Alan McQueen - 01 - Golden Serpent

by Mark Abernethy

  The other guy reappeared with orange cable for Jansen’s angle grinder, and then picked up the pinch bar.

  The children still banged and yelled.

  Jansen powered up and stepped over to the door bolts. Sparks poured like an orange waterfall as he went to work.

  The two doors had big handles which folded inwards where the doors met. When the handles were folded down, they locked in place security bars that extended from the top to the bottom of each door. Each door had two vertical locking bars and there was a massive German padlock securing the handles over one another in the centre of the doors. Jansen had to chop out the centre sections of the security bars; the German lock would be hardened steel and would take too long.

  The noise and smell were too much for Paul, and the medic guys escorted him away. Mac went with them and pulled out the phone, hitting redial. Jenny picked up and said, ‘Almost there.’

  Mac jogged up the service ramps to the main warehouse entry, pressed a button and the huge roller door went up. The scream of the angle grinder burst out into the sunlight.

  The frontage apron of the warehouse now hosted a Gazelle and a Black Hawk, the pilots chewing the fat.

  After three minutes a blue Commodore wagon raced onto the front apron area, a POLRI light truck behind it.

  The Commodore stopped beside Mac, Jenny in the front passenger seat. Mac just said, ‘Sub-level, you can drive down.’

  ‘You okay?’ said Jenny.

  Mac shook his head, pointed into the building.

  They squealed off, the POLRI truck following. A third vehicle parked on the apron. It was a mid-sized, unmarked bus. Empty.

  Two POLRI women got out and opened the side storage areas, pulling out piles of blankets, white towels, portable shower stands and large blue plastic bags. One bag fell over, spilling children’s gear on the concrete apron. There were dresses, undies, sandals.

  Soft toys.

  Mac waited for the ambulance and directed it down to the sub-level.

  As he walked down he felt his pulse increasing again. He gagged on the smell, fl inched at the screaming noise, feeling the fear and pain in the people down there.

  The door was almost off when Mac arrived. Sawtell stood behind his team, eyes huge, a mix of fear and rage, his body poised like a professional wrestler about to clinch.

  A POLRI woman videotaped the proceedings, while Jenny yelled into a radio handset, one fi nger in her left ear. After she got off the radio she conferred with her POLRI colleagues.

  A decision apparently made, she walked over to Sawtell, who turned to her. For a second Mac saw a scared boy under that machine-like exterior.

  The angle grinder suddenly free-revved for a split second and Jansen shut it down. Smoke hung, mixing with the container smell.

  Hideous.

  The kids started up again as Jansen’s offsider pulled back on a pinch bar. Metal twisted and ground against itself, and the right-hand door swung open like the scene in a ghost movie.

  Mac felt bile coming up as the stench fl ooded the enclosed space.

  A small dark fi gure was the fi rst out. Cambodian. Five years old.

  Big eyes. Naked. Shit all over her.

  Looked around. Confused.

  ‘Maa?’ she said.

  CHAPTER 42

  Mac, Sawtell and Paul sat speechless outside the offi ce section of the warehouse.

  Paul had been cleaned, stitched and given a morphine needle.

  He didn’t want to be in the ambulance. Wanted the more critically ill kids in it.

  Sawtell was blanked out. Thousand-yard stare into nothing. Even his own men were leaving him alone.

  Mac had cordoned off the far-end ramp to the sub-level, hoping the POLRI might fi nd some Garrison blood samples down there. He wondered what was happening in Singapore and tried to understand the situation now that he’d actually seen Garrison and Diane together in a getaway car.

  Mac was so tired he could barely keep his eyelids up, even with the circus that had descended around them.

  To their left, the POLRI women scrubbed down the healthier children in the portable showers, dried them off, photographed them, booked them. Then they dressed them and put them in the bus with an orange number tag on their new clothes.

  Aged about four to ten, there were about seventy of them, boys and girls.

  Beside the bus Jenny spoke into a mobile phone, her offsider beside her with a clipboard. Every few seconds Jenny leaned over to read out numbers: probably relaying container ID to someone at United States Customs and Border Control or the Jakarta Container Port.

