Counter Attack

Chapter 46

The afternoon rains eased shortly after eight o’clock and the four of them made for the pre-arranged ferry ride across the Mekong.

The ferryman didn’t want the Chev on his small wooden ferry, but when Mac offered a further inducement, Sammy reluctantly agreed to pay it and they slipped into the dusk, the red sunset poking through the lifting black clouds as they reached the banks opposite Kratie.

Heading north on the riverside track, Mac rode ahead with Didge, doing not much more than sixty k an hour through the mud and puddles, keeping enough distance that the motorbikes did not look to be connected with the truck. A keen observer would see an M4 carbine over the riders’ shoulders and maybe handguns on their hips, but the locals were used to UN and World Bank consultants being accompanied by armed escorts.

It was dark as they reached the ferry head opposite Stung Treng and turned left for the interior and the wilderness of Chamkar.

Riding like that for ten minutes past peasant farms and a small village, Mac slowed to a stop in the beginnings of the forest and walked back to talk with Sammy and Bongo, who sat in the front seat of the idling Silverado.

‘Give us thirty minutes exactly,’ said Mac, as the other men set the mission clocks on their watches. ‘There’s a fork up ahead — take the left and you’ll come to the checkpoint in three or four minutes. And come in hot. Okay?’

Walking back to Didge with two Kevlar vests from the Silverado, Mac laid it out. They would take the right fork in the road, double around, neutralise the checkpoint, and wait for the others. If they got this part right, it would make the compound infiltration much easier.

‘Sure, boss,’ said Didge.

‘I’d like to avoid gunfire, if we can.’

Didge winked. ‘No worries.’

Killing their headlights as they made the fork, Mac slowed and told Didge through the radio headset, ‘It’s all yours, mate.’

Australia’s army special forces — the 4RAR Commandos and the SAS — both trained on bikes and were experts across broken ground at night with no headlamps.

After three minutes of running, the radio crackled in Mac’s ear. ‘Drop to first, boss,’ said Didge. ‘Stay close.’

Pulling off the track, Didge rode in first gear through the trees. Following, Mac struggled to stay upright as they dipped into dry creek beds, wove between trees and vines, and ducked swinging branches. Mac had no idea how Didge could see his way across the ground — there was only a half-moon and the knots of roots and collapsed tree trunks loomed up at Mac as they picked their way through the forest, the bikes purring at low revs. Mac concentrated on Didge’s bulk as it swayed rhythmically until the brake light in front of him glowed red and Mac stopped behind it. Killing their engines, Didge dismounted and crouched beside the bike. Duck-walking up to the big Cape Yorker, Mac looked over his shoulder.

‘Our eleven o’clock,’ Didge said. ‘Lights.’

Bringing up his rubber-coated Leicas, Mac stared through the trees and found two windows in a shack, glowing yellow. As the bikes pinged, Didge put up his finger, sniffed.

‘Frying fish,’ he said, nodding. ‘Raised voices — two males, maybe three.’

Mac couldn’t smell or hear a thing.

‘You want to cut the lines, boss?’ said Didge, unhitching his M4 and checking the breech.

‘No,’ said Mac. ‘If there’s a junction box, I’d rather unplug it and then replace it.’

‘Okay, boss,’ said Didge, looking at his watch. ‘We got four minutes thirty till the truck comes through. You mind if I lead?’

‘You lead,’ said Mac, glad the soldier had offered.

Checking their rifles and magazines, Didge put his left arm through the strap and flipped his elbow over it, pulling the rifle to his shoulder. It was a special forces trick to create what they called a ‘good shoulder’. If you had a good shoulder on your weapon, then you forced your shoulders and face to point where the rifle was pointed, so there needn’t be a delay between seeing the target and shooting the target. Mac hadn’t been in the Royal Marines long enough to perfect the stance, but the professionals could keep a good shoulder all day in the field and many of them swore that the habit had been the difference between a shallow grave and living to enjoy a cold beer.

