Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike

by Mark Abernethy

  ‘No time,’ said Morris. ‘The jammers we have access to are in Sydney and Darwin.’

  ‘Have you spoken with Don yet?’ asked Mac. ‘They’ve got jammers, they’ve got the lot.’

  ‘Yes, McQueen, I spoke to Don.’

  ‘Well? Are they on their way?’

  ‘They sent a Chinook and a Hawk down the coast from Amberley about half an hour ago. Don’t know who tipped them off.’

  ‘Why not send in the evacuation teams?’ Mac panted. ‘Have them primed but standing off and waiting for those signals to be jammed?’

  ‘Okay, McQueen.’

  ‘Mate, I need Don to call me, quick-smart,’ yelled Mac, giving Morris his number as he jogged past the Surfers Paradise Surf Club bar then hung up and stopped at the junction of Cavill Mall. It was crowded with families, youngsters, oldies and tourists from all parts of Australia, Asia and beyond. Christmas lanterns hung suspended across the mall area between buildings and the sound of Surfers -

  the ocean, the drinkers, the music - created a roar of the Good Life, the very thing JI wanted destroyed.

  The phone trilled. Mac pushed the green button, saying, ‘Don?’

  ‘Okay, McQueen. So you think the device is under the road?’

  ‘It’s what the latent says - well, it suggests it. I think we have to jam the airwaves before we evacuate.’

  ‘I agree,’ snapped Don, the thromp of helo motors and rotors in the background. ‘Do we have contact with the perpetrators?’

  ‘No, mate. I’m about to go wandering, have a nosey-poke. I reckon there’s a radio or cellular trigger on the thing and they’ll be doing a recce before they blow it,’ said Mac.

  ‘Many people about?’

  ‘Thousands already and it’s only …’ he stopped, looked at his watch. ‘Seven-fi fteen. There’ll be double that by nine o’clock.’

  The pedestrian light went green and he ran across the road to the Iluka.

  ‘We’re three minutes away,’ said the American spook. ‘We just fl ew over the - what’s it called - the Sea Drome?’

  ‘SeaWorld. You got a lock on my phone?’

  ‘Pope Catholic?’

  Patrons and bouncers alike stared at Mac like he might be dangerous as he gesticulated at Ari and Mari. They came out, met him on the pavement.

  ‘Everything okay, Macca?’ Mari asked.

  ‘Yeah, sweet,’ he gulped, still short of breath. ‘But I need you to grab Johnny and go and see Jenny. Get James and Arti over there too, okay?’ He held her left shoulder as he spoke.

  ‘But -‘ she started, then changed tack as she looked into his eyes.

  ‘Okay - you guys be careful, okay?’ She kissed Mac on the cheek, Ari on the lips, and fl ed.

  Mac raced back across the Esplanade with Ari so they were on the ocean side. Down the vast beach to the north known as Main Beach they saw the powerful landing lights of the Chinooks and the red fl ying lights of the Black Hawk out the front as the helos raced south to their position. Mac briefed Ari on his latest understanding of the mini-nuke, as he called Don. ‘Mate, can you get Morris to send in the troops before you jam the airwaves?’

  ‘Roger that,’ said Don. ‘We have your position. We’ll land on the beach but we’re going to shut down now, okay?’

  ‘Okay, mate. We’re at the top of the stairs to the beach.’

  He didn’t need to hang up because the line went dead as the US

  Army’s signals-jamming came on. The Twentieth Support Command’s Chinook helos - the enormous twin-rotor aircraft that had become famous in Vietnam for their lifting capacity - carried a comms and signals-defeat capability equivalent to many militaries, and all on a single helo. When the Twentieth went chasing bad guys and their bio or chemical or nuclear nasties, the fi rst thing they did was shut down all radio and cellular signals in a defi ned area around the threat. It at least prevented a remote triggering.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Ari, dipping into his holster-bag to check on his weapon.

  ‘Remember that night in Kuta?’ asked Mac, his voice cracking with stress. ‘The night of the bombing?’

  ‘Yes, for sure.’

  ‘You told me that you’d been tailing Hassan and Abu Samir, and that they’d been on Legian Street an hour before the blasts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think Gorilla and Lempo, maybe even Hassan, are in there right now,’ said Mac, pointing down through the surge of humanity in Cavill Mall. ‘I think it might be their MO.’

