‘Great. So we have the world’s most porous borders and a foreign outfi t responsible for the big blast,’ snarled Morris, fl icking his butt.
‘But they’re long gone, right, so we arrest the patsies, fi t them up for the whole thing, and then it’s “the Muslims did it”. That the DFAT script, eh Macca?’
Mac shrugged. ‘Your investigation, John.’
Morris’s eyes fl ashed with anger. ‘Fuck the pricks,’ he said as he left.
Mac stayed in the garden for a while, thinking about cops and spies. There’d been one afternoon in Jakarta when Jenny and her transnational sexual slavery crew had been on the tail of a container load of kids. They’d been working on it for two days, no sleep, and had cornered a bunch of businessmen. They had them cold: emails, bank records, trucking documentation and, the clincher, a purchase order for hundreds of kids’ pyjamas, clothes and soft toys.
The plan was to arrest and heavy the business guys, fi nd where the children were being kept, save the kids and bust the slaving racket.
They were on the verge of doing just that – had the forensic guys from Scotland Yard and a Kopassus unit to do the storming. Then someone in the POLRI team snitched, and the word quickly went higher and higher. It soon reached way up into the shitosphere of the political zone and at six minutes before ‘go’ they were stood down. Just like that. It’s how the slave trade worked – more often than not it was protected from above.
By the time Jenny got to the embassy after the op was cancelled, the men who’d stood her down had sensibly vacated. She tracked down the counsellor-political at the Jakarta Golf Club where he was drinking with other Foreign Affairs brass. According to a mate of Mac’s who’d been there, Jenny had stomped up to the table, yelled something about how if it was white, middle-aged men who were being raped for money, the slavers would be shut down immediately.
When the boozed-up Foreign Affairs bloke stood to put a conciliatory hand on her shoulders, she’d pushed him in the chest so hard he’d fallen across the table and into the arms of another Foreign Affairs luncher.
That was Jenny and that was the tension between cops and the apparatus Mac was a part of. So Mac knew where Morris was coming from. He was leading a crew that had to sift through body parts and dental records; ask victims’ relatives the hard questions about whether there was ever a broken bone in their loved one’s right-hand femur; reconstruct and deconstruct and then catch the bastards who did it.
And they had to do it with grieving rellies and an angry public baying for answers. The last thing they needed was a bunch of diplomats over the top of them. Every cop at every level knew where that would lead: you get a bunch of smarties like Chester and Mac in to massage the message and inevitably the tail starts wagging the dog.
Mac headed back to the hotel wondering if that was really Abu Samir on the ship. There was all that and something much bigger weighing on his mind. Freddi’s idea about the pros and the patsies was gnawing away at him. It wasn’t such a far-fetched theory for the pros to operate in the shadow of the more obvious amateurs.
In fact, it was standard operating procedure for most intelligence outfi ts.
CHAPTER 8
Garvs brought two Tigers back from the bar, boogying slightly to Powderfi nger’s ‘My Happiness’, and went straight back into his theories about why the Roosters had got over the Warriors in the rugby league grand fi nal.
Early in their careers Garvs and Mac had become a sort of Laurel and Hardy of the Australian intelligence community: Anton Garvey, the bull-like corporate guy who was lairish on the booze yet very much a man with an offi cial career path; Alan McQueen, more of a solo act and the buddy who made the peace when Garvs got into a blue. Which was often. They’d both been boarders at St Joseph’s schools – Garvs in Sydney and Mac at Nudgee in Brisbane – and talking footy was a highly clinical exercise, like politics or religion was to others.
‘Just goes to show you, Macca,’ said Garvs, his big tanned face serious, ‘that an organised defence beats enthusiastic attack every time.’ Relaxing a bit, he looked around the virtually empty room of an Aussie bar called Tubes, and pondered on where all the sorts had gone.
‘They heard you were coming, Garvs,’ said Mac.
Garvs yeah, yeah ed and wandered over to the bar, looking for nuts.