  A POLRI Criminal Investigation Division team dealt with the two dead Garrison guards upstairs. Another team processed the rescued hostages from a POLRI van by the helos. Jeremy’s kids stayed inside, but Wylie’s missus emerged and sat on the step box, lit a smoke, inhaled deep, lucky to be alive.

  More teams from POLRI, FBI, Scotland Yard and AFP appeared ready to box-scan every container to see if there were more kids down there. They could do it with heartbeat detectors or thermo imagers.

  Mac found it shaming that while sexual-servitude traffi cking was a crime that happened mostly in South-East Asia, it was driven by demand and money from Western countries.

  Apart from the sheer horror of what he’d witnessed, Mac had never realised what a logistical nightmare the whole thing was. Now he could see why Jenny was gone for days and weeks at a time, working herself to a standstill. Once you found a container like this, you had to work back to the ship, back to the freight company, back through the terminal gate-logs, back to the trucking companies and the clients in order to see where it came from and whether there might be more like it. And then you had to work forwards, too, try to fi nd where other containers from the same source might be going, where another box full of children might be sitting, waiting for the paedophile industry to hand over the money.

  It was a harrowing detail for cops and Mac knew it chewed them up at a hell of a rate. Not only did they have to make arrests and have an evidence bag at the end of the process, they also had child victims in the most appalling and distressed states. There were only so many hours in the day; only so many resources. Only so many containers you could search.

  In front of Mac the liaison people from various embassies attempted to straighten out the in-country cooperation angle with the POLRI. The way it usually worked was the police had a job to do and wanted to take statements from those involved in, or witness to, the incidents, regardless of their nationality. The liaisons’ job was to insist that that was not in the spirit or the letter of the agreement between the countries.

  The Yanks had no interest in allowing a Special Forces captain to make a statement to Indon police. And the British weren’t even acknowledging Paul. A Pommie liaison woman’s voice rose over the pack. ‘If there was a British national involved in this incident - and I’m not confi rming there was …’

  Mac saw a Javanese BAIS operative he knew, Edi Sitepu. He was listening in on the diplomatic hoo-ha. He caught Mac’s eye and came over.

  They shook and Edi sat down. ‘Can’t work this one out,’ said Edi to Mac. ‘Lots of talking about Abu Sabaya, but was he here?’

  Mac shook his head, sipped some water. He hoped at some stage during his lifetime that smell was going to get out of his mouth.

  ‘Garrison and Sabaya must have split. Don’t know where either of them are.’

  ‘That Peter Garrison. Bad news that one,’ said Edi, shaking his head. ‘You know we tipped off the Americans about him last year?’

  Mac didn’t know.

  ‘But it turned into this.’ Edi nodded at the British and American embassy folks doing their thing.

  Mac remained silent, exhausted, over it.

  ‘The thing to do was to get us in a loop, hey Mac?’ said Edi.

  Normally Mac loved the way Indons got Western phrases slightly wrong, but his mood was too bleak. ‘Would have been great before Bali, too, eh Edi?’

  Mac sh
ouldn’t have said it.

  Edi’s face darkened. He and Mac hadn’t always seen eye to eye.

  The Timor thing and Mac’s involvement in some aspects of it had created a stand-offi shness between them, even though they could have shared some more basic operational chatter over the years. Thing was, Mac’s legacy in Timor saw him gravitate closer to the old President-controlled BAKIN - now BIN - at the expense of the armed forces-controlled intelligence organisation, BAIS. So it was hard for Mac to simply make a call to Edi and get him in the loop on something like Garrison and Sabaya, even though he wanted the Indon perspective.

  ‘Look, Edi, why don’t I tell you what I know and you tell me how we’re going to catch these pricks - fair?’

  Edi shrugged.

  ‘So what are the cops saying about the bodies up there?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Dunno, Mac. They not talking with us.’

  Same old same old, thought Mac, wearied by it all: cops, spooks and military refusing to speak to one another.

