Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike

by Mark Abernethy

  ‘Not that I can think of, mate.’

  ‘What about this latents?’

  ‘BAIS took two latents from a notepad at the Galaxy hotel. The fi rst was a phone number that led them to a traitor. The second one -‘

  ‘I have here.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Well, yes, McQueen,’ he said. ‘You know how it is.’

  Mac couldn’t believe Mossad had a tap on a BAIS phone line. ‘So what do you make of it?’

  ‘I am not knowing, McQueen - I need to sit down, have chat about this.’

  Mac rubbed his face. He’d wanted to spend some time with Jenny and Rachel and he had the Sarah situation to cover, and then Frank and Pat were in town too.

  ‘Okay, mate.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Let’s say six o’clock in the Iluka?’

  ‘Okay, McQueen. Be careful, yes?’

  ‘More than most, mate.’

  He called John Morris, who sounded upbeat. The AFP had a sighting at the Isis River BP station just out of Maryborough. Two South Asian men in a white Nissan Patrol: both well dressed, one in his forties, the other early thirties. The pump attendant was suspicious because they looked too classy to be running around at two am and then they paid in cash and didn’t want the receipt. The bloke got the fi rst part of the rego - GU. And there was now a wide alert with the local cops.

  ‘We looking at Queensland as the target, John?’ asked Mac, feeling the sense of confusion fi nally getting down to a sharper point.

  ‘Too early to say, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ said Mac, annoyed at the whole cautious cop routine. ‘But now we’d have to be concluding Brissie, Gold Coast, right?’

  ‘It’s the only conclusion, mate. We don’t have a choice.’

  Mac was being shut out of it. The cops had narrowed the threat into something they could manage - and hopefully defeat - and Mac was happy he’d at least helped get them to this stage.

  ‘And McQueen?’

  ‘Yeah, mate?’

  ‘Nice work with the luggage tags and satellites. You did good.’

  After ringing off, Mac slugged back his beer, stood and walked past the tail, keeping his pace normal. He went down the escalators to the ground level, found the gents and eased into a toilet cubicle. Putting his backpack on the cistern, he lowered the seat, sat and waited. As people came and went, he acclimatised to the sounds and waited for the right gait. Men didn’t creep into a toilet, they stormed it. So Mac waited for the slow squeak of the door and a lack of footfalls as his tail cased the place. He waited eleven minutes, until there was one other bloke, with a histrionic style, and no one else.

  He was right on the verge of suggesting the other cubicle occupant went easier on the processed meats when the door made a light squeal and the concourse noise fl ooded in for slightly too long.

  Someone had paused at the door. Mac held his feet up and waited for the footfalls to come close and then he fl ung open the cubicle door.

  The tail was right in front of the cubicle, his face betraying him. Mac lunged but the tail was ready and attempted a stamp kick. Rushing him, Mac knocked the tail off-balance and pushed him up off his feet into the wall, holding him in a half nelson.

  The tail struggled and clawed at Mac’s face but after a few seconds Mac’s pressure on the carotids worked their magic and the tail faded into unconsciousness.

  Mac dragged the bloke into his cubicle, sat him on the lowered seat, leaned him back, shut the door and ratted him. He had about two minutes before the bloke woke up fully and he tried the suit pockets and came up with boarding passes in the name of Short, John James; one Sydney to Coolangatta and the other one a Singapore Airlines fl ight from Singers to Brisbane. Same fl ight as Mac had taken.

  Checking the other jacket pocket, Mac came up with a Nokia phone while the tail snored. Pulling out his own phone, Mac put the tail’s SIM card into his own Nokia and transferred the contacts to

  ‘phone’. Then went to ‘calls made’ and saved the top one and went to calls received and saved the top one. He put the SIM back in John Short’s phone and put the phone and wallet back where they came from. As the bloke snorted for breath Mac undid the tail’s belt and pulled his pants and undies off, checking the undies label as he did so: T.M. Lewin boxer shorts, in the same colour as his cotton Oxford.

  Putting the pants and undies in his pack, Mac walked out.

  There was a middle-aged security guard in front of Mac as he came out. The bloke looked to be a proper sort of Aussie bloke, so Mac, acting concerned, leaned in.

