‘Always up for a blue when he’s pissed,’ said Robbo, chuckling.
‘That wasn’t my fault, Sarge, and you know it,’ said Beast as Didge joined in the laughter.
‘Yeah, mate, but it’s always not your fault when you’re three sheets,’ said Robbo, joining them on the ground and grabbing a banana.
Looking at his G-Shock, Mac saw they’d only been going two hours and his new boots were already giving him grief.
‘How much further, Dad?’ asked Mac.
‘Two more legs like this and we’re at the OP, mate. Then we’ll get some sleep and plan the recon and snatch for tomorrow night, copy?’
‘Roger that,’ said Mac, wincing at his relative lack of fitness, something that didn’t show up until you had to run through the jungle with special forces guys. ‘How we looking, with the Indonesian Army?’
‘We’re in a quiet corridor – it’s why we use it to get up and down to the coast,’ said Robbo.
‘Quiet corridor?’ asked Mac. ‘Thought it was pretty dangerous on the south coast, around Suai?’
‘It is,’ smiled Robbo. ‘That’s why we’re in West Timor.’
Fifteen minutes later, Mac stood with Beast on a deserted mountain track, bathed in moonlight. An engine revved suddenly, followed by the sound of wheels spinning before a battered white kijang bounced onto the track twenty metres away, Didge at the wheel.
‘Your coach, sir,’ said Robbo from the passenger seat as the kijang pulled up, monkeys and birds kicking up a protest.
Having seen the checkpoints across the island, Mac was paranoid about doing this. ‘No way, mate, I’m not driving into a Kopassus ambush.’
‘This road’s got no army, no militia, Macca. Trust me – this is how we move around, it’s quiet up here.’
‘It’s not quiet anywhere on Timor,’ mumbled Mac, climbing into the tray on the back of the kijang, Beast joining him.
The road was a disaster and the kijang kicked like a mule, each time landing Mac on the most tender part of his bum. Four times they had to get out and push the vehicle across washouts and landslides, the jungle so close that trees constantly washed across the tray, threatening to take Mac’s face with them.
‘Where you from?’ he asked Beast.
‘Winton, mate. Heard of it?’
‘Yeah,’ said Mac. ‘I’m from Rockie – played some footy up there couple of times.’
‘Yeah? For who?’
‘Junior Capras, group reps – usual shit.’
‘They let you out alive?’ said Beast, referring to the intense passion rugby league aroused in Winton.
‘Yeah, mate,’ said Mac. ‘But the ref didn’t make it.’
As promised, the road was quiet, and at 4.16 am, they put the kijang in its hide and set off eastwards, aiming for the border of West and East Timor, about eight k south of Memo.
Keeping to a light jog now that there was moonlight, they covered the jungle floor quickly. Heaving for breath and fatigued, Mac came to a halt with the rest of the troop shortly after five o’clock. They were looking over the river that formed the border. Beyond were thick stands of forest that shone in the moonlight. Below them was a hairpin in the slow-moving river, an apron of river rocks on the inside of the bend and then a river flat of about five acres before the bush started.
‘That’s the bush market,’ whispered Robbo, pointing down at the grassed river flat at the big bend. ‘That’s our observation. There’s a hundred people down there most days,’ he said, referring to the OP – or observation post – that was a hide set up to observe a piece of territory.
Murmuring into his headset to let the team across the river know they’d arrived, Robbo waited for a response then gave the nod. Didge slid down the long river bank to the water’s edge, sweeping the area with his rifle.
Giving the thumbs-up, Robbo followed, taking Mac with him. The water was cold as Mac followed Robbo into the river and they waded across chest-high, covered by Didge. On reaching the other bank, Mac tucked in behind Robbo, who was now covering for Beast, and then they fanned out and covered for Didge as he waded across the river.
They followed the river downstream for five minutes and then went into the jungle and doubled around the long way before arriving in a totally concealed hide in the hills behind the bush market. Lifting a flap of branches, Robbo gestured Mac inside while Beast and Didge recce’d the approach area for unfriendlies.
Behind the flap was an area set up with sleeping bags – called ‘farters’ in the Australian Army – stacks of cold rations and radio equipment. Looking around, Mac was impressed with the place but caught his breath when he realised a large set of eyes were only a few centimetres from the left side of his face.
