Counter Attack

by Mark Abernethy

  Shutting it quietly, Mac checked his watch. Forty-one seconds until Li pulled alongside.

  Opening the second door, Mac eased into a similar cabin, no lights this time. In the darkness he saw a movement and heard some noises. From the cot in the corner, a man’s voice expressed confusion and then Mac saw him as he turned his face. Pulling the Ka-bar knife from his webbing, Mac jammed his right knee into the man’s chest, slapped his left hand across his mouth and nose and brought the Ka-bar across his throat. Feeling the air leave the dying man, Mac whipped around as he noticed there was someone else in the bed. Aiming his blade at the other face, just inches away, Mac stopped his attack as he looked into big, dark eyes. Adjusting to the darkness, he saw a naked child in the sheets on the other side of the corpse, and as he stood back, realised there was another in the bed – neither of them more than seven or eight years old.

  Placing his finger on his lips, Mac made the international sign for silence as he backed towards the door, the white sheets turning black. Pulling the key from the inside lock, he locked the door from the outside, gasping for air as he looked at his watch: eighteen seconds.

  Sliding down the companionway to the below decks, he moved through a smaller passageway which opened into a large aft cabin with a central table and double bunks built around it: a stinking rat-hole with white T-shirts and undies hanging from the ceiling, also known as the crew’s wardroom.

  A bulb glowed in the upper bunk to Mac’s right, and pushing the laundry out of the way with the SIG’s suppressor, he found himself looking at a young Chinese man lying on his back, reading a PlayStation magazine. Mac shot him once in the forehead and followed with a shot to the temple. The suppressor reduced the noise to not much more than the sound of a Coke can being opened.

  Sound came from the other side of the wardroom, and Mac moved carefully through the hanging underwear and around the central table, finding a Chinese man who’d rolled over to get some sleep.

  Kneeling softly on the cot behind him, Mac withdrew his Ka-bar and sliced quickly through the carotid artery, clasping a hand over the man’s mouth and nose as he did so. The man’s head jerked slightly and a muffled yelp came from his lungs before he went slack in Mac’s hands.

  Above decks, the conversation had started with Li, and Mac could hear the throb of the two Evinrudes against the hull. He reset his G-Shock to a one-hundred-and-twenty-second mission clock and left the room.

  Outside the wardroom, another hatch led down a shorter companionway to the engine room – a dark, cramped space stinking of diesel and bilge and containing an old engine that had been cut to idle: Li’s story was working.

  Pulling the hatch shut, realising he still had the rest of the ship to search, Mac paused. Was there someone behind that condenser? Pushing back into the engine room, he pulled the SIG to a cup-and-saucer stance and, peering into the darkness, he saw it again: between the old engine and the equally ancient condenser there was a foot.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, weaving the SIG through a jungle of pipes, analogue dials and jerry-rigged wiring.

  ‘What?’ came a confused male voice. In Aussie English.

  Moving forwards Mac saw bilge slopping beneath the rotting duckboards, and as he eased around the engine block between the condenser, a face peered at him out of the gloom.

  ‘That you, McQueen?’ said Lance Kendrick, ankles bound and hands tied behind his back, Dave Urquhart sleeping against him.

  ‘No, it’s the tooth fairy,’ said Mac, kneeling and using the Ka-bar to snip the plastic ties.

  Murmuring something, Urquhart woke with a start and yelped on seeing Mac’s tiger-striped face. They had seventy-six seconds before Li stood off and this ship returned to normal.

  Freeing the two men, Mac shrugged off the M4, ripped the condom off the muzzle and gave it to Lance, whose injuries were obvious but not maiming. ‘You two okay to walk?’

  ‘Just,’ said Lance.

  ‘What about a swim?’ said Mac, checking the SIG for load and safety. He had fifteen shots.

  ‘Not if I have to dress like that,’ said Lance, nodding at Mac’s wet undies, and then examining the M4.

  ‘It’s just an M16,’ said Mac. ‘All you do is point and fire. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Lance, looking scared but resolved.

