Counter Attack

by Mark Abernethy

Nodding, Nhean turned to his task.

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Mac, grabbing the boy’s arm. ‘No lights. Got it?’

  Waiting, Mac watched the service gate at the side of the hotel swing open exactly six minutes later and Nhean brought the wheelie cabin bag and backpacks to the van.

  It wasn’t a bad start: no IEDs under the bags or behind the room’s door; no window assemblies flying into the car park. Paying Nhean the bonus, Mac decided to double it to twenty dollars. He’d already contributed to the death of one innocent hotel worker and he felt guilty at having to draw another into the web with the lure of US dollars. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, but it could also be the difference between Mac living or dying.

  Now he waited for signs of Nhean having been followed. After watching the back windows of the hotel and checking for movement, Mac decided it was clear and moved among the other parked vehicles to the Mitsubishi.

  Sitting in Sammy’s car again, Mac stared at the hotel, looking for pattern breaks. ‘I know I asked to work with you guys, but now I know a bit more, I see problems.’

  ‘Shoot,’ said Sammy, also looking at the hotel.

  ‘I’m not a Treasury investigator – as soon as the Americans request me in their taskforce, Canberra will want to send a Treasury guy.’

  ‘There’re enough of them on this already.’

  ‘So,’ said Mac, the comment having confirmed the snippet Benny Haskell had given him, ‘Charles is US Treasury, and you’re Secret Service?’

  ‘No comment,’ said Sammy.

  ‘The other problem is obvious,’ said Mac. ‘To the Americans, McHugh is a thief; in Canberra, she might be working for someone. Thought about that?’

  ‘Charles is dealing with it – leave the politics to him.’

  ‘You want the other Mazda back?’ said Mac.

  Pulling into the Cambodiana car park fifteen minutes later, Sammy drove around slowly as they looked for eyes. The Mazda they were looking for sat on its own, with no cars or vans close enough to create an ambush. Driving in a circle they closed on a series of minivans and drove at them with full beams on, verifying their windows were clear and no bodies were diving for the floor.

  As they parked beside the Mazda, Mac asked for a flashlight. They got out and Mac walked straight to the boot, examined the latch for signs of tampering and then lay under the rear of the car and looked for explosives or a detonator.

  Standing, Mac opened the boot before Sammy could get his hand on it.

  ‘Something interesting I found,’ said Mac, smiling.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Sammy, frowning as he joined Mac at the open boot.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Mac, pulling the lid off one of the cardboard boxes, revealing the stacks of US hundred-dollar notes. ‘I found this the other night, and it confused me.’

  ‘It’s been a tough few days,’ said Sammy.

  Mac looked at the American. ‘There was a new Remington shottie in there, and in any trunk containing new firearms, the obvious smell would be the gun oil.’

  ‘You’d think,’ said Sammy.

  ‘Yeah, but there was this stink of new money,’ said Mac.

  ‘You talk too much,’ said the American, slamming the boot shut.

  Chapter 37

  Arriving at the northern outskirts of Phnom Penh, Mac pulled the van off the highway onto a dirt road that ran to a klong. Pulling the old SIM card from the tongue of his boat shoes, Mac placed it in the cyclo rider’s Nokia and powered up.

  A bird squawked and tested the branch in a tree above the van as he waited. The buzz of the phone came several seconds later, signalling voicemail. Dialling in, Mac listened: one call from Scotty before Mac had told him of his new number; two from Urquhart, apologising for the misunderstanding that resulted in him being chained to a bed, and asking Mac to call him and arrange a meeting; another from Jenny, telling him not to panic if he arrived back to an empty house – she’d been called to Vietnam and Sarah was staying with Frank and Pat. She hoped things were going well in Auckland. Captain Loan had also left a message – yesterday. She reminded Mac of her number and asked that he contact her.

  The last message, left three hours earlier, made Mac catch his breath. It was the unmistakable voice of Mr Red Shirt – Joel Dozsa.

  Well, well, started the message, in that steady Eastern European accent. Unless the reporters have it very wrong, it seems our intrepid Mr Davis survived where an unfortunate hotel worker failed. Consider yourself lucky, Mr Davis – it’s a good time to return to the paradise of barbecues, beaches and beer before you meet the fate of your Vietnamese friend.