  ‘I think you are right,’ said Ari, squinting at the crowds.

  Three helos laid up and dropped to the sand on Surfers Paradise Beach just as two police cars pulled up behind Mac and Ari. Next, a large police truck came to a halt and a couple of policewomen pulled roadblock equipment from the rear.

  The noise was deafening, and sand and rubbish was thrown into the air, as the US Army landed. Mac noticed something strange about the second Black Hawk, realising what it was as soldiers emerged and ran up the beach towards Mac in camo fatigues, Kevlar vests and helmets.

  The guys from the Hawk were Australians, 4RAR Commandos.

  One of the Chinooks, distinctive with their massive rear-engine turrets, disgorged four men in various shades of overalls, black baseball caps and M4 assault rifl es. They looked like DIA and one of them was carrying a dark canvas bag in his large paw.

  The joint team mounted the stairs and the fi rst to reach Mac and Ari was Robbo. They did a palm shake and the DIA operators came up behind, Don walking straight up to Mac. The rubber-neckers with their beers in their hands circled for a look and a teenage girl with braces complained that she couldn’t send a text.

  Mac introduced Ari to the Aussies and the American as, behind them, another police car squealed to a stop on the Esplanade and an older man with grey hair and a dress cap got out and started yelling into a radio set. He turned, saw the DIA and Commandos, and came over.

  Don introduced himself and the cop said, ‘Superintendent Bob Row, Queensland Police. We’ve got a call to evacuate the area.’

  ‘Can we coordinate?’ asked Don, pointing at Row’s radio. ‘We may need to talk.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the cop, looking Don up and down.

  ‘It’s okay. Your Minister for Foreign Affairs knows. We can call him if you like?’

  ‘Anyone here speak English?’ asked Bob Row, turning to Mac.

  ‘He’s US Department of Defense - Twentieth Support Command.’

  ‘That’s CBRNE,’ said Bob. ‘My guys aren’t suited up for that shit.’

  ‘Won’t matter if this thing blows,’ said Mac, then wished he hadn’t.

  Bob Row stared at him with all-seeing brown eyes. ‘Great, so we’ve got a nuke in fucking Cavill Mall,’ he spat, then peeled away, yelling into his radio, ‘ Jimbo, Delia - I need everyone out, in a four-block radius of Cavill - repeat, four blocks, hotels, roads - everything. Shut it down! ‘

  Mac ran over to a large Gold Coast City Council truck which had pulled up and was idling. There were two men in the front cab and one in the crew cab behind. The bloke in the passenger seat jumped down, wearing blue overalls and a yellow hard hat. ‘Some Yank called?

  That you?’

  ‘No, mate,’ said Mac. ‘He’s over here. Have you got the stormwater and sewer gear?’

  ‘What gear?’ asked the bloke.

  ‘You know, to pull up the stormwater covers, so we can get down there.’

  ‘Well, of course we do - we’re the council, mate. Sandy’s the name, by the way,’ he said, shaking Mac’s hand.

  As the police began clearing people out of Cavill Mall - puzzled men and women emerging from restaurants, bars and hotels - Mac, Don and the soldiers followed the council truck down the emptying mall. The original plan had been to keep the punters quiet and not panic them, but the sight of the Commandos and the tooled-up DIA boys was making the stragglers nervous. Some of the public had started running and women were raising their voices at their kids.

 
The orange light fl ashed on the roof of the council truck as they got to the stormwater drain at the corner of Cavill and Orchid. Sandy pulled on his gloves, turned on a spotlight and aimed it at the large ventilated iron cover on the drain, then waited for the two workers to come around with their pinch bars. They each took a side and, on the signal, leaned back on the levers and lifted the cover out of its hole, sliding it along the paving stones on the mall.

  Don and Mac stepped up to the stormwater drain and peered over the edge. The light from the council’s spotlight bounced down ten metres into the drain, refl ecting on two things: a grey-green steel canister and a Pakistani male’s face.

  ‘ Fuck! ‘ yelped Don as the Pakistani’s gun came up and the fi rst shot was fi red.

  CHAPTER 62

  As Mac fell backwards onto his arse he saw Don clutch at his left trapezoid muscle before passing out. Robbo and Didge moved to the edge of the manhole and laid down some three-burst fi re, which panicked the remaining Cavill Mall crowds into a stampede.

