Golden Serpent am-1

by Mark Abernethy

  As they walked up to the guardhouse, he kept the conversation going. Diffi cult when a couple of young boys think they’re in trouble.

  He wanted to know who they’d seen around the warehouse.

  Brazil managed to describe a tall Anglo man with dark hair.

  ‘Merry Carn.’

  Garrison.

  England perfectly described Abu Sabaya: the teeth, the hair, the general aura. Abu Sabaya, here, in Makassar!

  Mac tried to stay calm. He didn’t want to spook the boys into silence. They were almost at the guardhouse. He stopped, asked Brazil, who had better English: ‘When were these people here? One day?’ He held up one fi nger. Then two. Then three.

  Brazil thought about it, rolled his eyes like he was looking for the word.

  ‘Morning!’ He was proud of getting it out.

  ‘Morning? Which morning?’

  ‘Today morning, today,’ said Brazil.

  Mac just stared, horrifi ed, both boys recoiling from his look.

  He looked Brazil in the eye, pointed both index fi ngers at the ground. ‘This morning? Today morning?’

  Brazil nodded furiously, scared.

  ‘Two men?’ Mac held up the two fi ngers again.

  Brazil nodded. Held up one fi nger and said, ‘Lay.’

  Mac shook his head.

  Brazil used both hands to make the international sign of the female fi gure.

  ‘Lady?’ Mac asked.

  Brazil nodded.

  Mac asked what she looked like but Brazil looked confused.

  ‘Mama? Mak?’ asked Mac.

  Brazil and England laughed at each other. Giggled.

  So she didn’t look like anyone’s mother.

  Brazil did his hourglass signal.

  So there were three of them. He wondered where the bird fi tted in. With Judith Hannah safely back in Jakkers, he wondered who it could be. Maybe just a gangster’s moll. Some girls would put up with anything to get some excitement in their lives.

  Mac thanked the boys. Pulled out some dough, but he was all out of rupiah. He showed them each a twenty-dollar greenback.

  They grabbed for the dough. Mac pulled it back. Twenty dollars US in Makassar was like having a thousand dollars in Sydney.

  ‘You promise – give to Mak, right? To Ma,’ said Mac.

  The boys rolled their eyes, looked at each other. So Mac pulled the money back, pretended to put it back where it came from. They chorused that yes, the money would be going to their mothers.

  After doling it out, Mac shook their hands and then shooed them away. He wanted them off the docks as quickly as possible.

  Mac got to the guardhouse, got in the Commodore and asked for the Pantai Gapura.

  Mac waited until they’d driven away from the port area before he fi shed out the mobile phone and made a call. From his recollection, sensitive explosives could be triggered by something that disturbed the atmosphere. Cellular systems ran on microwaves which did plenty of atmospheric disturbing.

  He patched through to Cookie’s compound in the foothills of Mount Malino. A local took the call, patching him on, probably to Cookie’s sat phone. Cookie came on the line. Clear, but with noise in the background. A helo or a logging site.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Mr B – it’s Mac. Alan McQueen.’ He still didn’t have the ticker to call him Cookie.

  ‘Ah, Mr Mac. How’s it going?’

  ‘Yeah, good mate,’ he lied, his wrist throbbing and his eyelids heavy with exhaustion.

  ‘So you’re in town?’ asked Cookie.

  ‘Um, yeah, arrived yesterday, Makassar. Been busy.’ Mac tried to work out how much of a lie he could tell. He was cut off from the Service, chasing a CIA bloke and the former number one terrorist in South-East Asia. Or were they chasing him? He needed the reach that Cookie could bring.

  Cookie laughed, loud, like a pirate. ‘Just checking, Mr Mac. Knew you wouldn’t lie to me.’

  Mac expelled a lungful of air. He needed someone on his side, couldn’t do this by himself.

  ‘Mr B, I need to talk.’

  ‘Don’t we all.’

  ‘Remember that hocus-pocus a couple of years ago? The story about the cache of hazardous materiel found in a secret bunker at Clark? You remember that bullshit?’

  There was a pause, then Cookie said, ‘Was that bullshit?’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ asked Mac.

  ‘It might not have been,’ said Cookie.

  Which in the intel world was code for We were infi ltrated – we had eyes.

  Mac wanted him to spill, but couldn’t sound too eager. ‘Oh well, I guess a bit of Agent Orange never hurt anyone, huh?’