  Staring at the battered old Nokia as the voicemail system told him he had no more messages, Mac’s head swirled with fatigue and confusion. So Tranh was dead? Or in a hospital? Missing? The message was either deliberately vague or Dozsa assumed Mac knew what had happened to Tranh.

  Checking the call log he found ‘number unknown’, which meant a blocked number or a Skype call.

  If Dozsa didn’t want to talk – if he didn’t want Mac to call back – what was the point of the message? Mossad agents never communicated unless there was an express purpose, even if that purpose was to spread disinformation.

  Listening to the call again, Mac realised there were only two pieces of information that Dozsa had volunteered: that his crew planted the light-bulb bomb in the Cambodiana, and that Tranh was probably dead. Dozsa’s admission about the bomb was redundant, since Mac would already have worked that out. News of Tranh’s ‘fate’ was not – it was gratuitous, unverified.

  Looking at the phone, Mac thought back to the times that he’d hidden a lie in the truth. He’d done it to make sure someone took a right turn when they should’ve taken a left.

  Putting the old SIM back in his shoe and replacing it with his new MobiTel card, Mac turned the van to the south and put his foot down. By the time he was clear of Phnom Penh and motoring at one hundred and twenty k an hour along the west bank of the Mekong, he was sure there were no tails and he reckoned he could be in Saigon by midnight.

  Settling between two line-haul trucks, Mac found a collection of Tranh’s CDs in the centre console and smiled as he put AC/DC’s Back in Black into the stereo.

  As the bell tolled on the opening song of the CD, Mac resolved himself to the gig. He’d work with the Americans, but his priority was to retrieve Tranh. If Tranh was alive, Mac was going to find him.

  The stocky Anglo male with a ruddy complexion emerged from Tan Son Nhat Airport’s sliding doors at 11.18 am and looked around.

  Mac yelled through the lowered window, ‘Mister for Marriott?’

  Moving suspiciously, Scotty carefully raised his sunglasses and peered into the van before relaxing his shoulders and shaking his head.

  ‘Shit, Macca, you’re a fucking worry,’ he said, throwing his bag into the back of the van and climbing into the passenger seat. ‘A bloody moustache? You gone rogue again?’

  ‘Nah, mate,’ said Mac, pulling away from the apron. ‘Just wanted to book into a hotel for one night without someone putting ANFO in the light bulb.’

  ‘I heard about that – you okay?’

  ‘No, but I’m better than Poh.’

  ‘The hotel security guy?’ said Scotty, lighting a smoke and searching for the window button.

  ‘That’s him.’

  Scotty exhaled smoke into Saigon’s smog. ‘Get me to the Rex – I’ll have a shower and meet you in the restaurant, okay? I could eat the crotch out of a low-flying duck.’

  ‘Done,’ said Mac, dodging cyclos and other vans and wishing Tranh was still around.

  ‘You at the Rex too?’ said Scotty.

  ‘I’d rather not say,’ said Mac.

  ‘Shit, mate,’ said Scotty, sighing as he examined his phone for messages. ‘That bad?’

 
‘A wise old man once told me that paranoid and alive is good when you consider the alternative.’

  ‘He wasn’t old,’ said Scotty.

  ‘Wasn’t wise either,’ said Mac. ‘Didn’t stop him jawing on like Confucius.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Scotty, laughing. ‘Get me to a shower, you frigging lunatic. I smell like Artie Beetson’s undies after a full eighty minutes.’

  Finishing his duck, Scotty slugged at his glass of beer and made the peace sign at the waitress.

  ‘I was pouched something at Changi,’ said Scotty, pulling a folded piece of paper from the windbreaker hanging on the back of his chair. ‘Hope you enjoy it, since waiting for that was the reason I had to sleep at the airport.’

  Mac opened it and read. It was an order from Greg Tobin for Mac to join the American taskforce ‘Orion’, effective for seven days from date of receipt.

