‘And?’
‘The auditor was James Quirk – recruited by ASIO while still a student, then joined trade department of your diplomatic corps, and from time to time was asked to vet sensitive purchases in South-East Asia. When I see his photo in the paper, matters became clear.’
‘What did Ray want to do?’ said Mac.
‘He wiped the asset manifests and all technical specs from his fund hard drives. He said it couldn’t be used by someone like Pao Peng.’
‘Wiped it? Completely?’
‘No, he kept a secret copy for us,’ said Loh Han. ‘And he said the Aussie intel copy from the vetting was safe in Canberra and would never be accessed by Dozsa or Pao Peng.’
Mac’s guts churned: he now knew what he’d been witnessing that night when Dozsa demanded Quirk work on that terminal. And he knew why the SD card was so valuable. Quirk had accessed his audit hard drives in Canberra and downloaded Harbour Pacific’s assets and technical specs to the chip. The whole lot was sitting in Mac’s pocket for two days, and he’d had no idea what he was carrying.
Loh Han continued. ‘Ray said we’d sit on the secret file because the next day he was meeting someone who would know what to do.’
‘At the Pan Pac?’ said Mac, wincing.
‘Yes,’ said Loh Han. ‘That was you?’
‘Shit,’ said Mac, rubbing his temples. ‘That’s all he said?’
‘He was confident you’d resolve everything – called it fool’s mate.’
Looking out at the race track, Mac fought reflux. He was confused and tired, and his leg would need more painkillers in the next half-hour. Mac had been Ray’s solution but Mac had been in the dark. He blamed himself for leaving the Firm for two years and falling behind on the kinds of things he should have known about. He blamed himself for not being more paranoid about those SingTel technicians when he first saw them outside the Pan Pacific Hotel that afternoon.
‘I have a proposition, Mr McQueen,’ said Loh Han. ‘I help you shut down this missile madness.’
‘And?’
‘And you give me the person who killed my old friend.’
Mac sensed a trick. Loh Han knew Mac would not want to give up Dozsa, not before ASIS had its chance at a long debrief. The gangster was luring him into a lie.
‘I can tell you the name, but I can’t let you have him,’ said Mac, trying to avoid the man’s eyes.
‘The name,’ said Loh Han. ‘You were there, Mr McQueen – you know who did this. I need that name.’
‘Joel Dozsa,’ said Mac.
Loh Han’s eyes flashed wide before narrowing again. ‘Him!’
‘I found out yesterday,’ said Mac. ‘He also whacked Jim Quirk, at your club in Cholon.’
‘What have I done?’ said Loh Han, easing back in his seat and lifting his field-glasses as the jockeys took their mounts for a warm-up down the back straight.
‘If the situation allows it, you can have him,’ said Mac, standing. ‘But I need something from you.’
‘Haven’t I just given you what you want?’
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘You’ve given yourself a way out of your predicament while staying sweet with a powerful general in the PLA.’
‘Ha,’ said Loh Han. ‘You’re a smart man – you need a job? I put you in charge of my hotels, see if you can stop the managers robbing me.’
‘I need to know the whereabouts of a shipload of kids last seen on the Mekong south of Kratie.’
‘That’s a big river.’
‘Registration K 4217,’ said Mac, gesturing to an aide and getting a pad and pen. ‘This was last night.’
‘Why would I know about a shipload of children?’ said Loh Han, slow and icy.
‘Because the vessel was crawling with PLA cadres from the counterfeiting factory,’ said Mac, writing Jenny’s phone number on the pad. ‘They were Dozsa’s people. This number is for Agent Toohey, Australian Federal Police – just call anonymously and give her the location, and don’t get into an argument with her.’
Loh Han took the paper and crooked a finger at a minder who’d been sitting at the gangster’s right. He whispered something to the minder, then watched him leave before turning back to Mac.
‘So we’re square,’ said Loh Han. ‘Those two men who flew you here? They’re yours for now, Mr McQueen. Leave the Jew to me.’
