Counter Attack

by Mark Abernethy

Mac listened to the ringing as they slowed for a red light. They were heading for the Southern Scholastic offices, where Mac wanted to make a secure call to Benny in Singapore.

  ‘Xin chao,’ came the female voice as Mac’s call connected.

  ‘Captain Loan – Richard Davis here. You called?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Richard, thank you for calling back,’ she said. ‘I’d like to have a chat, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I’m in a meeting right now,’ he said. ‘Just stepped out for coffee and then I’m in back-to-backs all day. Yeah, so, I’m just looking at my diary –’

  ‘What about now?’ asked Loan.

  ‘Well, yeah, okay then, let’s see,’ said Mac. ‘I’ve got an eleven o’clock at An Phu, and then a one o’clock at the Pharmacy University, down in Cholon – that’s always a two-hour affair, you know what academics are like.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Loan.

  ‘And I’m looking at my diary, it’s right in front of me . . .’

  ‘No, I mean right now.’

  ‘Well, I’ve just stepped out of this meeting to make this call –’

  ‘Why not talk in the car, rather than ride in that cyclo?’

  Mac turned slowly and saw the white Camry parked behind the cyclo.

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ said Mac, and hung up.

  Sliding into the passenger seat, Mac felt self-conscious. The doctor had given him a bottle of T3 painkillers and he was starting to wish he’d eaten more food on top of them.

  Loan didn’t greet him. ‘What happened to your leg?’

  ‘Spider bite,’ said Mac.

  ‘Big spiders in Vung Tau,’ said Captain Loan, as she accelerated into the traffic. ‘Seen the paper this morning? Aussie killed – at the Mekong Saloon.’

  ‘That’s in Cholon, isn’t it?’ said Mac. ‘Famous place.’

  ‘Tourists and expats seem to like it,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘You’re not interested that an Aussie was killed there?’

  ‘I’m interested, Captain.’

  ‘Don’t want to know the deceased’s name?’

  Mac stayed cheery. ‘Haven’t even got my seatbelt on yet.’

  ‘Thought you Aussies stuck together?’

  ‘He could be anyone,’ said Mac, wanting to be out of that car.

  ‘How you know he’s a he?’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Mac, trying to make light of it.

  ‘It’s one of the consulate officers,’ she said, and left it there.

  They drove in silence for just over three minutes.

  ‘It could have been you,’ she said, out of nowhere.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You were there last night, weren’t you?’

  ‘Must have the wrong guy,’ said Mac, smiling. ‘I was down in Vung Tau.’

  ‘The staff are talking about an Aussie man who was there.’

  ‘What, who looked like Brad Pitt? Moved like Muhammad Ali?’

  ‘No – tallish, blond. Heavily built. Barman thought he was a soldier.’

  ‘Well, that counts me out,’ said Mac, his mind racing.

  ‘Does it?’

  He took her in: she’d put on make-up, she was chewing gum and – the big giveaway – her nails were bitten down.

  ‘Parents must be proud, eh, Captain?’

  ‘Sorry?’ she asked, as if she hadn’t heard correctly.

  ‘Your parents – they must be proud to have their girl making captain in the police?’

  They stopped at traffic and Loan whipped her sunnies off, looking at him. ‘You want to play games, Mr Uc?’

  Mac was taken aback. ‘Look . . .’

  ‘No, you look, Mr Richard, or whatever your name is. You know very well that any man who sends his daughter to Monash University is going to be disappointed when she comes home and joins the police.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mac.

  ‘And I don’t chew my nails because I can’t find a husband.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mac.

  ‘The dead man is James Kirk.’

  ‘Quirk,’ said Mac before he could stop himself.

  ‘Ah,’ said Captain Loan, smiling as she put her sunnies back on. ‘You seem to know more than me.’

  ‘Only because you told me –’ said Mac, but she was grinning ear to ear.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ said Loan, and threw the Camry across traffic before Mac could reply.

  Mac followed Loan and the landlord up the wooden staircase of the colonial apartment building. On the second-floor landing, the land- lord – a short elderly man with a cigarette stuck to his bottom lip – searched for a key and opened the door with the number 3 screwed into the wood.

