Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike

by Mark Abernethy

  ‘You know, these guys are middle-aged dudes, grand-daddies.

  They’re totally hard-case,’ laughed Johnny. ‘I thought some of my old regiment mates were tough, but the merchants …’ He whistled low, shaking his head. ‘They trust no one and we’re taking them into places where there is no law. Pakistan’s north-west, Hindu Kush, inland Kalimantan - no places for a jeweller, mate, but they still go, eh Dad?’

  Tom grimaced. ‘Yeah, they’re crazy but at least they know where there’s risk. Some of these oil guys we escort around Sumatra have no idea what’s out there; no concept of a teenage bandit who’d kill for a watch.’

  Coming around a tight corner, there were two young boys walking on the road, carrying a jungle pig between them. Johnny swerved to avoid them, the LandCruiser slid to the other side of the track and, before he could correct it, the heavy vehicle had dropped into the rocky culvert and come to a smashing halt.

  It took fi fty-fi ve minutes to get the stricken Cruiser out of the ditch and Mac could feel his momentum evaporating with the lowering sun.

  They got the LandCruiser started but fi fteen metres down the track Mac realised the day was gone: the gearbox had taken a hammering and Johnny couldn’t get higher than second gear.

  ‘Sorry, bro,’ said Johnny, slipping an old Elvis tape into the stereo.

  ‘No dramas,’ sighed Mac and settled back to the hissing and crackling sounds of the King.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Cruiser was overheating by the time they could see the lights of Medan so Tom asked Mac if they could stop at the family compound rather than continue to the Sunshine Tours depot in the city.

  Mac said, ‘Sure, why not?’

  ‘There’s a feed in it for you,’ Tom said with a smile as they pulled through farm gates and crawled up a long drive to a series of houses and sheds.

  While Tom and Johnny went into the house, Mac lingered outside, made his calls. Joe Imbruglia wasn’t answering so Mac tried Ari, who picked up on the fi rst ring.

  ‘McQueen, where are you?’ said the Russian.

  ‘Nice to hear your voice again too, mate. Where are you?’ Mac replied.

  ‘Look, we have to talk, yes?’ said Ari. ‘I’ll be in Medan tomorrow morning.’

  ‘So call me then.’

  ‘First thing,’ said Ari.

  Mac hung up and checked his clean phone for messages. There was one from Viktor, saying he was calling from a payphone as Mac had asked, but was leaving a cell phone as an after-hours number.

  Mac wasn’t going to use that number - all nuclear scientists and engineers were constantly under surveillance from their governments or their employers. It was a simple rule, and what he needed to ask Viktor could be the kind of thing that brought heat from the friendlies.

  Mac decided to let it go until morning and start all over again.

  The Hukapas’ cook had made fi sh curry stew, with rice and rotis. Mac washed up and when he came back to the family table there was a tall Maori girl, mid-twenties, walking back from the fridge with several bottles of Tiger arranged between her fi ngers.

  Johnny grabbed one of the beers from her and beckoned Mac over.

  ‘Macca, this is my sister, Mari. Don’t think you guys have met.’

  Mac shook her hand, which was wet from holding the beers, and said, ‘G’day. Alan McQueen.’

  ‘Well, Mr McQueen,’ said Mari smiling as they sat down to eat,

  ‘not one of our little Elmer Fudds are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Watch it mate, she’s a vet,’ said Johnny, teasing.

  ‘You know, Macca,’ continued Mari. ‘Shoot a rare animal, go back to the suburbs and tell all the boys at the golf club what a man you are? That great white hunter crap -‘

  ‘Marama!’ snapped Tom. ‘Cut it out. This is Frank McQueen’s boy.’

  ‘I don’t shoot animals,’ said Mac calmly.

  ‘Well that would be a fi rst for a white man.’

  ‘I said cut it out, girl,’ growled Tom, his presence now fi lling the room. ‘Mac’s got nothing to do with the hunting rackets, so don’t blame him for it.’

  Taking his fi rst mouthful of fi sh, Mac felt better and took a slug on the Tiger. ‘Rackets?’ he asked, not wanting to divide this family.

  ‘Don’t get her started, mate. She’s the Mad Vet of Medan,’ chuckled Johnny, and got a backhand punch on the biceps from Mari for his trouble.

  ‘Well, since you asked,’ Mari began.

