A third marking on the map, labelled Neptune, was a recon target-of-opportunity. In the DIA briefing room, Tommy had two indistinct U2 fly-over pictures of Neptune which showed what looked like a small airfield, high in a valley in East Timor, near the border. There had been some radio and cell-phone chatter from around the site in which the word Boa had been detected, and they wanted Mac to take a look.
There was also a pocket-sized GPS device with the coordinates pre-programmed, although Mac trusted that with the 4RAR Commando boys the GPS would be redundant.
A muffled knock at the wardroom hatch was followed by the appearance of a smiling XO, who introduced himself.
‘Cranleigh – XO, sir,’ said the trim, fortyish bloke, before grabbing a coffee and sitting at the table opposite Mac. Pushing a piece of paper across the table, Cranleigh retained the one he was carrying.
‘Won’t be landing you by tender tonight, sir,’ he said in a cheery voice. ‘Indon Navy’s sweeping the south coast so we’ll go to Plan B, if that’s okay, sir?’
Mac read the message quickly and pushed it into his pocket as the sub eased over, as if it was freewheeling down a hill. The final orders – held back till he was on the sub – gave him an exact landing point on the shore, the E amp;E call sign of ‘Chinchilla’ and the colour blue. If the whole thing went pear-shaped, they’d go to an ‘evade and escape’ plan where he’d use the Commandos’ radio, issue ‘Chinchilla’ as the call to the Royal Australian Navy, give his coordinates and then throw blue flares when the helo got close. If he got it wrong, triggered red or orange flares, the helo would abort and head back to its ship.
Mac looked up at Cranleigh as the sub gained speed in its downward trajectory. ‘Sorry, mate. Did you say Plan B?’
‘Yes, sir. Don’t want you punting about on the Timor Sea with that lot patrolling, so we’ll use the diver’s lock, okay? Let’s aim for twenty minutes earlier than -’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mac, who’d been concentrating on his objectives. ‘Diver’s lock?’
‘Yes, sir. My notes say you’re former Royal Marines? Commandos, I gather, so diving’s not a -’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Mac, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘Combat diving’s in there somewhere.’
One of the most annoying aspects of having a special forces CV was its capacity to create Plan Bs. Mac had completed P-company at Aldershot, the Parachute Regiment’s base, and a year didn’t go by without some planner turning a routine assignment into a chance to make Mac jump out of an aeroplane. It was the same with his completion of the SBS jungle survival course in Brunei, the final component of the brutal swimmer-canoeist program. On the basis of that near-death experience, his various controllers had spent almost a decade ensuring that Mac spent more time in the boonies of South-East Asia than he ever got to spend at cocktail parties.
His combat-diving history had also drawn a lot of Plan Bs, the worst being the time Mac had been ‘volunteered’ by Australia’s reps on IAEA to join French frogmen in a search of the Badush dam north of Baghdad. They’d been looking for the underwater entrance to a nuclear breeder reactor with a highly enriched uranium capacity. That job had combined just about all of Mac’s phobias in a single four-day adventure and he’d almost received an early ride home when he’d asked the IAEA head-shed why they didn’t just lower the water in the dam. Mac’s superior had gone red with rage, but the French thought it was hilarious: Jerst lower ze wort tur! Mais par course!
Now they were talking diver’s locks, the submariner’s version of the pilot’s ejector seat. Mac had done scores of dives from locks, bells and chambers. But there was a major problem with what the XO was proposing.
‘So, Cranleigh – we got a moon tonight?’ smiled Mac, in hope more than expectation.
‘No, sir,’ said the XO, obviously thinking this was good news. ‘She’s darker than the deep.’
‘That so?’ said Mac, coffee rising in his throat.
Something not listed in Mac’s military CV was that he’d done the marines’ hardest frogman section after a few rums. And he wasn’t alone. Like many of Britain’s finest, Mac didn’t like diving at night.