‘Shit, mate!’ he exclaimed. ‘Give me a fright, why don’t you?’
‘Johnno,’ came the voice. ‘You must be the spook?’
Mac shook hands, his heart pounding. As his eyes adjusted he realised Johnno was a Maori bloke. ‘Something like that.’
‘Johnno’s our comms guy,’ whispered Robbo as Beast and Didge squeezed into the hide. ‘Other two – Toolie and Mitch – are down at the OP. You can doss there,’ he said, pointing to a space in the gloom.
Throwing his rucksack into the corner, Mac paused.
‘It’ll be okay, mate,’ whispered Didge, seeing Mac’s hesitation. ‘Army rules – don’t mess with another bloke’s stuff. Okay?’
Didge said it like it was one of the Ten Commandments.
‘Okay,’ said Mac, his fatigues dripping river water as he pulled the briefing papers from his bag and followed Robbo through the exit on the other side of the hide.
CHAPTER 40
After crawling through thick undergrowth in total silence for ninety seconds, Mac and Robbo slipped under another screen made of branches and came out in a foliage-covered hide made of bamboo.
Inside the hide, two men were visible in the moonlight-dappled darkness. One was lying on his stomach, looking through a small telescope on a stand; the other sat cross-legged, a set of binos around his neck, eating an orange.
They swivelled, guns at the ready.
‘Boys, this is McQueen,’ said Robbo.
Both gave gruff hellos. It turned out the tall blond bloke eating the orange was called Toolie. The other, a thick-set, dark-haired man with a grumpy face, was Mitch.
‘Anything?’ asked Robbo.
‘Another mule line, Sarge,’ said Toolie, wiping his mouth.
‘How many?’ asked Robbo.
‘Counted two. Boys, local, well fed, no uniforms. Same old.’
‘No militia markings?’ asked Robbo.
‘No, Sarge – just those big packs on their backs.’
‘Gee, I’d love to snatch one of these blokes, just to see what they’re carrying,’ snarled Mitch.
‘Plenty of time for that, mate,’ said Robbo. ‘For now the orders are clear – no direct action, just eyes.’
‘Well, with those two boys,’ said Toolie, ‘there’s going to be a whole line tomorrow.’
‘Really?’ asked Mac.
‘Yeah, mate – I mean, sir,’ said Toolie. ‘They send out a couple of boys and then the next day a whole mule line comes through, with these packs on their backs.’
‘Okay,’ said Robbo. ‘Good work, boys. Get back to the bivvy and write it up. We’ll take over here.’
After Mitch and Toolie had cleared out, Mac and Robbo took their places, which allowed a perfect vista of the entire bush market area and the far side of the river crossing. Mac was impressed – it must have taken several days to build and finetune the OP, and he knew from operating with Aussie special forces that these structures were virtually invisible during the day.
‘So let’s get this sorted now, okay, Macca?’ said Robbo, squinting through the short, boxy telescope. ‘Don’t want the boys getting nervous.’
Although there were night-vision goggles hanging on the wall, Mac could see the OP was choosing not to use them.
‘Okay,’ said Mac, weighin
g his words as he took the map-reader from Robbo. He wanted to be very careful how he introduced the concept of a vaccine factory – he might even leave that part for later.
‘I need eyes at a site about half a mile outside of Maliana – operation name Saturn,’ said Mac, pulling the U2 pics from the satchel and aiming the dull red light of the map-reader on the first photo. ‘It’s this one here, and that’s the entrance. Reckon I need half an hour in there.’
‘Any intel on the security?’ asked Robbo, intent on the map.
‘Seems to be four or five MPs but they’re flatfoots – they’re not Kopassus, Marines, anything like that.’
‘You have a preference?’ asked Robbo, turning the photo to get a better angle.
‘Trucks are going in and out of this gate, into this loading area here,’ said Mac, pointing. ‘There’s a lot of activity. Thought we might infiltrate that way, or just do a break-in. The vents look like the weak point.’
‘Can do,’ muttered Robbo. ‘We’ll recce it today, maybe tonight, see what’s doing.’