  Cookie scoffed. Too smart. He’d written the book on that ploy.

  ‘Mate, while I’m digging into my memory, tell me what’s going on with this Garrison prick,’ said Cookie.

  ‘For a start, it’s not just Garrison anymore. I think I have enough to say he’s now operating with Abu Sabaya. They’re a team.’

  Mac winced, held his breath. Waited for the laughter or the scoffi ng.

  ‘That could make sense,’ said Cookie.

  ‘It could?’

  ‘Sure. I never thought the guy was dead. They never found the body, never even ID’d him on the boat. I mean, did you see him that night?’

  Mac didn’t respond – Cookie already knew the answer.

  Cookie seemed to be thinking something through. ‘You know, if Sabaya’s part of this, then it’s big, right?’

  ‘That’s my guess,’ said Mac.

  ‘So where are they?’

  ‘They were here this morning. In Makassar. Don’t know where they are now.’

  ‘In Makassar?!’

  ‘Hatta container terminal. They cleaned out a warehouse and took off.’

  ‘Which way?’ asked Cookie.

  ‘Umm, sorry?’

  ‘Which way did he go? Garrison?’

  Mac was lost. ‘You mean, which road?’

  ‘No, I mean he’s standing on a dock. How did he leave? Land, sea or air?’

  Mac felt like a dickhead. He’d become so exhausted, was following so many pieces of the puzzle, that he’d missed the obvious issue.

  ‘I – I don’t know,’ he said, wondering if he could double back, ask those boys how Garrison and Sabaya had left the dock.

  The Commodore stopped at lights. There was a thud, and a thunk, and Mac was suddenly looking down the barrel of a Glock 9 mm.

  He looked up into Samoan eyes. Steady Samoan eyes.

  From the other side of the car, a door slammed and the phone was ripped out of Mac’s hand. Mac turned away from the Glock to a big, big smile from a big, big man. The bloke hit the disconnect button on the phone, tossed it over his shoulder. It landed on the back dash.

  ‘G’day, Macca,’ the big man said with forced friendliness.

  ”Zit going, Boo?’ said Mac, his smile icy.

  Mac had inadvertently given Boo his nickname, and Boo had hated him for it ever since. It was during a Christmas party at the Jakarta embassy compound a few years back. Those who weren’t going home fi red up the barbie, cranked up the AC/DC and Helen Reddy and hooked into the piss, big time. Christmas in Aussie embassies meant the spooks, the law enforcement, the diplomats and the trade people all mushing in together. Drinking, dancing, pashing.

  And it all stayed on the fi eld.

  It also meant socialising with a section of Australian Protective Service known as the I-team. The I-team removed Commonwealth people abroad who’d developed drug habits or were going to paedophile brothels. That sort of thing. Their leader was a hulking ex-navy Military Policeman called Barry Bray.

  Barry had annoyed some of the women at the Jakarta embassy because of his forced removal of a young woman who’d got hooked on the then-new drug that Japanese teenagers were calling ice. The woman had had the full psychotic episodes and, because the situation wasn’t entirely medical, Bray was called in.

  The thing that got the women going w
as Barry’s use of a straitjacket before he put her on a Qantas fl ight. It was the fi rst time Mac had really noticed Jenny Toohey. The womenfolk had been going off like a bunch of hens but it was Jen who stepped up to Barry, told him to cut it out and let her and another female AFP offi cer do the escort. She’d stood there in front of Barry, poking him in the chest, giving him the old what’s what. Barry brushed her aside. Jen complained to the Ambassador, complained to the Jakarta AFP station chief. She was a piece of work, all right.

  Not long after, the I-team was back in Jakarta for Christmas and wanting to party like nothing had happened. The ladies were bristling but were standing off. Barry was a large, arrogant man with a reputation for violence.

  Mac had got a bit boozed, noticed that Barry had the dirtiest teeth he’d ever seen. He’d said to the Customs bird he was cracking on to,

  ‘He looks like Fu Manchu with a mouthful of bamboo.’

  The Customs girl loved that, and the next day Jenny Toohey was calling Barry ‘Bamboo’. Saying it with a wink and a giddy-up. The girls soon shortened it to Boo. Female revenge, served with laughter.

  Boo stuck. Barry tracked it back. Never forgave Mac.

