‘You know, you have to put that gold somewhere, right?’ said Mac to Paul. ‘It’s a physical thing, takes up space. It’s not like electronic money between computers.’
‘Well, yeah. You’d need trucks, need loading gear, need people to do it,’ said Paul.
‘Absolutely. Then you need a safe little hidey-hole to stash it.’
‘Any ideas?’ asked Paul.
Mac turned, looked around. ‘I’ve only got one idea, but it’s pretty far-fetched.’
‘Try me.’
Sawtell wandered over. Tossed them a water bottle each.
‘You know, this is Yamashita country.’
‘The Jap guy. General. Hid all that gold in caves round South-East Asia?’ said Sawtell.
‘That’s the one,’ said Mac. ‘It was stolen from their occupied territories. The OSS came through after the Japs were driven out, grabbed a lot of it.’
Paul laughed. ‘Man, I grew up on that stuff. My mum? Forget it, brother! The Filipinos love stories of hidden caves fi lled with gold.’
‘Yeah, some of it’s bullshit,’ said Mac. ‘But there were some caches found.’
‘So what’s it got to do with us?’ asked Sawtell.
‘Yamashita’s engineers found real mines and pretended to be exploiting them. That was cover within cover. Most of the Japanese Army had no idea what they really were.’
‘Yeah?’ said Sawtell.
‘The locals thought they were working in a mine,’ continued Mac.
‘But they were building gold repositories. Had false walls, booby traps, secret tunnels. They’d stash the gold, put in the false wall and drop a part of the old mine in front of it with dynamite. They’d come up with a story that the mine had collapsed, and there was no more tin or copper in there.’
Mac opened his bottle. ‘The idea was they’d go back and dig out the gold when the dust of war had settled.’
Sawtell stared at Mac, thought dawning. ‘So, that mine at Sabulu?
That what we’re talking about?’
Mac nodded. ‘I reckon we blew their Plan A. I think Sabaya and Garrison had prepped that one for the gold but we found it. I think they’ve gone to Plan B.’
Paul scoffed. ‘What, a whole separate set of trucks, forklifts?
A whole new mine prepared?’
‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘If the haul is a billion dollars US, why short-change yourself on an exit plan? When you pull a job, you have a Plan B?’
Paul nodded.
Mac swigged the water. ‘And remember, the Japs have already done your hard work. Some of these storage mines were very well engineered.’
A shout came from the Black Hawks and the whine of the starter motors began.
‘So what are we looking for?’ said Sawtell.
‘I reckon we fl y across the interior, fi nd the mine opening and see where the recently used roads are. Shouldn’t be hard – it’s been raining every arvo.’
Mac paused, looked from Paul to Sawtell. ‘I reckon they’re already inside.’
‘You know where most of that Yamashita Gold came from, right?’ said Paul, chuckling, as they headed for the Black Hawk.
‘No.’
‘Fucking China.’
CHAPTER 48
The Black Hawks swept down into the Sulu Islands – the Wild West of South-East Asia. Sawtell and the SEALs had sit-repped. The SEALs were about to relieve the Marines at the Hainan Star, then they were going to work inland to a small township and secure it, ask some questions, see where the bomb might have been left.
Sawtell’s Alpha group was going straight into the highlands. Using map databases, DIA had confi rmed a mine at the top of one of the island’s valleys.
If things turned bad upstream, the SEALs would support. Mac didn’t like it, thought the navy could take the ship, the Marines could move into the small town. He wanted those two other Black Hawks fi lled with SEALs to be right on his wing.
Mac fi red up the mic to Sawtell. ‘Mate, this is Sabaya country.
I’d feel happier if the SEALs were with us.’
‘Negative,’ Sawtell fi red back. ‘It’s a CBNRE mission so we’re tasked for the VX. The Twentieth sets the priorities on this. Sorry.’
Mac sort of understood that you couldn’t go chasing the bad guys when the actual item you were trying to retrieve could be anywhere
– could be on a ship, could be in a town, could be sitting on the side of a road waiting for a farmer to pick it up, take it home in his cart.
The island was very small but it had to be shut down. And that started with the wharf and the ship.
They fl ew over the island with a couple of hours of daylight to play with. About three miles across, it was fi ve miles north-south. Mac’s gut churned when he saw how diffi cult the terrain was – mountainous, heavily jungled with jagged peaks and valleys running down to river deltas at the coast. It looked like the pictures they showed candidates at the Duntroon military academy in Canberra. The pictures they put on the wall when they talked about Vietnam and why foreign powers shouldn’t fi ght a land war in Asia. Mac had a second lesson to add: don’t fi ght an island war in the Pacifi c. The Americans had tried that during the Second World War and suffered casualty rates they were still embarrassed about.
He controlled his breathing. Next to him, Spikey shook his head as he looked out the window. Turning to Mac he said, ‘Looks like Basilan. Holy shit!’
‘That’s enough, Spike,’ came Sawtell’s voice over the headset.
The other soldiers might have heard about Basilan Island – the Abu Sayyaf fortress – but they hadn’t fought there. They were new to this. Sawtell had told Mac what the Basilan campaign had been like and it had sounded like a cross between hell and purgatory: snipers in trees, Claymore mines strung across water sources, poisoned dams, bear traps, hit-and-run guerrillas, and all of that while fi ghting blind against people who knew every inch of the place.
Now they were back to do it again, with Mac along for the ride.
Acid stirred in his stomach as he sensed Abu Sabaya waiting, smiling.
It was going to be a long, long night.
The Hainan Star looked intact and under wraps as they swept over it and aimed up the valley leading away from the wharf. Sawtell spoke with the Marines commander at the ship. They were waiting for the SEALs to come in. Waiting for the Twentieth to start their search.
Mac watched Sawtell point his pilot up the valley, thought he saw a glint of excitement. It was funny the way different people were strong, thought Mac. Sawtell had fallen apart in the face of child slaves. But he was the guy you’d follow into a direct confrontation.
His courage was infectious.
Mac craned his neck around, saw Paul up and about, stretching, looking out the window in the sliding door, looking down at the terrain. Then he walked to the cockpit bulkhead, shoved his head between the pilot and co- pilot, turned to speak with Sawtell and came back to Mac, kneeling in front of him.
‘Only one road up here, mate,’ shouted Paul.
Mac gave thumbs-up, and the sweat came down cold and sticky from his forehead. There wasn’t going to be any screwing about. One road, one valley, one mine entrance and one Green Berets captain with a glint in his eye.
