‘How’re the kids by the way?’
‘Teenagers! Mate! Forget it!’
Georgie waved his hand dismissively and walked behind the bank of mail boxes. He kept talking. ‘I say to my son yesterday, “How come you turn fi fteen and you suddenly the genius? You’re having the lend.” ‘
Mac loved it when Indons went all Strine on him. That was Indon Aussie diplomacy, right there.
Mac was laughing when Georgie got back in front of him. ‘Mate – he knows it all. Just ask him!’
‘It true,’ said Georgie with the Javanese wide-eyes. ‘It true!’
Georgie put down some letters, and the package Mac had parcelled up the night before. Consular mail sure beat the public version. Georgie put it all in a white plastic shopping bag with the mail centre’s logo on it.
There was a stack of TI phone cards on a rack behind Georgie.
Mac asked for a 10,000 rupiah version, paid in cash and left.
He opened the package in the Civic. Everything was there. He put the Heckler in the centre console and unfolded the blue ovies, pray-ing he hadn’t chucked the key in some fi t of effi ciency. Shaking the ovies, out came the cheapo pre-paid phone he’d bought in Makassar and the black diamond MPS key ring followed it.
He was about to start the Civic, but saw a TI phone booth beside the mail centre and decided to save the pre-paid phone for the more important calls.
Secretaries put him through to PAs, and fi nally Diane came on the line, ‘Richard! How are you, darling?’
Mac could have been a pool of melted heart, right there on the pavement. He choked a little. ‘Yeah, no worries.’
She chuckled, she pouted. She was making up with him and Mac was dissolving into his shoes. Total squirrel-grip.
He apologised for doing a runner in the restaurant and Diane apologised for dumping him by voicemail. They had a laugh. Diane said they should apologise a bit more personally over a few chardies.
Mac said how was tonight? Diane didn’t hear him right. So Mac lied that he was in Utara – the north of the city. Diane was speechless for a few seconds.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Something caught in my throat,’ she said, then gathered herself.
‘So where are you staying?’
‘Well, I was going to check into the Sultan. I’ve just got into town.’
‘Why not stay down here?’
‘Where – at the embassy?’ asked Mac.
‘Sure. I’m in one of the cottages.’
‘Okay,’ said Mac. ‘What’s the secret handshake?’
Diane gave him the drum. Said she’d have his name at the gate.
‘See you at nine, darling.’
Mac signed off, breathed out. There was at least one game that he was playing in.
He pushed in the TI card and dialled again. Jenny Toohey came on the line. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked.
She said sure, she was going to be home at seven.
He was about to make another call, but hesitated. The last few days had seen him surviving more attempts on his life than he was happy with. He wondered about tempting fate. Wondered who really gave a shit about Garrison and his snatch on Judith Hannah. Maybe Garvs was right. Perhaps he should walk away and leave the whole wash-up to the politicians.
He looked into the middle distance. Tapped himself on the head with the blue plastic receiver. Tried to make himself see it the cynical way. Tried for once in his life to think like an offi ce guy. But he couldn’t make it come. He looked up at the sky, said, ‘ Faaarrrk!’
Then he called Lion Air, and booked the morning fl ight to Makassar.
CHAPTER 18
Mac drove north, dropped the Civic at Avis’s downtown depot and took out the plastic mail centre bag with the ovies. He put the hip rig on, letting his white shirt out a little to cover the weapon. Putting the cheapo phone in his pocket he grabbed a cab to the fi nance district.
Got out. Walked both sides of the street. Looked for eyes, swapped taxis and made for the trendy port area of Jakarta.
Jenny had lived on and off in the Aussie residential compound.
But a couple of years ago she’d moved to a private residence. It kept her from having to reject advances from workmates but also increased her risk of dying from misadventure.
Mac had the taxi drop him three blocks from Jenny’s address.
He walked one side of the street, then the other, counter-surveilling, looking for eyes. Satisfi ed, he walked up a frangipani-lined path to a modern block of apartments in a fi ve-storey building.
He smelled cayenne pepper and coriander – dinner time in Jakkers. Walking up the stairs to the second level, he rang the bell. The door opened slightly and Jenny Toohey’s pretty face peeked out. She smiled, opened the door, looked over both his shoulders. Mac stepped in, hugged her. She hugged him back, but with one arm – the other held a Glock 9 mm pointed at the fl oor. They kicked at the door at the same time. It slammed.
Jenny stood back, fl ashed a smile. She was looking good – tall, athletic, fresh-faced, dark hair back in a ponytail. She fi lled out a pair of Levis and a T-shirt like God had poured her in. Mac would have done the business if he didn’t have his mind on another woman.
‘Ooh, aah – the hair. Decided being brunette makes you sexier and smarter, huh?’ she said, squeezing his bicep playfully.
”Zit going?’ asked Mac.
‘Not bad for an old girl.’
‘Thirty-fi ve’s not old,’ he smiled. ‘It’s fucking ancient.’
She laughed in mock rage. ‘Need a beer? I got some cold ones.’
‘Sure, Jen.’
‘So,’ she pointed at his crook right wrist. ‘You got a girlfriend for that?’
Mac slapped her arse with his good hand. What was it with Australian humour and the subject of self- service?
They walked into the kitchen-breakfast area. It was clean, nice, but not a home.
She cracked two VBs, handed one over. They clinked bottles. Drank.
‘Aah,’ said Mac, looking at the stubbie like he was appraising a fi ne wine. ‘Nothing quite like the taste of Mexican bat piss.’
Jenny rolled her eyes. ‘Queenslanders! The day you lot can explain the appeal of rum, then you can slag off our beer.’
‘Simple, mate,’ said Mac. ‘Makes everyone look the goods, and we need all the help we can get.’
Mac had a strange bond with Jen. They’d met six years before at a Boxing Day embassy barbecue in Manila. The Ashes was on the telly and a bunch of Aussie, Kiwi and Pommie diplomats, law enforcement and intel types were sitting around in the residential compound getting completely shit-faced on Aussie booze.
Mac was introduced to Jenny via a Pommie bloke who was trying to crack on to her. Jenny was the going- somewhere golden girl of the Australian Federal Police. She was all ironed-out and buttoned-down.
Beautiful, and a former university basketball star.
But an ice queen.
The Pom spoke down to him, with a plum stuffed somewhere.
He wore a tie on Boxing Day – a wanker.
Mac and Jenny had done the polite Aussie thing, smiled and nodded, tried to make the best of it. Then the Pom told the Aussies how ‘privileged one felt to be part of the world’s oldest diplomatic legation’. Mac had told the nonplussed Pom, ‘Mate, you’d wanna get your hand off it at some point, wouldn’t you?’
Jenny had ejected her mouthful of chardonnay through her nostrils. It took her fi ve minutes to compose
