CHAPTER 64
It was some time before the door to the safe swung back, revealing Tommy pointing a gun into the airless room.
‘The fuck?’ muttered the burly DIA analyst, before shoving the gun into his waistband and moving to aid Jim.
‘Day off?’ asked Mac, forearm shielding his eyes from the glare.
‘Dentist,’ said Tommy, helping Jim to his feet.
They recounted the events to Tommy as the US military doctor dressed Jim’s wound. The bullet had torn a hole but the slug hadn’t stayed in the flesh. Bongo’s wound was more like a nick, and while the doctor strapped bandages around his thick neck, Jim hit the phones.
‘You leading a charge?’ asked Mac.
‘This has gone on long enough,’ said Jim, rustling a key chain and opening a steel gun cabinet against the wall. ‘I like letting a target run as much as anyone, but DIA’s involvement in this thing has become plain embarrassing.’
Joining Jim at the gun cabinet, Mac made his case. ‘I want to be part of it, Jim,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve earned it.’
‘You think I’d leave you behind, McQueen?’ said Jim, passing a Kevlar vest. ‘We can’t do this with American soldiers, so you’re up.’
The unmarked Cessna Citation jet reduced throttle as it approached the island of Alor. Inside, Mac and Jim faced one another while Bongo and Tommy were belted into the facing seats on the other side of the small cabin.
‘Yes, sir, that’s affirmative,’ said Jim into his sat phone. ‘No direct actions, sir, you have my word.’
Hanging up, Jim grimaced. ‘Tommy and I are tasked for retrieval of Simon – nothing else. We can only carry firearms for self-defence.’
‘That’s about as useful as a bicycle pump in a hen-house,’ said Mac. ‘Any word on Simon?’
‘The guys at Halim say an army Huey took off from Denpasar just after 1500 hours, bound for East Timor. They picked up some radio chatter – an American male talking to an Indonesian. I’m assuming we’re following Simon to Neptune, although it’s hard to tell – he’s dumped his sat phone, which had a beacon in it.’
‘Might get there at the same time if he’s humping it in a Huey,’ said Tommy, looking up from the laptop he’d taken from the DIA office. Every Pentagon-issued computer backed up to a central hard drive and Tommy was reviewing Simon’s shadow computer via a satellite broadband link with the Department of Defense in Washington DC.
‘What have we got, buddy?’ asked Jim, growing more nervous the closer they got to East Timor.
‘I’m searching his sent emails for clues,’ said Tommy. ‘Any ideas for a word search? I’m betting if there’s any correspondence with Lombok or Wa Dae, he’s done it in a rush, done it from a DIA email server, but embedded it in a legitimate email. There’ll be a type of email that has an innocuous first paragraph, followed by the real message.’
‘What have you tried?’ asked Jim.
‘Mum, birthday, darling, golf, fishing, skiing, shares, mortgage – all the basics…’
‘What about you, McQueen?’ said Bongo, who’d filled his own canvas bag of weapons at the DIA offices. ‘You get those special forces of yours to pitch in?’
‘Probably not,’ said Mac, thinking of the political considerations that meant they had to rush the Blackbird snatch and then disappear from Bobonaro. ‘But I can try.’
Unbuckling and moving forward in the cabin, Mac powered up the Harris radio that was built into US military aircraft. Shielding the settings from his comrades, he found a frequency on the UHF band, picked up the chunky handset and keyed the mic.
‘Six-Three, 63 – this is Albion, copy?’
Waiting, Mac could envisage Robbo’s crew trying to stealth up to a militia or a Kopassus troop, and getting his annoying message.
‘Six-Three, 63 – this is Albion, are you copying, over?’
A faint sound of static hissed from the earpiece and Mac was about to contact the navy’s Shoal Bay comms centre in Darwin when a familiar Aussie voice crackled into Mac’s ear.
‘Albion, Albion this is 63 – please confirm ID, over.’
The cheeky bastard, thought Mac. ‘Six-Three – bullriders from Narrabri wear skirts, confirm, over.’
‘ID confirmed. And you’ll keep, Albion,’ growled Robbo. ‘You’ll fucking keep.’
‘Six-Three, we might need fire support at Neptune, can do?’
‘Negative, Albion – currently Mars-bound and covert, over.’
‘Understand, 63 – good luck, over.’
Sitting back in his seat, Mac buckled up as they swooped onto the tiny island that lay between Dili and Flores. As they depowered on the plantation runway, Mac looked out his window and saw an unmarked Black Hawk being refuelled beside a red Quonset building.
The Citation’s co-pilot unlatched the door and they all unbuckled.
‘What about MIT10?’ said Jim suddenly.
‘Shit, that’s right,’ said Tommy, fingers flashing on the keyboard. ‘He had that golf shirt with the logo -’
‘MIT10?’ asked Mac.
‘Yeah,’ said Tommy. ‘It’s an MIT alumni association.’
‘For people who can’t get over how smart they are,’ said Jim.
‘Eureka! Nice work, boss,’ said Tommy, turning the laptop and letting Jim see.
‘Fuck me,’ muttered Jim as the Citation’s foldout stairs hit the tarmac. ‘He was setting this up under our noses. Look at this one – sent four days ago.’
‘Probably after you briefed me,’ said Mac. ‘Anything we can use?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jim, swapping a look with Tommy. ‘If I’m not mistaken, we have the bank numbers and the agreements here.’
Tapping through the MIT10 emails, Jim’s face lightened.
‘Simon is running a trust account containing forty million US dollars,’ said Jim, thoughtful. ‘From the wording of the emails, I’d say Haryono can see it but Simon controls it – Simon’s been holding it out there as bait, as a carrot to get the project finished.’
‘If we can access it, we could have some fun,’ said Mac.
‘We’d need somewhere to push it,’ said Tommy.
‘Here’s the sick part, guys,’ said Jim, pointing at the screen. ‘Haryono is getting a bonus of ten million to spray the SARS over the populated areas of Bobonaro, Oecussi, Ainaro and Cova Lima, and then he gets a bonus of thirty million if the UN declares at least ninety per cent of the Maubere population of those regencies dead within three days of the spraying.’
‘Shit,’ said Bongo, disgusted.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Mac, trying to stay calm. ‘We have to get Haryono and Kopassus to shut this down – we need the Indonesians to do this themselves, to turn on Simon and the Koreans.’
‘By using the money?’ asked Bongo, smiling.
‘You’re reading me, brother,’ said Mac.
‘Let’s hear it,’ said Jim.
‘Okay,’ said Mac, getting it straight in his own mind. ‘But first, Bongo has to call his mate Joao and hope he has his sat phone switched on.’
Lugging the gun bags across the tarmac, the four of them clambered into the Black Hawk as the humidity and fumes swirled around them.
