‘Timing’s perfect,’ smiled Bongo, slapping the mag into the G3.
‘For what?’ screeched Mac.
‘Save her,’ said Bongo as Joao crouched behind him. ‘We’ll just make it if we move now.’
‘We?’ asked Mac, but Bongo and Joao had already gone, leaving the three guerrillas to cover the camp yard.
Every fibre in his body wanted to turn the other way, run back into the hills and get back to the gig. But when Mac started running, it was in a crouch, behind Joao.
CHAPTER 24
Landing almost on top of Joao on the other side of the fence, Mac tried to get a grip on the situation.
‘So, we got a plan?’ he asked.
‘Save the girl,’ said Bongo. ‘How’s your Beretta?’
‘Full load,’ Mac replied, looking at Joao. ‘You really want to pick a fight with the Indonesian Army? In the middle of Bobonaro?’
Slamming a new mag into his G3 and then letting the mag fall out of his Browning into his hand, Joao shrugged. ‘Did it last night to help an Aussie out of the Ginasio – now we do it to save a girl.’
‘I’m not saying it like that,’ said Mac, blushing, aware that Australians could easily sound racist to Asians.
‘No?’ asked Joao.
‘No, mate, it’s just that it would be nice to report this place to the UN or the Australians without tipping off the Indonesians, right?’
Bongo and Joao exchanged words in Bahasa Indonesia.
‘What’s up?’ asked Mac.
‘Just saying, Yeah, first we tell UN, then we tell our teacher,’ said Joao, then set off.
As he readied himself to follow, Mac caught Bongo’s eye.
‘Don’t say it again, mate,’ said Mac. ‘Don’t even start.’
‘Wasn’t gonna,’ said Bongo, close behind Mac as they followed Joao to the corner of the building they were hiding behind.
‘Besides,’ said Mac, feeling guilty about his reluctance. ‘That phrase? That thing you said before we shot those rapists? We used to say that in the marines too, but it referred to the whole troop – not to every damsel who needs saving.’
‘Must have got it wrong then,’ whispered Bongo.
‘She’s crawling,’ said Joao, pointing at the shelter. ‘Cover me.’
Moving out from behind the camp building, still in the remainder of pre-dawn darkness, they crouched as they watched the LandCruiser and dozer transport about three hundred metres away and in no hurry.
Crouching in the kneeling-marksman position, Bongo and Mac beaded up on the approaching vehicles as Joao crawled through the bodies, his rifle across his shoulder blades. Mac could now see the girl, about eight years old, dark shoulder-length hair, in a white cotton dress, obviously dazed and trying to crawl away from the bodies. He watched as Joao got to the girl and gently levered her down, stopped her moving around.
‘I don’t know about this,’ snapped Mac, a bad feeling about the whole venture. ‘How many spooks in the LandCruiser?’
‘We’ll be fine – and Benni’s mine, if he’s here. Okay?’ said Bongo.
‘That what this is?’ hissed Mac, not believing what he was hearing. ‘This is still payback on Sudarto?!’
‘That’s our deal, remember, McQueen?’ said Bongo, squinting down the G3’s barrel.
Shaking his head, Mac focused on the approaching vehicles, two hundred metres away. ‘Don’t be disappointed if you can only find Amir – you were right about Benni, he’s not coming into the open.’
Glancing back towards the girl, Mac saw her nodding at Joao, then both were crawling back, staying low. Joao and the girl were now no more than ten metres away and making good time. They might make it, thought Mac. If they worked it properly, they could stealth back behind the camp building, get the girl over the wall and just hope the spooks didn’t want to have a look around.
Suddenly, the girl looked up, saw Mac and Bongo, and shook her head. As Joao reached up to pull her back down, she whipped her arm away and started running out into the camp yard.
‘No!’ yelled Bongo, before running after the girl.
As Mac rose from his crouch, Joao dashed after Bongo and the LandCruiser slid to a halt in the dirt as the transporter slid past it on the far side, crushing corpses as it went.
Everything unfolded like a nightmare as Mac stood transfixed: the spook who he’d headbutted the day before leapt from the driver’s door of the Cruiser with his SIG Sauer and, unsure who to shoot first, shot at the girl as she ran through the spill of the 4?4’s headlights. Missing with the first shot, he lined up for another but his head disintegrated as Bongo’s G3 shuddered and spat a casing.
As the spook with the fat lip fell to the dirt, Joao opened up on full auto into the open door of the Cruiser, knocking the passenger out the other side of the vehicle, shattering the glass and tearing up the interior.
Jogging into the open, Mac saw Bongo drop the G3 and draw the SIG from under his trop shirt. Then Bongo took three running strides past the girl and leapt up onto the running board of the Mercedes-Benz transporter cab, where he tore the door open and looked in. All Mac saw was four puffs of powder and the spent casings glinting in the pre-dawn as they tumbled to the dirt.
Swinging the Beretta in panicked arcs, Mac got to the middle of the yard and saw that Joao had secured the girl. Running around the other side of the LandCruiser, he closed on the spook who’d been in the passenger seat, the same one who’d assisted Amir Sudarto in Mac’s interrogation. Mac threw himself to his right and rolled across the dirt as the injured spook got off a shot. Coming up in a cup-and-saucer stance, Mac squeezed the trigger and hit the bloke in the right shoulder, knocking him onto his back and throwing the gun five metres.
Standing, Mac advanced as the spook held on to his shoulder wound. Shutting down the Benz transporter, Bongo jumped from the cab and came to Mac as Joao picked up the girl, put her on his hip and walked her to the shelter.
Standing over the injured spook, Mac gestured with his Beretta. ‘Phone?’
The bloke nodded.
Waving his gun, Mac said, ‘Just show me, don’t touch it – you know the drill.’
Grimacing with pain, the spook pointed with his left hand.
‘In the Cruiser?’ asked Mac.
The spook nodded before passing out.
‘Fuck!’ muttered Mac, moving to the 4?4.
‘What’s up?’ asked Bongo.
‘I wanted a chat,’ said Mac, looking into the interior of the LandCruiser, which was now plastered with blood and hair. ‘But a bloke in shock might not be very talkative.’
Reaching over to the centre console, Mac pulled out half a Motorola phone.
‘Won’t be getting much out of that, brother,’ said Bongo, kicking the spook’s face.
Climbing into the cab, Mac took a closer look in the console and glove box, but there was nothing of interest. The dozer made it obvious why they were up here but there were no written orders to confirm it.
The other three Falintil guerrillas jogged through the gates, wide-eyed and breathless. Seeing Mac and Bongo, they peeled away to Joao and the girl under the shelter.
Gulping down the adrenaline and the stress, Mac’s face pulsed where he’d been hit by Amir Sudarto. His left jaw still ached. Checking his Beretta, he spoke softly to Bongo.
‘I was cool to go along with this, but now I have to get back to Denpasar, okay, mate?’
Nodding, Bongo looked around forlornly as the sun strengthened behind the horizon. ‘Guess cross-country with Falintil is going to be too slow, right?’
‘Yeah, and after this,’ said Mac, gesturing around him with the gun, ‘it may be too dangerous.’
‘What about the UN?’ asked Bongo. ‘They got a helo in Maliana.’
