Alan McQueen - 01 - Golden Serpent

by Mark Abernethy

  Sawtell looked up. ‘Make it fast, Spikey. I’m running a watch on ya.’

  The other troopers abandoned the security door, tied Spikey’s canvas gear bag to the rappel rope and it was pulled up to the roof.

  Almost immediately the sounds of renovations fi lled the air.

  After nine minutes there was a clunk, and a jerk. And then the roller door was rising. It went up very slow, obviously heavier than your average warehouse door. As it came up, Fitzy was exposed, standing with one hand on the door control knobs, wearing nothing but undies and axle grease.

  Paul and Mac pulled their guns and checked for load as Sawtell beckoned Fitzy out and stationed one of the troopers with the Black Hawk. Then they moved forward into the building.

  It was eerie and warm inside. The air-con had been off for a while and the heat and lack of air made for a musty smell.

  Mac looked up and saw Fitzy’s rope dangling from a duct in the ceiling. Someone was hauling it back out.

  Stretched out in front of them was a standard concrete-slab warehouse. In the middle was a down-ramp to a sub-level. To their left was an admin offi ce. The offi ce closest to the in-door was a controller’s desk. Then there were three other offi ces behind it. And behind those offi ces was a large white demountable.

  They moved along the demountable, passing tubs and gas cookers and underwear hanging out to air. People lived here.

  Sawtell pushed the door to the demountable with his M4 carbine, leaned back and poked his head round. He leaned back again, and motioned with his head for Paul and Mac to take a look.

  Paul walked in fi rst. Hit the light. Froze. Mac looked over his shoulder. There were four cot beds down each side of the demountable.

  Wood-veneer fi nish on the inside. You could see clothes trunks fi tted beneath each bed. On the beds were fi ve men in various states of dress.

  Dead. Pools of dark blood, set and dried.

  Paul stepped forward, making a show of avoiding the blood.

  Stowing his SIG, he knelt beside one of the men, who looked about twenty-one. Chinese, probably southern coastal provinces, his eyes open, tongue slack and face still lively, except where the slug had exited below the right cheekbone. Paul pushed the man’s face back, twisted it slightly, found what he was looking for. The entry hole was just behind the left ear.

  Paul gently parted the dead man’s hair around the entry wound.

  There was a dark charcoal-like marking on the scalp around the hole.

  Paul scratched at it and the dark stuff came straight off.

  ‘Executions,’ said Paul, standing. ‘They used suppressors - don’t scorch but they leave a sooty residue. Shot at close range. Maybe knew the killers?’

  Mac looked from corpse to corpse. ‘What the fuck happened here?’

  They fanned out. Sawtell’s boys heading down the right side of the top warehouse level, Mac, Paul and Sawtell taking the left side.

  The containers were mostly open. Sawtell pointed the M4 into them, the Maglite on the bottom of the barrel illuminating the interiors.

  Lots of wood shavings and polystyrene balls. In one container they found Ming vases still in their wooden cases. In another there were racks of paintings - maybe two hundred of them.

  Before they went downstairs, Mac found a locked forty-foot green container. Sawtell held up his hand and they walked the box, tapping on the steel, asking if there was anyone in there. Asked Paul what hello was in Tagalog.

  Without kids to worry about, the Berets had the doors off in twenty seconds. Mac poked his head in. It looked like two large objects arranged end to end, covered in tarps. Mac asked for a Ka-bar and slashed the fi rst tarp off, peeled it back. A red car with a black horse on a yellow badge. A Ferrari.

  He slashed the second tarp back. A white sports car with a sky blue stripe over it, end to end. Mac, Paul and Sawtell looked at one another. Shrugged.

  ‘Must be fl ash, I guess,’ said Paul.

  ‘I guess,’ said Sawtell.

  Sawtell yelled at Spikey and Spikey jogged over.

  ‘You know about cars,’ said Sawtell. ‘What’s this?’

  Spikey’s face lit up. ‘Oh man! You are freaking kidding! This red one here is a Ferrari Enzo. Worth over a million bucks. Hard to tell because every time one sells, the price goes up. Only four hundred made.’

  Sawtell asked about the white one.

  ‘That is the fi nest grain-fed all-American sports racer ever built.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Sawtell.