  ‘No you don’t, girl,’ Tom interrupted. ‘Not while I’m eating.’

  ‘I’ll show you later, Macca,’ said Mari quietly. ‘If you’re up for it.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mac, shovelling his food.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mari, while Johnny smiled and shook his head at Mac.

  ‘Sorry about before, I assumed you were a hunter,’ said Mari as she opened the door of the large shed adjacent to the house. Animal noises erupted as they entered. ‘This is the surgery.’ She nodded at a series of cages at the back and a surgery table and dispensary in front of them.

  She was calmer now than she had been in the house. ‘Look, you don’t have to see her,’ she said. ‘I get upset and make people witness this stuff, but it’s not fair really - it’s not your problem.’

  Mac shrugged. ‘Well I’m here now - let’s have a look.’

  Following Mari down an avenue of cages, he saw all sorts of monkeys, a Siamang, a couple of orang-utans and a large dark creature lying in a stall near the back. ‘Sumatran rhino,’ said Mari, noticing Mac’s interest.

  They stopped at a large wire-sided cage lined with dark straw. It was a stunning sight: an adult tigress lying on her side sleeping with two cubs buried in her teats. One of the cubs looked up at the visitors, yawned and then repositioned itself back in the mother’s tummy.

  There was something wrong with the tigress’s back legs, which were heavily bandaged. From what Mac could see, there were hip-to-ankle splints under the bandages.

  ‘Hunting rackets,’ said Mari. ‘They catch a tiger, bust their back legs so they can’t run, and then some dickhead from Germany or the States is taken on a safari through the Sumatran jungle.’

  ‘What?’ said Mac, slightly confused. ‘They shoot the tiger? When she’s in this state?’

  ‘Of course - they pay ten thousand American dollars to do it. The locals can’t resist.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ mumbled Mac, embarrassed.

  ‘They call it hunting.’

  They sat in the large cool area at the front of the vet surgery, sipping on cold beers from the fridge and swapping stories. Mari had grown up in Perth, gone to the University of Western Australia and had been planning to work in a vet surgery before clubbing in with some other people to buy their own practice and do the whole huge-mortgage, husband-and-two-kids trip. She’d come to visit Tom and Johnny in Sumatra one Christmas and become involved with a group, Vets Without Borders, who rescued tigers and orang-utans and other distressed wildlife.

  ‘I never really left,’ she shrugged. ‘It sort of became my life. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll turn into the crazy animal spinster of Sumatra.’

  Mac was supposed to say that he doubted that would be the case with such a pretty and smart woman, but he didn’t. ‘Yep - that could easily be it.’

  She fl ashed him a nasty look and he winked, laughed.

  She laughed too, reluctantly, and leaned forward on the table.

  ‘I really like you, Macca,’ she smiled. ‘But I’m not going to sleep with you, okay?’

  Mari found Mac a camp bed and a loose Indian cotton sheet and Mac slept very deeply in the vet surgery, the whimpering of the tiger and her cubs echoing into his dreams.

  CHAPTER 18

  Ari called at seven am and Mac gave him directions to the Hukapa compound. Then, swinging his feet out of the camp stretcher, he stood up, got dressed and went in search of the food that he could smell cooking.

  The door that Mari had disappeared t
hrough the night before was locked, a sign on it reading Dilarang masuk - no admittance. Mac assumed that didn’t apply to him and pushed on the door, but it didn’t give. He peered through the porthole, trying to work out the secret handshake, and saw an open area with fi ve or six picnic-style tables and bench seats crammed with kids, all eating. Mac got the attention of one of the young women who was supervising and she waved his way and went into what he assumed was the kitchen.

  He wandered around the clinic area, checking on the tigress, who snarled and hissed at him as her cubs burrowed into her full belly.

  Turning back, he heard the sound of kids yelling as the door swung open and then shut. Mari greeted him with a tray of fresh fruit, toast and a mug of what he prayed was coffee.

  ‘Morning,’ she said. She was quite tall and had the sort of athletic frame Mac liked, but he was happy she’d set him right the night before.

  They sat at the table chatting as Mac buttered his toast, before noticing a bowl of what looked like dark red maple syrup.

  ‘Sumatran wild honey,’ said Mari, following his gaze. ‘Bunch of us buy it from the Batak people if they agree to stop burning the forest, killing the tigers.’