CHAPTER 38
Sitting in the small steel capsule in the ceiling of the torpedo room, Mac tried to stay calm as he ran through his final checks: rebreather unit strapped to his back, face mask, regulator console with compass and depth gauge, and the waterproof gear bag now attached to his belt on the side. He checked the compass, which had an orange luminous bar preset to his course heading, then he put his hand on his Heckler, holstered in a marinised pocket down his right leg.
Below him the XO peered up with curiosity. In the Oberon-class subs the diver’s lock over the torpedo room was generally used in drills for emergency evacuation.
‘Right, sir?’ asked the seaman, sitting on the aluminium stepladder that rose to the lock.
‘Good as gold,’ lied Mac, giving the thumbs-up.
‘When the inside hatch is sealed, the red light will come on,’ said the seaman, pointing. ‘Then I’ll open the exterior valves, sir, and the lock will fill in about six seconds.’
‘Gotcha,’ gulped Mac, his dinner threatening to erupt in the face mask hanging beneath his chin.
‘Then – when the pressure equalises in the lock – I’ll open the exterior hatch and the green light will come on,’ said the bloke, ‘at which point you can push through the hatch, sir.’
‘Thanks, champ,’ said Mac, struggling to control nervous reflux.
‘And I know you know this, sir, but I have to remind you: please breathe out all the way to the surface.’
‘Can do,’ said Mac, dreading the darkness that would soon envelop him like a fog, taking him back into a zone he’d sworn he’d never again enter after the Royal Marines.
The bolts in the interior hatch were slid home, leaving Mac sealed in a space about the size of a car boot, the darkness and clammy heat made worse by the dim red light above Mac’s right eyebrow and the bulky old RAN Drager rebreather weighing down on his back like a tortoise shell.
Keeping his mask off, Mac tried hopelessly to keep his breathing regular as two metallic taps sounded on the interior hatch. The sub was running at about twenty metres and because Mac had been put in the lock at the same air pressure as sea level, he’d have to exhale all the way to the surface to stop his lungs exploding. Some frogmen put their rebreather mask on at this stage, but Mac was breathing so hard that he left his off in case he breathed in by mistake. He’d put it on when he reached the surface and had oriented himself with the shore. A small grating sound filled his ears and then the outside ocean was racing into the chamber, drenching his black bodysuit and filling the lock. Keeping his eye on the red light, Mac took last breaths as the chamber flooded and then the sparkling water that effervesced around him like a large glass of mineral water suddenly switched from an eerie red glow to a bright green hue as the bolts pulled free in the exterior hatch. He checked the depth gauge on the side of the rebreather, which said nineteen metres, meaning it had immediately acknowledged the pressure equalisation of the diver’s lock.
Pushing out of the lock, Mac left the glow of lights, plunging into the inky blackness, a sensation so overpowering that he almost gasped. There was nothing quite like being underwater in the ocean at night. Mac gave a flip of his fins, consciously blowing bubbles as he ascended. His ears screaming, he slowly slapped his fins against the water and concentrated on a gentle exhalation of bubbles, relieving his lungs of the pressure as he rose to the surface.
The blackness closed around him, inducing a nameless fear. The combat-diver section in the Royal Marines Commandos was a watershed for the young men who endured it. Having gone through the basics of free diving, SCUBA and rebreathers, one night the candidates were hauled out of bed to go diving in the dark.
Mac recalled hearing blokes sobbing in the barracks after those dives, and others who requested a return to unit. Diving at night made you face what you feared most
and made you do it completely alone. Along with many of the other blokes, by the time they got to the three-hour nocturnal missions around harbours and up rivers, Mac was fortifying himself with grog to get through it. Nothing to be proud of, but there it was.
Making himself blow bubbles, Mac got to nine metres, humming ‘Nadine, honey, is that you?’ to keep him in touch with himself. Almost out of air at five metres, Mac kicked out and pursed his lips, saving the last dregs of expanding air for the final three metres. As his depth dial showed one metre, he kicked and blew the final air from his lungs and came up for air like a cork.
Gasping as he surfaced, Mac scanned the ocean. The night was dark and the sea relatively smooth. A light, warm breeze came from the west, off the Indian Ocean. Treading water, he did a three-sixty and saw no vessels, heard no aircraft. Filling his lungs with air, he acclimatised to his environment.