  ‘And get a good shoulder on this thing,’ said Mac, punching Lance in the right collarbone. ‘We want dead Chinamen, not holes in the ceiling.’

  They moved slowly up the companionways to the first deck. Voices came from the port side so Mac led Urquhart and Lance across the first deck hallway to the starboard side.

  Crouching in the shadows beside the railings, Mac looked at his G-Shock. They had under a minute to get to safety.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ said Mac. ‘You slip over the side, make no noise, and breaststroke or swim underwater to the banks. No flailing, no talking, no looking back.’

  Looking through the steel railings, Urquhart was hyperventilating. ‘’Bout fifty metres?’

  ‘Less,’ said Mac. ‘You keep swimming, keep your head down and when you hit land you keep going – don’t stop and look around, especially if these pricks are shooting at you. Okay?’

  The two men nodded but Urquhart had a thousand-yard stare.

  ‘Keep walking till you hit the highway,’ said Mac. ‘Wait beside the road – that’s the RV.’

  Looking around, Mac felt something change – the engines were revving and then the screw churned the water behind the rudder. Taking the M4 from Lance, Mac offered his forearm and lowered the youngster over the side until they were both stretched out. Lance looked up and let go, disappearing into the slow-moving river.

  Mac turned for Urquhart, who was frozen.

  ‘Remember the swimming carnivals?’ said his old dorm mate as he stole a scared look at the water. ‘Remember how I wasn’t in them?’

  ‘You needed a lawyer’s letter,’ said Mac, not wanting to hear this. Nudgee College had a very simple policy: everyone competed in the athletics carnival; everyone swam at least one event in the swimming carnival. The only exemption was Len Cromie, the pupil with cerebral palsy who defied his parents’ instructions one year and swam the fifty metres freestyle. He took five minutes to do it and half the school was in the pool with him by the end, urging him on and making sure he didn’t drown. The only other exemption in Mac’s memory was Dave Urquhart, who with a High Court judge for a grandfather and a father on the board of trustees somehow managed to get himself excused from the swimming.

  ‘We’re grown-ups now, mate,’ said Mac, watching Lance’s head bob up for air and then duck down and head for the river bank.

  ‘I can’t, Macca, I can’t –’

  Mac stared at him. ‘Can’t?’

  ‘I never learned – I-I’m phobic,’ said Urquhart, with the same nervous stammer he had when the Lenihan brothers came around to see what was in his lock-box. ‘It’s a medical condition.’

  ‘No,’ said Mac, annoyed. ‘Len Cromie had a medical condition.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Urquhart. ‘Don’t use Cromie against me.’

  ‘You know what Len would say to you?’ said Mac, growling. ‘He’d say, “You wanna be a piker – go to fucking Churchie.”’

  ‘You’re a wanker, McQueen,’ said Urquhart, straddling the railing and holding his nostrils shut.

  ‘And you’re a Nudgee boy,’ said Mac, lowering him. ‘So get in the fucking river.’

  Watching Urquhart panic and strike out for the river bank, Mac hesitated as he swung his legs over to follow him. There were fifteen seconds on his mission clock, more than enough time to drop into the water and escape.

  Pulling his legs back over and onto the wooden planks of the deck, Mac cursed himself for what he was about to do. Checking the M4 for load and safety, he padded across the open s
pace to the passageway that would take him back to the state room he’d locked the kids in. He felt foolish – he could hear the shouted conversation between Li and the ship’s captain coming to an end, and he knew the next step was going to be soldiers wandering around, finding their comrades dead and sounding the alarm.

  Turning the key in the lock, fumbling in haste, Mac pushed in the door and beckoned to the kids. They huddled in the corner, behind the dead paedophile, refusing to move. Crossing the room, he held out his hand and realised that they were both naked – and modest.

  Reaching for the girl – who looked the older of the two – Mac grabbed at her arm as she pulled it back. She was protective, pulling the sheet over both of the kids, and hiding the boy behind her.

  ‘In the sap,’ said Mac, using the Khmer word for river. ‘We swim in the sap.’

