at him. The Cruiser smelled of Juicy Fruit gum and cordite. ‘Just talking,’ said Mac.
‘Just talking outside the Puri and then just talking while following Hassan to the docks? Lot of talking, McQueen,’ said Freddi. ‘But not much when the shooting started, huh?’
The luggage area at the back of the Cruiser was fi lled with guns, radio sets and Kevlar vests, and Mac saw that Freddi and his driver were still in their black combat pants. The boys from BAIS liked to roll.
‘Your guys catch Hassan?’ asked Mac, trying to make this about the Indonesians.
‘Not yet. But you are disappointing me, McQueen. You know this?’
Mac sighed. ‘Mate!’
‘Given how many Aussies died in the bombings, we were going to be in a loop, remember? Mate? ‘
‘Ari wanted a chat – I had no idea who was in the Puri. Honest,’ said Mac.
Freddi snorted.
‘Honest, Freddi,’ Mac repeated. ‘I’m down here to run the media side of the joint investigation. I’m not even armed.’
‘Joint investigation, eh McQueen?’ said Freddi. ‘Your federal police are telling everyone that it’s their – how you say it – show. Yes, it’s an AFP show.’
‘They did not, Freddi!’
Freddi gave him the old Mona Lisa, and Mac felt himself groaning.
He was hating the public affairs gig before it had even properly started.
Perceptions were such an organic thing that trying to control or alter them seemed futile.
‘By the way,’ said Freddi, changing his tone, ‘I had a call from a friend of mine thirty minutes ago. You know Sosa?’
‘Yep,’ said Mac, quite aware that Freddi already knew the answer to that question.
‘He wanted to get a message to you. Professional courtesy.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Akbar was busted out early this evening.’
Mac’s heart skipped. ‘What? Busted out?! Where did they have him?’
‘Can’t tell you that, McQueen, but I can tell you it was all over pretty quickly.’
Mac felt the bottom falling out of his week. The UN gig seemed to be slipping ever further from his grasp. ‘And don’t tell me, Freddi, it was a pro job, right?’
‘No, no, McQueen,’ said the Indonesian, sarcastic. ‘We have all these Muslim fi shermen and farmers running around who know about shaped charges and how to disable a Swiss security system -‘
Mac started to say that there were Indonesians who knew exactly how to do that, but Freddi leapt back in. ‘And have a chopper waiting for the exfi l.’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Mac muttered, getting out of the LandCruiser. He’d heard enough.
‘Don’t be a stranger, McQueen,’ said Freddi as the motor started.
‘I think there’s something there we can work on.’
The Cruiser squealed into the darkness.
Mac got out of the shower, dried off and changed into casual clothes and boat shoes. He combed his thin blond hair back from his face and stared back into his pale eyes in the mirror. Jenny said he didn’t look thirty-two, but sometimes he felt ten years older.
He wondered what he was going to do about Freddi Gardjito.
Freddi knew Mac had done the Akbar snatch and now Freddi was trying to lure him into a BAIS operation. His ears were still ringing from all the gunfi re and he’d stood far too long in the shower, trying to get the shakes out of his system. In the past two days there had been that kid he’d had to drop on Penang Princess, Ari shooting the Hassan soldier on the back of the patrol boat and Bronwyn in the hospital screaming to die. It was too much, one on top of the other, and he was jangled. It was weird how Jenny could be staunch about the very things that turned him to water. Maybe it was a character defect.
Chester wasn’t around, but his laptop was beside his bed, jammed into a briefcase. Mac thought about having a nosey-poke but fl agged it. Instead he sat on his bed, which had been made, and called Garvs. Mac had come into Kuta without his laptop and with no clean computer. He didn’t like jumping on hotel putes with public networks and dipping into the ASIS secure intranet.
‘Garvs, you old tart,’ started Mac as Garvs came on the line. ‘Mate, can I get something off the databases on Hassan Ali?’ Mac spelled the name. ‘I just need a pic and bio.’
‘What’s this for?’ asked Garvs, his gum-chewing clearly audible down the phone.
‘You know – usual shit.’
There was a pause, then Garvs said, ‘Thought you were running the media side of it?’
‘Just crossing something off the list. It’s nothing,’ said Mac, nonchalant.
‘Okay, I’ll send someone over, but just tell me you’re not being drawn into all that Indon conspiracy shit.’
‘Nah, mate. Nothing like that.’
‘Because Hassan is Dr Khan’s head-kicker,’ said Garvs, voice lowering. ‘That the Hassan Ali we’re talking about?’
‘Mate -‘
‘Just asking,’ said Garvs. ‘I mean, you’re not down here to give me grief, right Macca?’
‘I need his known associates too,’ said Mac, weary.
‘Jesus, mate!’ said Garvs, pissed off.
Mac rang off, grabbed a Tiger from the mini-bar and opened a white A4 envelope that had been slipped under the door. A post-it on the envelope from Julie asked Mac to okay the fi rst draft press releases.
He sat on the bed and fl ipped through them, impressed. She was smart and fast. The writing was tight and on-message, no cliches, no wanker jargon and very narrow in scope. One was about the historic MOU with Indonesia for a joint investigation, which was now called Operation Alliance. One concerned the forward command post, and there was a housekeeping release that covered the DVI program and details of how rellies could make inquiries and how the survivors could assist by disclosing their whereabouts on a central number. If the AFP’s database was to be comprehensive, it had to include the three hundred people unaccounted for, many of whom may have travelled back to Java, Malaysia or Australia itself.
She was good, this Julie, which made Mac’s next move all the easier.
Julie and Simon from the AFP were talking softly in the side garden when Mac came out with three cold Tigers. He also brought the one-pager he’d typed and printed in the business centre, which was a copy of the one he’d left on Chester’s bed. Mac joined them at one of the outdoor tables, the stench of old cigarette butts competing with the frangipani perfume of a balmy evening.
Mac got to the point. ‘Guys, I wasn’t entirely sure what the story was going to be down here when they asked me to come.’
Simon sat back in his chair, crossing his arms defensively. He was in his late twenties, a man whose looks suited his receding dark hair.
‘But now I realise that having some Foreign Affairs bloke trying to control the AFP’s public affairs program is not the best way to approach this. At the same time, there are wider Commonwealth concerns with government- to-government agreements, repatriation and fi nancial arrangements. And these are best handled by Foreign Affairs.’
Julie and Simon sipped their beers, watching Mac closely. They were both early career public servants on the verge of becoming mid-career public servants. They were looking for a break, a chance to break away from the pack.
‘A lot of the AFP stuff is highly technical,’ continued Mac, ‘and if I’m too hands-on with it the chance of error becomes high. I mean, I don’t even know what a DVI is, right? I mean, what is that – a fucking Drunken Vehicle Incident or something?’
Simon and Julie laughed, and the tension was defused, like someone had popped a cork.
‘Shit!’ said Simon, laughing at the night sky. ‘Drunken Vehicle Incident – I love it. Can I use that?’
‘Better than that, champ, I need you and Julie to run this show, okay?’
Julie did a small victory clench with her left fi st while Simon eyed Mac.
‘Julie has fi nal veto via me, but that’s not her fault – that’s my call.
