opened before him: militiamen and soldiers, wandering around drinking, women’s clothing across the ground, a set of knickers dangling from a tree branch and men standing around a naked girl – no more than fifteen – egging on another soldier who was having sex with her. Several women’s bodies lay about the place with what looked like shots to the head. Obviously the brave ones who fought back, thought Mac.
Beading up on the nearest rapist, Mac took a quick look at his G-Shock as his heartbeat amplified. It was ‘go’ and he waited for the first shot, which came almost instantaneously from across the copse, taking out a soldier’s head as he leaned back to swig from a bottle. Mac drilled his first target in the back, his second in the side of the ribs and then the head. The third target was a young militia member in a khaki T-shirt. Mac missed with his first two shots but then shot him twice in the upper chest as he bent for his rifle. The opening round was over in ten seconds. As the cordite cleared, the rapist lying on the girl was caught alone in the copse, unsure whether to go for his pants or his rifle. As his victim rolled away across the leaves, then looked for something to cover herself with, Bongo walked out of his hide, M16 shouldered, and executed the youth with two shots to the face.
Stalking out, adrenaline pumping, Mac saw seven or eight women moving in the undergrowth, looking for clothes, dazed, split lips, broken noses and black eyes. As Bongo murmured to them, Mac vomited, the rape and the blood too much for him. Surfacing from his retching, he was about to call Deavers at UNAMET and get him up to the scene, when the sound of Jessica’s voice rang out through the jungle, followed by the Desert Eagle’s distinctive boom.
‘Shit,’ muttered Mac, then ran across the creek bed and up the slope from where they’d come. He’d not gone ten strides before the boom of the Desert Eagle was responded to with the clatter of M16s and the crack of branches.
His heart pounding in his chest, Mac sprinted back to where they’d left Jessica and the kids, but as they got closer, Bongo came up from behind and grabbed Mac by the arm, gesturing for him to stop and look around. Militia members were now obvious through the trees to their right, distinctive in their khaki T-shirts. They were not close enough to have overrun Jessica’s position, although they were now heading that way.
Opening fire with a few rounds, Bongo and Mac picked off some of the youths who were surprised by the flanking barrage. Hoping he could get to Jessica and the kids before the militia, Mac set off again to his left. Bongo’s voice roared in his ears as he sprinted, but it wasn’t until he almost stood on the still-rolling grenade that Mac realised Bongo had yelled, No!
Swerving two steps to the left, Mac dived over a large fallen tree thinking that if he got in close behind the trunk he’d survive the grenade. But as he sailed over the tree, his shoe caught a twig and pulled him head-first into a rocky outcrop. Not able to get his hands up in time, Mac watched the ground rush towards him and took the entire impact on his left temple.
CHAPTER 19
Mac slowly opened his left eye but the pain was so great that he immediately shut it again. Pulling himself into a sitting position as he opened his eyes again, he saw his M16 through the bushes and waited for footfalls or voices. None came and he staggered to his feet, wincing at the pain in his head. His temple wasn’t bleeding but a golf ball had started under his hair. Moving to where he could see over the tree, he looked around. The area looked clear: there were no voices to be heard and the normal sounds of monkeys and birds had returned to the jungle.
His G-Shock said it was 10.49 am which meant he’d been unconscious for about twenty minutes. Finding his feet, Mac retrieved the M16 and scanned the spooky terrain. It was high-canopy jungle which gave fairly good vision but played tricks on the eyes, the slanting sunlight creating phantom humans where there was only trees and wildlife. His heart hammering, Mac moved carefully through the bush, wanting to call out for Bongo and Jessica but not game to identify his position and trigger more violence.
Doubling back to the tree where Jessica had stayed with the children, Mac found a number of bodies in the jungle, their khaki T-shirts with ‘Hali Lintar’ stamped in black, advertising them as local militiamen. But no Jessica – no kids.
Leaning on the tree, he checked and re-checked the rifle as he struggled with his guilt. If he’d followed Bongo’s instincts, gone straight down to the river and dealt with the rapists – rather than arguing about it – then they would have been back in time to look after those kids. His desire for self-preservation had got in the way and he felt terrible. People in his position were supposed to look after the vulnerable and it reminded him of the night his father, Frank – chief of detectives in Rockhampton – had attended a scene where a violent drunk had been trying to scare his wife with a gun by shooting the wall around her. One of the bullets had killed the man’s nine-year-old daughter in her bed. Mac’s Mum, and many women around Rockie, had wanted that wife-basher dealt with years earlier and Frank had taken the episode very hard. He’d blamed himself, which was how Mac felt now.
Deciding to expand his search, Mac headed back down the slope to the river. The rapists and their victims were lying where Mac had last seen them, but there was no sign of the children or his travelling companions.
Trying to pull himself together, he realised there was still time to make Maliana and the meeting with Damajat. Stopping to deal with the rapists had been a disastrous move but if he played it right, he’d still have a shot at locating Blackbird and perhaps salvaging something out of the situation was the best he could expect.
At the road Mac stuck his head out slowly and noticed Bongo’s Camry was no longer parked outside the guard house. Looking left and right down the road he realised the yellow pick-up truck was no longer around and the guard house still looked empty.
The road echoed with the sounds of vehicles approaching and Mac instinctively ducked behind a tree. Checking the M16 for load and safety, his breathing already fast and shallow, he realised he had no plan. What was he going to do? Ambush an army patrol? Hold up a militia convoy? At the same time, he couldn’t wander around in the countryside; he’d already drawn too much attention.
Trying to calm himself, Mac watched as three dark blue Land Rovers pulled up to the guard house and a thickset Anglo man in sky-blues leapt out and walked in the door. Re-emerging, the man put his hands on his hips and looked up the road to where Mac was now standing in the open, waving.
Grant Deavers was not happy at Mac’s appearance and was openly irritated by his story of being jumped by the Lintar militia.
‘I thought we had a chat about the Bobonaro district, Davis? Those Lintars are the worst, mate.’
‘Yeah, mate, I know,’ said Mac, jammed between two Japanese cops on the back seat. ‘But I had this meeting with Damajat -’
‘Major-General Damajat?’ asked Deavers, swivelling around to look at Mac.
‘Well, yeah,’ shrugged Mac. ‘He wanted me to see his set-up. You know how it is. He’s got no sandalwood but he wants me to see his operation.’
Deavers turned, staring at the terrain ahead. As a former intelligence officer in the AFP he wasn’t about to ruin Mac’s salesman cover, not in front of the Japanese cops. The problem with the UN was that the world’s governments saw it as an easy way to get spies into a territory that might interest them, and the fact that Deavers was referring to Mac as ‘Davis’ hinted that he thought the Japs worked for Tokyo’s intel apparatus.
‘Yep, I know how it is – the country’s going into meltdown and you blokes are running around trying to do business.’
‘I had no idea how bad it was till I got into the mountains,’ said Mac.
The Jap cop to his right was staring at him with hard eyes.
‘ Konichi wa,’ said Mac, and held out his hand. ‘Richard Davis – sorry about all this.’
‘ Konichi wa, Richard-san,’ said the Jap, who bowed and introduced himself as Yoshi, but without taking his eyes off Mac’s, contrary to the Asian custom.
They chatted for half an hour as they made for Bobonaro, Mac letting the Jap subtly test his salesman cover. As the town of Bobonaro came into view, Mac decided it was time to turn it back on Yoshi.
‘So, champion, Keischicho, huh?’ said Mac, using the nickname of Tokyo’s metro police department. ‘You