  ‘You’ve already spoken with them, I gather,’ said Scotty, wiping his nicotine-stained moustache with the white linen napkin. ‘Just so you know, you’re working with the Americans, but you’re reporting to me. Tobin’s orders.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Mac as the beers arrived.

  ‘I’m going to set up here, in the Rex,’ said Scotty. ‘I’ll write the reports, keep Canberra happy, but that means you have to keep me informed, okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mac.

  ‘I mean it, Macca – I can only save you from yourself if you let me.’

  ‘Can you save me from Urquhart?’ asked Mac, checking out a Chinese businessman as he sat down on the other side of the restaurant.

  ‘I’m not sure they’ll be any trouble for us,’ said Scotty. ‘The PM’s office has backed off. So what do we know about Orion?’

  ‘They want to find Geraldine McHugh,’ said Mac. ‘There’s a memory card – it might contain sensitive information from the US Treasury, but they haven’t come right out and said so.’

  ‘We know who’s chasing you? Who ran over Boo?’

  ‘An ex-Mossad crew run by a bloke named Joel Dozsa – they appear to be contracting for a Chinese faction headed by General Xiang Pao Peng. ’

  ‘Pao Peng is that PLA bloke, isn’t he?’ said Scotty. ‘Wants to be an emperor?’

  ‘Yeah – he wants to disable the Chinese economy so he can grab power and reverse the trend towards liberalism in China. Unfortunately, General Pao Peng’s plan also hurts the US economy, and our American friends don’t see the humour in that.’

  ‘The Americans think you can find McHugh – that true?’ said Scotty.

  ‘Correct,’ said Mac.

  ‘Tell me about Orion.’

  ‘Run by an American called Charles, his sidekick is Sammy Chan – definitely a military background, but neither are confirming who they work for.’

  ‘This Charles,’ said Scotty. ‘Tall, silver-haired – about my age?’

  ‘That’s him,’ said Mac, wondering why Scotty was scowling.

  ‘If it’s the same guy, his name is Charles Grimshaw the Third – old North Carolina family,’ said Scotty. ‘His father was an OSS original, who never officially became CIA but remained one of the Brothers, the true believers.’

  ‘You know this guy?’

  ‘I remember him from a gig in Iraq, in the lead-up to the first Gulf War. He was attempting to unpick the lies and bullshit around all that trade finance being written for rearming Saddam. It was before your time, but the US taxpayer was funding the credit guarantees for Iraq paying its imports – Lockheed or Hughes or Raytheon would fill an order for rockets or landmines, and the American taxpayers were underwriting Saddam’s credit risk.’

  ‘What was he like?’ said Mac.

  ‘Grimshaw? He conducted his interviews with a tractor battery and a set of crocodile clips,’ said Scotty with a chuckle. ‘He was hard core.’

  ‘He’s Treasury?’

  ‘He does a lot of work for US Treasury but he’s more like an intel consultant for the Yanks.’

  ‘So he’s not an accountant?’

  Scotty smiled. ‘Grimshaw was a Green Beret in the Phoenix Program during Vietnam, and then he led CIA black ops teams in Laos, Burma and Cambodia.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mac, now understanding what he’d noticed in Charles, lurking beneath the smooth exterior. Agency black ops in those three countries, in the late 1970s, did nothing but assassinate communist leaders.

  ‘What’s he doing in a Cambodian houseboat?’ said Mac.

  ‘Something involving Oz, which is why we’re going to help them find our Aussie girl.’

  ‘Why haven’t I heard of him?’ said Mac, annoyed.

  ‘Because you might find he works for NSA,’ said Scotty, meaning the US National Security Agency. ‘He works for the President.’

  Chapter 38

  Booking into the Rex as Brandon Collier, Mac went to his second-floor suite, removed his moustache and contact lenses and took a quick shower.

  Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he shook his kit onto the marble bench top and selected the men’s face scrub. Squirting a palmful, he spread the N10 dye over both hands and massaged the strong-smelling goo into his wet hair for two minutes, and then picked up a wide-tooth comb and ran it through his hair to even the application. After twelve minutes, Mac had another shower to wash out the colourant.

