‘Correct,’ said Davidson. ‘About thirty maintenance engineers were staying in the workers’ quarters – mostly Korean but also some Americans, Australians and French.’
‘And?’
‘And the Koreans sent me along with their mercenaries – a company called Shareholder Services – to deal with the crisis,’ said Mac, handing his report to Gleeson. ‘They worked out that I had a military background, and since I was consulting to the company with local issues -’
‘They thought you could sort this for them?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mac, gulping slightly.
‘But what happened?’
‘When we got to the mine, the mercenary commander didn’t want to negotiate – which is the usual way to handle these things in West Papua.’
‘Yes?’
‘He wanted to use a flamethrower and I argued with him, but he
… The upshot was that I fought with some of the mercenaries.’
Gleeson’s hand went up again as he leaned back on his desk and grabbed a letter. ‘This is a diplomatic letter of protest from the Korean legation in Jakarta. They pouched it the day before yesterday, and I had to recall you – which isn’t a cheap exercise, right, son?’
‘Right, sir.’
‘The letter states that Korean economic interests at the Lok Kok mine were sabotaged by a Papua New Guinean national and an Australian national; two security workers in the pay of this mine company were killed – one of whom was set on fire,’ said Gleeson, looking up at Davidson and then Mac. ‘Several maintenance engineers sustained gunshot wounds but, miraculously, they’re alive.’
‘Look, it was just one of those things -’ started Mac, but Gleeson’s eyes shut again and this time he massaged them with his hand.
‘No, McQueen, it was not just one of those things. Certainly not the kind of thing that most of us in this building ever get up to.’
‘These operations give us invaluable insight into the terror group operating closest to our borders,’ said Davidson. ‘No other nation – not even Indonesia – has the links we have into the heart of OPM. And we’re usually very careful.’
‘Oh, really?!’ said Gleeson, eyes bloodshot from stress. ‘Careful? Then why is there a Korean consular officer sitting in a hospital in Makassar with a cracked skull?’
‘A consular -?’ said Mac, confused. Then it dawned. ‘Oh shit, you mean Pik?’
Holding the letter closer, Gleeson squinted at the name. ‘Piet-Marius Berger, a security attache in the Korean legation to Indonesia.’
Mac laughed, he couldn’t help it.
‘This is funny?’ said Gleeson, shaking the letter and returning to his chair behind the desk.
‘No, sir – it’s just that Pik Berger might be one of those rare blue-eyed Koreans we’ve heard so much about,’ said Mac.
‘Tony,’ said Gleeson to Davidson after a pause, ‘is your officer laughing at me?’
‘No, John – probably just surprised that a South African merc is claiming consular credentials with the Koreans. It got me too, I must admit.’
Sighing at the ceiling, Gleeson slid down in the chair. ‘Okay. McQueen, luckily I need everyone on the Timor situation for the next few weeks so I want you around. Tony’ll brief you – but promise me something, son?’
‘Sure,’ said Mac.
‘Stay out of trouble, okay?’
‘Can do, sir,’ said Mac, following Davidson’s lead and standing. As he walked through the door, he heard Gleeson’s voice again.
‘Oh, McQueen?’
Turning, Mac came face to face with the DDG, who waved the field report he’d received five minutes before.
‘Rule Number One for young field officers,’ said Gleeson, as he tore up the report and passed the pieces to Mac. ‘Always wait till after the DDG has kicked the crap out of you before writing your report. Over to you, Tony.’
Having completed the Lok Kok report in Davidson’s office – a version that emphasised South African mercenaries and Korean duplicity – they set out shortly before 10 am and were driven into the underground security area of Parliament House, a strange-looking building that sat inside a hill in the middle of Australia’s capital.
‘I’m not sure about this, mate,’ said Mac as they accepted lanyards and were shown into the bowels of the building. They were heading for a meeting of the National Security Committee in Cabinet – the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence. The NSCC was briefed regularly by the peak intelligence body, the Office of National Assessments, and often the ONA briefers held experts in reserve in case the politicians wanted more detail.
