‘That’s it. The thing about that ten million back in ‘02? It landed exactly ten days before the Sari and Paddy’s were bombed.’
‘Shit,’ said Mac, his pulse starting to race.
‘Yeah – I’ll never forget it. We had – the Malaysians had – the information but didn’t know what to do with it. Too much of that Konfrontasi bullshit, if you ask me.’
Mac nodded, aware of the enmity between the Malaysian and Indonesian intelligence services. ‘So, NIME?’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Benny fl icking his cigarette out the window. ‘That channel between Headlight Industrie and Desert was only ever used once. For the ten mill.’
‘Okay.’
‘Until last night.’
Mac stared at him, a hammer knocking in his temples.
‘How much?’ asked Mac.
‘Thirteen million US. I’d call that an infl ation dividend,’ mused Benny.
‘Which means?’
‘Which means whatever Hassan sold the rag-heads last time, he’s probably done it again.’
CHAPTER 42
The soap scum Mac had put under the door handle was intact and he barged into the room, his feet giving him hell from the coins.
There was a porcelain pitcher of water on the sideboard and, pouring a glass, he walked onto the balcony. It was just after nine pm and he could hear the jazz band from the courtyard of the Raffl es Hotel across the still, humid night. Glugging down water, he pondered his options. Atkins wanted Mac out of Jakarta, so his next moves had to be made carefully. The last thing he needed was an Australian Protective Service crew manhandling him onto a Qantas fl ight. That wasn’t how he wanted to be met at Brissie by Jenny and Rachel.
Contacting Joe Imbruglia was out of the question. He’d be required to report any contact and Mac didn’t want to put him in that position. If Mac pursued that avenue now, the trust would be broken and Joe would see him as a liability.
There were four people he could call; one was recovering from bullet wounds, the other’s voicemail seemed to have been tampered with. Number three would be Martin Atkins, but there was a chance of blowback, no matter how strong his appeal to Atkins about Hassan’s latest actions.
That left the fourth – Freddi Gardjito. Freddi had been more affected by Diane’s shooting than he admitted. When Mac had been talking with Diane about Sarah in that hospital room, Mac had glanced across and seen Freddi looking out the window with a thousand-yard stare, his right hand trying to rub his chin but shaking like a leaf.
Mac took a deep breath and decided to call Martin Atkins. The phone made ten rings and Mac was about to hit the red button when Atkins picked up.
‘Hi there – I’m home!’ said Mac.
‘Shit,’ Atkins mumbled. ‘McQueen?’
‘Last time I checked.’
There was a pause and Mac assumed Atkins was mouthing something at whoever was in his offi ce, probably Garvs. ‘So, where are you?’
Mac kept it conversational, wanting Atkins to play the aggressor.
‘In KL – took the MAS fl ight. Wanted to pick up a few things before going south.’
‘Oh really?’ said Atkins, forcing a chuckle. ‘I thought we’d talked about the eight o’clock into Perth. That would be a Garuda fl ight.’
‘Sure, Marty, didn’t quite get the eight o’clock thing. I actually got out of town earlier than you asked.’
Atkins exhaled, gave up. ‘Good stuff, mate. So have a good fl ight and we’ll see you on the next gig, eh?’
‘Marty, there’s something I needed to bring you in on,’ said Mac.
‘Me? Davidson’s your controller.’
‘Yeah, but Tony’s not answering his phone. Besides, this isn’t about end-users – any of that crap.’
‘No?’
Mac heard shiftiness in there somewhere.
‘Look, you’ve heard of Hassan Ali, right?’
Atkins paused then gave a facetious yes.
‘Mate, I have reason to believe he’s active in the area again and is primed to do what he did in Kuta in ‘02.’
‘Kuta?’ said Atkins. ‘That was Amrozi and Muchlas and Ali Amron
– all of those guys, McQueen. Where did you get Hassan from? Isn’t he the Dr Khan bloke?’
‘Yeah, but he was in Kuta the night of the bombings. Mossad and BAIS were on him. Didn’t you read my report?’
‘Oh, Macca!’ said Atkins, as if he was talking to a puppy that wasn’t properly house-trained.
‘What?’
‘When you say your report, do you mean the debrief you had to rewrite twice?’
There was a difference between a report and debrief. A report was a defi nitive version of events, whereas a debrief was merely a short summary of what a bloke had been doing with his time. And Joe had asked Mac to resubmit that debrief twice – he didn’t want Mac being ridiculed, not after the word had got around that McQueen was asking about nuclear stuff at the AFP’s Kuta forward command post.
‘Yep,’ said Mac, ‘that one. I think he’s back and planning the same thing he did last time.’
‘Which was?’
Mac paused; he didn’t know if he had the time to stuff around and he didn’t know if Atkins was having the call traced. International mobile calls were hard to track, but someone could be put on it.
‘Which was, Marty, the Sari Club blast.’
‘That was JI, McQueen,’ hissed Atkins.
‘That was a six-foot crater, twenty-three feet across.’
‘Shit, mate,’ said Atkins, derisive. ‘Your reasoning works like this: Hassan has worked for a rogue nukes guy. Hassan is in Kuta on the night of the bombings. Ergo, Hassan did the Sari Club with a nuke. It doesn’t work as an argument, mate, and the forensics don’t support your theory.’
‘Forensic said there was tritium.’
‘No, McQueen, forensic said it was a potassium chlorate bomb.
A thousand kilos, actually. I can read!’
‘Okay, so it was a shade over one US ton,’ conceded Mac, not wanting to get into the minute difference between the tonne and the ton. ‘But let’s talk about the explosive: fi rst it was anfo, then it was RDX, then it was potassium chlorate and then it was all in a report that went to the Indonesian government but that we can’t see. I mean, did you see the fi nal report to the Indonesians?’
‘Whatever, McQueen,’ Atkins sighed.
‘It’s worth getting this right, Marty. A twenty-three-foot hole needs one ton of TNT – that’s what the bomb engineers say, right?
Even if we knew it was a potassium chlorate bomb, a one-tonner is half the power of TNT.’
‘Really? Where did you get that from, McQueen?’
‘Demo section at Holsworthy,’ said Mac, hoping Atkins would drop it. The only thing Mac had ever got out of the demolition section at Holsworthy army base was shaky hands and a dislike of sudden noise.
‘Bullshit!’ said Atkins. ‘I’ve done Holsworthy twice and I never heard that!’
The air crackled between them. Mac could envisage the embassy’s intel section at night, overworked ASIS people squinting at screens, washed out by the fl uorescent lighting, craving a hot shower and a cold beer, pondering the fact that just because your salary was now called a package, it didn’t mean your pay went any further.