  Wandering into the living area of his suite, Mac did thirty push-ups and fifty sit-ups followed by five minutes, and then of shadow-boxing. Dressing himself in new clothes from the menswear store across the road, he returned himself to Richard Davis – textbook salesman – and checked himself in the mirror: now that his short, thin hair had returned to blond he noted a few grazes and scratches along his temples, probably caused by the bits of concrete that hadn’t found his eyes.

  Dialling the Saigon number for his calling card, Mac worked his way through the prompts then keyed in the number on a tattered white card.

  ‘Captain Loan,’ said Mac, when a voice answered. ‘Richard Davis here.’

  ‘Where are you?’ said the captain.

  ‘In Saigon.’

  ‘You remember the cafe we first spoke in?’ asked Loan.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Meet me there in half an hour,’ said the detective, and hung up.

  Walking to his window, which overlooked Nguyen Hue Boulevard, Mac sipped on his bottled water and searched for suspiciously parked vehicles or men reading tourist maps. He especially looked for phone company workers. His gut churned: he was not confident about being in this city or what was being asked of him. He’d only been a couple of years out of the field but it had dulled him slightly. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, but it came down to his new lack of selfishness: not so long before, Mac would have attacked Marlon without hesitation. But two days before, he’d paused as the big bloke walked in the door. In his profession a pause was as good as death, and he wondered if he had the focus to go up against Joel Dozsa. Saba’s story about the real Mossad going into northern Cambodia and being killed by Dozsa’s boys was scary. There’d always been factions inside Israel’s secret service, but ambushing and killing your former brothers? That was extreme.

  The fact that his wife was in Saigon was another distraction. Whenever he looked over his shoulder, the phone taunted him. Was he going to call her, admit he was in Saigon and arrange to meet? Or was he going to revert to his professional habits, never tell anyone in a phone call where he was?

  He didn’t like lying to Jenny, and not only because she usually caught him out. She’d grown up hard, the daughter of a drunken farmer in Victoria’s west who liked to beat his wife and kids. When Jenny was fifteen, she’d hit back at the old man with a crowbar; her father had picked up a rifle and shot at her as she ran through the orchard. So Jenny – as smart and as beautiful as she was – did not trust men easily, and Mac h
ad always done his best to be an honest husband and good friend. It was part of the deal: Mac got the sweet, loving side of his wife’s quite flinty personality, and Jenny had her rock and protector.

  Picking up the phone, Mac dialled the calling card then input Jenny’s mobile number. It rang and Mac hoped that she wouldn’t pick up so he could just leave a message and not have to dodge too many questions.

  The greeting came immediately. ‘Toohey.’

  ‘Darling, it’s me,’ said Mac, massaging his temples. ‘How’re things?’

  ‘Tropical, hon,’ she said, in a tone that suggested she was trying to get niceties out of the way. ‘You get my message?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He could hear Jen cover the mouthpiece and say, In the DFAT file – the blue pages.

  ‘How long you in Auckland for, Macca?’ she said, coming back to him. ‘I don’t want to rush you but I told Frank and Pat that you were due back on the weekend.’

  Looking down at his G-Shock, Mac saw the word Wed on the screen above the time.

  ‘Yeah, weekend might do it,’ he said, trying to sound convincing. ‘Could be Monday, Tuesday.’

  ‘Okay, can you call Pat?’ said Jen, as a commotion erupted beside her. ‘Hang on, okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mac.

  He could hear his wife spelling out the record-keeping protocol for this investigation and the fact that she wouldn’t be compromising on it today or tomorrow or anytime soon, so they might as well get it right from the start.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jen, back on the line. ‘I’ll call Pat and tell her – but can you ring too? Sarah loves getting calls from you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Mac. ‘You in Saigon?’

  ‘Here now,’ said Jen. ‘Shit – you remember Jim Quirk, from Manila?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Mac. ‘Trade Commission, sportsman of some sort?’

  ‘Cricket,’ said Jen. ‘He was murdered up here, three days ago.’

  Mac hated doing this to her. ‘I read about it. At a nightclub?’

  ‘Place called the Mekong Saloon, in Saigon’s Chinatown.’