‘Start getting real sure, real fast,’ said Davidson as they swept into an anteroom filled with intelligence analysts from ONA, Defence and Treasury. ‘Because I told John you were the best on Indon political economy – you’re standing in for Karl Berquist.’
‘What?!’ said Mac, still wondering what the Gleeson meeting meant for his career. ‘I’m standing in for a director?’
‘Yeah – and one who listens more than he talks, okay?’ said Davidson, turning to leave.
The meeting was held on the other side of the closed doors and Mac found himself sitting in the anteroom, pondering East Timor and Indonesia. In December 1975, the Indonesian military had launched Operation Lotus, which saw elite soldiers and paratroopers invade the tiny remnant of the Portuguese empire after the local commies and non-commies had screwed up Portugal’s handover by fighting among themselves. Australia had turned a blind eye to Soeharto’s lightning raid on the territory; Catholic East Timor became the twenty-seventh province of the world’s most populous Muslim nation and was plunged into almost constant war between the local Falintil guerrillas who had taken to the hills, and the Indonesian Army, which quickly claimed all trade concessions in the province’s economy. Now, Soeharto had been gone for eighteen months, full democracy was on the horizon for South-East Asia’s largest nation and the new president, BJ Habibie, had acceeded to the Australian Prime Minister’s request to allow the East Timorese to vote for independence. The Indonesian Army had responded by creating proxy militias which were intimidating and killing pro-independence activists on the island. Looming over the whole scenario was the Asian economic crisis, which had drastically devalued the rupiah, ruined a lot of banks and plunged Indonesia into virtual bankruptcy.
He turned to the man sitting next to him, Colonel Sandy Beech, a military intelligence officer Mac had met in England nine years ago. ‘What you up here for, mate?’ said Mac.
‘Fucking Timor – but they won’t ask me in there,’ Beech said, flicking his thumb at the heavy wooden door of the meeting room. ‘It’s a waste of time coming down for this.’
‘Why?’ said Mac, as both of them checked to see if the Treasury girl typing on a laptop was listening.
‘Government’s in a holding position on East Timor – doesn’t suit them right now to hear about the village clearances and the intimidation of the UN ballot workers.’
‘Greater good, right?’
Snorting, Beech shook his head. ‘I’m in the UN crew in East Timor, right? And I tell you, Macca, those people are not happy campers.’
‘UN’s not protected?’ said Mac, surprised.
‘Lot of AFP women up there, mate, out in the boonies, and they are getting the creeps – these militias are using rape to terrorise the pro-independence villages.’
‘And they can’t carry arms?’ asked Mac.
‘Ha!’ said Beech. ‘I told my command that we needed some support up there, and they gave me a satellite phone.’
‘What – to call Mum when you get macheted?’ said Mac.
‘It’s turning to custard, Macca – if we have a ballot, it’ll be a miracle.’
It was almost 1 pm when the big door swung back and voices flooded into the anteroom. Feeling the pangs of hunger, Mac assumed they were going to be dismissed for lunch.
‘McQueen?’ said a smiling bureaucr
at, and Mac found himself on his feet, walking into a large meeting room dominated by an oval table with no centre to it. The politicians sat at the head of the table, the ONA analysts at the other end, with a long table behind them staffed by assistants with files and laptops.
Taking the seat offered among the ONA hacks, Mac sat down. The Minister for Defence looked at a silver pen he tapped on the desktop but he was addressing Mac.
‘There’s some debate about this Wiranto chap,’ said the minister, referring to the commander of the Indonesian armed forces and Minister for Defence, General Wiranto. ‘We’re fairly sure he’s coordinating the Timorese militias responsible for all this violence. But you’re actually on the ground up there, Mr McQueen – how do Wiranto’s political ambitions fit with the Timor situation?’
Leaning forward, Mac kept Davidson’s warning in mind. ‘Sir, I don’t know.’
The room broke into laughter, the Prime Minister finding that particularly funny. But beside him Mac felt the ONA leader bristle.
