Counter Attack

by Mark Abernethy

‘So you go to the airport?’

  ‘Yes, and pick up engineer on way.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Mr Smith and his friends are waiting, and we get plane ready, and they come on board.’

  ‘Were they relaxed?’

  ‘No! They nervous and Mr Smith angry with me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘’Cos when I ask if the woman is okay to fly, he grab me by throat and tell me, “There is no woman – you never saw woman.”’

  ‘Tell me about the woman,’ said Mac calmly, though his pulse was jumping.

  ‘She tired, or maybe drug.’

  ‘She Vietnamese, Cambodian?’

  ‘No,’ said Luc, shaking his head. ‘When I close the main hatch, I hear her speak to Mr Smith and she Aussie, mister. She talk like you – she look like you.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I fly to airfield in north of Stung Treng, I land and Mr Smith give me cash.’

  ‘Some for North Star, some for you?’

  ‘Yes, mister,’ he said, looking at the floor. ‘I not racish – I like Aussie. I try help the woman.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘You remember the airfield?’

  ‘I know how to get there, and it in flight log,’ he said. ‘But airfield not on map.’

  ‘So what happened, Luc – you get in a fight?’ said Mac, thinking he would need to get this man out of the cells.

  ‘No, I going work at airport this morning and then I kidnap,’ he said, lip quivering.

  Mac averted his eyes. ‘By Mr Smith?’

  ‘No. The men, they beat me, want to know where the Uc woman is.’

  ‘This is the woman on your plane? The drugged one?’

  ‘Yes – they say, “Where Geralin? Where Geralin?”’

  ‘Geraldine?’ said Mac.

  ‘Yes – that what I say. I tell them the place I take her has no name, but they don’t believe me.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘A big ape – I think he police or soldier,’ said Luc, eyes moistening.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And very big Aussie,’ said Luc, shaking his head at the memory.

  ‘He look like me too?’ said Mac.

  ‘No – he dark. Very dark and very big.’

  ‘The other one?’ said Mac.

  ‘He same as you – but he Indonesi, Philippine maybe,’ said Luc.

  ‘What you tell him?’

  ‘I tell him it all, mister,’ said Luc, crying now. ‘He . . . he . . .’

  ‘He frighten you, Luc?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Luc. ‘I put my foot through window when they putting the bag over my head.’

  ‘The bag?’

  ‘Yes, they want me to fly them to Geralin!’

  ‘And then the police came?’

  ‘No – my engineer ask if I okay.’

  ‘Where did this happen?’ said Mac, confused.

  ‘In toilet, at work,’ said Luc, tears on his cheeks. ‘They waiting for me.’

  ‘Tell me about these people,’ said Mac. ‘How did they speak? Walk?’

  ‘The big ape – he call me “brother” all time, and then he hit me.’

  ‘Did you hear a name?’ said Mac.

  ‘Yes – I tell her,’ he said, pointing at Loan.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The biggest one, he call the ape Bongo.’

  ‘Bongo?’ said Mac.

  ‘Yes,’ said Luc, nodding too hard. ‘Bongo – and he say he coming back.’

  Chapter 41

  Grabbing the second round of beers from the waiter’s tray, Mac put them on the table in front of Scotty.

  ‘So, what have we got?’ said Scotty. ‘Bongo and this Aussie try to beat a destination out of Luc, but the airfield doesn’t have a name – though there’re coordinates in the flight logs?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So you ask Captain Loan if she has seized the logs, and she says they were stolen?’

  ‘A clerk at North Star looks up from her desk half an hour after Luc was kidnapped,’ said Mac. ‘A large Filipino man in a black trop shirt is standing in the operations office – he simply tells her to hand over the logs for the F-27s.’

  ‘Fokker Friendships?’

  ‘Yes – and the clerk hands over the logs.’

  ‘And Bongo walks out?’

  ‘Yes – there’s also an unconscious manager on the floor.’

  ‘A manager?’