  ‘And it’s working?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Sure, but it’s the female economy,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘It’s the blokes who can’t resist Westerners coming in with all this money and wanting to shoot a tiger, grab an orang-utan.’

  The honey was beautiful, sweet but also smoky.

  ‘So, what’s with the kids?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Some are orphans. Some have been rescued from the - you know

  - the sex rackets.’

  ‘Shit!’ said Mac, sipping on the coffee. ‘So you keep the door locked in case they run away?’

  ‘No,’ said Mari, her face stony. ‘It’s to keep men out. No males are allowed in that area.’

  ‘Bit harsh, isn’t it?’

  Mari shook her head. ‘Men have been the problem for those kids, not the solution.’

  They talked and Mac gave her Jenny’s number in Jakarta; told her what Jenny did with the transnational sexual-servitude taskforce and how the key to Jenny’s work was intelligence gathering and intelligence networks. She needed people like Mari.

  ‘She sounds great. I’ll defi nitely contact her,’ said Mari, dropping the tough-chick act.

  ‘Sure is. You two would get on,’ said Mac.

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because you’re both quite, umm, assertive about the difference between right and wrong,’ Mac replied, winking.

  Mari laughed. ‘Beautifully put, Mr McQueen. Ten out of ten for diplomacy.’

  There was a banging at the door and Mari went to it while Mac fi nished his coffee and looked around for his boots. ‘That’ll be Ari

  - he’s picking me up. He’s a friendly.’

  Mari opened the door and let Ari in. The Russian nodded at her and padded across the concrete slab, casing the place, walking like a bad guy in a Western movie. He was in Levis and a dark blue trop shirt. His holster-bag hung around his middle and his sunnies sat up on his thin sandy hair. Shaking Mac’s hand, he took a seat and helped himself to the fruit.

  ‘Okay there, champ?’ said Mac.

  ‘Okay if not so hungry,’ said Ari, not getting it.

  ‘This is Mari,’ said Mac as he grabbed his Hi-Tecs, got a sock on.

  ‘She’s a vet, from Australia. This is her set-up.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Ari, looking around. ‘Good location for the little animals.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mari.

  ‘And not such little animals,’ said Mac. ‘Mari’s got a tiger.’

  Ari arced up, totally interested. ‘Tiger! I love the tigers.’

  ‘I’m just checking on her now,’ said Mari. ‘You can come and help me if you want.’

  Ari got to his feet and they disappeared down the line of cages while Mac found his Heckler and checked the phones. Then he wandered down to the tiger cage and stopped as he saw Mari put her arm around Ari’s shoulder and whisper in his ear. He was about to say something smart when he saw Ari’s back heaving.

  While Ari drove the silver Nissan Patrol to the Polonia, Mac fronted him with a simple choice. Pulling out the folded papers he’d grabbed from the Pulau airfi eld, he waved them in the Russian’s face. ‘Mate, these are yours to read, maybe copy - but we’ll have a quick chat fi rst, okay?’

  Ari looked at him, looked at the bunch of papers. ‘Chat?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mac. ‘I don’t have the full picture. I don’t even know what I’m doing here, and some bastard is going to start with the explanations.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘No one else in the room.’

  Ari looked resigned. ‘What are these papers? Where did you get them?’

  ‘Know that airfi eld where Hassan’s team tried to land yesterday?’

  ‘And the Kopassus chased them off?’

  ‘Yep - I went out there and checked it out,’ said Mac. ‘These are the only papers remaining from a building that had been deliberately destroyed by fi re. And, Ari, I reckon the arsonists came back after they were chased off by Kopassus.’

  ‘So important, yes?’ said Ari, clearly interested.

  ‘Important enough so that someone tells me what the fuck’s going on.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ari, fl ustered. ‘Ask me, but maybe I cannot say, yes?’

  Mac started simple. ‘Was that a nuclear device in Kuta?’

  ‘I don’t know, McQueen. These JI camel-fuckers have been trying to increase their - how you say - their fi re strength …’

  ‘Firepower,’ said Mac.

  ‘Yes, increase their fi repower. They’ve been trying for a year. So they have this moneys from the al-Qaeda fuckers and they are speaking to many organisation. One of these organisation is the Dr Khan, and his chief of operations is Hassan.’