‘The second recon job is an airfield halfway between Maliana and Memo,’ said Mac, shuffling the next photo to the top of the pile, where it glinted in the red light. ‘It’s a basic look-see with a camera.’
‘What are we looking for?’ asked Robbo.
‘General recce. Look, listen and report.’
‘We going into these hangars?’ asked Robbo, pointing.
‘Make a plan once we’re there, huh?’ said Mac, both of them knowing that Mac was going into those hangars.
‘Which leaves -’
‘Yeah, it leaves the girl,’ said Mac.
Shuffling the next photo to the top of the deck, he held back on tabling it.
‘Expecting trouble?’ asked Robbo. ‘What exactly are we talking about here?’
Exhaling, Mac decided it wasn’t smart to keep the details from Robbo for much longer. ‘Mate, you know the Ginasio in Maliana?’ he said, taking his hand away from the U2 pic.
‘Sure do,’ said Robbo, concentrating on the eight-by-five.
‘The Kodim 1636 base is adjacent – operation name Mars – this collection of buildings here, right?’ said Mac, gesturing to the photo.
‘Yep,’ said Robbo.
Kodim 1636 was the regiment covering the Bobonaro district and the command centre for most of the militia atrocities.
‘We have two credible sightings of our target – Blackbird – at this base,’ said Mac, avoiding Robbo’s looks.
‘Local girl?’ asked Robbo.
‘Yep,’ said Mac, showing the eight-by-five of Maria Gersao.
‘Where do you think she is?’ asked Robbo.
‘She could be in the Kodim’s detention centre, here beside their main barracks,’ said Mac, pointing it out.
‘I know the building,’ said Robbo. ‘Didn’t know it was the prison.’
‘It’s actually more likely she’s in the intelligence compound,’ said Mac, moving his finger across to a fenced precinct within the base.
Silence dragged out between the two men, Robbo’s eyes large and white in the gloom. ‘Intelligence compound?’ he asked, aggressive.
‘Yeah, mate,’ answered Mac, stammering slightly. ‘It’s this area up the back of the main Kodim -’
‘I know it, Macca,’ said Robbo, his jaw tensing, eyeballing Mac.
‘Okay, so -’
‘So there’s only six of us, mate.’
‘Seven if you -’
‘No offence, Macca.’
Staring at each other, Mac gulped first. It was never easy to sell these missions to the soldiers who bore the brunt of them. But in this case, they had less than two weeks before the ballot result was announced and Mac was under intense pressure to deliver Blackbird.
‘Okay, Macca, we’ll recce it and have a chat, okay? But it’s far from ideal.’
‘Sorry, mate, but -’ started Mac, but Robbo was already leaving.
Picking up his photos and replacing them in the satchel, Mac wondered how he could have sold it any better. The problem centred on the real occupants of the so-called intelligence compound at the Kodim Maliana. Robbo’s six commandos were being asked to snatch a girl from the second-largest Kopassus base in Timor.
Mac woke to the beeping of his G-Shock, his brain still craving sleep. It was 6.55 am and in five minutes he had to make his first call to Jim in Denpasar.
Sitting up in his sleeping bag, he saw Johnno scraping soap suds off his cheeks at the other side of the hide. Turning, the soldier offered him a smile, his face half-shaved.
‘Some rats for you, McQueen,’ he said, nodding at the water bottles and foil tins stacked beside Mac’s bed. ‘That top one’s the meat sauce and pasta – tastes okay cold.’
Thanking him, Mac stood and stretched in his undies, then took a look through the gaps in the bamboo and foliage walls of the hide. The morning was lighting up the jungle and the birds and monkeys were at full roar.
‘Where are the others?’ asked Mac, grabbing a bottle of water and slugging at it.
‘Scouting, observing,’ shrugged Johnno. ‘I was supposed to be here when you woke up, tell you not to go wandering out alone.’
‘Gotcha,’ said Mac.
Johnno left as Mac readied to talk with Jim. The call was as simple as a cell-phone conversation in a major city. The sat phone supplied by DIA operated via the Pentagon’s own satellite network. No communication that travelled through the atmosphere was one hundred per cent secure, but the Pentagon’s satellites were what they called ‘five nines’ – that was, 99.999 per cent secure. Virtually impossible to hack.