‘Could I ask it another way?’ said the Minister for Foreign Affairs, whose jolly round face belied a great intellect. ‘How does politics in Jakarta relate to Timor – in your opinion?’
‘I don’t think you can separate the economy from what’s happening in East Timor.’
‘You can’t?’ asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
‘Well, the Asian economic crisis has uncovered institutional and sociopolitical cracks that were papered over by the trappings of middle-class success. The economy meant the end of Soeharto, the economy started the street riots and the capital flight of the Chinese business elite, and the economy is also seeing the rise of Megawati and the interference of the IMF…’
‘And?’ asked the minister.
‘Well, General Wiranto runs one of the largest financial institutions in Indonesia – the military – and at a time when the rupiah is fifteen per cent of what it was worth two years ago, export resources such as those on East Timor are not to be relinquished lightly – they represent earnings in US dollars and deposits in Singapore bank accounts.’
‘You’re saying this is about money?’ asked the Minister for Defence.
‘I’m saying that Wiranto is stuck between a president who wants the East Timorese to vote on independence, and a general staff that doesn’t want to lose income and power. The claim that it’s all about Wiranto making a run at the presidency – well, he’s had opportunities for a coup, and he hasn’t taken them; he was offered the powers of dictatorship by Soeharto. Most Indonesians think he’s a constitutionalist.’
‘What about Wiranto’s role in this violence? In East Timor?’ said the Minister for Foreign Affairs, looking out the window.
‘Can’t comment, sir – all the intel I’ve seen says the militias are controlled and funded from Jakarta,’ said Mac.
‘That what the locals are saying?’ asked the minister.
‘No, sir – the locals are worried about jobs, mortgages and prospects for their children, not a bunch of communists running around in the hills of a province that they couldn’t even find on a map.’
The meeting ended forty seconds later and Mac noticed the ONA guys sulking while the politicians smiled at him.
As Mac exited through the anteroom, Sandy Beech was still seated, talking on his mobile phone. The one Australian who was actually on the ground in East Timor was not going to be heard.
CHAPTER 5
Davidson wasn’t in his office when Mac arrived slightly late. He was annoyed with himself – Davidson was not only Mac’s main mentor in the firm, he also shouted the best lunches of anyone in the RG Casey building.
‘Alan?’ asked the secretary.
‘Guilty,’ said Mac, taking the note she passed him.
It was a tasking: back to Jakarta, reporting to Greg Tobin in the Indonesian capital.
Breathing out, he tried to stop himself swearing. Only a few hours ago, the DDG was telling him to stick around, that he was needed during the East Timor crisis. Canberra had always seemed a little tame, but after the chat with Gleeson and the ONA briefing, Mac had glimpsed a fresh start to his career: getting back into the management end of the intel networks, golf at Federal, skiing at Thredbo, a few beers with the lads at Bruce when the Raiders were playing. It was how the office guys worked it and it had seemed within his grasp.
Collapsing on the sofa opposite the secretary’s desk, he punched a number into his phone then stared blankly at Davidson’s note as he waited for his boss to answer. He was tired and dreaded the thought of another fifteen hours in planes and airport lounges.
‘Tony, just got your note,’ he said when Davidson picked up.
‘I’m in a meeting, mate,’ said the West Australian.
‘Thought Gleeson wanted me around?’ Mac pushed.
Down the line it was obvious that Davidson was excusing himself from his present company.
‘Yeah, mate,’ said Davidson, slightly breathless, a few seconds later. ‘But Gleeson gets a call from McRae at National Assessments – they were at Sydney Uni law school together, right? – and McRae is going off his trolley.’
‘About me?’ said Mac.
‘ Yes about you!’ snapped Davidson. ‘What’s this shit about Wiranto being a misunderstood genius -’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘- a constitutionalist?! Shit, Macca.’
‘I thought they wanted my HUMINT,’ said Mac, referring to human intelligence of the type gleaned from interaction with people.