  Leading Mac inside, Loan shut the door. ‘This is where we tracked Geraldine McHugh,’ said Loan, as she walked to the living-room bay window and looked down on the hyperkinetic street activity of Cholon.

  ‘Geraldine McHugh?’ said Mac, confused, joining her at the window. ‘Quirk’s wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Mac, the T3s clouding his thinking as he looked around at the bare walls and a sparsely furnished apartment.

  ‘I don’t understand either,’ said Loan. ‘Want to tell me about it?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Mac, trying to think of where to go with this. ‘What do you mean, you tracked her here?’

  ‘White woman, blonde, living alone. In Cholon?’ said Loan, as if it was the moon. ‘We got a tip-off – one of the neighbours was worried about her. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing and she had unsavoury company.’

  ‘So?’ said Mac.

  ‘So we had her under surveillance and one of our guys says he recognises her – that she’d been at an Aussie consulate barbecue two years ago.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mac.

  ‘So we went through the diplomatic files and connected Jim Quirk and Geraldine McHugh. Husband and wife, but he’s living in the compound at An Phu, while she’s living here.’

  ‘Maybe they’re separated?’

  ‘Then why’s she in Saigon, Mr Richard?’ said Loan, whose intellect was starting to grate.

  ‘I don’t know, Captain Loan,’ said Mac.‘You have a theory?’

  ‘Well, at first I thought she might have been kidnapped – you know, held against her will.’

  ‘How did you rule that out?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Women’s intuition,’ said Loan. ‘And a listening device under the coffee table.’

  ‘So what was she doing?’

  ‘Some sex, with a man she called Dodo,’ said Loan. ‘Nickname, I think. We established she wasn’t being held here, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I think I do, but –’

  ‘By the way, does the phrase “BP” or “Beep” mean anything to you?’ asked Loan. ‘Is that an Australian saying?’

  ‘One’s an oil company,’ said Mac.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said, losing interest. ‘Not what I wanted.’

  Rattling the keys in her hand, Loan made to leave the apartment.

  ‘So, what’s the theory?’ said Mac, wanting the final pieces.

  ‘I think she was pretending to be kidnapped. The few calls she made were to Quirk.’

  ‘Why would she come all the way to Saigon to pretend to be kidnapped?’ asked Mac.

  ‘She was getting him to go to the Mekong Saloon each day,’ said Loan, her eyes boring into Mac’s. ‘Before we could get answers, Quirk was dead.’

  ‘Where?’ said Mac.

  ‘The compound behind the club – in the alley.’ Loan was walking towards the door. ‘Single shot to the temple.’

  ‘So where’s Geraldine?’ said Mac, following her.

  ‘You tell me.’


  ‘What?’

  ‘She left last night,’ said the captain, holding the door open for him. ‘Neighbours say she was picked up around midnight.’

  ‘Taxi?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Man in a white Ford Explorer.’

  Chapter 19

  The steaming-hot taxi ride back to the Southern Scholastic offices took forever. Saigon’s traffic congestion was fast approaching that of Jakarta or Manila but motorbikes and cyclos still dominated the roads.

  Popping another T3 capsule and washing it down with water, Mac thought about Captain Loan and the case she was pursuing. McHugh was pretending to be kidnapped and getting Quirk to make regular trips to the Mekong Saloon? Well, Mac was one step ahead of that story: he’d seen what Quirk was doing at the club. He’d seen the computer terminal he was being forced to work on and he’d heard a conversation about it. How did it go? Something like, I don’t care about your passwords – we want access.

  Slugging at the water again, Mac glimpsed the Reunification Palace down a cross street on his left as they neared the destination. Relaxing, he tried to replay the conversation between Red Shirt and Quirk. It wasn’t just about passwords and access. There was another noun in there that he just couldn’t remember.