  He reckoned a solid police ID on Garrison’s thugs - the ones who didn’t make it past Sawtell’s boys - might be useful.

  ‘You got anything on the BMW?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Corporate registration in the name of a shelf company. Import/

  export. All the usual shit. Nothing linking it with Garrison, but we’re following up right now.’

  ‘So, how’d it go down in Singapore?’ asked Edi, pushing for his own information.

  Mac felt like Edi was going too far.

  ‘It was a decoy, mate. Sure of it.’

  ‘Decoy for what?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘Just didn’t feel like real terrorism.’

  Edi made a humming sound deep in his throat. ‘Funny timing though, eh Mac?’

  ‘Timing?’

  ‘You know, with Xiong in Singapore the same morning.’

  Mac looked at him, his interest aroused by the Indonesian perspective. ‘Tell me.’

  Edi shrugged. ‘Probably nothing. What do the Americans call it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Inciting incident? Something like that?’

  Mac was so tired, but he smiled. ‘Inciting incident?’

  Inciting incidents were what the CIA created in order to justify a response, usually of a military nature. They’d get their contractors to stage an atrocity somewhere and then false-fl ag it - get the media and other governments to pin it on the government they wanted to invade or launch a coup against.

  Mac was running fl at-out trying to see where Edi got Singapore into the mix. ‘You’re not telling me the CIA is in this? Garrison is a black sheep, far as I can tell. He’s not with the program - is he?’

  Edi smiled. Big Javanese smile. ‘Mr Mac, inciting incidents don’t have to be Agency. Just see this from Asian eyes. Which country wants a reason for Singapore to embrace its military? Perhaps in the form of a naval base?’

  Mac clicked. ‘So the Chinese get an incident that focuses the need for their military presence in Singapore. What do Garrison and Sabaya get?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Edi mused. ‘Some of that Chinese gold?’

  Mac thought about it. The Chinese economy was the world’s fastest-growing, but at the highest levels of its government, everything was still transacted with gold.

  ‘You saying the Chinese paid Garrison and Sabaya to pull that thing on Golden Serpent?’

  ‘Sure. Does the CIA use its own people or offi cial budget to pull its stunts? Remember Irangate? That was an off-the-books funding operation to get money to paramilitary contractors in Central America.’

  Mac nodded. ‘I guess it was.’

  ‘Garrison is probably tolerated in the Agency because he’s their funding guy,’ said Edi.

  ‘Know what, Edi? You in the offi ce tomorrow morning?’

  Edi shrugged.

  ‘I might call you,’ said Mac.

  ‘You do that.’

  Mac noticed one of the POLRI women had given Paul a bottle of water, but he wasn’t drinking it. Mac opened it, gave it to him. ‘Keep the fl uids up, mate.’

  Paul had been strapped by the medics and was referring to his rib-wound as a ‘nick’. He drank, his face a mask of impassivity. Mac wondered if everyone still had that taste in their mouths.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Mac. ‘We’ve forgotten about some thing, haven’t we? The other hostage, the offi cer from Golden Serpent.’

  Paul shrugged.

  ‘Well, what’s that about?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Either they’re going to make more demands, or they’ve got another ship,’ said Paul, then looked away, wincing with the pain in his ribs. ‘You saying that there’s no more demands? What they came for is actually on a ship somewhere?’

  ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, if we agree the Singers thing was a hoax?’

  ‘A decoy.’

  ‘Okay, decoy,’ said Mac.

  ‘So why did Garrison come to Jakarta?’ said Paul, suspicious.

  ‘Don’t know, mate. Take care of business? It’s where his hostages were.’

  ‘And where’s Sabaya gone?’

  ‘What if where he’s gone has nothing to do with it? What if the key to this is what’s on the ship he’s hijacked?’ said Mac. ‘Remember Wylie saying the third hostage is a Canadian bloke with a lot of experience in these waters?’

  ‘And Sabaya referred to the Canadian as the “asset”,’ said Paul, his face lighting up. ‘You know, there was that strange thing in Singers.

  Remember, when Weenie came on the radio and told us that all those ships were demanding to get out of the port?’