  Mac looked around the roof bar of the Caravelle Hotel. ‘A manager tried to stop Bongo’s requisition, and suffered a strike to the carotid artery, on the right side of his neck.’

  Scotty shook his head. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Anyway, Bongo has the logs . . .’

  ‘So Operation Orion needs Luc?’

  Scotty’s phone trilled, and he frowned as he saw the ID on the screen and took the call.

  ‘Nah, nah, Davo,’ said Scotty into the phone. ‘Albion will be working with Orion on the joint venture – no one else.’ He rolled his eyes.

  Waiters raced to clear tables on the roof terrace. The afternoon monsoon downpour was about to start and a stream of tourists had charged into the bar to escape the impending deluge.

  ‘Listen, Davo,’ said Scotty, in the non-carrying voice of the veteran spook, ‘it’s not my call. Our partners want Albion, not your bloke.’

  Scotty raised his eyebrows at Mac – Urquhart obviously wanted Lance inserted into Operation Orion.

  ‘No, Davo,’ said Scotty. ‘He can’t be a lone wolf, because I’m running him, okay? When I know something, you’ll know.’

  Laughing as he rang off, Scotty sat back in the cane sofa. ‘That bloke never stops, does he?’

  ‘Urquhart?’ said Mac, taking a drink.

  ‘Says you only remained in Indochina on his say-so, dependent on information from the Saigon cops,’ said Scotty. ‘That true?’

  ‘It was, but then he claimed to have cut me loose. Anyway, you speak with Yossi?’ said Mac.

  Scotty knew Saba’s mate, Yossi, and he’d promised to put a call in to him and find out about the Mossad shootouts in northern Cambodia.

  ‘He wasn’t entirely forthcoming, which means whatever they’re working on is probably current.’

  ‘He confirm Joel Dozsa?’

  ‘He didn’t correct me when I named him,’ said Scotty. ‘And he was adamant that Dozsa’s team is working with a Chinese cadre in northern Cambodia.’

  ‘What are they working on?’

  ‘Yossi didn’t want to talk about it – said the gig was tailing the Mossad hit squad out of Bangers and up into Cambodia. That was their interest.’

  ‘Hit squad?’ said Mac.

  ‘They weren’t going to a tea party with Dozsa,’ said Scotty, stopping as two businessmen sat down at the neighbouring table. A loud woman joined the men, and Scotty relaxed.

  ‘So, how does that work?’ said Mac. ‘The Mossad tells Dozsa to come in and debrief, and when he refuses, they decide to finish it?’

  ‘Who knows what you have to do to get a death sentence from the Mossad?’ said Scotty. ‘All I know is that Yossi’s no wimp but he was spooked by what happened.’

  ‘The killings?’

  ‘The Mossad hit team travelled as Australian forestry guys and they stayed at a b&b across the river from Stung Treng.’

  ‘Nice area.’

  ‘Yeah, and one evening the Mossad team gets back from surveying the forests, and the bathroom blows up.’

  ‘Fuck,’ said Mac, looking around.

  ‘Yeah, thought you’d like that, after your welcome at the Cambodiana.’

  Mac controlled his shaky hand as he gulped at his beer. ‘Yossi saw all this?’


  ‘Yossi told me the surviving hit man staggers out into the yard, half his face torn off by the blast, and a pick-up truck arrives. Dozsa jumps out and pops this dazed bloke in the head. Two other Israelis clear the remaining body with a black vinyl bag, then they throw all the bodies in the back of the truck.’

  ‘Tidy guys.’

  ‘Yeah – then they torch the place.’ Scotty shook his head. ‘Whole thing is over in thirty seconds.’

  Mac sagged in his chair. ‘I feel safer now, thanks, mate.’

  ‘By the way, guess who I saw coming out of the New World Hotel this arvo?’

  ‘No idea, champ,’ said Mac, wondering if he could fit in another beer.

  ‘Tall, dark . . .’

  ‘This twenty questions?’

  ‘Gorgeous sheila – fights like a bloke.’

  ‘Watch it,’ said Mac, realising who Scotty was talking about.