  Paying the cabbie, Mac got out east of the tax department and limped towards the river, stopping like a tourist every few shops to have a look and see who was tailing him. It annoyed him that Loan had played him so well; rather than harass him or bring him down to the Cong An station, she’d gambled that a bit of curiosity would change Mac’s attitude. And she was probably going to win that bet: from the second he walked into Geraldine McHugh’s apartment, he’d been trying to work out how to stay assigned in Saigon and close to the Quirk murder. He’d technically screwed up by being in that club, but he’d done it and now he was part of it, and his next step was to find Red Shirt and this Dodo character. If they were the same person, Geraldine McHugh was in trouble.

  At the top of the stairs, outside the door to Southern Scholastic, Mac heard the satellite TV news – it sounded like the CNN feed out of Honkers. Inputting his security code, Mac knew he was late for the meet and that the Quirk surveillance was technically over. But if this Kendrick was as smart as Scotty claimed, then Operation Dragon might be expanded slightly. He’d have to talk with Scotty and maybe Tobin, see how it developed.

  Walking into the conference room area, Mac clocked Tranh leaning against the kitchenette counter, playing with his mobile phone. Standing up straight when he saw Mac, Tranh nodded quickly at the two sofas that faced the TV screen.

  Looking over, Mac saw a shaggy-haired bloke in his twenties on one sofa and an older man on the other.

  ‘Hi, darling, I’m home,’ said Mac, walking around to the TV area.

  Snapping out of his TV torpor, the younger bloke stood, running his palms down his jeans. He wore a loud Hawaiian shirt and an ironic goatee.

  ‘Lance,’ he said, offering his hand.

  The TV was turned off as Mac shook. ‘Richard – Richard Davis,’ he said, tightly enough that Lance Kendrick and his guest understood Mac’s cover.

  Turning, he came face to face with someone he knew well.

  ‘Dave,’ said Mac, shaking Dave Urquhart’s hand. ‘The fuck are you doing here?’

  The phone rang in Mac’s office and Urquhart kicked at something on the floor. The moment broken, Mac moved away.

  Picking up the handset as he swung the door shut, Mac gasped with pain while pushing sideways into his desk chair.

  ‘Yep – Davis.’

  ‘Mate, Paragon,’ came the strong Aussie accent. ‘The sky is blue?’

  ‘And the clouds are white,’ said Mac, confirming he didn’t have a gun pointed at him. ‘How are you, Scotty?’

  ‘I’m good, mate, but the chaps have shut down Dragon.’

  Breathing out, Mac tried to stay calm. Through the glass panel of his office he could see Urquhart shoving his hands into his trouser pockets and rocking back on the balls of his feet as he spoke to Kendrick.

  ‘They’ve canned it?’ said Mac. ‘It’s just getting going.’

  ‘Dragon was surveillance,’ said Scotty, that tone from last night coming through again.

  ‘Yeah, I know, mate – so the surveillance now shifts to the shooters, to the Aussie connections.’

  ‘Aussie connections?’ said Scotty. ‘Australian government?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Scotty sighed, and Mac realised that his old mentor was being used as the reluctant messenger. In Mac’s two foreign operations since his return to the fold, three people had been executed. All on Mac’s watch, under conditions he’d designed himself. The Firm didn’t like coincidences and it didn’t like criminal investigations.

  One of the reasons that intelligence organisations were so strict about agents declaring their medical consultations – especially for psychological problems – was the danger of personality disorders developing in long-term field officers. The classic symptoms were burnout, from sustained stress, or complacency, when false identities became normalised in the agent’s mind. Either disorder was a threat to the whole outfit and Mac could feel the judgment of his peers weighing on him.

  ‘Macca – time to pull up stumps and come home. Word’s come down,’ said Scotty.

  ‘It’s not over.’

  ‘When the deceased is an Aussie consular guy, that means the Feds will turn up,’ said Scotty. ‘And when the cops turn up, it’s over.’

  Mac rubbed his temples. ‘Shit, Scotty.’

  ‘Let’s do it like pros, okay? Put it all in a bag, put a match to it and see if Qantas can’t find you a nice single malt in business class.’