  ‘So, Kuta?’

  ‘You see, McQueen,’ said Ari, weighing his words, ‘Hassan has the access to many military application, including - how they say?

  - CBRNE. You know this?’

  Mac’s skin crawled. An acronym for weapons of mass destruction, CBRNE stood for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and enhanced Explosive. ‘Yes, Ari, I’ve heard of it.’

  Ari shrugged as he stopped at a red light and lit a cigarette. ‘So what we know is that Hassan crew was in Kuta with the JI team of Abu Samir. Akbar was there too, but sailed before the bombings. What was it did they detonate? I was tailing you to understand this, yes?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You and I both think that Paddy’s Bar was local terror bomb, perhaps ammonium nitrate or potassium chlorate, yes?’ said Ari.

  Mac nodded.

  ‘But Sari Club - too big, too much destruction, hole in road much too big for fertiliser bomb. Hassan has access to enhanced military explosive, and he also has access to mini-nuke. What exploded in Kuta? That’s what I wanted you to help me fi nd out.’

  Mac tried something else. ‘What are the Pakistanis doing in Indonesia?’

  Ari wound down his window, letting in warm air, and fl icked his ash. ‘The Pakistanis are dangerous. Their military and their intelligence created the Taliban as a way of controlling Afghani opium production, you know this, yes?’

  ‘Yep. It’s not good.’

  ‘It is commercial business,’ said Ari. ‘The al-Qaeda have the money and the JI want the bombs. So Hassan gives bomb to JI and get moneys from Osama. Or, they give guns and power to Taliban, take money from Americans for the opium.’

  Ari fl icked the ciggie as he pulled into the Polonia. ‘The Americans and the British think they are so smart allowing Pakistan to do this, but Russia will eventually have politicians who will not take this shit from the Pakistanis. It is in the history.’

  Mac stood in the shower, thought about what Ari had said. It fi lled in some but not all of the holes. He dried off and got dressed while Ari copied the documents with his mini-
scanner - a device the size of a highlighter. Mac had withheld the page with the blue ballpoint N W

  scrawl. Didn’t know why. Just a habit for secrets, perhaps.

  Mac’s Service Nokia went off. Freddi Gardjito would be pulling up outside in fi fteen minutes. As Mac signed off, the clean Nokia trilled and he walked into the kitchenette area and answered.

  ‘Hi Joe,’ he said, then brought the other man up to speed: the soldier in the tree, the fact that Sumatra was shut down, the documents and the arson at the airfi eld. ‘Akbar’s dead,’ said Mac, ‘but Hassan and Samir are still on the run.’

  ‘So what’s next, mate?’

  ‘Joining BAIS in a few minutes. Something’s cooking.’

  ‘Be careful, McQueen, okay? It’s enough to observe and report.’

  Mac made the usual noises, but they both knew what was expected of him. There were times when observation wasn’t enough and you needed to snatch a bloke, bring him in, get him talking. Or you needed to turn a person, get them working the other side of the road.

  Joe knew all about that. He’d turned and run a very high-level offi cer in the Japanese nuclear program of the mid-1990s.

  The Japanese had been building ICBMs and space-control/re-entry systems, and telling their neighbours they were developing their M-5 and J-1 rockets to launch satellites. At the same time their enrichment activities included a fast-breeder reactor that produced weapons-grade plutonium. When Japan signed an MOU in 1999

  committing itself to the American exo-atmospheric Theatre Missile Defense system, the penny fi nally dropped in the East Asian neighbourhood and North Korea had every excuse it needed to develop its own nukes.

  So Joe Imbruglia had ensured that Australia knew about Japan’s intentions before anyone else in Asia, and with that knowledge made sure that Australia was dealt into the Theatre Missile Defense system -

  or TMD - and all the joint-development contracts with the Americans that went with it. Joe Imbruglia had become integral to Australian intelligence’s Nuke Desk and he was a star.

  Joe was winding it up when something fl ashed into Mac’s mind, a piece of the puzzle that was trying to come to light, a thread that connected Joe to Kuta and to Hassan. The Japanese fast-breeder was notable in intelligence circles because the plutonium it produced was perfect for weapons miniaturisation. Essentially, a plutonium core the size of a tennis ball could be surrounded by a compact detonation system and the whole device could fi t inside a military backpack. It was also known as a mini-nuke.