‘I’m saying we have to take a look – it’s a volatile time for Indonesia and we don’t like some of the personnel associated with this site. We need eyes.’
‘Then it’s about time we talked about this personnel,’ said Mac, annoyed.
‘Fair enough,’ said Jim. ‘Fifteen years ago, when Soeharto’s New Order was going to transform Indonesia, the government decided the country had to be modernised.’
‘Sure,’ said Mac, holding out his mug for Simon to pour more coffee.
‘There was housing, defence, education and IT,’ said Jim. ‘And there was science and technology and medical research…’ He did the wind-up signal to illustrate a lot more categories. ‘Government departments had to help fund projects that were going to lift Indonesia into the realms of international greatness.’
‘Like Malaysia and Singapore,’ said Mac.
‘That’s it,’ said Jim. ‘Except the financial fruit didn’t fall far from the tree in Indonesia, and there weren’t as many medical research projects as Soeharto’s ministers expected. So this enterprising young officer in Kopassus, Ishy Haryono, used his family connections to promote a couple of medical research programs that attracted most of the funding.’
Jim signalled to Tommy, who found a picture of Haryono – a heavy-faced, pock-marked Javanese man with a moustache.
‘He looks very Noriega,’ said Mac. ‘He CIA?’
‘Well,’ started Jim. ‘You know how -’
‘That’s classified, Mr McQueen,’ said Simon, leaning over. ‘The US Department of Defense does not confirm or deny its associations with foreign nationals.’
‘He’s right,’ said Jim, shrugging. ‘We don’t.’
‘Did Haryono’s projects work?’ said Mac.
‘Some of them,’ said Jim. ‘But besides making Haryono very wealthy, these early programs attracted our friends the North Koreans.’
‘Why?’ asked Mac.
‘The North Korean military derives its main income from drug manufacture and distribution, which is outsourced to people like Haryono.’
‘Operasi Boa has something to do with Lombok and Haryono? It’s about drugs?’ asked Mac.
‘We want to cross it off our list,’ said Jim, as Simon loudly cleared his throat.
‘I’m sorry, Jim,’ said Simon, flustered and standing. ‘That is classified. McQueen’s operation is tightly defined: recon at Lombok and render Maria Gersao. Period.’
‘Let me tightly define it for you, Simon,’ said Mac, standing and looking the American in the eye.
‘I’m sorry, Mr McQueen,’ said Simon, his New England accent a little too superior for Mac’s liking. ‘We can’t compromise our own intelligence sources to tell you what we think might be happening.’
‘He’s right, McQueen,’ said Jim, edging between them. ‘We can’t judge the intelligence before we even collect it. Operasi Boa is still unconfirmed – that’s why we need the woman you call Blackbird.’
Addressing all of them, Jim tried to defuse the tension. ‘Guys, let’s do this the way Washington and Canberra want it done, okay? We collect the intelligence, and we’ve done our jobs.’
Looking at his hands, Mac made a noncommittal noise. Davidson had warned him about how close post- Soeharto Indonesia was to democracy and how easy it would be for the Indonesian generals to scuttle that by goading Australia or the US into direct actions. He was going to keep his mouth shut.
‘Okay, priority one,’ said Jim, holding his left thumb. ‘Snatch Blackbird and do so with minimum heat. Priority two: get as much intel on this Lombok facility as we can. Who knows what they’re making down there?’
‘Okay,’ said Mac.
‘And let’s remember that, as things stand,’ said Jim, ‘McQueen’s sample from Lombok shows that Indonesia has a legal and WHO-registered vaccine that could inoculate millions of Asians against a SARS-like respiratory disease. How many Western politicians want to claim responsibility for destroying that?’
‘So, who’s the cavalry?’ asked Mac.
‘Aussie special forces,’ said Jim. ‘Technically 4RAR Commandos – if that means anything – but for our purposes, known as the Six-Three Recon, okay?’
‘Where we meeting?’ asked Mac.
‘They’re in Timor.’
‘Cheeky buggers,’ said Mac as he stood.
CHAPTER 37
Mac left the officers’ mess of the east-bound Madura Star – a Malaysian-registered container ship – and made his way to the guest stateroom. Shutting the door softly and snibbing the lock, he hauled a large green canvas kitbag from the floor onto the bed.
The locks were untouched and there were no signs of tampering. Jim had packed him two sets of drill fatigues, one in black and one in tan, as well as a black field jacket. There was a large digital camera and accompanying cable in a Ziploc bag and a black sat phone with which Mac could transmit digital pics. Spare batteries for the phone and camera were provided in their own ziplocked plastic bags along with a full set of marking flares. The single item Mac had requested – a Heckler amp; Koch P9s automatic pistol – was nestled in an aluminium gun box with two spare mags and a box of Ruger loads. Also in the box was a large screw-on suppressor that was longer than the gun itself. The P9s was no longer the weapon of choice in Mac’s circles because the fifteen-round Glocks and SIG Sauers – with their longer barrels for accuracy – were superseding the seven-round, close-range Heckler. But in Mac’s opinion the Heckler was still the most robust handgun you could buy, and its slide action worked best for sound-suppression, which was why the US Navy SEALs still used a version of it. Putting the box back in the bag, Mac noticed a pair of black Altama boots and a nylon bag containing two biohazard helmets – rubberised grey face masks with two breather cylinders sticking out of the jawpiece and a kind of hood that fell down the sides and back, making the wearer look like Darth Vader.
At the bottom of the bag was a packet of disposable rubber gloves and a small samples kit, not much bigger than a travelling first-aid kit. If he could manage to get into Lombok’s underground facility, DIA wanted samples of what was there, with the correct labelling protocol. There was also an electrical engineer’s work-up on the Lombok AgriCorp facility. It didn’t mean much to Mac, although the notes attached indicated that while DIA had no blueprints for the actual buildings, the wiring schemata showed PIN-enabled security doors, but no motion sensors in the buildings. However, it appeared there was circuitry for a security camera system.
Jim had also included a bulk pack of Hershey chocolate bars, about thirty of them in a sealed brown plastic bag. It was a reminder that, in the end, most spooks were shameless charmers and manipulators.
Dressing in the black fatigues, Mac put his boots beside the bunk, hit the bedside lamp, lay down in the dark and let his mind drift with the soft roll of the ship.
There’d be plenty of time for the cold, single focus of the gig. For now he thought about a girl named Jessica, and wondered at how she affected him. He’d always seen women as smart or hot or funny. They either ran rings around Mac, or they had him in stitches, or they looked great in a bikini. And sometimes they were all three. But Mac actually admired Jessica – she was a UCLA law student wandering around a war zone, demanding answers about her father; she had the strength to shoot a man dead, and the compassion to feel bad about it. As he dozed off he was wondering if he only liked her so much because it could never be, or if it could never be because he liked her too much.
Some time later a rap on the door woke Mac and for a moment he didn’t know where he was.
‘Ready, sir?’ came the first officer’s voice.
‘Yeah, mate,’ whispered Mac, looking at his G-Shock. It was 10.02 pm. Time to go.
The Royal Australian Navy’s submariners already had the flyingfox line over Madura Star ’s sides where it had been lashed to the poop railing. As Mac got to the edge of the decking he felt the warm sea breeze from the Indian Ocean. Slinging the kitbag over his shoulders he put on the harness, looped the pulley wheel over the rope and put his weight on it to make sure the wheel sat snugly.
Leaning forward, he swung first one leg then another over the railing, before pushing off from the side of the
