dollar boots, but he suspected there was a piss-take in progress.
In slow motion, Mac watched George reach into his pants, coming out with a large stainless-steel clasp knife.
‘You think I’m a joke, eh, pig-fucker?’ said George, opening the knife.
‘Leave him, George,’ said Jenny fi rmly as the knife came round to her heaving chest.
‘Nah mate,’ winked Mac. ‘Just spotting the boots. Or maybe they’re those Korean knock-offs. Been to the Penang Markets lately?’
George’s eyes narrowed as Mac leaned forward slightly, hoping the Thai would lean with him, get him off- balance.
The Thai leaned.
‘So, oinker,’ George said to Jenny, his eyes now homicidal. ‘This must be little Rachel’s dad? Cheeky cunt, isn’t -‘
That’s all George got out before Jenny hit him in the mouth with a fast right hand. Mac swung up with his left hand, spun and pulled the Thai’s right gun-hand down, twisted it anti-clockwise. Whisking his right hand down, Mac grabbed the silencer and wrenched the handgun back on the Thai’s forearm as fast as he could, breaking the Thai’s fi nger and tearing his wrist tendons. The Thai dropped to his knees and, twisting the Thai’s gun-hand, Mac pushed the silencer right down past the forearm, put all his weight into it, breaking the Thai’s wrist joint and another fi nger as he went. The whole manoeuvre was over in two seconds and the Thai fell sideways, in shock.
Mac threw the gun over the rear fence and turned to see the clasp knife spinning through the air, Jenny throwing a side kick at George’s left knee joint and the knee collapsing inwards as Jen followed through with a right elbow across the bridge of George’s nose. Blood sprayed everywhere as George went down, Jenny kicking him in the balls before he hit the ground. As Mac reached her, Jen kicked the drug dealer’s chin, snapping it back. Jenny was going for another kick when Mac grabbed her around the waist, lifting her as her foot snapped out at a point two inches short of shattering George’s jaw.
‘That’s enough, mate,’ said Mac as he pulled her away, her arms and legs still fl ailing.
‘Fucking let go of me!’ she screeched. ‘Let go!’
Mac put her down as she swung a reverse-elbow at his head and turned on him. Eyes ablaze, nostrils fl aring, Jen tried to get around him to have another shot at George.
‘It’s over, Jen. Let’s move,’ he rasped, heaving for air.
Jenny looked into him as her breath came ragged and hoarse like a cornered animal. ‘Can’t threaten a girl’s family, Macca. Not how it works,’ she said, then turned and stomped into the night.
Mac surveyed the scene as he caught his breath. His training had different imperatives to Jen’s, like: don’t leave a trail, don’t get caught, don’t draw the cops, don’t give a government anything to go on.
He looked at the coke skank, blood smeared around her mouth and chin. She looked back at him with drugged blue eyes, shaking all over despite the warmth of the night.
Mac looked down at George, who was unconscious, and the Thai, who was weeping and writhing on his knees, his right arm mangled.
The girl pulled a weird narcotic smile. ‘Shit, man – that your wife?’
Mac shrugged, wondering if he should fi nd that gun and wipe it.
‘Fucking awesome,’ nodded the skank.
Mac walked the babysitter home, only half listening as she chattered on about which senior cert subjects she was taking, the uni entrance marks she needed, which university she wanted an offer from and what career she was hoping to follow – all the stuff they loaded onto seventeen-year-olds these days. At her door Mac slipped the girl two twenty-dollar notes, thanked her and went in search of the nearest bottle-o.
When he got back to their townhouse, Jenny was on the back balcony, slugging on a VB, staring out over the trees that fronted the roaring sea. ‘I spoke with Frank. He’s sorting it,’ she said softly, looking at him.
Mac nodded, not quite understanding how it worked between cops. All he knew was that Frank had contacts in the Queensland Police and if he’d told Jen to sit tight and let him do the running, then that was probably the way to go.
Jenny said she had to step out, get some things, but Mac had beaten her to it. He threw the smokes and the lighter on the balcony table. Jenny mouthed the word thanks but didn’t look at him.
‘More beers in the fridge,’ he said, the adrenaline still washing out of him.
Jen tore open the soft pack, pulled a cigarette out of the ragged silver paper and lit it. When Jenny was stressed or unhappy, she smoked and drank. And she did it alone. Mac didn’t want her walking around in this state – all it would take would be one young stud getting fresh with the darlin’ or sweetheart and next thing Mac’d be getting a call from the cops.
‘You okay?’ asked Mac.
‘Right as rain,’ said Jenny, staring into the distance.
‘Sure?’
‘Girl’s gotta do, Macca,’ she said, blowing a plume of smoke straight up into the night air. ‘Girl’s gotta do.’
CHAPTER 25
It was 4.48 am when Mac was woken by Rachel’s burblings, her signal that she was ready for a new day. The fi rst hint of dawn streaked the sky over the Pacifi c as Mac lifted her out of the cot and walked her through to the kitchen, changed her nappy and put her in the highchair. Giving his daughter the warmed-through bottle of formula, Mac ate a banana and they watched Fox News together.
Rachel drained the bottle with enthusiasm and when she’d discarded it and her little legs were starting to kick with impatience, Mac switched the menu to a small bowl of mashed pears he’d heated up.
The news anchor said there were problems in Pakistan which were spilling into Afghanistan, and the White House seemed to be distancing itself from General Musharraf, Pakistan’s president. Mac snorted and Rachel stopped chewing and stared at him, big dark eyes trying to work out where Dad was at.
Mac smiled at her and thought about how the Indians, Russians and Israelis – not to mention a few Australian diplomats and spooks
– had been trying for years to get the Americans to stop treating Pakistan like a protected species. Pakistan’s intelligence service had created and funded the Taliban in the early 1980s with the approval of the CIA, ostensibly to create an anti-Soviet counter-invasion force.
But the Taliban, its Pakistani masters and some of the CIA handlers had evolved into what could only be described as a massive heroin syndicate.
Mac had watched some very smart, totally committed men and women walk away from a career in the Agency as it slipped from bad to worse. People didn’t get a fancy degree and choose government service over private wealth to become facilitators to drug dealers, slavers and arms barons. You didn’t go into the spook life to be a guardian angel to the Pinochets, Noriegas and Saddams.
And now that the wheels were falling off Pakistan’s openly corrupt system, the CIA was walking away with a supercilious smile on its face, attentions now focused on getting the State Department to start bringing Burma in from the cold and inoculate its junta against criminal investigations for heroin traffi cking. Mac reckoned within two months there’d be a concerted push via global media outlets to rehabilitate the junta as a necessary ally in the War on Terror. You could forget Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s accurate portrayal of Rangoon being one of the worst regimes in the world, because by the time those speechwriters and ghosters from Langley were fi nished, Burma’s fruit-salad brigade would look like a cross between Clark Kent and Sister Immaculata.
Mac turned off the TV, put a John Fogarty CD in the stereo and started cleaning up while Rachel banged her spoon on her highchair table to the beat of ‘Centerfi eld’. Starting with the outside decking, he emptied Jenny’s ashtray and brought her empties inside before putting the garbage out the front. Then he packed the dishwasher, wiped the benches and did a quick clean of the kitchen and breakfast/dining area lino fl oors. Jenny was many things, but houseproud was not one of them, and since Mac was raised by a working mother, he took cleaning, cooking and laundry as a given. Jenny never mentioned their housework arrangement to anyone, even as a