  Now Mac, Boo and his sidekick, Marlon, sat in a suite at the Pantai Gapura, waiting for the evening fl ight out of Hasanuddin to Soekarno-Hatta. Boo had rightly surmised that the crowded concourse of a major airport might be a better place for Mac to stage a getaway than facing off in a hotel room. So they were waiting.

  Boo turned his chair around, sat down like he wanted to have sex with it. Marlon stayed on his feet. He was heavy-set in the chest and arms, about fi ve-eleven, one hundred and ten kilos and carried a handgun in a shoulder rig under a blue blazer.

  ‘So, Macca, what’s been up, mate?’ asked Bray.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ said Mac. ‘Just enjoying the weather. Sulawesi’s beautiful this time of year.’

  ‘Temperate climate. That’s what it is…’

  Mac chuckled. He could do this all day – a former Navy MP would get the shits before he did. But he didn’t want to sit there all day. He had a call to make to Sawtell and a call to Cookie to fi nish. He was either going to talk his way out, or fi ght his way out. His wrist was begging him to do it with charm.

  ‘You know something, Boo?’

  Bray raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt you guys to just get me my phone, let me cover-off, huh?’

  ‘Oh really?’ Bray smiled over at Marlon.

  ‘There’s things happening around here that you could be helping with, rather than screwing up,’ said Mac.

  ‘Shit, really? You hear that Marlon?’ Bray sniggered. ‘There’s things happening round here, mate! Chrissakes, Macca. Sounds like The X-Files comes to Makassar!’

  Marlon laughed and Mac winked at him. He liked that the bloke had a shoulder rig. They were about three times slower than drawing from the hip and they had the added problem of leaving the right arm straddled across the chest. That was a bonus for Mac and potential disaster for Marlon.

  Boo was another story. He was getting on in years – maybe forty-seven, forty-eight – but he kept his Glock in a standard hip rig and at six-three he was still a handful on the blueing side of things. Mac had played footy with him in the ANZAC Day Aussie versus Kiwi rugby games in Jakkers. They were supposed to be special sporting events on the embassy calendar but Boo always managed to turn them into something much more. He had no problems scrapping with blokes half his age. He liked it.

  Mac looked back. Dropped the funny stuff. ‘Boo, I need to make a phone call to US Army Special Forces in Zam. It’s urgent.’

  Boo scoffed.

  ‘I’ll tell you the number. You call,’ Mac pushed.

  Boo stood, walked around the table, sat on it so he was looking down on Mac. He wore grimy off-white chinos, grey plastic shoes with a zip up either side and a lemon polo shirt with the penguin on it.

  ‘Urgent, huh?’ said Bray. ‘Only urgent thing I’ve heard about lately is Alan McQueen, on a plane, into Canberra for a little word in the shell-like.’

  Mac breathed out. ‘Mate, just get me the phone. You can sit here, listen to me. What’s the problem?’

  Boo and Marlon both laughed. Then Boo pointed at Mac’s wrist and said, ‘Got a boyfriend for that?’

  Mac laughed and pointed at Boo’s mossy fangs. ‘Got some Steradent for that?’

  Boo iced over while Marlon pissed himself.

  Mac opened his hands. ‘I mean, you do fl oss, right?’

  Marlon put his hand to his mouth, trying to stop the laughter.

  Boo’s big forearms fl exed. It wasn’t going to be fun getting a slap from Boo, but it might be worth it in the medium term.

  Mac edged forward on his chair, getting his weight onto his right thigh. Tensed. ‘You know, Boo – it’s probably one of those tropical things, like, um, moss river fever.’

  Marlon spluttered. Boo’s eyes fl ashed and he threw a right-hand punch. Mac slipped under it and let loose the perfect right-hand uppercut, collecting Boo on the tip of the chin and snapping his head back. Boo fell back onto the table like Mac had just felled a tree.

  Mac’s wrist screamed for respite but he turned for Marlon, taking two paces to get to him. He watched Marlon reach across his body and under his left armpit for the shoulder rig. Mac planted his left foot as he watched Marlon prepare to draw, then lashed out with a right-foot snap-kick aimed at Marlon’s right elbow, right on the point that would either break the elbow or dislocate the shoulder. His snap kick connected, one hundred and six kilos of accelerating mass behind it.

  The elbow snapped back against Marlon’s chest, busting the joint, his right shoulder popping out in an anterior dislocation. Marlon’s eyes went wide with fear as he cannoned backwards into the hotel room wall, air sucking straight out of him with the pain and shock. He was unconscious before he hit the fl oor, his arm mangled and twisted into a shape it shouldn’t have been in.