Chapter 64
Buckling himself into the forward-facing seat in the jet, Mac ran through his list. He’d have Scotty and Sammy waiting for him at Stung Treng, but then what? Where was the Harbour Pacific file kept by Ray? And where was Dozsa?
The engines revved and Jon – the senior minder – went to lift the stairs inside.
Looking up, Mac saw an argument at the hatch and Jon waving. Finally, Jon dropped the stairs and an athletic Vietnamese man bounced into the cabin and took a seat facing Mac.
‘Hello, Mr Richard,’ said Tranh, smiling despite the heavy bandage on his left hand.
Mac smiled too. ‘Well, it’s Harry Houdini.’
Jon came over. ‘He can’t come with us, Mr Richard,’ said the minder, a heavily built man who looked like a young version of Bongo.
‘Why not?’ said Mac.
‘Because the boss don’t want him being shot no more,’ said Jon.
‘I’m the boss now,’ said Mac.
Jon and Mac stared at one another until the Vietnamese broke.
‘Sure, boss,’ he said, pulling up the stairs and securing the hatch.
The flight time to Stung Treng was a shade over twenty minutes but it gave Mac a chance to talk with Tranh, who said he’d been ordered to stand down by his uncle after the shootout in Saigon, but he’d kept one step ahead of Vincent’s heavies so he could go to Phnom Penh with Mac.
‘You defied your uncle?’ said Mac.
‘I was ashamed,’ said Tranh. ‘This Dozsa is behaving this way, and working for my family? I wanted to help you.’
‘Why’d you steal that memory card from me, Tranh?’ said Mac, wanting to trust him again but not so sure.
‘I saw the way Lance looked at it in the van,’ said Tranh. ‘Then, when I take him for a drink, he went to the lavatory and he taking some time. I go into the lavatory to make sure he okay, and I hear him in the booth, talking into a phone.’
‘Yeah?’ said Mac, laughing.
‘Yep – and he telling someone that the memory card’s in the pocket of your backpack and he’ll grab it when he gets away from me.’
Mac remembered why he liked this bloke.
‘So when Lance come out I have a new bourbon and Coke for him, and then I say I have to buy more credit for my phone and for him to stay there.’
‘And you go back to the hotel and grab the SD card before Lance can get it?’
‘Yes, and hide it in my phone. Then all the hell is breaking loose and I forget to tell you. Then I am shot and I lose my phone, which is where –’
‘You hid the chip,’ said Mac. ‘Where did you go after we were ambushed at the apartment building?’
‘I run through the smash window, my hand shot, and I am caught by Jon,’ said Tranh, pointing. ‘So I am back to Saigon and in hiding and told to forget it, but I cannot forget it.’
‘Jon?’ said Mac, getting the heavy’s attention. ‘Luc still working for the boss?’
‘Sure,’ said Jon.
‘Can we get Luc and find out exactly where he’s flying today?’
Jon moved to the back of the cramped cabin where a Harris radio was mounted on the toilet bulkhead.
‘So,’ said Mac, ‘you were shot by the Americans?’
‘They were Chinese,’ said Tranh. ‘They shot me.’
‘Was it an accident?’
‘They shot the lady and when I run away they don’t shoot no
more.’
‘Mr Richard?’ said Jon. ‘Luc’s heading for Singapore.’
‘Okay.’
‘And he say not to call back no more.’
‘He can’t talk?’
‘He sound scared,’ said Jon.
‘I bet he did,’ said Mac, holding out his hand for Jon’s satellite phone. ‘How do I call Australia on this thing?’
The heat and dust invaded the Citation’s cool atmosphere like a bad smell as Scotty and Sammy clambered into the jet on the tarmac at Stung Treng airport shortly after six pm.
‘Just had a call from Urquhart,’ said Scotty. ‘Wants to know where you are – says he has the PM’s authority.’
‘Does he?’
‘Not until Tobin tells me so,’ said Scotty. ‘Just warning you that the wheels are turning in Canberra.’
‘So where are we going?’ said Sammy.
‘You’ll see when we get there,’ said Mac, still not trusting the American. ‘In the meantime, I believe you’d like to apologise to my friend Tranh.’