  ‘Mate, this is embarrassing - but there’s a drunk in there asking men for sex.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, champ. It’s not like I’m homophobic or anything, but I am a Catholic. Understand?’

  The guard understood perfectly and Mac walked towards his boarding gate.

  The last call John Short had made had been to a local mobile number, but the last call he’d received had the Jakarta prefi x, 6221, in front of a landline number Mac vaguely recognised. He couldn’t place it so as his cab made north for Broadbeach from Coolangatta Mac thought what the fuck and pressed the green button. It connected into TI and made those strange ringing sounds with a big gap between them. An English female voice answered and said, Coastal Trading Company, may I help you?

  Mac hung up, breathed out as he sank into the back seat of the cab and saved John Short’s ‘contacts’ list from ‘phone’ to ‘SIM’.

  Danny, he thought, tapping his teeth with the Nokia. Danny fucking Fitzgibbon.

  CHAPTER 60

  The AFP guards greeted Mac as he ran up the steps. Letting himself into the townhouse, he saw Jen was on the phone and Rachel was sitting on the fl oor banging a green plastic cube with a plastic ball.

  Pulling a VB from the fridge, he raised an inquiring eyebrow at Jenny and she nodded. He opened another bottle for her and sat down on the fl oor with Rachel. Jenny moved out onto the patio and sat at the table, making lots of hmm noises, which usually meant she thought someone was bullshitting her. She nodded, sipped on the beer and signed off. Mac gave Rachel a kiss on the forehead and walked out to the patio and kissed his wife.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, easing back in the plastic outdoor chair, the thromp of helos evident in the distance.

  ‘Those people in the sweatshop are from all over South-East, even Burma,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Going to take ages to repatriate them.’

  ‘Not your problem yet, is it?’ he asked.

  Jenny gave him The Look and Mac said, ‘Fair enough. So what about Santo?’

  ‘They’ve charged him.’

  Mac frowned and sighed. ‘Shit.’

  ‘No one holds a gun to a cop’s head and then walks,’ said Jen. ‘PA are strong about that up here - not how it works.’

  Mac was going to say something smart about the Police Association

  - the cops’ trade union - but decided against it. They weren’t always there for Frank in the old days.

  ‘But anyway,’ she said, ‘Ke is back with his sisters and they’re all applying for residency, so fi ngers crossed.’

  Mac wondered if he shouldn’t have tried harder with Ke, got him out of the immigration tangle. He decided to leave it.

  ‘I’m having a beer with Ari at six, but I won’t be late.’

  ‘Ari, huh?’ she smiled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘Well say it!’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Do I?’ asked Mac, a little lost in the whole female obtuse thing.

  ‘Yeah, you know - Ari and Mari, up a tree?’

  Laughing, Mac asked her if she was kidding.

  ‘No. They like each other, didn’t you see?’

  Mac hadn’t seen.

  ‘So, maybe -‘

  Mac got it. ‘Okay, we’ll be at the Iluka bar. If she meets us there at six-thirty, I’ll do the handover, okay?’

  Jenny smiled widely and picked up the co
rdless phone, started dialling.

  ‘Then I could be in the mood for a sexy brunette with a great arse,’ said Mac with a wink.

  Ari and Mac compared their faxes of the latents that BAIS had taken from the Galaxy.

  ‘I think these are the Araby words, yes?’ asked Ari, pointing to three symbols that were faint but clearly meant something. Each one was at a slightly different angle and seemed to sit around a bunch of lines, some that were parallel, others at an angle with what looked like a dotted or broken line through the whole set-up. Superimposed was a list of numbers and numerals that were easily recognisable as fl ight times from Singers to Darwin.

  Ari, who had obviously looked at it harder than Mac, suggested that they read this latent as possibly a combination of two, and that the Arabic symbols and the lines might have been beneath the fl ight times.