  Mac reached into Marlon’s shoulder rig, pulled out the Glock and stood. Boo was mumbling, trying to raise his head, his hand fumbling around for the Glock on his hip. Mac stepped over, brought his Glock down hard on Boo’s right wrist, breaking something. Boo screamed and pulled his hand to his chest. ‘ Faaarrrkkk! ‘

  Mac left Boo’s gun. No time. Sweeping the room, he saw a phone, couldn’t remember the numbers. He raced to Boo’s black briefcase, riffl ed through it and found his cheapo mobile phone. Shoving the Glock into the belt of his chinos, he pulled his shirt over it, put the phone in his pocket and made for the door. Bursting through it, he came face to face with another Glock 9 mm, behind it a person he knew as Sami. The driver of the blue Commodore.

  ‘Fuck!’ said Mac. ‘You too?’

  Sami shrugged. ‘It’s a living.’

  Mac put his hands up, shook his head. Behind him Marlon was moaning, Boo was gasping.

  ‘Mate, I need to make a call,’ said Mac, going for his pocket.

  Sami started to say something.

  Then his head shifted sideways so fast his hair stayed put for a split second. It looked like a Buster Keaton gag. In place of his face was a large fi st and forearm.

  Male.

  Maori.

  A bloke in a set of grey ovies stepped in front of Mac and brought his right foot down hard on Sami’s gun wrist. Sami shrieked, moaned then passed out. The Maori turned back to Mac, raised his chin and widened his eyes.

  ‘G’day, Chalks.’

  CHAPTER 25

  Boo and Sami sat on the wicker-sided sofa, right forearms cradled in left hands, ashen-faced, tons of pain, no fi ght left. Marlon lay on the fl oor, in la-la land.

  When Billy arrived with his medic’s backpack he set it down on the table, looked around and said, ‘Shit, guys, didn’t leave much of them.’

  Billy unzipped the medic pack, went to Marlon who’d been vomiting, passing in and out of consciousness. Didn’t matter how big and tough you were, a dislocated shoulder was more trauma than the human body coul
d handle. Billy gave Marlon a green stick of laughing gas, told him to breathe deep on it. Then he got him upright and tried to get his jacket off. Marlon screamed and passed out again.

  Sonny spoke in a low voice with Hemi at the table, which had a pile of Glocks sitting on it, then he picked up his sat phone, hit a speed-dial and wandered out to the terrace. Hemi got up to help Billy.

  Mac put his hand in his pocket, grabbed his mobile.

  Boo looked up and said, ‘Gotcha phone, eh Macca? Hope it was worth it.’

  Mac looked at him, thought about the situation. If he ever got out of this there’d be a lot of explaining to do to a lot of offi ce guys. ‘What can I say, Boo? I told you I just wanted the phone. It was urgent.’

  Boo shook his head. ‘What is it with spooks? Think you’re above the law?’

  ‘What is it with I-team and straitjackets?’ said Mac, though his heart wasn’t in it. Wished he hadn’t said that.

  ‘Mate, ever seen what a girl looks like on ice? Scary, mate. That jacket was for her protection,’ said Boo.

  Mac scoffed.

  Boo shook his head. ‘And don’t give me that shit, neither. I didn’t ask her to take that junk.’

  Mac weighed the phone, watching Hemi get the blazer off Marlon, dribble coming out of the Samoan’s pale lips, his head lolling. Mac looked back at Boo and his broken wing.

  Mac breathed out, said, ‘Sorry ‘bout the arm, Boo.’

  Boo laughed. Big, bamboo-toothed laugh. ‘Missus won’t be happy, I can tell you.’ He let his mouth fall open in a big leer. ‘Might have to play nursie to poor old Barry. Know what I mean?’

  Mac shut the bathroom door, sat on the toilet lid and fi red up the phone with his left hand. His right was so far gone he couldn’t even make a fi st with it. He scrolled down ‘dialled calls’ and hit the one starting with 63.

  The switchboard bloke came on and Mac asked for Captain John Sawtell. Mr Switchboard said, ‘No can do,’ like he was relishing it.

  When Mac asked why not, the bloke said, ‘He’s operational.’

  Mac thought back to their last conversation. Sawtell had said he was on stand-by to go into Manila. Now the CBNRE boys needed more special forces? It must have turned weird.