They’d already had their debrief chat: Mac had told Garvs about Ari and Freddi, the Indon and the Russian viewpoints. Garvs had been more circumspect about what he was working on. The declared ASIS crew down from Jakkers had an image problem: they should have caught the chatter about a bombing and they’d even staged a simulated terror attack in Kuta a year earlier – with AFP and Australian Defence Force involvement – such was the likelihood of an attack on Bali. Mac had been in Afghanistan at the time of the Bali simulation, so Garvs was indoctrinated to the defensiveness and Mac wasn’t.
Garvs shared Mac’s discomfort with the Sari Club’s crater. ‘When I was doing my IED rotation at Holsworthy, we could make a crater with anfo but Christ, we needed a shitload of the stuff,’ said Garvs, shaking his head at the thought of how much of the terrorists’ favoured bomb fuel would be required. ‘And mate, we’d tamp it – it was fl ush with the ground. So these bombers needed, what, a container of anfo and it had to be sitting fl at on Legian Street? Without anyone noticing?’
Legian was a busy street in October. It ran north-south parallel to Kuta Beach, its shops, restaurants and cafes coming right up to the footpaths, which were narrow. Humanity crowded onto and along Legian and neither Mac nor Garvs could imagine how such a large blast would have been managed, let alone clandestinely.
The sunset fl ooded through the windows and Mac fi elded a call from Julie, who was setting up the media centre. Then he got a call from Joe on his new pre-paid Nokia. Still in Manila, Joe wanted to know if there were any dramas. Mac joked that the Prime Minister had turned up for a surprise visit and everyone was drunk. Then he said, ‘Gotcha, Joe,’ and hung up.
He was still waiting for Garvs to return when he suddenly became aware of a shape he knew well. Jenny Toohey was standing on the street outside, her dark brown hair pinned at the sides and pulled into a French plait at the back. She had her clipboard, two mobile phones on one hip and her weight on her other hip, and was using a pen to make a point to a couple of AFP blokes.
Mac groaned. He’d tried to tell Jen that some males took exception to a woman standing like that, telling them how it had to be. She’d assumed he was joking at fi rst, couldn’t understand what he was talking about. In her line of work you had to move quickly and make all the right decisions, and some people just needed to be directed.
What to her was a comfortable posture to many men looked bossy.
The shorter of the federal cops Jen was talking to had averted his eyes from her. Within a week there’d be groups of male cops on the booze, with conversation openers like, That Jenny Toohey is such a piece of work.
Mac toyed with the idea of skipping out the back way and pretending not to have seen his girlfriend. But Garvs came back to the table and did one of his lair’s wolf-whistles. Jenny looked over her shoulder, irritated. Seeing them, she got rid of the blokes and came into the bar. ‘Well, Garvs – how could a girl say no to an opening like that?’
Garvs laughed and they hugged.
‘You’re such a charmer, mate. I’m always amazed you don’t have a string of girls on your arm,’ said Jen, disentangling herself.
Then, moving over to the table, she put her hand on Mac’s shoulder and gave him a dry kiss on the cheek. ‘Hello, you.’
Garvs asked her if she wanted a beer, to which Jenny patted the black Glock on her right hip and said, ‘No thanks, I’m carrying.’
‘So what brings you down, Jen?’ asked Garvs, all smiles and blushing.
He’d had a crush on Jenny for as long as Mac could remember.
‘Situations like this bring out the scumbags. They snatch the kids who can’t fi nd their families. Thought I’d come dow
n, ruin their day.’
Jen had barely taken her eyes off Mac and he sensed he was in trouble. Garvs cottoned on and said he had to use the gents.
As Garvs left, Jenny put the clipboard on the table, put her hands on her hips. ‘See you’ve been making yourself popular with the troops.’
‘Jen!’
‘What, Macca? There’s a problem?’
‘Mate, it’s a job. I didn’t ask for it.’
‘Not what they’re saying.’
Mac sniggered. Bad move.
‘Something funny, McQueen?’
Mac hated it when cops used a surname to put a person in their place.
‘Look, I was getting ready for New York and the next thing I’m being fl own into Kuta. Into this mess – I mean, Jesus!’
Jenny crossed her arms, her ring fi ngers running up her biceps.
‘Well I only got in ninety minutes ago and all I’ve heard is that Delaney and McQueen are running the show. So a couple of DFAT boys are calling the shots for a hundred or so federal cops.’