  They looked at it and started with the symbols. The fi rst one, bounded by two straight vertical lines, started with what could be a ‘V’ and faded into several lines and curves. To its left was a longer series - done by the same hand - and positioned beside a circle. Mac and Ari could discern a crucifi x or a ‘T’ in the jumble but it didn’t appear to relate to the scrawls around it. To the right, and lower than the other words - and also bound within its own lines - was a short collection of curves. The lines suggested a map or blueprint, with accompanying codes. But even with Mossad’s extraordinary attempts to bring the latent writing to life, it was indistinct to Ari and Mac.

  ‘I am worried about this circle here, McQueen,’ said Ari, grimacing and sipping his beer, and looking around the bar before going back to the latent. ‘Lines here, symbols here,’ he gestured, ‘but this circle in middle - like tower or building?’

  ‘I guess if we’re saying this is a map,’ said Mac, ‘then the question is, what of? A circuit board? A bugging set-up in a house? An IT

  network? Are these electrical symbols?’

  Ari sat back in the cane chair. ‘We have Hassan in Australia, with device. He could be anywhere and this is the only clues we have. I was thinking it must have local relevance - that it would mean something to you.’

  Shaking his head, Mac turned the paper on its side and upside down. But there was still nothing.

  ‘I was desperate, so I tried this too,’ said Ari, slightly embarrassed.

  Pulling another piece of A4 fax paper from the chest pocket of his red trop shirt, he unfolded it. ‘I had some people take out the fl ight times and do enhancement, yes?’

  He laid down the page and now it looked like a map. The lines

  - when enhanced by the techs at Mossad - ran into one another so the map could perhaps be of a street, an airport runway, a container port. But the words were still a problem, not helped by the fact that whoever had written them on a pad in the Galaxy hadn’t been intending for his work to be held as an archive. It was a quick sketch and the writing was shorthand.

  ‘The Federal Police have sightings of these guys heading south down the Queensland coast - Maryborough was the latest. So I’ve been thinking about Brisbane airport,’ said Mac, drinking his XXXX.

  ‘Australian airports are crowded this time of year. Or it could be one of the big shopping malls: the last few days of shopping before Christmas. Then it’s Christmas on the Thursday this year.’

  ‘And Federal Police has this, yes?’ asked Ari.

  ‘Yep. So do ASIS and ASIO and the state cops. But they have a live search going on for a nuclear device. You can imagine that your average cop is not exactly relaxed about that, right?’

  Someone cleared their throat behind Mac, and Ari looked up, blushed as he smiled. Mari greeted Mac with a hug and shook hands with Ari as he stood, a smile fi xed on his face like Howdy Doody. She looked stunning, her long hair pulled up in a loose bun, showing off her graceful neck.

  ‘Mari. That is such beautiful name,’ said Ari. If he’d had a cap it would have been mangled in his hands.

  ‘Thanks, Ari - it’s short for Marama.’

  ‘ Mar-rar-mar,’ he drawled slowly, putting the Russian ‘r’ sounds into it. ‘I like that.’

  They drank and joked, Mari saying that she might stay in Queensland this trip - could be time to join the real world and make some money with her fancy vet’s degree. They joked about her father, Huck, coming to town for Chrissie and how the big man went to pieces whenever he saw his grandson, James.

  ‘Dad’s a big sook,’ laughed Mari. ‘At least, with his family he is.’

  Mac left them to it and walked south along the beach, watching the Pacifi c turn purple and the lights going on in the apartments along the beach. People were lighting citronella fl ares and fi ring up barbecues on their patios.

  When he came into the house, the lights were down and some candles were burning on the outside table, Ricki Lee Jones was on the stereo - the fi rst album. Jenny came through and they met in the living room. She sipped from her wine, put the glass down, grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands around to her bum as she snuggled in with a smile. He noticed she’d put on lipstick.

  ‘What was that about brunettes?’ she teased.

  ‘Oh that?’ smiled Mac. ‘I’ll need to authenticate fi rst.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, I might have to do some close-range surveillance, check that you are who you say you are.’

  ‘Some undercover work, huh?’ she giggled.

  ‘Might even do a taste test,’ he murmured, kissing her neck. ‘Have to do these things properly.’

