Drinking from a bottle of water, Mac was vaguely aware of the early-morning traffic noises of Denpasar as Bongo finished a conversation on the phone. Mac’s throbbing arm looked worse than it really was – a graze that had been cleaned and dressed by the local hospital.
‘The hospital will hold the death notification for twelve hours,’ said Bongo, lighting a cigarette as he sat on the sofa. ‘But if this Chloe is from the President’s office, the local cops don’t want the hassle of covering it up too long. We’d better find someone to take her back to Jakarta before the Sudartos find out about her, okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Mac. ‘Twelve hours. We got that flight?’
‘Locked and loaded, bro.’
‘Give me an hour,’ said Mac, ‘and then we roll.’
Atkins picked up the whole coffee plunger and headed for his office, Mac following with two mugs and the milk. Shutting the door, Atkins gestured Mac to a seat.
‘So, mate – this another telling off?’ asked Atkins, pouring the coffees.
‘No tellings off,’ said Mac. ‘A number of people have been shot and killed around me in the past week, and as my controller, I need to bring you in on it.’
‘Sure, Macca – and I’m sorry about how things went the other day. It’s not… I mean, you get to the management side and it’s a juggle, okay?’
‘I understand,’ said Mac, sipping his coffee. ‘And normally, I’d let it slide – move to the next gig, go to the Banda Sea, spy on Dutchies.’
‘Sure,’ laughed Atkins.
‘But last night I was shot in a warehouse about three blocks from here.’
‘Shot?! Holy shit, McQueen – where?’ said Atkins, sitting forward, his face aghast.
Pushing his trop shirt down, Mac exposed the bandage on his upper left bicep.
‘It’s called a graze, but it doesn’t feel like one,’ said Mac.
‘Jesus,’ breathed Atkins, now out of his chair and peering at the wound. ‘Stiches?’
‘Nah, mate, but it’s sore.’
Atkins’ response wasn’t as Mac had expected. He seemed genuinely surprised, as demonstrated by his incomplete sentences. Liars generally rehearsed their responses, which came out more fluently.
‘Who did this?’ asked Atkins, looking up at Mac.
‘Whoever burned the copy of Operasi Boa,’ said Mac, staring Atkins full in the face.
‘It was burned?!’ spat Atkins. ‘Oh, fuck!’
‘Guess who burned it, Marty?’ asked Mac.
‘Who?’ shrugged Atkins.
‘Your friend in Dili, Augusto Da Silva.’
‘Augusto?!’ yelled Atkins. ‘Why would he burn the damn thing?’
‘What I was asking him, yesterday afternoon in Dili, about a second before he was assassinated.’
‘Assassinated? By who?’ asked Atkins, looking shaken.
‘What’s important is that you told him to do it.’
‘What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Talking. About?’ snarled Atkins. ‘What the hell drugs are you taking?’
‘Davidson was the only person who knew about the Resende drop box and he briefed you on my trip to Dili before he flew out to Auckland. You called Da Silva at about ten to eight yesterday morning, you told him the copy of Operasi Boa was in one of the three Dili drop boxes, but to start with the Santa Cruz ones first before checking the Resende. Then you asked him to burn the file – clean slate.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Atkins.
‘And to throw people like me off the trail,’ continued Mac, ‘you called from the Puputan Bakehouse – that phone in Dewi’s office, right?’
‘You know what? I did call Augusto, and I did ask him to check the boxes for a copy of this thing,’ said Atkins, calming.
‘Nice work, Marty – what did you think I was doing there?’
‘I didn’t want to tell you, mate, ’cos some of the people you’ve been hanging around during this whole debacle have been less than ideal.’
‘Such as?’ asked Mac.
‘Bongo Morales, Rahmid Ali, the Falintil guerrillas and, frankly, US intelligence.’
‘I was seconded to DIA by Davidson,’ said Mac.
‘Yeah, well Tony doesn’t spend much time up here anymore and he may not understand that we have different goals to the Yanks from time to time. Cutting a long story short, I wanted the Boa file in my hands before you could share it with the Americans – guilty as charged. When it was over, I was going to buy you a beer, no hard feelings.’
‘You went behind my back?’ asked Mac.
‘I did what I had to do – I did what you ’d do. Davidson told me about the Resende drop box in front of Jim, for Christ’s sake, and I decided to get there first. I’m sorry, okay?’
Mac listened, silent.
‘As for telling Da Silva to burn the Boa file,’ said Atkins, ‘are you on crack? Why would I ask him to burn it? You need a vacation, Macca.’
‘Why the Bakehouse?’
‘I’ve been using the Bakehouse for months, ever since the Indonesians started increasing their surveillance measures. They’ve even worked out a way to capture email. So, for out-of-town calls, I use the Bakehouse – their spooks know I eat there, so I just visit the gents, duck into Dewi’s office and make some quick calls. Come back shaking my hands.’
‘Nice craft,’ said Mac.
‘Try to stay in practice. But honestly, mate,’ said Atkins. ‘What’s going on here? What can I do to make you happy about this?’
‘I want us to shut down their bio-weapons program,’ said Mac, straight up. ‘Operasi Boa is underway. It was always going to operate in the shadow of Operation Extermination, and Extermination has started – they have truckloads of Timorese going across into West Timor and boatloads going out to West Papua.’
‘I don’t know about the bio-weapons, but yeah, sure, the deportations seem to be starting. What do you want us to do?’
‘I want us to put a CX to Canberra that is so clear and so unequivocal that even a politician and his most brown-nosed advisers would be unable to bury it.’
‘And what would the CX say?’ asked Atkins, very calm. ‘Given we don’t have a copy of Boa, just suppositions?’
‘It would say that the Indonesians have been testing and developing bio-weapons for the North Koreans in the Bobonaro district, and intend to use them on the civilian population.’
‘Are you crazy?’ said Atkins.
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘It’s a SARS-related bio-weapon that they’ll spray from helicopters owned by the Koreans and operated by Pik Berger’s mercenaries. They’ve sold it to the UN as a mass-vaccination exercise. They’re waiting for the wind and cloud to be right, and then it starts on, or after, the day of the ballot result. September fourth.’
‘How do we know this?’ asked Atkins.
‘Augusto Da Silva told us before he was shot. Turns out he was working for Kopassus,’ said Mac. ‘Did you know he wrote Operasi Boa? For the generals?’
‘No,’ said Atkins, stunned.
‘He had his own reasons to get the document back – Blackbird had seen it in his office and copied it.’
‘Shit,’ said Atkins.
‘Yeah, so when he got the call yesterday morning, he ran to grab that thing, but he wasn’t grabbing it for you.’
‘So who for?’ asked Atkins.
Shrugging, Mac looked out the window. ‘Someone who he thought was you. I’d love to talk with the Canadian – bet he could… Marty, Da Silva left a note in the Santa Cruz drop box. It was a response from you, about Tupelo or something.’
