‘So you already had this number?’ asked Bongo. ‘Where from?’
‘Isolated it last night,’ said Mac, his mind racing. ‘It was the number that called Augusto Da Silva yesterday morning, right after he got the call from Atkins.’
‘So whoever called Da Silva that morning also asked him to burn the Operasi Boa file?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ said Mac. ‘I should have seen it last night – that number is an inactive satellite number and it’s linked to the classic US intelligence fronts.’
‘Which are?’ said Bongo.
‘Delaware trustee, bank in the BVI and registered company care of the Singapore branch of an international law firm, Baxter amp; Menzies,’ said Mac, pulling into a parking space down the street from the DIA offices.
Casing the street for eyes, they slowed their breathing as they sat in the van.
‘This office is a little piece of the Pentagon,’ said Mac as he pulled off his cable-guy overalls. ‘I don’t want you storming the ramparts, doing that Filipino macho shit, okay?’
‘Okay, boss,’ said Bongo, as Mac called Jim on his Nokia and was invited up.
Walking into Jim’s office, Mac got a friendly welcome and the offer of coffee. CNN’s footage of total anarchy in East Timor blasted on the TV in Jim’s office and they watched in silence. The ballot result had been announced and the reprisals had already begun.
‘I’m sorry we couldn’t stop Boa,’ said Jim through his teeth. ‘What a dog of thing!’
‘I need to talk to you about that,’ said Mac.
‘Yeah?’ asked Jim, watching the images on TV.
‘Yeah, mate,’ said Mac. ‘You know the Indonesian military calls you D-Dua Puluh?’
‘What’s that?’ asked Jim.
‘Translated, it’s D20,’ said Mac, ruing the opportunity lost when the Canadian reported the generals talking about Deetupelo. ‘It’s an intelligence joke.’
Taking a black texta, Mac wrote ‘XX’ on the white board. ‘Latin for twenty, right?’
‘I guess,’ said Jim.
‘The Bahasa Indonesia for twenty is dua puluh. To Anglo ears it sounds like Tupelo. ’
‘So?’
‘So, it’s two crosses – a double-cross. In the Second World War, British intelligence ran double agents in Nazi-occupied Europe, and the committee running them was called the Twenty.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about, McQueen?’ snapped the American.
‘The generals, in Dili, called you D-Dua Puluh – D20. At first I thought it meant a double agent in Dili, but half an hour ago I realised it was Haryono’s double agent in Denpasar.’
‘McQueen, you need some fresh air!’ said Jim, coffee mug poised an inch from his lips.
‘You’re the inside guy for the Koreans. I just came from Haryono’s 2IC.’
‘Are you drunk?’ said Jim.
‘You heard from ASIS that I thought the Boa file was at the Resende, so you called Augusto Da Silva as fast as you could. Next thing I know, the Operasi Boa file is being burned.’
‘McQueen, slow down -’
‘You had him destroy the Boa file.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yeah, really, Jim. DIA has been bugging Atkins’ office for months – he knew it and was worried about it. You got the control codes for Cedar Rail’s agents, right?’
Jim shook his head, looked away.
‘Look me in the eye, Jim, and tell me you guys don’t spy on us.’
‘Don’t Pollyanna me, McQueen,’ snapped Jim. ‘Why don’t you look me in the eye and tell me how the Aussie media knew we were siphoning data out of Larkswood?’
They both stared at images of women running down a street in Maliana. Larkswood was a huge facility in Darwin that intercepted radio, telephone and satellite communications across South-East Asia – the Americans had hacked its systems and found a way to get the feed before it went through Canberra, and the firm had found out by spying on the Yanks in Jakarta.
‘So what was in Boa that linked the Pentagon to the bio-weapons program?’ asked Mac.
‘You are drunk, aren’t you?’ said Jim.
‘You whacked the Korean, Chloe, Moerpati and then Augusto – just as he was going to spill, and then, hey presto, there’s an unmarked US gunboat to take us off the beach.’
‘They were shadowing us all morning, McQueen,’ said Jim, eyes rolling. ‘You can’t take a shit at the Pentagon anymore without three HR forms – that boat was SOP.’
‘How did you know about the Korean money coming across into Lombok?’ asked Mac, praying for Bongo’s call to come through to one of Jim’s sat phones so he could nail this shut. ‘Come to think of it,’ taunted Mac, ‘how did you guys know so much about Lombok AgriCorp?’
‘We’re DIA – we cut our teeth in UNSCOM and the Twentieth Support Command. This is what we do, mate. The Korean money? We have agents at their casinos in Poi Pet – we trace that cash from source, okay?’
‘You have to trace it?’ said Mac. ‘I thought Lee Wa Dae was your agent?’
‘Not ours, McQueen,’ said Jim. ‘Langley once used him as a banking front and a conduit for their black funding, especially around Korea. He created the money-laundering schemes for heroin money through those banks in Macao – remember?’
Mac nodded. A bunch of North Korean military accounts were found disguised in apparently legitimate banks in Macao.
‘When the CIA realised that Wa Dae was putting the North Koreans’ drug money and the Agency’s corporate fronts through the same banking scams, they cut him loose,’ said Jim. ‘So, he was a US intelligence asset, but not now and never DIA.’
The sat phone trilled on a table by the door. Mac smirked, waiting for Jim to pick it up and hear someone call him ‘Champion’. He wanted to see Jim’s reaction, the reaction of a liar.
Standing, Jim looked at the ringing sat phone and leaned out his door. ‘Simon – your phone, buddy!’
Mac watched, stunned, as Simon picked up his sat phone and turned away.
‘Uh-huh,’ said the DIA analyst, stress in his voice. ‘Um, yeah, so I think… can I just… I’ll call you… and, yeah, so
…’
Looking at Jim, Mac said, ‘D20.’
Turning first to Mac, then to Jim, Simon’s face was a study in guilt as he hung up and folded the aerial.
‘Who was that?’ asked Jim, furious.
‘Umm, I don’t know -’ started the analyst.
‘So why’d you answer to Champion?’ asked Mac.
‘Look, you don’t know -’ stuttered Simon, the yuppieish know-it-all act crumbling like a sandcastle.
‘Answer the question, buddy,’ said Jim, very softly. ‘Why would you answer to Champion?’
Simon kicked at the carpet, face reddening.
‘Why wouldn’t you express surprise when a stranger tells you that another copy of Operasi Boa has turned up?’ asked Mac, feeling the anger well in him.
Lurching sideways, Simon fumbled in the coat rack and came out with a black Beretta 9mm handgun, which he waved back and forth between them while backing up for the door.
‘Don’t try anything,’ he spluttered, nervous but quite steady with the gun.
‘I don’t want to try anything,’ said Mac. ‘I came here to get you to reverse the green light on Operasi Boa. You have to stop this madness.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, buddy,’ said Jim. ‘You can’t go killing civilians just to prove a concept. Is that what you’re involved in, Simon, a clinical trial that got out of hand?’
‘Stop!’ Simon yelled at Jim. ‘You never understood, man!’
‘Understood what?’ asked Jim, trying to keep his voice calm.
‘The importance of the science! What else?!’ he yelled.
‘When the science is a disease falling from a chopper, believe me, buddy, I know the importance,’ said