‘In place?’ asked Jim, a small sucking sound telling Mac that the American was smoking with his morning coffee.
‘Yeah, sweet as,’ yawned Mac. ‘Could have done without the swim, though.’
‘You can catch my Learjet home.’
‘Tell ’em I like my beer cold and chicks hot.’
‘Can do,’ laughed Jim. ‘Got Tony here – he’d like a word later. But first, we’re both getting heat about soldiers and spooks in-country for the start of the referendum on Monday. Tony and I have tossed it around, and your DIO guys have been up here too – sorry to put the bite on you, McQueen, but we want the lot of you out of there before sunrise on Sunday, copy?’
‘Fuck’s sake, Jim!’ spat Mac, latent fear rising in him. ‘It’s fucking Friday morning! Jesus! ’
He knew if he didn’t calm down he’d get a visit from Johnno, so Mac deepened his breaths and attempted to quell the overreaction.
‘Sorry about that, McQueen,’ said Jim into the silence. ‘It’d be nice to do these things under perfect conditions, but there’s too much riding on this ballot. Washington and Canberra want to be cleanskins, you know, in case it turns to shit.’
Mac didn’t like doing anything to a politician’s timetable, but rushing something as dangerous as the Blackbird snatch was crazy. The way Jim was talking, they’d have to grab Blackbird by Saturday evening at the latest – regardless of the risk factors.
‘Here’s Tony,’ said the American, and Davidson came on the line.
‘You okay, Macca?’
‘Fine, mate,’ Mac lied.
‘Got back from Dili last night,’ said Davidson. ‘Made some progress.’
‘Speak with Moerpati?’ asked Mac.
‘Sure did – the guy’s like a rabbit in the headlights. Totally paranoid.’
‘What’s the story?’ asked Mac.
‘He and Rahmid were trying to get information on Operasi Boa, and getting nowhere. The President’s office is being undermined and the Habibie loyalists are worried that the generals are pushing Wiranto for a coup.’
‘Shit,’ said Mac.
‘The military wants a big display of power, and it looks like East Timor will be the unlucky recipient. There’s a lot of fear in Jakarta right now – just knowing about Boa can get you shot, which is why Rahmid was trying to connect with us. I guess it puts the disappearance of Blackbird
and the Canadian into perspective.’
‘So, Tony, Jim was saying that Canberra and Washington want to be cleanskins on this, hence the new timetable.’
‘Sure, Macca.’
‘So what about my exfil?’ asked Mac. It had occurred to him that governments might not want their helicopters and reinforcements landing in foreign territory so close to a politically sensitive event like East Timor’s ballot.
‘Yeah, well – Jim hasn’t told you?’
‘No,’ snapped Mac, tired, hungry and sick of being dicked.
‘Well, Macca, there’s army infantry, Kopassus and Brimob flooding into Bobonaro right now and the military is massing undeclared forces just over the border.’
‘And?’ barked Mac, knowing what was coming.
‘So, the helo exfil is in the too-hard basket for now,’ said Davidson.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, so it’s a navy pick-up, okay?’
‘Navy?’
‘Yep – you got radio comms, you got the call signs?’
‘Yeah, Tony – got all that,’ said Mac, rubbing his temples with his fingers. ‘We’ll do what we can, but with any luck we’ll be travelling with a nineteen-year-old girl. Understand?’
‘I know, Macca,’ said Davidson. ‘And getting her out has never been more crucial.’
‘Shit, Tony – anything else? Perhaps a double-axel with pike?’
Davidson’s laugh boomed down the line. ‘Like my old cricket coach used to say when I was about to bowl my first over…’
‘What?’ asked Mac.
‘Don’t fuck it up.’
CHAPTER 41
Sweat ran down Mac’s back like a river by the time they’d trekked two hours north of the OP through the overwhelming humidity of the tropical montane forest. When Robbo called for a smoko under a rocky overhang, they all drank deeply from their water bottles. Sitting in the shade, Mac noticed the rest of the troop avoiding eye contact and sitting away from him. Though he appreciated that soldiers entered their own zone on an op, he sensed trouble and knew that none of them wanted to be fed to a compound full of Kopassus.
Digging in his rucksack, he pulled out the Hershey bars Jim had packed.
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