  ‘I didn’t get Quirk killed,’ said Mac. ‘I’ve done a thousand recces like that without one of ours getting his head blown off.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Scotty. ‘We just get on with it, right? Like the wise man says: when it turns to shit, we start wearing brown.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Mac, laughing. ‘You’re a mad bastard, mate.’

  ‘That’s what my third wife screamed at me,’ said Scotty, ‘just before she called in the lawyers.’

  Massaging his face with both hands, Mac barely heard the soft knock at the door. When he looked up, Dave Urquhart was easing into the office, a plunger of coffee in one hand and two mugs in the other.

  ‘Knee looks nasty,’ said Urquhart, as he took a seat. ‘Walk into a door?’

  ‘Wife beat me up,’ said Mac, straightening in his chair. ‘Sorry about the welcome – didn’t expect you here.’

  ‘No,’ said Urquhart, pouring the coffee. ‘Last minute thing, you know?’

  Mac grabbed the coffee. ‘Come in from Bangers?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Urquhart.

  ‘You with Kendrick?’

  ‘I am now,’ said Urquhart with a smile. His suit, his shoes and his side parting were all perfect. It looked like he’d shaved in the cab from the airport and his colourless, plasticised skin refused to flush in the pre-monsoon heat – a quality that had earned him the nickname of ‘Madame Tussaud’ among certain crowds in Canberra.

  ‘So what can I do for you?’ said Mac, sipping the coffee.

  ‘Nothing much. I’ll be sharing the office for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘You know I’ve been recalled,’ said Mac, already annoyed by the passive slickness of his old friend. ‘So I won’t be sharing anything with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Urquhart. ‘Just didn’t think it was my place to bowl in here announcing it.’

  Turning his mug, Mac decided to play Urquhart for all he was worth. ‘It’s a pity really,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah. I was going to call you today, bring you in on a few things I found out after our discussion in Canberra.’

>   Urquhart focused. ‘Really? I thought that was a brush-off?’

  ‘Yeah, but things change.’

  ‘They do?’ said Urquhart, drawing his mug across the desk but not taking his eyes off Mac.

  ‘That was Canberra,’ said Mac, pointing at the phone. ‘I’m on a plane tomorrow – Dragon’s over, burn the bag, the whole nine yards.’

  As Urquhart’s eyes burrowed into him, Mac stood and made for the door. ‘It’s a shame, ’cos we –’

  Urquhart’s arm went out, touching Mac on the stomach. ‘Steady – let’s not burn anything just yet.’

  Stopping, Mac sat on the desk, looking down at Urquhart.

  Urquhart cleared his throat. ‘So, what have you got?’

  Mac sipped coffee. ‘Let’s start with what I get.’

  ‘I’m not really in a position –’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Mac, standing.

  ‘Shit, McQueen,’ Urquhart hissed. ‘You’re a difficult bastard.’

  ‘Who you working for?’ said Mac.

  ‘Executive branch,’ said Urquhart. ‘So what do you want?’

  Mac tried to link what he knew about Urquhart’s movements and motives with what might bring him suddenly to Saigon. It was starting to look obvious, and as little as he trusted the man, Urquhart’s secret mission might just keep Mac in Saigon.

  ‘I want to be seconded to you, Davo,’ said Mac. ‘I want an attachment to the McHugh case.’

  Looking away, Urquhart lost his composure for a split second before recovering. ‘What’s the McHugh case?’

  ‘Geraldine McHugh – Quirk’s wife. I think that’s who you’re interested in.’

  ‘Really?’ said Urquhart with a fake chuckle. ‘Why would you say something like that?’

  ‘Because you’re hot for your traitor theory,’ said Mac. ‘And as soon as you heard about Quirk, you zap in here, have me thrown out, and I’ll bet the AFP liaison in Honkers, Manila and Singers have been deemed inadequate for this gig, right?’

  ‘Really?’ said Urquhart, a poor liar for one who practised so much.

  ‘Yeah, Davo. The AFP’ll have to fly someone in from Sydney or Perth, which gives you a day’s head start – those flights don’t land till almost four. It also means the visiting fed has no relationship with the Cong An.’