  ‘That’s a Ford GT40. Won Le Mans three years in a row.

  Kicked Ferrari’s ass.’ He nodded at it. ‘Looks original. I’d say a ‘68

  prototype.’

  Sawtell asked if it had a price on it.

  ‘Hard to say,’ said Spikey, like he was a medical specialist giving an opinion. ‘You can’t buy ‘em. They swap hands privately. God knows what this is doing in a container in Singapore.’

  Mac was starting to get the picture. Diane had told him that Sabaya and Garrison had taken off with thousands of tons of gold. What they were looking at was the stuff left behind.

  Mac was getting the creeps. He wanted to search the sub-level and do it quick.

  Going down the ramp Sawtell asked if Mac was all right. ‘Yeah, mate. Just got the willies.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Those dead blokes.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Clock the haircuts?’

  ‘Aah, yeah …?’

  ‘Worse than a para’s, mate.’

  Paul laughed.

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Mac, his breath coming faster. ‘And did you see those beds?’

  Paul nodded, knowing what Mac was getting at. Mac turned to Sawtell as they got to the sub-level. ‘See those beds, John?’

  ‘Sure did, my man.’

  ‘Only one place in the world where a man has such a bad haircut, and a perfect bed,’ said Mac, checking for load.

  ‘And I don’t need to tell either of you shit-kickers where that might be, now do I?’

  CHAPTER 46

  They found the other Chinese soldiers in the far corner of the sub-level. All three of them had been shot in the head with suppressed handguns. Paul reckoned standard 9 mm loads - NATO Nines. Mac knelt, had a look at the assault rifl es that were on them or scattered around: Type 95s, the standard PLA assault rifl e. They were standing in a People’s Liberation Army facility.

  There were no containers on this level and Mac could see this was where most of the recent vehicular movement had come from. There were tyre tracks around the sub-level and up the ramp and a diesel tug sat where it had been turned off. Big steel trolleys were in various states of use. They had collapsible sides and large-diameter rubber tyres. In other places there were steel pallets designed for forklifts.

  The troopers ambled around as if in a trance. On a dozen or so of the pallets that had been left abandoned there were stacks of gold bars. Huge bricks of the stuff. The four hundred troy ounce monsters that alone were worth about US$160,000 a piece. Spikey tried to pick one up with one hand and failed.

  On one of the transport trolleys there were at least eighty of the bricks. As if they’d been loaded up but then they couldn’t quite fi t them in the ship.

  Mac was getting very, very paranoid. The amount of wealth that had walked out of this facility in one go was beginning to feel like an astronomical number that would have to be countered. One of those cosmic actions that needed a reaction. And the Chinese military was a big enough pendulum to swing back and create the counter-force.

  Based simply on what he was looking at, there was US$50 million in leftovers. What had Cookie Banderjong asked him in Sulawesi?

  Where did the gold always go? The Chinese! Well done, Mr Macca!

  Looking over at Paul, Mac could see fear there too.

  ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ asked Mac.

  ‘I’m thinking that this is a PLA facility,’ said Paul. ‘I’m thinking someone stole a shitload f
rom here. And I’m thinking that the last thing any of us need in our lives is to have the PLA believe that we are the thieves.’

  ‘Bingo.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘How much is here?’

  ‘I reckon about fi fty million, US.’

  ‘If they left fi fty million as the crumbs, what the fuck did they take?’ said Sawtell, joining them.

  They all looked at each other. Enormity dawning.

  ‘Well?’ said Sawtell.

  Mac didn’t want to exaggerate the haul. ‘Well if they took twenty bars for every one they left …’

  ‘You saying Garrison and Sabaya are fl oating around out there with a billion dollars in the hold?’ interrupted Paul, clearly alarmed.

  Mac shrugged. ‘I don’t know. What I do know is I don’t want to be standing here when the Chinese generals turn up.’

  Sawtell and Paul nodded at each other.

  ‘I need my teeth pulled,’ said Mac, ‘I’ll see my dentist.’

  The headsets crackled with urgent yells from topside. They ran up the ramp, troopers leading the way, emerging with M4s at the shoulder, covering one another.

  Swivelling to the left they saw three Asian men in suits with their hands up in front of the Black Hawk. The Green Beret who’d been left to guard the helo was yelling at them to get to their knees. The pilot had an M4 at his shoulder too. The guys in suits were reluctant to drop.