Mac went to grab his beer, but didn’t drink – he’d lost his thirst.
‘We’re not calling the shots, it’s more like -‘
‘Don’t tell me, Macca. Project management, right?’ she said sneering as she made quote marks with her fi ngers.
‘No! Not at all. Umm, it’s more like a coordination role.’
Jenny did a three-second blink – female for you are so full of shit.
‘You and Chester know anything about the work that you’re managing ? Sorry, coordinating?’
‘Jen…’ said Mac appeasingly, wanting to be out of that gaze.
‘Well, do you? Know what a DVI is, Macca?’
Mac tried to recall. ‘I dunno. Something, something, Investigation?’
‘No, Macca, it’s a Deceased Victim Identifi cation program. Rotating crews are going to be working twenty-four hours a day for as long as it takes, and they’re going to be bagging and tagging bits of human body, storing them and adding them to a massive database. And they’re going to double-check and triple-check every bit of person they add to the database so that when they’re one hundred per cent certain of the ID, they can notify the next of kin. That’s when they get to hand over a plastic bag of body parts. And that’ll be considered a good day.’
Mac looked out the window, exhaling.
‘And you know what, Macca? Our guys are going to be upset and the families are going to be upset and it’s going to be a very emotional experience for everyone involved. And around all this is going to be a criminal investigation and a CT project and a logistics program to repatriate injured people. There’s even going to be a crew to round up the orphaned kids before the slavers get to them. And all my guys want to know is that they can do their jobs without a bunch of smartarses from Foreign Affairs trying to predetermine the conclusions. They can’t work like that Macca, understand?’
It was twilight in the street outside Tubes when they left. Jenny play-punched Mac on the left shoulder, said, ‘Take it easy,’ and walked over to a white Holden Commodore wagon with two male cops sitting on the hood, the tall one talking into a radio.
Mac’s phone rang and as he answered he noticed the short male cop bumping his mate in the arm and both of them jumping off the front of the Commodore, running their hands through their hair.
It was Ari, wanting to talk. Mac said he’d see him in fi ve.
Ari was sitting in a blue Toyota Camry sedan, about two-thirds along Poppies Gang. It was dark and Mac walked the north side of the street fi rst, getting eyes on Ari, seeing his stance, looking for clues.
Anxious? Alone? Nondescript van nearby? Mac came back on the south side of the street.
There were few people around, locals mostly. Most of the Aussies and Kiwis were at Bali International Airport in Denpasar where AFP, Foreign Affairs and ASIS were debriefi ng and processing every one of them before they could get on a plane. According to Jenny they had thirty AFP agents with computer servers and a massive internet connection doing nothing but downloading pictures and video from the tourists’ cameras before they made immigration.
Unarmed and cagey, Mac walked towards Ari’s car and then walked past, looking for anyone who might be hiding. He kept going, stopped behind a palm tree, cased the area and walked to the Toyota, opened the rear door and got in.
‘Kuta Puri,’ said Ari without preamble, nodding his head across the road. ‘You might be interested.’
Mac smelled stale cigarettes and saw a six-pack of large Evian bottles on the fl oor behind the reclined driver’s seat. It was a stake-out car. Mac had been there, done that. He looked across the road to where the Kuta Puri Bungalows sat dispersed among stands of palms and frangipani trees. There were strategic lights in the bushes and he could see some citronella fl ares burning further into the compound in what Mac knew to be the pool and communal barbecue area.
‘What are we looking for, mate?’
‘Hassan,’ mumbled Ari, not taking his eyes off the Kuta Puri.
‘Hassan Ali – Pakistani intelligence.’
Mac looked at him, trying to recall Hassan. He’d never worked in the subcontinent and some of the names weren’t familiar.
‘This Hassan,’ said Ari, ‘he’s in here with the – how you say? – the crew.’
Mac looked through the side window to the Puri, but couldn’t see anything except trees refl ecting a purple sunset. ‘Pakistani intelligence.
So you mean ISI?’
‘Nah, nah, nah,’ said Ari, nodding. ‘He was, and then no more.’
