‘You said it wouldn’t be like the old days.’
Mac slumped in the Mercedes’ dark leather seat, knowing he had said exactly that.
‘So, what’s the latest with George and the Cambodian?’
‘Gone to ground – the Cambodian, anyway. George has an alibi, doesn’t want to press charges.’
‘ Charges?!’
‘Yeah – his lawyer said his client was prepared to let it go.’
Mac humphed. Here they were, the cop and the spy, thousands of miles apart, and each scared of the danger their spouse was in.
‘Oh, by the way,’ said Jenny, changing her tone to conversational.
‘We have a guest.’
‘Yeah?’ asked Mac.
‘Yeah, young Thai boy. They found him wandering around out the back of here, in the middle of the night, virtually naked.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Ke – but we’re not sure. He got handed to the AFP as a foreign national and they asked us to take him while they talk to DFAT and Immigration.’
‘He getting along with Rachel?’
‘ She likes him, but he doesn’t talk at all.’
‘No?’
‘No. He’s very scared of something.’
Mac’s breathing started getting shallow on the third unsuccessful call to Tony Davidson. In his profession, when something potentially random happened three times in sequence, it was never a coincidence.
Spies who believed in mere coincidence and synchronicity either got shot or outsmarted. More worrying than the three strikes, Davidson’s voicemail was no longer activating. The phone was just ringing out. In the Commonwealth’s secure phones, you had to input your security PIN to clear voicemail. If you tried to tap into one of those voicemail accounts without the PIN, the system would shut itself off automatically and the phone would ring out.
So there were two scenarios: someone had stolen Davidson’s phone and was trying to access his voicemail. Or an unfriendly was hacking into the ASIS voicemail servers, trying to have a nosey-poke but closing the system in the process.
Nervous, he dialled and waited. Joe Imbruglia’s mobile went straight to voicemail, so he left a message and then rang the embassy in KL. He was put through to Joe’s offi ce but the assistant said he wasn’t around. She was probably lying, but Mac let it go and left a message.
He needed to widen his cell but his instincts told him not to call Garvs or Atkins. In the Royal Marines they’d told the lads that the best soldiers balance instinct with training, self-preservation with teamwork. Mac never got to be the best soldier but he had learned to move with his instincts rather than against them.
‘Everything okay, Mr Davis?’ asked Edwin, coming out of chauffeur mode, his inner-cop emerging.
‘Yeah, mate.’ Mac exhaled, looking out his side window.
Edwin looked at him, questioning.
‘Actually, no, Edwin – it’s not,’ said Mac.
Edwin looked back at the boulevard. ‘Just checking, Mr Davis, ‘cos we got us a tail.’
‘How many and for how long?’ asked Mac, as he pulled the Heckler from his backpack, checked for safety, checked the mag, checked for load and held it low.
‘One car, two people,’ said Edwin, very calm. ‘White Toyota, three cars back. They been with us since before the hospital, now they back.’
‘Pro?’ asked Mac, not turning.
‘Yes,’ said Edwin, looking in the rear-vision mirror.
‘Can you give me a mirror, mate?’
Edwin adjusted the passenger-side mirror until Mac said, ‘That’s it.’ The two men tailing them were in a Camry and Mac made a mental note of the numberplate as they came to a red light on Sundiraman.
Mac asked Edwin to fi nd the worst traffi c snarl in Jakarta and make no attempt to lose the tail. They moved off, drifted left into Bonjol, and moved into traffi c that worsened as they went south.
‘We’re looking for a blind corner, mate,’ said Mac and then pointed at a left turn that was particularly congested, probably people lining up to get into one of the fi nance district parking buildings. There was a big bank on the near corner, and if the traffi c moved as expected, they’d lose the tail pretty fast.
Looking in the side mirror Mac saw that the Toyota had slipped back to fi ve cars behind and the lane further out. It was a typical pro choice to change distance and angle, and it aided what Edwin and Mac were about to do.
Grabbing one of the cushions Edwin kept in the back seat, Mac held it ready. As they got to the left turn into the side street, there was a break and Mac said ‘Now!’ Edwin didn’t hesitate, driving smoothly into the inside-most lane and hitting the indicator to go left when the traffi c started moving: everything legit, nothing rushed. The Toyota now had two lanes to cross and fi ve cars to close on if they wanted to keep eyes, and they’d be the ones drawing the attention, not the Mercedes. Keeping it smooth, Edwin took the Merc casually with the traffi c into the side street, where the height of the buildings on both sides made the space dim.
They were into the street when they heard the Toyota’s horn blaring as the driver tried to cross the lanes.
‘Can you give me an hour?’ asked Mac, his breath raspy.
Edwin nodded, kept his eyes in the mirror as Mac took off his seatbelt, turned to his headrest and jammed the cushion in to simulate a head. The traffi c stopped totally and Edwin smiled. ‘Good time to go, Mr Davis.’
Mac thanked him as he leapt sideways out of the black Mercedes with his backpack and made straight for the kerb and into the side entrance of the bank building. The glass doors and windows of the bank were very dark and Mac surveyed the street from behind an internal pillar. It took forty seconds for the Toyota to draw level with the bank and neither of the men even looked sideways. They were hunched over, totally intent on the Mercedes, which was going about its business as if nothing was amiss.
Mac got his breath back, and released the Heckler before taking his sweaty hand out of the backpack. He looked around, smiled wanly at a security goon. The adrenaline rushing through him felt harsh, almost foreign – he’d been out of the fi eld for too long. Needing to move before he got the shakes, he exited through the front doors into the heat and humidity of early afternoon, wondering if there was a backup car and whether he’d been made. It hardly mattered now, and as he walked up the vast leafy boulevard of Bonjol he tried to process what he’d seen in that Toyota.
Operation Mainstreet was now under surveillance by a couple of Anglos, and one of them was Anton Garvey.
CHAPTER 40
Mac stopped three cabs and got in the fourth, which took six minutes to get to the Australian Embassy. He left a tip as he got out then walked towards the security gates. The local bull didn’t know who Mac was, so he made a call and soon an Australian Protective Service bloke called Ollie came down the drive to collect Mac and walk him up to the embassy building.
‘Been looking for you, know that Macca?’ said Ollie in low tones as he issued a temporary security pass.
‘Yeah, mate,’ lied Mac, no idea what he was talking about. ‘Just ducking in to see Atkins.’
After Ollie gave him the pass, he gestured to the walk-through scanner. Mac opened his pack, handed Ollie the Heckler and walked through the scanner.
Using the stairs, Mac came out on the fi fth fl oor, the intelligence section and home to ASIS in Jakarta. Padding down the chocolate carpet he walked past closed offi ces and open cube farm areas – where Mac was housed when he had to work in the section. There were admin people on the inside of the walkway and IOs on the outer, enjoying the natural light that passed through the blast-proofi ng and the bullet-hardened windows.
