a brutal kick to the face off the same leg.

  Looking for Red Shirt, Mac realised he’d been tricked. The driver was the only person in the Explorer.

  Standing, Mac watched the driver launch a flying headbutt at Tranh, who ducked slightly and took the shot above his left ear. Limping over to the driver’s handgun, which had slid across the hood and landed in front of the Explorer, Mac picked it up and turned to use it as Tranh threw a fast elbow into the driver’s teeth and followed it with a whippy left hook.

  ‘Okay, that’s it, champ,’ said Mac, levelling the handgun at the driver as he fell to the asphalt.

  ‘No, this is it,’ came a voice, and Mac saw the gleam of those dark eyes in the back seat of the Explorer. Throwing himself to his right, Mac hit the road as the glass of the driver’s side rear window exploded.

  ‘Get the bike!’ said Mac as Tranh crouched in panic, wondering where the shot had come from.

  Duck-walking across the street, Tranh picked up the fallen bike as Mac slowly stood, holding the pistol in a cup-and-saucer grip. He peered over the level of the shot-out window, but the back seat was empty, as was the load space in the rear. There was movement from the front and Mac swung the borrowed handgun and aimed past the windscreen pillars and front seats to where Red Shirt stood on the other side of the hood. They eyeballed one another as a siren sounded, the red lights of the Cong An flashing behind the grille of an approaching car, about a block away.

  Tranh kicked the motorbike into life and revved it impatiently. Looking from Red Shirt to the Cong An and back again, Mac considered a shootout, but decided to live another day. Swapping a final look of mutual loathing with Quirk’s killer, Mac jogged for the bike. Hopping on, they blasted away, into the path of the approaching cop car.

  Looking over his right shoulder as they swerved into an alley with no lights on, Mac saw the Explorer accelerating in the opposite direction, the rear tyre bouncing over the former driver’s head.

  The last thing Mac saw before they plunged into the alley was the cop car flashing past. A totally focused face stared over the wheel of the white Camry: a focused female face.

  Chapter 17

  Tranh pulled over at the public park, beside where the canal cut westward from the Saigon River into the southern interior of the city.

  ‘How you shaping up, mate?’ said Mac, sitting at a park bench and checking his knee.

  A freighter slid downriver, its lights making it look like a Christmas tree lying on its side. The humidity pressed in on them, crickets noisy in the night air.

  ‘Bleeding on my thigh,’ said Tranh, pulling back the torn flap of his wrecked chinos and exposing his grazed leg, the white pocket liner stuck to the drying blood.

  ‘That’s nasty. I’m going to need an ice bag,’ said Mac, only just managing to straighten his left knee to a full extension. ‘In a couple of hours I won’t be able to walk.’

  Holding his leg, Mac felt a shape in one of the pockets. Pulling it out, he examined the memory card he’d retrieved at the Mekong Saloon – the card that had fallen off the computer table as the man in the red shirt had taken off. The card was a standard SD, but white. Trousering it again as Tranh lit a cigarette, Mac pulled the recovered handgun from his waistband. Unlike the flat, seven-shot SIG, this was a bulky fifteen-shot Ruger 9mm. It looked the same as the one Tranh had secured for him at the boat.

  ‘Rugers popular in Saigon?’ asked Mac, checking it for load and safety before placing it on the seat between them.

  ‘For Cong An and army,’ said Tranh. ‘So lots around – easy for fixing.’

  Thinking it through, Mac decided he had to go on alone. If things got really bad, he had a consulate, he had a government and he had the financial capacity to buy his way out of Vietnam. Tranh lived here. And it wasn’t just the Cong An. Whoever’d executed Jim Quirk was serious. What he initially thought was familiar about Red Shirt was not his face, Mac had decided, but his style: the man was an intelligence professional and if Red Shirt continued the killing Mac didn’t want Tranh on his conscience.

  Mac’s watch said it was 9.56 pm.

  ‘I’m going to cut you loose, mate,’ he said, watching the freighter. ‘You were just the driver and the cut-out, remember?’

  Looking away, Tranh said nothing.

  ‘I mean it, Tranh – you’re proving too useful to me. I can’t draw you any further into this.’

  ‘I am in this,’ said Tranh, drawing on his cigarette.

  Mac smiled at the enthusiasm. ‘No, mate. You drive me, you handle messages, you give me a local’s lay of the land. You’re not paid to do what you did tonight.’

  ‘I drove you,’ said Tranh.

  ‘Sure, but –’

  ‘I gave you message when Apricot was coming.’

  Mac wanted to head this off. ‘Nice work.’

  ‘And I do lay of land with that ape,’ he said, with no hint of machismo.

  Looking away, Mac felt strangely emotional. All his life, he’d been the one looked to for the rough stuff, the one to escalate a situation and get in th
e blue. He was feeling quite touched that a skinny contractor he’d only known for twenty-four hours was prepared to walk up to a bigger man and start kicking him in the teeth. And that was only the physical side of it – Mac hated riding pillion on a motorbike, thanks largely to his mother being a senior nurse at Rockie Base Hospital who’d seen too many young men brought into the emergency ward in meat buckets. But he liked Tranh’s driving. And when he’d dropped the comment about collaborating with Captain Loan, Tranh’s instant response had been openness. Mac trusted this guy.

  ‘Yep,’ said Mac, trying to stand. ‘You gave that ape a decent slap. So I have one last job for the night, then it’s beddy-byes, all right?’

  ‘What it is?’ said Tranh, confused, as Mac limped back to the motorbike. ‘You want better bike?’

  ‘No,’ said Mac. ‘Beddy-byes – you know, a kip?’

  ‘Umm,’ said Tranh as he flipped up the bike stand, not getting it. ‘So we going to find Mr Apricot?’

  Looking at Tranh, Mac realised the local didn’t know about the murder.

  ‘No, mate,’ said Mac. ‘We’re gonna find the pricks who did.’

  Seventeen minutes later, dressed in new clothes from a market by the river, they glided with the light traffic past the garage where Red Shirt had dumped the LandCruiser. Mac was in pain and he was scared. He had no idea how he was going to tell Scotty about Jim Quirk, but he wasn’t going to walk away from a search of that LandCruiser.

  Walking into a side entrance of the garage building, they jogged up four flights of dimly lit stairs until they stood in front of the door with the ‘hai’ sign on it. Pushing through into level two, they waited for signs of security and looked at the ceiling for cameras. It looked clean.