Lifting the dive console so he could see the compass better, he aimed himself along the course where the compass spindle lined up with the setting made by the orange bar. Besides the compass, Mac also had the GPS on his right wrist, but he would use that later for confirmation – he wouldn’t swim by it.
Making a final check of the regulator settings as he trod water with his fins, Mac breathed in and out – nice and slow – the familiar closed-cycle hiss of the rebreather on his back keeping time with his breaths.
Dipping his head below the surface, Mac swam to about two metres, pulling the compass in front of his eyes. Finding his course, he balanced his kicking with his breathing, and set out for the south coast of East Timor.
Fifty metres from shore, Mac trod water, removed his mask and scanned the beach. He was searching for a rocky point overlooked by three pines, the tallest on the left, the smallest in the middle. But Mac wasn’t looking at a rocky point – he was looking at a white-sand beach with no pines.
Checking on the GPS, he realised he’d come into shore too far east. Refastening his mask, he swam submerged along the shoreline for ten minutes before checking on his GPS and coming up to the surface. In front of him were three pine trees overlooking a rocky point, with a mix of beech trees and palms stretching away on either side. The tide was out revealing a tongue of sand between two lines of rocks. With any luck, he’d get out of this swim without scraping himself on the rocks and avoid the scourge of combat divers: tropical ulcers.
Getting into the shallows, Mac crouched in the lapping waves while he removed his mask and fins, keeping his shoulders under the water. Seeing no one on the point, he waded through the shallows and jogged to a hide below a rocky outcrop, his legs almost giving way beneath him. It was 1.09 am local time – nine minutes late for the RV, which wasn’t bad for a bloke who’d had to swim it rather than be delivered by boat.
Unharnessing the rebreather unit, Mac dropped it on the sand, removed his neoprene head piece and pulled the Heckler from its holster. Casing the area, he moved out from the behind the rock and stealthed towards the trees, wanting the cover of foliage.
Making beyond the rocky point, he got to the tree line, panting as he crouched behind a fallen log, the warm breeze drying his wet scalp. This was one of the more heavily patrolled areas of East Timor and, with the ballot getting closer, it was now Indonesian Navy, Marines and Army patrolling the land and sea borders, not just the militias. Looking into the trees, Mac searched for a good hide while he waited for the Commando escort from 4RAR.
The stand of trees looked clear of unfriendlies and Mac was readying to move when he heard someone speak.
Throwing himself to the ground and rolling away, Mac came up with the Heckler in cup-and-saucer, his heart banging in his throat.
‘Settle, Macca,’ came an Aussie voice from somewhere in front of the tree line. ‘You’ll hurt yourself carrying on like that.’
‘Identify!’ rasped Mac, barely able to get enough air in his lungs.
‘Robbo, from Holsworthy,’ came the voice.
Next thing Mac knew, Jason Robertson, the sergeant with the 63 Recon Troop, was walking into the open, M4 assault rifle over his forearm.
‘Robbo,’ said Mac, relief replacing panic.
‘Shit, Macca,’ said the Aussie as he approached, hand outstretched. ‘Like the bodysuit, mate – that lycra?’
CHAPTER 39
While Mac got out of the diving suit and into his clothes, Robbo mumbled into the field radio strapped to his head. Soon after, two other commandos sauntered from either end of the rocky point.
‘This is Beast,’ said Robbo, gesturing at a heavyset Anglo with thinning red hair.
‘Mate,’ said Mac, shaking.
‘And Didge. Our night tracker.’
They shook and Didge – a large, dark Aborigine – flashed his teeth. ‘Made you swim, eh bra?’
‘Yeah, the cheeky buggers,’ said Mac, smiling. ‘Probably ask for their gear back and all.’
Tying the laces on his Altamas, Mac couldn’t douse his curiosity any longer. ‘So, Robbo – what’s with the new dress code?’
‘Orders,’ shrugged Robbo, nodding at the other soldiers, who were dressed like they were on a hunting trip. ‘Got a message couple of days ago, after that army supply depot was bombed – go to civvies.’