  Mac and Paul jogged behind, nervous, breathless. The troopers went straight up to the suits. Spikey butted the fi rst one he saw, swinging and landing the black rifl e butt square behind the fi rst guy’s left ear. The guy dropped like a sand bag.

  The leader of the men said, ‘Okay, okay,’ and got to his knees.

  Mac was panting when he got in front of them. He scanned the area to see where the rest were coming from. Sawtell was already checking that.

  The suits were Chinese. Paul jabbered in Mandarin. Their leader

  - about forty-fi ve, solid build, charcoal suit - jabbered back, forceful.

  Paul asked him something. The guy shrugged, spook-style.

  Paul turned to Mac. ‘They speak English. Not saying who they work for.’

  Mac leaned into Paul’s ear. ‘MSS?’

  ‘I’d say General Staff intelligence,’ mumbled Paul.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said the head guy, shaking his head at his friend. ‘He needs an ambulance.’

  ‘Who are you?’ said Mac.

  ‘Who are you, might be a more appropriate question,’ the guy replied.

  ‘Really, champ?’

  ‘Ah. So we have the Australian,’ said the head guy with a knowing smile. ‘You must be McQueen?’

  Mac didn’t like that. In the intel world, it was plain rude. ‘Don’t worry about the Australian, mate. Didn’t someone tell you never to creep up on the US Army? Might get the whole wrong idea.’

  ‘Can we get up now?’ the guy said, almost haughty.

  Mac nodded and the Chinese bloke stood, brushed off his pants, held his suit jacket open. Sawtell sent off Spikey and Jansen, who came back with a couple of handguns.

  The Chinese bloke held his hands open.

  ‘What’s your name?’ said Mac.

  ‘Call me Wang.’

  ‘I’ll call you wanker, you keep on like this,’ said Mac, moving his Heckler up a fraction. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Wang chewed gum, arrogant, not in the least intimidated. ‘I’m the managing director of Kaohsiung Holdings - the owner of this facility,’ he said, hands on hips.

  Mac was getting the creeps. Big time. He turned to Paul. ‘Mate, can you run that with Don, at the Chinook? Kaohsiung Holdings.’

  Paul got straight on it.

  Mac turned back to Wang. ‘Where you registered, Wang?’

  ‘Singapore, of course,’ said Wang, looking at the open roller door.

  ‘So you broke into my company’s premises?’

  Mac could see how this guy got his start in life. He’d bet it was secret police. The whole answerin-aquestion thing.

  ‘Just needed to take a shit, actually,’ he said. ‘Found a great little dunny. Red car. Nice leather, comfy little throne room.’

  ‘I suppose you realise that this is technically a diplomatic zone?’

  countered Wang, smirking.

  ‘I suppose you realise this is technically a crime scene?’ Mac snapped back.

  Wang rolled his eyes, like he was tired of these games. ‘You are not going to like the diplomatic consequences of what you are doing, Mr McQueen.’

  ‘Really? The orange ovies and paper slippers might not suit you either when the United States government fi ngers you for thieving their nerve agent.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘This is the last known transit point for a consignment of VX

  nerve agent that was stolen from the Department of Defense yesterday.

  I’m just running your bona fi des through DIA right now.’

  ‘Oh, come on. We just got here,’ said Wang.

  ‘I have eyewitnesses who will swear that you turned up and took responsibility for the whole show.’

  Paul interrupted, got in Mac’s ear. ‘Kaohsiung Holdings is a front company for the PLA General Staff. DIA have them as primarily an arms dealing group.’

  Mac glanced at Wang, who was starting to look frazzled.

  ‘Look, McQueen, I’m under time constraints. What do you want?’

  said Wang.

  ‘I want to know what connection your company has with the Golden Serpent terrorists,’ said Mac, unsmiling.

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  He was too pompous too quickly. A liar’s tell. An honest man would have answered with confusion, slightly mystifi ed. Wang had been ready for it.

  ‘Okay, Wang. Tell me. There’s a bunch of PLA lads down there.

  Dead. They’ve been shot at close range. Why would they have allowed their killers to get so close? Maybe they knew them, huh?’

