standing there. He didn’t need her to give the listing’s name; it was PT Watu Selatan.
‘Thanks, Leena,’ he said, signing off and walking around the room. Watu Selatan was a large organisation, and the next challenge was to find out who sat behind the extension that Rahmid Ali had called. Mac had been in there, sat with Adam Moerpati, and Moerpati had tried to butter him up, get him into the Resende.
Staring at the phone logs from the other side of the room, Mac told himself it couldn’t be – Habibie’s personal intel operators surely wouldn’t be that brazen… would they?
Sitting at the desk again, Mac picked up Adam Moerpati’s business card and looked down the list of phone numbers. The first was for the switchboard, the second was his direct number: it ended in 4216.
‘Well, fuck me,’ whispered Mac in the gloom. The President’s men weren’t simply brazen, they were near suicidal: they had a spy across the road from army headquarters.
CHAPTER 33
After walking each side of the street for six minutes, Mac moved to the entrance of a three-storey building tucked between Denpasar city centre and the suburbs. Having been identified by the receptionist, who pushed a button on her desk to unlock the glass entrance door, Mac walked into the nondescript offices of Triangle Associates, a once-thriving Perth construction consulting firm. Aussie SIS had bought out Triangle’s partners in 1991 and slowly let the best people go. Now it was operating in Denpasar and headed by Martin Atkins, which – Mac used to joke – was where you landed when you got rid of your best people.
‘Macca!’ said Atkins, reaching out a hand of greeting in the lobby. ‘Sorry about the change of plans, but someone flew in overnight.’
Leading Mac through to the meeting room, Atkins chirped on about the weather and Indonesian politics. Mac’s heart sank as a fifty-something Anglo male with a bullfrog neck stood and held his tie to his stomach.
‘G’day, Alan, how’s it going?’ said the bloke, trying an overhand shake.
‘Not bad, Carl,’ said Mac, looking into the wonky eye of Davidson’s long-time rival, Carl Berquist. ‘Didn’t expect you to be here.’
‘Oh, you know, mate,’ said Berquist, trying to be chummy. ‘Just keeping an eye on what we’re up to.’
Mac managed not to snigger at the optical reference – Berquist’s punter’s eyes could be disconcerting if you hadn’t been around them for a while.
‘And I guess Tony’s in Canberra, keeping an eye on your analysts, right?’ said Mac, trying to make it light but failing.
Atkins gave Mac a death stare.
‘Alan’s been in the field for a while – tough time in East Timor,’ said Atkins, then held up a finger to Berquist. ‘One minute, Carl?’
Turning to Mac, Atkins was white-lipped as he led Mac out of the room by the elbow.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, McQueen?!’ he hissed as they reached the water cooler in reception.
‘Me?!’ said Mac, furious. ‘What the fuck are you doing, Marty?’
‘I’m debriefing you on fucking Masquerade, McQueen. It’s what we do, mate!’
The receptionist, a young Anglo woman, cleared her throat and disappeared through a door behind the desk.
‘See what you’ve done now?’ said Mac, aware that a couple of former footy players arguing might seem intimidating.
‘Grow up, Macca!’ said Atkins, as he straightened his tie.
‘I don’t need to be lectured on how debriefs work, Marty,’ said Mac, pointing at the meeting room door. ‘But we don’t debrief to the analysis and assessment people.’
‘Gee, sorry, Macca. Didn’t know you were making the rules for Aussie intelligence now.’
‘We do it the way we do it so I can say things to you informally that might not go into the CX.’
‘You think Carl can’t tell the difference?’ demanded Atkins, as furious as Mac. ‘He’s a director, Macca! He was spooking when you were in primary school.’
‘So they say, but Tony’s the relevant director,’ said Mac.
‘ Relevant?! ’ growled Atkins. ‘Try some relevant manners.’
‘ Me?! ’ snorted Mac, breathing shallow. ‘That’s rich.’
‘Yes, manners! You’re not going to come into my office and speak to the director of analysis like that, mate. Not how it works,’ said Atkins, his face red.
Taking a breather, Mac and Atkins put their hands on their hips.
‘You could have told me, mate,’ said Mac, taking the edge off his voice. ‘Frankly, I would have liked some warning that I was going to be discussing Masquerade in front of someone like Carl Berquist.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Atkins.
‘Come on,’ said Mac, trying to push Atkins back to the meeting room.
‘No,’ said Atkins, shrugging off the hand. ‘What did you mean by that comment?’
‘Come on, Marty – Berquist is pure Jakarta Lobby.’
‘ What lobby?’ snapped Atkins.
‘You know, the ones who say there are no militias in East Timor, and if there are, they’re not connected to the military, and even if they are connected it’s a rogue element, but even if they’re not, they’re a calming influence on the violence, et cetera, et cetera
…’
‘Oh, that lobby! You mean the people who want some kind of evidence of homicidal militias controlled and funded from Jakarta before we write reports that the Prime Minister is supposed to rely on? Is that the conspiracy we’re talking about?’
‘Marty – it’s a mess over there, mate. I wanted to debrief, just a couple of field guys talking it through.’
‘Fuck’s sake, McQueen! Berquist was a field guy.’
‘Oh, really?’ Mac goaded. ‘He had a few lunches in Beijing or Tokyo?’
Sighing, Atkins shook his head. ‘I know you get stressed, okay? You get the worst gigs and it must be mentally tiring…’
Mac nodded, needing air. Atkins was playing the stress leave card.
‘But not everyone’s out to get you, Macca,’ said Atkins. ‘So let’s go and do the debrief and show me what you’ve got.’
Nodding again, Mac bit his bottom lip and turned towards the meeting room.
‘And Macca?’ said Atkins, lowering his voice. ‘Just so you know – he’s here on authority of the DG, okay?’
‘The DG?’ asked Mac, confused. ‘What, our DG?’
‘Yeah, mate – I think they want to retrieve you.’
As he turned away, Mac managed a snigger at the intel-speak. But it didn’t matter what pseudo-American terminology they used, Atkins was saying the Director-General of the firm wanted him back in Canberra.
CHAPTER 34
By the time Mac was five minutes into his run-through, the meeting had become Berquist’s debrief, and every point Mac tried to make became an exercise in Canberra’s scepticism.
‘No, Carl, I have no evidence linking the death camp to Jakarta, except the bulldozer on the army truck,’ sighed Mac for the umpteenth time and sick of the questions framed for the listening posts. ‘It’s corroborated by third-party intel from a Falintil commander.’
‘The terrorists?’ said Berquist, his wandering eye starting to annoy Mac. ‘You had good reason to trust these terrorists? Their bona fides check out?’