  ‘Look, Macca, I should have told you this earlier, I just forgot.’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘She saw me,’ said Scotty.

  ‘Oh, great.’

  ‘Yeah – and she talked to me.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Scotty.’

  ‘It gets worse – I think she knows you’re in town.’

  ‘How?’ said Mac.

  ‘I don’t know, mate. She asked me how you were going, and I said fine, and she starts talking about Auckland.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Yeah, guess my face gave it away,’ said Scotty.

  ‘How did you leave it?’

  ‘You know Jen,’ said Scotty. ‘Smiling, but staring straight through me.’

  Having arranged the meeting for the next morning with Charles, promising to get Luc on the team, Mac eased back on the sofa in the living area of his suite and watched CNN. The headline story was still the North Korean missiles and the Japanese and Chinese response to them. The Japanese military was constitutionally a self-defence shield and Mac noticed that no one from the Japanese government or military would comment on the missile tests. But CNN had found a Japanese academic who taught at UCLA, whose name and number had probably been slipped to the media by Japan’s intelligence agencies. She was smart, a good talker with fluent English and her arguments neatly fitted with those of the foreign policy hawks who circled Washington DC: ‘Last year’s tests of the so-called communications satellites by North Korea revealed no satellites were actually put into orbit,’ said the academic. ‘Pyongyang does not have a space program – they have a ballistic missile program with nuclear capability and using this program to intimidate Japan is not only provocative but probably illegal.’

  The journalist asked if there was a new arms race in North Asia and the academic sidestepped that one. Mac sniggered: Japan had breeder reactors that could produce plutonium and its own ‘space program’ was essentially ICBMs in disguise.

  The next story showed Captain Loan walking into the Cong An building and then file pictures of Jim Quirk and Geraldine McHugh flashed onto the screen. The reporter – standing outside the Cong An’s first precinct building in Saigon – said the Australian government was remaining tight-lipped about the circumstances of the murder/disappearance of this Canberra power couple, but that the minister for foreign affairs had warned the McHugh family against employing mercenaries who might interfere with the investigations.

  Hitting the mute button, Mac looked at his watch: 7.08 pm.

  Dialling Captain Loan’s number, Mac waited for the call to be answered.

  ‘Captain,’ he said. ‘Davis here – you still at work?’

  ‘Here till eight,’ said Loan.

  ‘Can I come down?’

  ‘Like I say,’ said Loan. ‘I finish at eight.’

  The red sunset cast a pall on the white concrete and mirror glass of the Cong An building as Mac walked through the swing doors and asked for Captain Loan. Before he could sit in the waiting area, a young woman in Cong An greens arrived and asked him to follow her downstairs to the cells and interview rooms.

  Questions, raised voices and answers echoed around the concrete bunker as Mac waited in a chair beside the administration desk. He smelled the muddy dampness and remembered how much of Saigon’s history included underground bunkers, tunnels and escape routes. It was a city that seemed as comfortable with its hidden aspects as it was with its official story.

  A red light flashed above a door. The attendant walked to it and walked out twenty seconds later with Luc. They turned away from Mac to return to a cell but the pilot caught Mac’s eye and gave a smile as he was led down the corridor.

  Deciding to have a nosey-poke, Mac stood and sauntered the fifteen paces to the door Luc had come out of. Peering through the small glass window he saw two figures up against the door, their faces framed like a picture.

  Reeling to get out of there, Mac couldn’t make his feet move before the door swung open and the women moved towards him.

  ‘Mr Richard,’ said Captain Loan, her face a mask.

  The other woman stepped through, pulling her clipboard to her chest and crossing her arms over it.

  ‘Captain Loan,’ said Mac, bowing slightly and trying to stay calm.

  Turning to the other woman, Mac introduced himself as Richard Davis, from Southern Scholastic, and extended his hand.

  ‘Jenny Toohey,’ said his wife, taking forever to shake his hand. ‘Australian Federal Police.’

  Loan chaperoned Jenny a couple of strides away from Mac, talking in a detective’s tone and swapping pieces of paper.