  ‘Invade my privacy,’ she purred, now grinding her hips into him. She put her hands up to his face and they kissed and Mac felt everything else pushed out of his mind. He felt the warmth of his wife’s arousal on his cheek as she kissed him and pushed him back to the kitchen bar. She squeezed her body onto him in undulating waves and as he lifted his right hand to her breast and felt her heart beating through her tank top, Jenny dropped her mouth to the nape of his neck and dropped her hand to his pants. He leaned back on the kitchen bar, letting her kiss him in a place that he had always guarded.

  Jenny was the only person allowed to touch his neck.

  She kissed him up the side of his face and came eye to eye with him. ‘Take me to bed,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. As she kissed him again he caught a glimpse of them in the mirror on the other side of the room, noticing that the tag on her tank was out. For a split second he wondered what Esprit would be backwards and then just as quickly he adjusted that thought to the fact that when people spelled words backwards they never accounted for the letters turning backwards too and creating whole new meanings, other languages …

  Jenny disengaged and looked at his face as he tensed, then sighed as she realised she’d lost him.

  He slapped at the pockets of his jeans until he found what he was looking for in his back pocket. Unfurling the enhanced latent from Mossad, with the fl ight times taken out, he looked at it again. Then he turned it around and pointed it at the mirror, adrenaline pumping through his temples. The reason the latent from that pad in the Galaxy was so confused was because the writer had initially written fl ight times, probably from a phone call. Then, at a subsequent time, when the pad was grabbed and opened randomly and the piece of paper also grabbed randomly - the diagram was now being pressed down on the back of the piece of paper that had received the fl ight times latent. So it was reversed.

  The latent Mac held was now clearly identifi able as an ad hoc street map: a main road ran up and down the page with a branch road running off to the left. Written on that branch road was Orch, and on the main trunk was Cav. Ari had been half right about the circle being a tower. It was a tower that went into the ground, a stormwater drain indicated by the word storm, and Mac could envisage exactly where it was. Someone in Hassan’s crew - perhaps Hassan himself - had drawn a street map of the intersection of Cavill Avenue and Orchid Avenue, the main streets of Surfers Paradise, and the most crowded outdoor area in Queensland - perhaps Australia - in the nights leading up to Christmas. Mac th
ought about his conversation with Ari. He’d been worried about Christmas shopping crowds, but the crowds were just as big for drinking and carousing. And it was Saturday night - the last Saturday before Christmas.

  CHAPTER 61

  His phone cut in and out as Mac ran the two kilometres north to the heart of Surfers Paradise, where Cavill Avenue hit the Esplanade. He went over the latent fax with John Morris, the cop also short of breath as Mac asked him to hold it up to a mirror.

  ‘Got it,’ said Morris, now at AFP headquarters in Brisbane. And then, ‘Oh shit.’

  Morris said he was going to send the AFP and Queensland cops straight into the Cavill Mall area. Mac thought about how on any Saturday night the area was rocking, but on the last Saturday before Christmas it would be absolutely chockers. Every teenager, every uni student and tourism worker from around the Gold Coast and Brisbane would be on the strip that started at Surfers Paradise Beach, ran west down Cavill Avenue and then hooked north into Orchid Avenue. It was wall-to-wall bars, nightclubs and restaurants, with thousands of people on the streets. If you were trying to make a point about Aussie decadence, then a bunch of drunken young men and girls in short skirts was an easy target, and the parallels between Surfers and Kuta in their high seasons were frightening.

  As Mac panted his way up Northcliffe Terrace on the beachfront, the Heckler chafi ng in his waistband, he argued with Morris about clearing the place. ‘What if Hassan’s people are in visual contact, like they were for Kuta?’ gasped Mac, as he waited for traffi c on Clifford, kids parking to smoke drugs and fool around. ‘What if they say, Let’s blow it and get out of town?’

  ‘I can’t make that call, McQueen,’ said Morris. ‘Those lives aren’t mine to toy with. I want them out of there till we’ve swept it for devices.’

  Mac sprinted on, coming onto the Esplanade where he could look along the main road on the beachfront and see all the pubs, bars and restaurants lit up like a garish parody of Gold Coast glitz. ‘Can’t we at least get the jammers in here fi rst, John?’ he panted. ‘If we can jam the signal then they can’t trigger the device, right?’