Mac chuckled, realising Bongo’s enthusiastic approach to his work might have pushed Canberra into changing the orders for political damage control: it was now a covert action and if caught they’d be shot as spies, not imprisoned as soldiers. That wasn’t new for Mac, but he hoped it wasn’t going to distract the soldiers.
‘So what do you know about the gig?’ asked Mac, checking the contents of his waterproof bag and repacking what he needed in a small rucksack.
‘Take this good-looking Aussie bloke up to Bobonaro without wrecking his new perm.’
‘That’s about it,’ smiled Mac, disassembling and then reassembling the Heckler before jamming it into the hidden holster he had at the small of his back. ‘No details, but basically there’s three sites – two recon, one snatch.’
‘Will the snatch be voluntary or involuntary?’ asked Robbo, pensive.
Mac hadn’t given that much thought. ‘She’s on our side, mate. We do the gig, and then you and I will decide the best exfil from there, okay? I’m not particular so long as I don’t get any holes in me.’
‘Okay, Macca,’ nodded Robbo, pulling two apples from his backpack and offering one to Mac. ‘Who is she?’
‘It’s not important. What’s important is where we snatch her from – it’ll be hot, mate, so I was hoping for a little more cavalry.’
‘Got three more up the hill,’ said Robbo, jacking his thumb over his shoulder. ‘We’ve been in an OP for two weeks – we’re working men, Macca.’
‘Okay for comms?’ asked Mac, standing and looking around him.
‘Yep.’
‘Any contact?’
‘No, mate – we’re clean and we’re green,’ said Robbo.
‘Good, ’cos the recon elements are hush-hush, okay?’ said Mac.
‘Suits me,’ said Robbo, signalling for Didge and Beast to prep for moving.
There was usually some tension between the special forces and intel guys on an escorted mission. Mac had the technical leadership in terms of determining if the mission objective had been met, but in reality he allowed all the operational decisions to be made by the Robbos of the Australian military. When Mac had worked with Rod Scott in Iraq during the aftermath of Desert Storm, he’d learned the rules fast. After one incident, in which a couple of CIA geeks had wasted an entire morning by micromanaging the US Marines Recon escort team, Scotty had taken Mac for a drink and given him the drum. ‘Your job is to score the goal, not referee the match,’ he’d said. ‘If God had wanted you to be a soldier he’d have given you a dodgy haircut!’
‘So?’ asked Robbo as they assembled.
‘So, get us to Maliana in one piece, and let’s nail this thing without ruining my perm,’ said Mac.
‘Bagged and tagged,’ said Robbo, as they slung their
rifles.
‘And the spook buys the beers,’ said Beast, before Mac ducked under a branch and was plunged into the dark of the jungle.
They made fast time, moving in a close-formed duck line behind Didge. As promised, the big Cape Yorker was the night tracker, moving with constant speed and amazing silence through the pitch-black. It was clear the rest of the troop trusted him totally.
After ninety minutes they hit a river valley and Didge moved to a light jog up the centuries-old footpad that followed the waterway, past villages of three huts and cattle standing in wallows on the river bank. Hitting the head of the valley, Didge slowed to a march and they climbed over a saddle to a natural vantage point tucked under a ridge line, looking south to the Timor Sea in the distance.
Calling a rest, Robbo pulled a pair of binos from his backpack and scoured the area while Mac sat with the others, slugging down water from a bottle and eating the small local bananas.
‘Here she comes,’ mumbled Robbo.
Turning around, Mac realised there was a slight halo on the ridge behind them, and silvery light on the ocean. The moon was coming out. As always in the tropics, it was an amazing thing to watch.
‘So why do they call you Didge?’ asked Mac, trying to peel a second banana without breaking it, his hands still clumsy with exertion.
‘’Cos they’re cheeky bastards, that’s why,’ said Didge, slugging at the water, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
‘Stick around,’ winked Beast. ‘You’ll see for yourself.’
‘And what does the Beast refer to?’ asked Mac, though he had his suspicions. Growing up in Rockie meant knowing blokes who earned that title the hard way.
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