  ‘Sure do.’

  ‘And you called it a stampede.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Paul looked into the middle distance, thinking. ‘You know, you create a lot of confusion by getting that kind of exodus in a major port. But Garrison and Sabaya weren’t pulling a real hostage crisis, were they?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘So why did they need that chaos?’ asked Paul.

  That’s what I’m getting at,’ said Mac. ‘I think they staged that thing to get hold of a ship. They knew the MPA would be looking elsewhere. The Coast Guard were obviously focused on one thing. US

  Army could only think of nerve agent. Same with the cops.’

  ‘Get the attention on one thing …’

  ‘… steal a totally other thing.’

  ‘Then, once they were standing on their new ship, they trigger a race for the exits, give themselves a head start,’ said Paul.

  ‘No ship owner is really going to know what’s going on till this dies down,’ said Mac, ‘and it won’t be over for another two hours or more.’

  Paul swivelled, eyes ablaze. ‘If your theory’s right, they’ve given themselves a head start of - what? - ten hours, eleven hours?’

  ‘Depends on exactly when they left Golden Serpent and went to Brani Island with -‘ Abruptly, the last few days tumbled over and things fell into place. Mac sifted his subconscious.

  ‘What is it, Mac?’ asked Paul.

  Mac shook his head slightly. ‘This may sound crazy, but I think we saw the ship they hijacked. I think they were on it.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When we came out of our swim to Brani and came up alongside her.’

  ‘That white thing?’

  ‘Yeah - roll-on/roll-off. I thought I saw something on the upper decks but I couldn’t confi rm it. What I remember now is that the tailgate was down on the dock. Remember that?’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘When we were taking off, there was a sound in that building, remember?’

  ‘No, I don’t. You saying they were in there?’ said Paul.

  ‘I think they were waiting for us to go so they could continue loading it up. They’d already put out the scare story to all the ships. We stumbled into the middle of it.’

  ‘So that’s our ship?’

  ‘Dunno. Might have to tip the Singaporean cops to it.’

  Paul looked a
t Mac. ‘Not our fi ght, mate.’

  ‘Not our fi ght,’ echoed Mac.

  Mac thought about fi nding a cab, going south, booking into the Marriott or Regent with his DBS Visa card, and sleeping solid. If he could get through on a phone call fi rst time, he might tip the Singapore cops off. But he doubted they’d listen. He’d play it by ear.

  He couldn’t see anyone from the Aussie Embassy. Looked like he’d got lucky, sidestepped the paperwork. He’d catch up with all that later.

  Pop in on his way to Soekarno-Hatta.

  As he eased weight on to his legs to test how his knee was doing, Jenny came over, sat between Mac and Sawtell.

  ‘You okay, Mr Macca?’

  ‘Way better than those kids. That’s for sure.’

  ‘Believe it or not I’ve seen far worse. No corpses this time,’ said Jenny. ‘The guys are pretty happy about that.’

  Mac nodded absently, no idea how to express what he was thinking.

  ‘Back to Sydney?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘In a couple of days. Gonna sleep fi rst.’

  ‘Where?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘Marriott. Regent. Wherever the cab stops.’

  Jenny looked at the bus. ‘Why don’t you sleep at the apartment?’

  she said, voice light, just doing a mate a favour.

  Mac nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said, keeping it light too.

  ‘Hang around for half an hour while I fi nish up here and I’ll drive you over.’

  Mac went to say ‘Thanks’ but no sound came out.

  Jen was about to get up when she noticed Sawtell, slumped between his knees, face in his hands.

  Jenny put a comforting hand on his back, said, ‘Hello.’

  Sawtell sat up like he’d just woken up, rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. His lips were a bit swollen.

  ‘I’m Jenny,’ she said, putting out her hand. Sawtell took it, mind elsewhere.

  Jenny got him talking, about his wife, their plans to have kids, how he wondered if he could do that now. He talked about growing up in a wealthy country, taking everything for granted.

  Sawtell gradually regained some of his colour, and asked Jenny how she could spend her life doing this.

  ‘See that container?’ said Jenny.