Mac felt a creeping sensation up his neck and spun sideways to see where Ari’s backup was coming from. ‘Where’s your backup, Ari?’ asked Mac, grabbing the door handle.
‘He’s following these other crews,’ shrugged the Russian. ‘In Java, yes?’
Mac paused, intrigued. He wanted the story before he did the Harold. ‘Ari, why were you following me this morning?’
Ari shrugged, grabbed his smokes.
‘Okay, let me put it this way,’ said Mac. ‘Why did you stand out there like a beacon, wanting to get made?’
‘Because,’ said Ari, putting a cigarette between his teeth, ‘I wanted to stay close.’
‘Why me?’
Ari exhaled a plume of blue smoke, picked something off his tongue. ‘Because the very small bird tells me you were coming in from Manila. I thought we could cooperate.’
Mac could feel his adrenaline rising. ‘Don’t screw with me, mate -
I’m only a second away from going,’ he said, pulling the door handle up.
Ari put up a hand. ‘Okay, okay.’
‘Spill. Now,’ snapped Mac, at the end of his fuse.
Ari sighed. ‘My controller told me you were the IAEA. The coincidence was too great, yes?’
Mac’s mind raced. A couple of years ago, he’d done a rotation at the International Atomic Energy Agency – a UN-backed authority that controlled the use and misuse of fi ssionable material, including enriched uranium and plutonium. Mac’s rotation had occurred at a time when two things were attracting major interest from the IAEA: fi rstly, Japan had developed a uranium-enrichment facility and ICBM technology, and had signed on to the US-Australian Theatre Missile Defence system. At the same time, the infamous Doctor A.Q. Khan
– the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist – had been busted selling uranium-enrichment technologies and nuclear bomb designs to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Meantime, Australia had dropped its reticence about selling yellowcake uranium to the world and Aussie mining companies were actively seeking long-term supply contracts with India and China, among others.
So the late 1990s had been an interesting time at the IAEA, with lots of spies and special forces, but Mac still wasn’t putting the whole scenario together.
‘Coincidence?’ said Mac, very slowly.
‘With this bombings, and Hassan is here, and they send in McQueen,’ started Ari, before movement near the Kuta Puri caught his attention.
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Three men emerged from the palms of Kuta Puri. They were dark-skinned, dressed in chinos and trop shirts which, by the look of them, covered handguns carried on the hip. They were built and moved like pros and Mac ducked down as the crew reached a silver Suzuki Vitara, looked for eyes and got in. The driver had a big helmet of black hair, a heavily muscled physique and moved with his hips, like a gorilla. Mac stayed low, his heart racing, feeling naked without a fi rearm.
When the Vitara had gone past them in the opposite direction, towards Legian Street, Ari sprung upright and started the Camry.
Mac should have got out, gone back to the forward command post, supervised a bunch of press releases, tried to make peace with Jen.
Instead, he crawled through the space between the front seats and belted himself in as Ari swung the Camry into a U-turn, pulled the car around to face east and hit the gas.
‘Mate, I need something, yeah?’ said Mac as the transmission screamed through second gear.
Ari gestured towards the glove box, all concentration on the road ahead. Mac fi shed out a black holster-bag and extracted a big, black Russian P9 handgun. Checking mechanically for load, mag and safety, he put it back in the bag between his thighs, where Ari also had his, and fi xed his eyes on the Vitara.
They moved fi fty metres behind the Vitara and kept contact.
Suddenly the Vitara signalled a right-hander and before Mac could fi nish saying ‘Square the triangle’, Ari had already turned right and taken the Camry down a side alley. The Russian was an excellent driver, knew his craft. Dodging rubbish bins and stray cats, they came out on another street, looked to their left, saw a fl ash of the Vitara and then accelerated across the intersection.
They made another parallel route and when they got to the end, there was no more dirt alley. Ari turned left and then right and got behind the Vitara again. Most pros being tailed used counter-surveillance for a couple of minutes before they assumed they were clear. It wasn’t lazy, it was human nature.
They settled in behind the Suzuki and backed off to between eighty and a hundred metres as they headed for Denpasar. Fed up with the cloak and dagger, Mac decided to rile Ari. ‘Mate, I’m in this now. You want to tell me who this Hassan prick is?’
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