‘Yes, Macca – and fucking ONA have been carefully building a picture for the Prime Minister of Wiranto as a man who wants to be president and will inflict any atrocity on Timor to support that. And you walk in there and make him out to be some confused teenager -’
‘Actually, I said he was probably responsible for the militias in Timor,’ said Mac, not wanting to argue with his biggest supporter. ‘But Wiranto believes in constitutional government: he could have taken over when Soeharto was toppled, or launched coups when the riots started in Jakarta or when Habibie announced the East Timor ballot – but he didn’t. My point was the economic crisis puts him under pressure from his own generals to hold East Timor, that’s all.’
The sound of Tony Davidson sighing hissed out of the phone. ‘I happen to agree with you. But that’s not where the firm or National Assessments or even the government is headed right now, okay? Gleeson wants you back in the field.’
‘Jakarta?’ said Mac.
‘The section’s got something for you,’ said Davidson, referring to the intelligence section at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
‘Pay rise perhaps?’ said Mac, but the line was already dead.
***
The driver gave him a sealed envelope as they came into Jakarta in the white Holden Commodore. The note said: Lunch 1300. Usual place. CR .
CR was Cedar Rail – the internal code name of ASIS’s Jakarta station chief, Greg Tobin, and the usual place was the only place they’d ever met in Jakarta. Mac didn’t mind Tobin as much as some spooks did, but he was hoping that his boss didn’t want to play cloak-and-dagger. He was too tired for that shit.
Mac got out of the Commodore in the heart of Mega Kunigan – Jakarta’s version of The City in London – and walked two blocks north to the JW Marriott. Casing one side of the street, he suddenly crossed at a green signal and stared at the window displays on the other side, checking the reflections. Jakarta was a town of violent surprises – a sort of Australian version of what Vienna had been for British intelligence in the Cold War.
Satisfied there were no tails, he got to the Marriott early and sat in the enormous lobby for ten minutes, reading the Jakarta Post. Even when Greg Tobin sailed through the marble-lined area with Anton Garvey in tow, Mac remained seated for a few minutes, looking for signs of surveillance: eyes peering over newspapers, reception staff suddenly picking up a phone, people whispering into their shirt cuffs. Mainly, Mac waited to see if anyone came through the main doors thir
ty seconds after Tobin, looking too innocent. That was always the giveaway – no one entering the Marriott was entirely innocent.
Seeing nothing suspicious, Mac threw the Post on a coffee table and sauntered through to the buffet restaurant, with its open kitchen and talkative cooks. Greg Tobin stood with a smile and shook Mac’s hand.
‘G’day, Macca,’ he said, with all the toothy charm of a politician. ‘How are you, old man? Not too serious I hope?’ He pointed at Mac’s face as he sat, a masculine look of feminine concern.
‘No worries, Greg,’ said Mac. ‘Just a scorch.’
‘I missed you, darling,’ said Anton Garvey, tanned and bull-like. ‘You don’t phone, you don’t write.’
‘Garvs, you old tart!’ said Mac, shaking the big paw. Anton Garvey had been in the same graduate intake as Mac, back in the early nineties. They’d become close friends very quickly, not least because they’d both been boarders at famous St Joseph’s schools: Garvey at Joeys in Sydney and Mac at Nudgee in Brisbane.
The three of them small-talked, each of them playing their roles. Tobin, a year older than the other two, saw himself as the going-places leader-of-men. The former crown prince of the St Lucia campus at UQ acted as if he ruled the world and was merely waiting for his business card to reflect it. Garvey was the corporate man – not spectacular enough for a starring role, but a reliable team guy who didn’t like too much divergence from authorised behaviour. Mac seemed to have become the ruthless loner, a description he had loved as a younger man but which, at thirty, was starting to isolate him; the events in Canberra had made him feel as if he were cast as a paramilitary rather than a whiteboard warrior.
They got through lunch and Tobin ordered another round of Tigers before leaning into Mac’s intimacy zone. ‘Got something I need you to do, Macca,’ he intoned with a perfect combination of authority and charm. ‘Special assignment.’
‘One of those management courses in Canberra, eh Greg?’ joked Mac.
‘Well,’ said Tobin, clearing his throat and swapping looks with Garvey, ‘not quite, old man.’
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