  Wang was confused now. ‘Dead?’

  ‘Sure. Young lads too.’

  Wang rabbited something at his offsider. The bloke shrugged.

  ‘What’s happened in there?’ asked Wang.

  ‘Well, put it this way, Wang. There’s a lot of open spaces where the gold bars used to be.’

  Wang’s chest seemed to defl ate in front of their eyes, his breath catching like a man with angina. He just managed to stop gulping long enough to croak at Mac, ‘The gold?’

  ‘There’s about two hundred bars left.’

  Wang turned pale, looked like he might keel over. He shook his head absent-mindedly, possibly wondering how quickly he could get his immediate family to a new country. Fixing Mac with a stare which was no longer arrogant, he said, ‘Um, how? How did they - ?’

  ‘Well that’s what we have to talk about, Wang. See, we need to fi nd your ship too,’ said Mac.

  Wang spun on his heel and looked back at the quayside as if to say, I knew something large should have been there. He gabbled at his offsider, who shrugged again.

  Wang turned back, totally panicked now.

  Mac winked. ‘Now we’re in the diplomacy zone, champ.’

  Mac and Paul spelled it out very clearly to Mr Wang and his associate: the VX was non-negotiable.

  Sitting on the side of the Black Hawk they watched Sawtell’s boys get the butted Chinese suit on his feet again, vomit all down his jacket.

  Wang was still in a state of shock. They’d taken him into the building, shown him around. Mac was disappointed with his priorities.

  He’d winced at the dead boys upstairs, but when he got down the ramp and saw the space almost empty, Wang put his face in his hands as if he was going to cry.

  So they’d talked it through. Mac wanted the name and codes and IDs for the ro-ro ship. He wanted them quick so he could get DIA tracking the thing.

  ‘What do we get? Where’s the gold?’ argued Wang.

  ‘Mate, the gold’s on the ship. Take the frigging gold - we don’t care.
We have a couple of very bad blokes running around out there and they’re armed with VX nerve agent. You want that being detonated in Shangers?’

  Wang shook his head.

  ‘So let’s hear it.’

  Wang stammered, made a few false-starts - classic liar stuff. ‘Um, the ship is called Hainan Star.’

  He looked pained.

  ‘Come on, mate,’ said Paul. ‘Time is money.’

  ‘I can’t talk about these matters,’ stammered Wang.

  ‘You’d rather I ask than you tell?’ asked Mac.

  Wang nodded quickly.

  ‘ Hainan Star got all the satellite tracking gear on it?’ asked Mac.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘ Hainan Star linked into that AIS maritime broadcast band?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Any of that gold come from Burma, Iran, Syria, North Korea or al-Qaeda?’ said Mac.

  Embarrassed, Wang whispered, ‘None of your business.’

  Wang was right about one thing. The south end of Brani was a diplomatic zone. By the time Mac and Paul were out of the Black Hawk and hauling Wang in to meet Don and Hatfi eld, the Singaporeans and Chinese had a posse of chiefs doing their rain dance on the Keppel Terminal apron.

  Mac couldn’t believe what he was seeing: it was classic offi ce guy stuff. There was an emergency with stolen nerve agent, but a certain type of man could always fi nd the time to make his little offi ce empire the priority. Mac and Paul twigged early: the Kaohsiung Holdings property was a clearing house and repository for the PLA General Staff. Singapore had the security, had the huge throughput that would hide an ‘invisible’ ship, and it had small armies of brokers, bankers, solicitors and accountants who could turn gold into all sorts of legitimate assets. Singapore was set up to do business, and the amount of business Kaohsiung Holdings did in the city was probably too great to allow legalities to get in the way.

  There was another reason for Singapore’s pre-eminence as a gold and cash repository for the Chinese. It was the global centre of an underground gold-clearance and banking system called fi e chen. Similar to the Muslim hawala that operated in the Middle East, fi e chen was outside government or regulatory control and operated on a transnational basis of trust. It was racially exclusive, too, and family-delineated. You couldn’t partake in fi e chen unless you could show a multigeneration connection to it. One of the worst arguments Mac had ever had with Jenny had been about fi e chen. He’d said it was like the freemasons. She’d said bullshit, that secret transnational banking systems were one of the reasons slavers got away with it so easily.