  The girl shook her head – she was scared but brave and Mac had a flash of a choice: he could do the Harold, not tell anyone he’d left the kids on Dozsa’s boat and leave them out of the report entirely. But he let the weak man’s mind take over and started thinking like a father – wouldn’t want someone to walk away from his own daughters if they were in danger.

  Boots thumped on the upper deck. Grabbing the girl by the arm, Mac pulled back, dragging her over the bloody sheets and the corpse, till she flopped onto the floor. She stood and opened her arms to the boy, who scrabbled over the dead rock spider to the safety of what Mac assumed was his sister.

  The door almost hit Mac in the forehead as it flung open, and then Mac was looking into a soldier’s eyes.

  Chapter 58

  The soldier’s hand went to his side arm and Mac drove his open hand at a point just below the man’s nostrils.

  Head snapping back like Howdy Doody, the soldier’s knees buckled under him and Mac pounced, slashing his Ka-bar knife as the adversary went down. Raising his arm instinctively the soldier took the knife blow across the forearm, which opened up and spurted blood like a cherub pissing.

  Rolling away the soldier swept a low kick and hit Mac in the back of the right leg, making him fall forwards and lose the knife as he hit the wall. Transferring his weight onto his right shoulder, the soldier lashed out with a left foot at Mac’s face, which he deflected by shrugging his shoulder and tucking his chin behind it.

  Jumping on the soldier, Mac hit him in the heart and followed through with a dropping headbutt, but the soldier turned his face at the last second and Mac’s forehead bounced off the boards. Stunned momentarily, Mac watched an elbow fly into his mouth and then the soldier’s fingers were in his hair and a knee was pumping into his face, smashing his nose and splitting his cheek before Mac punched the Chinaman in the nuts and rose to his feet with a left uppercut and a jab to the bloke’s throat.

  Falling backwards onto his arse, the soldier saw a chance to grab his pistol and Mac tried to retrieve the M4 from its position on his shoulder blades. As the muzzles came around at each other, another soldier walked into the passageway, reaching for his own gun. In the confusion and the darkness, Mac took his chance and put bursts of three-shot into each man. A bullet sailed past his left ear and he ducked reflexively, too slow to have avoided it.

  Blood splattered the walls and cordite filled the confined space as Mac gasped for breath. Blood ran off his face, and his right leg – already injured from a gunshot wound – quivered beneath him. It wouldn’t hold after the adrenaline wore off.

  The noise had been deafening and Mac heard the sound of boots clattering and voices raised in panic. Turning, he couldn’t find the kids. Peering into the cabin, he saw them sitting in the corner.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, gesturing with his hand. The girl shook her head but the boy shrugged free and ran to Mac.

  Looking over his shoulder, he saw a shadow moving around the corner and into the passageway. Given the layout of the vessel Mac reckoned that since he’d killed four of the ship’s complement, there wouldn’t be more than six left: if you took away the captain and engineer, whom he assumed were non-combatants, Mac should have four soldiers to deal with.

  As the shadow shortened and a small scrape sounded around the corner, Mac opened up with the M4, tearing out chunks of the woodwork and putting holes in the far wall. A yelp sounded and Mac knew he’d either hit someone or they’d got a face full of splinters.

  ‘Now,’ said Mac, snapping at the girl, and she jumped up with hands over her ears and ran to Mac.

  Moving with the kids onto the poop deck, Mac kept to the cover of the veranda, suspecting one of those soldiers would’ve stayed on the top deck and would have a gun trained on the open area below.

  Standing in the shadows, Mac looked out over the railing: forty metres to the river bank, at least three soldiers with assault rifles and Mac having to haul two kids through the water. He didn’t like his chances, even if they could get into the water without taking a bullet. The choice was between running and dying, or fighting and dying.

  Voices yelled down the companionways and a board squeaked above them. Holding his breath, Mac waited. The squeak came again, this time right above his head and Mac pointed the M4 at the source of the noise, pushed the selector to full auto and pulled the trigger. After four seconds, he slung the rifle over his shoulders and looked at the kids, who had their hands cupped over their ears.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, running forwards with a hand holding each child’s bicep. As they got to the railing, he leapt over the top rail and the kids jumped with him, the boy hitting his knees on the top as they flew through the air.

