were coming in from Manila. I thought we could cooperate.’
Mac could feel his adrenaline rising. ‘Don’t screw with me, mate -
I’m only a second away from going,’ he said, pulling the door handle up.
Ari put up a hand. ‘Okay, okay.’
‘Spill. Now,’ snapped Mac, at the end of his fuse.
Ari sighed. ‘My controller told me you were the IAEA. The coincidence was too great, yes?’
Mac’s mind raced. A couple of years ago, he’d done a rotation at the International Atomic Energy Agency – a UN-backed authority that controlled the use and misuse of fi ssionable material, including enriched uranium and plutonium. Mac’s rotation had occurred at a time when two things were attracting major interest from the IAEA: fi rstly, Japan had developed a uranium-enrichment facility and ICBM technology, and had signed on to the US- Australian Theatre Missile Defence system. At the same time, the infamous Doctor A.Q. Khan
– the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist – had been busted selling uranium-enrichment technologies and nuclear bomb designs to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Meantime, Australia had dropped its reticence about selling yellowcake uranium to the world and Aussie mining companies were actively seeking long-term supply contracts with India and China, among others.
So the late 1990s had been an interesting time at the IAEA, with lots of spies and special forces, but Mac still wasn’t putting the whole scenario together.
‘Coincidence?’ said Mac, very slowly.
‘With this bombings, and Hassan is here, and they send in McQueen,’ started Ari, before movement near the Kuta Puri caught his attention.
Three men emerged from the palms of Kuta Puri. They were dark-skinned, dressed in chinos and trop shirts which, by the look of them, covered handguns carried on the hip. They were built and moved like pros and Mac ducked down as the crew reached a silver Suzuki Vitara, looked for eyes and got in. The driver had a big helmet of black hair, a heavily muscled physique and moved with his hips, like a gorilla. Mac stayed low, his heart racing, feeling naked without a fi rearm.
When the Vitara had gone past them in the opposite direction, towards Legian Street, Ari sprung upright and started the Camry.
Mac should have got out, gone back to the forward command post, supervised a bunch of press releases, tried to make peace with Jen.
Instead, he crawled through the space between the front seats and belted himself in as Ari swung the Camry into a U-turn, pulled the car around to face east and hit the gas.
‘Mate, I need something, yeah?’ said Mac as the transmission screamed through second gear.
Ari gestured towards the glove box, all concentration on the road ahead. Mac fi shed out a black holster-bag and extracted a big, black Russian P9 handgun. Checking mechanically for load, mag and safety, he put it back in the bag between his thighs, where Ari also had his, and fi xed his eyes on the Vitara.
They moved fi fty metres behind the Vitara and kept contact.
Suddenly the Vitara signalled a right-hander and before Mac could fi nish saying ‘Square the triangle’, Ari had already turned right and taken the Camry down a side alley. The Russian was an excellent driver, knew his craft. Dodging rubbish bins and stray cats, they came out on another street, looked to their left, saw a fl ash of the Vitara and then accelerated across the intersection.
They made another parallel route and when they got to the end, there was no more dirt alley. Ari turned left and then right and got behind the Vitara again. Most pros being tailed used counter-surveillance for a couple of minutes before they assumed they were clear. It wasn’t lazy, it was human nature.
They settled in behind the Suzuki and backed off to between eighty and a hundred metres as they headed for Denpasar. Fed up with the cloak and dagger, Mac decided to rile Ari. ‘Mate, I’m in this now. You want to tell me who this Hassan prick is?’
‘Maybe he made the Sari bombing,’ said Ari, eyes on the road ahead.
‘A Pakistani?’ scoffed Mac. ‘Come on, mate!’
‘No, no,’ insisted Ari. ‘How do I say rightly? Hassan is the one who is working for the Dr Khan.’
‘ Khan?!’ said Mac, shrieking slightly.
‘Yes, he sells the atomic bomb, fuck his mother.’
CHAPTER 9
They followed the Vitara east towards the river. As they got to the Denpasar side of the bridge, the Vitara slowed. Ari hit the brakes as they saw tail-lights glow. The Vitara’s silver paintwork fl ashed white as it turned left and was caught by the glare of headlights.
‘Okay, to the river,’ mumbled Ari as cars sounded their horns at his cautious speed. Mac liked that – didn’t want to go jaunting into an ambush. The Vitara’s red lights headed through an area of warehouses and loading bays down to the piers on the river. Ari headed into the same dark street, then stopped and killed the lights. Pulling their P9s from their holster-bags, they checked and cocked them. Neither said a word as they went through their drills, steadied their breathing, psyched themselves, Mac trying to envisage a successful outcome.
The Dr Khan connection had come as a shock. After Khan was stung by the Yanks and Israelis, his operation had been partially shut down. But questions had remained within the IAEA, including the identity of Khan’s intermediaries. Who in the Pakistani military was protecting Khan and were there really elements in the ISI who worked for the Khan set-up? It was a time when Pakistan was being protected by the Americans, and the British were bringing Colonel Gaddafi in from the cold. Western intelligence was supposed to play along, but the Russians, Indians and Israelis despised the deal. They wanted Khan’s apparatus shut down, not just a few guys at the top paraded for the media.
So what was the story now? Mac wondered. The Sari bombing was a nuke? That’s how they got that crater? There was something so strange about the idea that he just couldn’t digest it.
Ari coasted the Camry down the gentle rise between single-level warehouses and parked trucks and vans. As it got darker, Mac’s heart rate increased and his senses became heightened. He could smell Ari’s aftershave, smell the nicotine in his sweat. Up ahead, the Vitara swung right and disappeared. As Ari put his foot down they were overtaken by the squealing of engines. Mac fl inched and turned his gun at the driver’s side window. Ari shouted and swung the Camry to the kerb, raising his gun.
They both winced, waiting for the hail of lead, but it didn’t come.
Two black LandCruisers, with what sounded like souped-up engines, screamed past with the high-pitched wailing of transmissions and drive shafts. Mac gasped for air and looked through the rear winds creen. Nothing. Ari took his foot off the brake and followed the LandCruisers.
Mac didn’t like it. ‘Mate, let’s hang back.’
‘We’re here now, McQueen, yes?’ Ari fi red back.
They accelerated and, turning the right-hander, came to a waterfront street. A gunfi ght was underway between the men around the two black LandCruisers and the Hassan crew behind the Vitara, which was another fi fty metres away. It was assault weapons on full-auto, tracer rounds fi lling the air, lead whistling and splatting against concrete warehouse walls. One round shattered a LandCruiser’s windscreen and Ari fl oored the accelerator to get behind the LandCruisers, which were parked in an arrowhead.
Leaping from the Camry, Mac ran doubled over to where Freddi Gardjito was shouting into a hand-held radio. Protected in a blue Kevlar vest, Freddi was crouching behind the hood of the left-side Cruiser, an M4 carbine assault rifl e standing on its butt beside him.
BAIS used LandCruisers with tricked V8s and armour plates in the doors and fl oor pans and Mac was glad of the extra cover.
From the right-side Cruiser the BAIS operators returned fi re at the Vitara, their M4s spewing brass cases, the static yell of voices sounding over the radio system. The fi re came back at the LandCruisers like hail, before slowing.
Putting his head up, Mac saw the Vitara’s tyres had been blown out and Hassan’s crew were running for the piers behind.