  Didge gave a ‘clear’ sign and two DIA operators, one carrying the canvas bag, put on plastic welder’s masks and prepared to go down the manhole and secure the device.

  ‘Everyone back, and sorry about your cell phones,’ said the taller of the two.

  A loud buzzing sound erupted from the stormwater drain for two seconds. It stopped and a strange smell leached out.

  ‘Mini-nukes detonation are all circuit boards,’ said Ari, nodding.

  ‘Burn circuit board and no one triggers bomb, yes?’

  Mac realised their mobile phones had just been zapped too.

  Ari helped Mac to his feet, Mac still reeling from the sight of that face. ‘Ari, it’s Shareef - you know, Gorilla.’

  ‘Time to catchee monkey,’ said Ari, his eyes wild for the chase as he, Didge and Robbo dropped down the internal ladder.

  ‘It goes to the river, mate,’ barked Mac. ‘We’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Get Don an ambulance,’ said Mac to Sandy, as two cops raced up and a police helo hovered above.

  Running west down Cavill Avenue, Mac went straight across the Gold Coast Highway in front of the Hard Rock without stopping. The road had been blocked by the police and he sprinted west for the river with Jacko and Bluey behind him. The road sloped downhill as they neared the Nerang River. They dodged cars across Ferry Avenue and then stormed to the end of Cavill and through some trees onto the river bank. They looked up and down the river for the stormwater outlet, gasping for air in the balminess of early evening.

  ‘There,’ said Bluey, pointing.

  Mac followed his arm into the fading light, thirty metres downriver, where a speedboat sat idling next to a large concrete fortress sticking into the Nerang. As they started moving down the river bank to the speedboat, more shooting broke out. A man in dark overalls clambered into the boat and two others start shooting into the stormwater outlet as the speedboat took off. Bluey dropped to his knee in a kneeling marksman pose and put bursts of three-shot into the boat as it accelerated past them in a surge of foam and exhaust fumes. One of the bombers in the back of the boat started shooting, saw Mac and then paused. As he did so he took a barrage in the chest and fell backwards out of the boat. His colleagues fi red back, spraying the Aussies with gunfi re. Mac ducked down and muttered a quick prayer for Purni as splinters exploded out of the trees.

  Jacko let off a stream of full auto at the speedboat but it was too far away and speeding upriver. Jacko and Bluey were reloading mags as Mac looked back to the stormwater outlet. All three of the guys came out and Mac gave the thumbs-up as he gasped for breath. He’d been trained for paramilitary but he hated being fi red at.

  ‘We’re in luck,’ said Bluey, pointing to a pontoon jetty with a Nerang Jet tourist boat tied up to it. They moved towards it as a couple of men in shorts and company polo shirts came out of the offi ce on the river bank. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ said the younger one. ‘What the fuck was that?’

  ‘Keys in here?’ asked Mac, pointing down at the jet boat.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ asked the bloke, looking Mac up and down.

  Leaping into the boat, Mac said, ‘Tell ‘im, Bluey.’

  Bluey put his M4 in the bloke’s face and Mr Nerang Jet put his hands up and said, ‘In the ignition.’

  The others piled in as Ari and the other 4RAR boys ran up the jetty.

  ‘Mate, they’ve got a car,’ said Mac, pointing to a blue ute with NERANG JET on the side. ‘Why not shadow us up the river?’

  Didge put his big hand out to the other Nerang Jet guy and the bloke shrugged and handed over the keys while Robbo and Ari got in the ute.

  Mac turned the ignition and the boat roared to life. The accelerator was on the fl oor but he couldn’t work out where the gearshift was to engage the drive. Looking over he gestured for the Nerang Jet bloke to come over as the ute squealed away from the car park, Didge behind the wheel.

  ‘What’s your name, champ?’

  ‘Gary,’ said the owner of the jet boat.

  ‘You’re driving,’ said Mac. ‘Let’s go.’

  The boat - the Crazy Lady - leapt like a salmon and was on a plane within seconds as the V8 screamed its lungs out. They surged forward with an impetus that made Mac’s face peel back. He held on beside Gary, telling him what they were looking for: a white medium-length speedboat with a single large Mercury outboard on it. As they powered up around the hook of the river, they caught a glimpse of the fugitives’ boat. Mac pointed and Gary nodded, gave the Crazy Lady even more gas, and the thumps on the hull of the vessel made it sound like hundreds of people were knocking on a door.