  The river sucked them down as they hit, a swifter current created between the ship and the river bank. Mac held onto each bicep, trading off their panic at being held with the larger problem of losing them in the Mekong River at night.

  Surfacing, they gasped for breath and kicked for buoyancy as they looked around. The current had taken them beyond the ship, which seemed to have slowed. Looking along the starboard side they’d jumped off, Mac saw a soldier limping along the top deck, trying to get a sight on Mac and the kids. Another soldier trotted around the forward cargo hatches with a Chinese AK-47 and took a standing marksman stance on the fo’c’sle railing over the prow.

  ‘Under again,’ said Mac, making a theatrical display of taking a deep breath.

  They dived again as the bullets plopped in the water. Kicking sideways towards the bank, Mac counted twenty seconds before he felt the boy struggling, and they surfaced again.

  Looking around, using all his energy to keep the three of them afloat, Mac saw the ship pointing at them. The Chinese were trying to run them down.

  Looking to the bank, Mac saw another thirty metres of swim- ming – twenty-five if they were lucky. The ship wouldn’t want to go too shallow, but the river vessels had flat bottoms and didn’t worry too much about grounding.

  ‘Go,’ said Mac to the two kids. ‘Swim.’ He pointed to the river bank.

  Dog-paddling ineffectually, the children took off at a pace that would see them run down in twenty seconds. Reaching for his M4, Mac shrugged it off his back and into his hands as the bullets hit the river again. Lifting the rifle, he took aim as he trod water and shot at the soldier on the fo’c’sle. He missed but the slap of a bullet under the soldier’s feet made him lurch backwards and abandon his post for a few seconds.

  ‘Go – swim!’ Mac yelled at the kids over the sound of the approaching ship and the clatter of assault-rifle fire.

  The limping soldier joined his buddy on the fo’c’sle rail and Mac aimed a shot at his heart, pulling the trigger. The gun jammed and Mac ducked under the water as the two shooters opened up on him.

  Dropping the M4, Mac unholstered the SIG and unscrewed the suppressor. He estimated the ship was five seconds from running over the top of him.

  Rising to the surface, SIG in cup-and-saucer grip, Mac let off three shots at the fo’c’sle rail but t
he shooters were gone. He fired another volley at the window of the wheelhouse.

  Gunfire echoed from the vessel and an almighty blast of light and sound emanated from the far side of the ship.

  Turning for the kids, Mac struck out. If they could aim high enough into the current the ship might miss them. Closing on the children, he saw them standing; they’d reached the muddy shallows but Mac wanted them to keep swimming – a person moves twice as fast across water as they do through mud.

  As they clambered through the mud like salamanders, Mac rolled onto his back to take another shot at the soldiers. If they were going to be run down, it would be now.

  Looking up, trying to find a shooter, Mac saw the ship had turned away and the shooting was happening inside the vessel.

  Clambering up the bank, legs weak, Mac led the kids into the bush as the ship surged back into the navigation channel, its old diesel thumping in time with the gunshots.

  They weren’t clear yet. If Mac was on that ship, he’d have a boarding vessel over the side by now to chase his prey into the jungle.

  ‘We’re going to be okay,’ said Mac to the drenched kids as they stopped behind a tree well inside the tree line. The boy’s jaw clattered and the girl’s wide eyes expressed fear. They swapped names as they caught their breath – the boy was Kai and the girl was Chani, and they weren’t siblings: they were neighbours, from the same village in the Chamkar.

  They were all naked, he had no food or water to offer them and he had no plan except that he needed to round up Urquhart and Lance. He’d been responsible for the safety of a couple of kids eight years earlier, and he’d screwed it up. Mac didn’t want another round of that weighing on him.

  Making a check of his webbing belt, he confirmed he had about ten rounds left in the SIG. The knife was gone, as was the M4.

  Pulling the boonie hat off his neck, where the drawstring had held it, he gave it to Kai and they fashioned it into a fig-leaf arrangement. Taking off the webbing belt, he helped Chani make it into a modesty garment.