Moving to the rear of the aircraft, Mac asked Scotty to join him.
‘What’s the kid doing here?’ said Scotty, inclining his head at Tranh as the jet roared to life and sped down the runway.
‘He’s Vincent Loh Han’s nephew, and he’s with us.’
Scotty frowned. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Dozsa’s about to land in Singapore,’ said Mac. ‘I think he’ll head for Ray’s house.’
‘Not Ray’s business?’
‘No, Dozsa knows that Ray wiped the missile details from the official fund records. So he’s looking for the one copy made by Ray and he probably thinks it’s in his house.’
‘We sure there’s only one file besides the one Sandy Beech is travelling with?’
‘The only other one is on an ASIO hard drive, from Quirk’s audits.’
Scotty checked for eavesdroppers. ‘This is embarrassing. You’re saying we send a bloke to audit the buy-up of technology used in the North Korean missiles, and our guy just downloads a copy for an ex-Mossad psycho?’
‘Under duress,’ said Mac. ‘This was a Canberra power couple, and Quirk was doing what he had to do to keep his wife out of prison. Here she is in this sting with the US Treasury, and suddenly Joel Dozsa’s back in her life.’
‘By the way,’ said Scotty, ‘I found a business centre at the airport and did some research on the computer Quirk was using.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It was bugging me, the way you described it.’
Scotty pulled a piece of paper folded into four squares from his pocket and handed it to Mac. Unfolding it, Mac saw a colour photograph of the same cream-coloured computer terminal that Jim Quirk died at in the Mekong Saloon.
‘Where’d you get this?’ said Mac. ‘This is it – see how the keyboard is built into the monitor and the hard drive?’
‘It’s the new TS series of desktops that ASIO had designed for the Australian government.’
A series of companies owned by Chinese intelligence had been buying the firms that made military-grade firewalls and anti-intrusion software. Realising that if the Chinese could control enough routers and firewalls they’d be inside the government’s systems, ASIO’s protective security people – T4 – commissioned a series of PCs for the Australian government. They were noteworthy because they couldn’t be networked and couldn’t be ‘queried’ by incoming or unsolicited pings from cyberspace. They were also ‘paired’ with designated routers built by the PC manufacturers. The designated routers would only respond to one of the numbered PCs.
‘I remember,’ said Mac. ‘So what was the terminal doing in a nightclub in Saigon?’
‘I had a chat to my guy, and it was probably stolen from the Jakarta intelligence section,’ said Scotty. ‘They’re doing that big shift to the new embassy – apparently there’s a report in the techie circles that they were short of one Top Secret PC after the move.’
‘There’s something else, mate,’ said Mac, keeping his voice low beneath the hiss of engines as the ascent continued. ‘And I don’t want you to get upset – we just have to think through some of the events.’
‘Okay,’ said Scotty.
‘Ray Hu and Vincent Loh Han are sitting in Ray’s study, making their calls and working out what this HARPAC fund is all about. Ray makes one copy – probably on a USB key or SD – and then uses his override passwords to wipe the information from the Harbour Pacific hard drives.’
Scotty nodded.
‘Then, when Loh Han goes off to bed, Ray hides his download and the next day he goes to the Pan Pac, to do a gig with me.’
Scotty’s eyes widened. ‘So how did Dozsa know to whack Ray? How did he know the deal was blown?’
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ said Mac. ‘Ray’s house and office were swept by our contractors every week – he wasn’t bugged.’
‘Well, shit,’ said Scotty. ‘There were only two people –’
‘Three,’ said Mac.
‘Ray, Loh Han . . .’ said Scotty, numbering them on his fingers.
‘And Liesl,’ said Mac.
Scotty gave Mac the death stare. ‘No way.’
‘Who else?’
‘Liesl?!’
‘I’m just trying to work it through.’
‘Why would a girl who had everything be spying on her own husband?’
‘So where else did Dozsa get the information?’
Scotty looked away. ‘Don’t do this, Macca.’
‘Ray closes down the missile file and the next day he’s executed. Ray and Loh Han had no interest in telling anyone.’