  Bluey got up alongside Mac, struggling for balance as he raised his M4. ‘Not yet,’ said Mac. ‘Too many houses.’

  In front of them the white speedboat veered to its left and shot under the Monaco Street bridge into a narrow canal that serviced Florida Gardens.

  ‘We’ve got ‘em now,’ screamed Gary over the engine. ‘They can’t take this corner.’

  The white boat slowed as they went through a tight hairpin turn that almost doubled back on itself. The jet boat had no problem with it and was suddenly almost on the white boat’s transom. This time Bluey just opened up and hit the outboard motor. One of the three bombers left in the back of the white boat shot straight back from a protected position, shattering the small windscreen and making Mac and Bluey duck for cover. Then the white boat was veering to starboard, smoke pouring out of the Mercury, before running straight up the muddy banks of Broadbeach Park, a family picnic area. The three bombers leapt onto land, two of them racing ahead while the other knelt behind the grounded boat and opened fi re with a special forces machine pistol. It was now almost certain that they were chasing Gorilla and Lempo. Mac guessed from the way he moved that the third bloke in the dark overalls was a soldier.

  So Hassan wasn’t with them.

  As Jacko and Bluey fi red back, Mac ducked slightly and yelled for Gary to turn for the shore. They kept going straight, losing power suddenly, and Mac looked to his right where Gary was slumped in his seat, half his face missing, blood and viscera running down over the hand controls on the inside of the gunwale.

  Pulling him off the seat, Mac groaned, ‘Oh shit - oh fuck,’ his guilt like a block of ice in his stomach, vying for space with the intensity of the fear. He got into the driver’s seat, put his foot on the accelerator and turned for the shore.

  Bluey led them across the park where barbecuing families were hiding behind trees, protecting their kids, as Mac ran through the picnic area with the 4RAR Commandos. The bombers were about fi fty metres in front of them and just leaving the park to cross Gold Coast Highway.

  When Mac and the soldiers got to the road, the three northbound lanes of traffi c on the highway were almost stationary. Heaving for oxygen, Bluey saw them fi rst. The bombers were on the other side of the highway, where the lanes were almost deserted. They busted through the traffi c, keeping an eye on where the bombers were going, Bluey bolting t
o the front of the pack as they got to the median strip.

  The bombers turned into Second Avenue and were thirty metres ahead as they all ran towards the beach. One of the bombers dropped his machine pistol and used both arms to help him run.

  Mac could hardly believe it. The bombers were heading for his house.

  CHAPTER 63

  The bombers split at Surf Parade, Gorilla heading right, down Surf, while the other two kept going straight for the beach.

  ‘I’ve got Gorilla,’ gasped Mac, accelerating with the blast of fear.

  He ran right into Surf - past confused people standing in the street

  - closing on the bomber. But Mac knew it was too late, knew that the big Pakistani’s next move was going to be a left into Armrick and a few complexes along he was going to duck into Mac and Jenny’s home.

  Trying to level the Heckler as he ran, Mac loosed two shots. But the Heckler wasn’t accurate over those distances even when you were standing still.

  Gorilla turned left and went down Armrick, Mac rounding the same corner a few seconds later, almost bowling over a rubber-necker and his wife as he sprinted to the townhouse. He slowed as he got near and, gasping for breath as he stopped, took it in: two federal cops, dead. One in the front seat of the car with a bullet between the eyes, the other sprawled between the car and the entry to the townhouse - which was now hanging open. Mac hadn’t heard the shots and he had the feeling the hits had been done earlier.

  His breath rasped and whistled in his lungs as he checked the Heckler: four rounds left and no spares. He stepped over the body nearest the entrance, the bullet wounds suggesting the cops had trusted their assailant.

  The four steps to the door seemed to take forever and Mac’s heart banged in his head. Reaching the top, he sneaked in behind the doorjamb and looked down the hallway. It seemed deserted and he slowly moved over the threshold, using his right hand to push the door back to check for anyone secreted behind it. The door whiplashed back in his face, so fast it caught his left foot between the door and jamb, knocking the Heckler out of his hand. He screamed in agony and doubled over, pain pulsing in his left foot as the door swung back to reveal Gorilla.