  Saying her farewells, Jenny gave Mac a withering look and walked towards the stairwell, her dark ponytail swishing in a motion that translated to pure rage.

  ‘You wanted to talk?’ said Loan, breaking into Mac’s thoughts as she returned to him.

  ‘I thought about what you said.’

  ‘Which part?’ said Loan, arranging files in her clipboard.

  ‘The part where you’re prepared to overlook certain things if I help you find Tranh.’

  ‘I never make deals,’ said Loan, looking around for eavesdroppers. ‘It’s hard enough being a Loh Han and a police detective without pushing for an investigation into my brother’s disappearance.’

  Mac nodded. ‘Why not release Luc?’

  ‘Because he’s our only link to the Quirk murders.’

  ‘He’s also cooperating,’ said Mac. ‘And he’s done nothing criminal, or he’d be arrested.’

  Staring at Mac, Loan took her time responding. ‘You’re right – he was going to be released tomorrow.’

  ‘Push him out the front door at seven am, I’ll keep an eye on him.’

  Loan frowned. ‘That woman? She’s AFP and she’s not stupid. If Luc goes missing, I have a big problem with your government and my government.’

  ‘He won’t go missing,’ said Mac.

  ‘He’d better not,’ said Loan.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ said Loan with a smile. ‘’Less you want to sample the Cong An food.’

  Chapter 42

  Getting the room number for Jenny’s suite was simple but finding the courage to knock on the door was not so easy.

  Standing in the hallway of the New World as a family of four Indonesians walked past on their way to dinner, Mac thought about what he was going to say.

  He raised his fist to the door and knocked.

  A female voice sounded from behind the door. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Book delivery,’ said Mac. ‘Southern Scholastic books.’

  The door flung open and there was Jenny in a hotel bathrobe, patting at her wet hair with a towel.

  ‘I’m going to make a guess and say you didn’t call Sarah, right?’ said Jenny.

  ‘Not yet, I’ve been –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah
, yeah,’ said Jenny, walking away from him.

  Following her into the suite, he noticed the two laptops running on the desk and a collection of maps on the wall, red thumb tacks pushed into various parts of Indochina and Saigon.

  ‘When you’re away, she lives for your calls,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s three years old – she knows the difference between you being around and you being away.’

  ‘She told me she misses my snoring,’ said Mac, trying to lighten it.

  Throwing the towel on a sofa, Jenny crossed her arms and stared at her husband.

  ‘Look, I can’t ring up and lie to my daughter about where I am,’ said Mac.

  ‘But you can lie to your wife?’

  ‘I can create dissonance with my wife, who knows the basics of what I do and why it’s safer for all of us –’

  ‘Dissonance?’ said Jenny, eyes like saucers. ‘Fuck, Macca – get your hand off it.’

  Dry-gulping, Mac tried to get past the sofa for a glass of water, but Jenny stepped in his way.

  ‘Actually, I’m glad you showed,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I was looking at a circular today, it came into my secure email.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mac.

  ‘Australian nationals missing in foreign countries,’ she said, crossing her arms and resting her weight on her left hip. ‘Which includes Singapore – you may have heard of it?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mac, ice in his gut.

  ‘And the name on this file was Hu – Liesl. Aussie citizen, Singapore resident. So I had a look, Macca, and she’s missing.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Since the thirteenth, Macca.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Mac.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Jenny, her face hardening. ‘So I gave Lindsay a call – you know Lindsay Hung? Senior investigator at Singapore Police?’

  ‘Heard of him,’ said Mac.

  ‘We go through the file and most of it’s got a Singaporean D-notice on it.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Mac.

  ‘It’s when their intelligence services classify the details, Macca. They share the basics with other countries, but some things are held back.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Mac.

  ‘Like the security footage from Liesl’s next-door neighbour,’ she said, facetious. ‘He’s a retired vice-admiral from the Singapore navy. There’s footage of the comings and goings at Ray and Liesl’s house.’