‘So what was Liesl Hu’s interest?’
‘Look, I know she’s popular – we all love Liesl – but I don’t see another link.’
‘Well, maybe we should be thinking about something a bit simpler,’ said Scotty.
‘Like?’
‘Like where’s Liesl right now? And where’s Dozsa? And where’s Ray’s download?’
A black Escalade was waiting on the apron as the Citation pulled into its port at Singapore’s Seletar Airport. Night had fallen and Scotty arranged customs clearance.
‘Drop me here,’ said Sammy, as they drove past the Epiphany Church and made to hit the Tampines Expressway.
‘You sure?’ said Mac.
‘Check-in time,’ said Sammy, getting out of the SUV. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Is he cool?’ said Scotty, lighting a smoke and dropping his window as they accelerated away.
‘I have no idea,’ said Mac.
Turning right off Central into Holland Road twenty minutes later, Mac readied his SIG between his legs, stripping it and cleaning out the Mekong dirt before rebuilding it and checking for load and safety. The worst water damage to an automatic handgun was usually the loads and Mac had used a new clip and cartridges.
Mac could hear Tranh and Scotty in the back seat readying their weapons as they swung into Ray’s street, sweet frangipani drifting on the evening breeze.
‘Just here, thanks, Jon,’ said Mac, selecting a park that had a sight line to Ray Hu’s driveway while also sitting in the darkness of a large banyan.
Breathing out and in, Mac turned to Scotty. ‘Ready for this?’
‘Let’s make it fast,’ said Scotty.
Digging a radio set out of the gear bag, Mac gave the base handset to Tranh and plugged the other one into his ear, where it dangled, creating a mouthpiece.
Mac pushed the gun into his waistband. ‘If we’re not out in thirty minutes, come in – number sixty.’
Walking to the gate, Mac felt grimy. He hadn’t showered since his dip in the river and he had stubble growing on his jaw. Moving carefully down the drive he kept an eye out for traps and u
nwanted interlopers.
‘She’s gone,’ came a voice from through the trees, and Scotty cowered to a crouch.
‘Sorry,’ said the voice. ‘It’s just me – over here.’
Taking his hand away from the small of his back, Mac followed the voice and saw the outline of a man through the hedge that divided the Hus’ house from the retired vice-admiral’s.
Mac peered into the darkness. ‘Who’s gone?’
‘Liesl. I’m feeding her dog.’
‘I’m just here to pick up some things.’
‘They’ve already been, twenty minutes ago,’ said the neighbour. ‘Said they came for Liesl’s things.’
Mac tensed. ‘Did they take anything?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s why we’re here,’ said Mac, his face hurting as he smiled. ‘You know how women are.’
Waving Mac away, the neighbour returned to his house.
‘Shit,’ said Mac, as they got to the front door. ‘Is he still looking?’
‘He’s in the kitchen, having a stickybeak,’ said Scotty as Mac jiggled at the lock with a bump key.
The lock popped on the second go and Mac let it swing inwards.
‘Well, Christ,’ said Scotty. ‘Someone was here.’
Chapter 65
The house was a wreck. Chairs dismantled, sofas slashed, ceilings pulled down and drawers scattered on the ground. They walked amid the rubble, checking on the dismantled electrical goods, the plasterboard pulled back from around light switches and the skirting boards torn off walls.
The computer in the study had been stripped down, the hard drives were missing and the phone had been smashed: a sign that the vandals had listened to the voicemails and not wanted anyone else to.
Scotty sighed. ‘Looks professional. Let’s call the cops.’
Scotty phoned the AFP’s Singapore office as Mac wandered back to the living room. Among the cushion stuffing and smashed vases lay a large slab of marble and wood that Mac and Ray had sat at many times. Ray had called it his ‘Dominican’ chess board because he claimed it had been used in a Spanish Dominican monastery some time in the fourteenth century. Mac had said he wasn’t sure Dominican monks were allowed to play any games, and Ray had argued that the Dominicans – the founders of universities and the champions of deductive reasoning – didn’t see chess as a game, but as an intellectual exercise.
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