structure and stood guard. Once Mac got into position he could see the shape in the foliage was a concrete entranceway that framed an iron door. The trooper called for Sudarto to come over and the major moved to the door, looked at it, pushed vines away with his M4 and shook his head. No one had gone in that entrance.
The minutes ticked by, the afternoon temp building to what Mac reckoned was thirty-nine degrees. It would have been bearable half a mile away on the beach, but in the palms, pineapples and rainforest it was soaking-humid and Mac had left his backpack and water on the helo. They checked the other three bunker entrances, which were arranged in a rectangle in which the long sides were fi fty metres apart and the short sides about twenty metres.
They found a hide in behind one of the runway buildings that had a large vine overhang, but with sight lines to the airfi eld. Sudarto got the water distributed and moved off to a private area where he worked a Harris fi eld radio from a trooper’s pack, looking far from happy.
Freddi and Mac stood where they could see over the airfi eld.
‘What’s up?’ asked Mac, slugging at the water.
‘Major’s annoyed with the SIGINT,’ said Freddi, looking over at Sudarto as if he didn’t want the soldier to hear him. ‘Maybe he thinks this is set-up?’
Freddi took off his helmet, poured some water into his hand and wiped it back through his hair. Mac did the same; it felt good.
‘So, what’s the set-up?’ asked Mac, knowing that SIGINT – or signals intelligence – was not always as scientifi c as it sounded.
Freddi shrugged. ‘If Hassan knows we’re intercepting his pilots, he could tell them to make false signals, and we wait in wrong place while he is doing exfi l.’
‘Or,’ said Mac, who was paranoid about such things, ‘we’re in the right place but we’ve been lured into an ambush?’
Freddi slugged water without taking his eyes off Mac. ‘Well, McQueen,’ he said evenly, ‘that would require that Hassan’s crew knew where we were an hour ago, because ambushes have a timing component, right?’
‘Don’t look at me like that, Fred,’ snapped Mac, way too on edge for polite chit-chat. ‘I was dropped into this – I want these fuckers on a pole, believe me.’
‘Wasn’t pointing at you. What about our Mossad friend?’
‘Ari?’ Mac was surprised at that. ‘He wants these blokes too.
Samir’s people killed his partner in Java two nights ago.’
Mac let it rest for a few seconds, then realised what Freddi was actually saying. ‘You mean, Ari’s part of this crew?’ he said, jigging his thumb over his shoulder.
‘Not saying anything, McQueen – just that the major is nervous about the SIGINT that got us here. And he’s a good soldier.’
Mac needed a slash so he crabbed along the building and moved quickly across a short open area and into more vines and undergrowth.
Looking around nervously, he tried to get his senses together amid the din of insects and birds. He thought about Sudarto’s anxiety – special forces paranoia was a security device, not a mental health problem.
But something troubled Mac. If the SIGINT was really contaminated then Purni was a more logical candidate for being a double agent than Ari. Purni had been left behind with the radio set. Purni could listen in. Purni, now unsupervised, could be in unlimited communications with Hassan or Gorilla.
As he shook off, Mac thought he heard a sound. Picking up his M4, he moved slowly forward, wishing he still had his helmet. Peeking through a curtain of vines, he saw a couple of local kids playing in a clearing. The girl and boy, about ten and nine, were teasing a young macaque in a tree with a bunch of green and purple fi gs on a long branch. The macaque was trying to get lower to grab the fi gs but the kids kept pulling them away. Mac watched as the macaque worked out what was going on and pretended to look away, as if uninterested, before lunging at the fruit. Mac had seen kids entertain themselves like this for hours in the Archipelago, child and macaque each sure they would outsmart the other.
The macaque turned its back on the kids and made to climb the tree, so the kids touched its back with the fi gs. The macaque suddenly spun and grabbed at the fi gs, but lost its balance in the process and fell out of the tree, scaring the kids into running off screaming.
Frightened, the macaque skedaddled straight back up the tree. The kids ran towards the vine curtain Mac was hiding behind, recoiling when they saw him. They stood and took him in, their eyes huge and mouths turned down.
Mac threw the M4 away into the vines, hoping they hadn’t seen it.
‘Hey gang,’ he smiled. ‘Catchee monkey?’
The girl smiled, and Mac saw she was the older of the two. ‘No catchee, mister. Monkey smart today.’
Mac nodded with understanding. Sometimes those darned macaques were too good at the old triple-bluff, double-reverse logic thing. A girl needed to be on her game.
‘I’m Mac,’ he pointed at his chest. ‘What’s your name?’
The girl just stared at him, so Mac smiled, pretended to be shy.
‘Merpati,’ she said, ‘and Santo – Santoso.’
‘Brother?’
Merpati nodded. ‘Santo, brother.’
Mac thought about it, and said, ‘Merpati, I’m with my friends, at airfi eld, yes?’
The girl nodded.
‘But there might be big trouble, so you should go back to beach, yes?’ He pointed away from the airfi eld towards the coast which was about a kilometre east.
Merpati shook her head like a teacher’s pet. ‘The men there.’
Mac’s breath caught. ‘Men, on beach?’
‘In trees, at beach, yes,’ she said, nodding.
Hot air steamed in Mac’s throat as he tried to keep his breathing regular.
‘Trouble there too,’ she added.
‘Man?’ asked Mac, pretending to be calm. ‘Man like me?’
The girl shook her head, big eyes serious, then wiped her hand down her face, which in Indonesia meant normal looks like mine, not like yours.
‘Men tall?’ asked Mac.
Merpati pointed at Mac. Then she remembered something and her face lit up. ‘Man like, like… gorilla?’
Mac gulped and sensed movement through the leaves. A monkey yelled and a hornbill jumped off a branch as his brain screamed fucking ambush. Reaching for the kids’ hands to drag them out of the fi ring zone, he tried to pull them back towards the airfi eld with him, but Santo panicked and wriggled out of Mac’s grip and ran back into the clearing where they’d been playing with the monkey.
‘Stay here!’ Mac snapped at Merpati, and ran after the boy.
As he reached the clearing, Mac saw that Santo had already crossed the open space and was heading back towards Hassan’s people. Mac put on a sprint, trying to stay quiet, tackling the boy about ten metres past the clearing and slapping his hand over the kid’s mouth.
The jungle had turned so quiet they could hear the macaque muttering to itself in the tree. Santo’s little heart raced against Mac’s arm and tiny twig-breaks and footfalls were obvious now that Mac had his ear on the jungle fl oor. He pulled Santo under a log, the boy’s hair swishing forward and revealing a triangular birthmark that ran up behind his left ear and under his hair. Turning Santo over to face him, Mac pointed ahead, put a hush-hush fi nger to his lips and pleaded with his eyes. The boy seemed to get it. He was scared but he trusted Mac.
Mac felt a huge burden of responsibility and made a quick pact with God: If this boy does everything I say, can you let him live?
CHAPTER 22
Putting his head up very slowly, Mac took a look over the parapet of the log. There was no movement, but