Following Didge through the high-canopy forest, Mac stayed close. Didge was easily six-three but he moved like a cat, ducking smoothly under branches, fluidly stepping over logs without losing his shoulder on the weapon and avoiding the forest debris that would make a sound if stepped on.

When the shack loomed twenty metres away, Didge found a hide behind a short tree and called up Mac, pointing. Looking along the finger, Mac saw the grey plastic telecom box, about one metre up the side of the wooden shack.

Didge pointed at Mac and made the shape of a gun, and Mac nodded; yes, he would cover Didge.

Slipping out of the shadows into the dull glow from the high windows, Didge paused like a deer, listening and scenting. Moving quickly in a crouch to the telecom box, Didge had the door flap open in two seconds, his hand went in and then the door was shut. The phone line was now disconnected.

Leaning against the wooden wall of the shack, Didge looked at Mac and put his finger to his lips, indicating they had company. Lifting his rifle, feeling the sweat run under his palms, Mac waited as plastic-sandal footsteps crushed gravel and then a figure moved from the light of the shack’s front and into the semi-darkness of the well head.

Casting a bead on the figure, Mac put his finger on the M4’s trigger — one turn in the wrong direction, and Didge’s cover would be blown. Mac would then shoot.

A loud beeping sound came from the checkpoint quarters, triggering male voices. As Mac tensed to make his shot, the figure turned, revealing a pretty woman’s face. Mac hesitated and he noticed a hunchback, but the hump moved.

‘Shit,’ said Mac. He had a woman and child in his sights.

The woman dropped her water bucket as boots clattered inside the shack, the beeping still loud.

‘What’s the beeping?’ said Didge’s voice in a whisper over the radio. ‘What’s happening?’

The woman ran for the shack as Mac burst from his hide and went after her.

Didge beat Mac to the corner and accelerated around the side of the checkpoint quarters to the road, the woman running into the night as Didge kicked the main door open.

‘Get her,’ said Didge as the door came off its hinges and the air tore open with the sound of automatic rifle fire.

Setting off after the woman, Mac wondered what he was going to do — she was within range, but he couldn’t shoot her, not with a baby on her back. The scream of a large diesel engine sounded and the Silverado arrived, its lights killed.

‘Stop,’ said Mac at the woman’s back. ‘Stop or I shoot.’

Turning as she stopped almost in front of the approaching Chev, she showed her face and Mac lowered his rifle. Heaving for breath, he turned back to help Didge and a shot sounded. Mac left his feet and headed for the dirt, feeling like a horse had kicked him in the ribs under his right armpit.

Gunfire roared and men’s voices raged, and then there was silence except for the ticking of an idling diesel.

Staggering to his knees, Mac heard boots on dirt and then he was being hauled to his feet.

‘You okay, McQueen?’ said Bongo, as Mac found his balance.

‘Don’t know,’ said Mac, barely able to breathe and reeling with confusion. ‘Was I hit?’

Lifting Mac’s arm slightly, Bongo licked his fingertips and pulled a flattened slug from the Kevlar vest, flicking it away as the heat proved too much.

‘Girl shot you, McQueen,’ said Bongo, emotionless. ‘Handgun under her shawl.’

‘The girl?’ said Mac, bending to pick up his rifle and seeing Sammy standing over a prone form on the road. ‘Where’s her baby?’

Bongo shook his head. ‘No baby.’

‘On her back — there was a baby on her back,’ said Mac, the smell of cordite and blood making him nauseous.

‘This your baby?’ asked Sammy, an AK-47 in his hand as he approached them. ‘It was slung under her shawl.’

‘Clear?’ said Bongo, as Didge emerged from the shack and scanned the road.

‘Clear,’ said Didge. ‘Maybe one got away.’

Embarrassed, Mac shook his head. A mistake like that could get your buddies killed, and once you’d made the mistake, it altered the power dynamic in the group.

‘You Anglos are funny.’ Bongo flipped a cigarette into his mouth and offered one to Sammy. ‘You think ’cos she the woman, she can’t use no gun?’

Bongo was laughing about it — Sammy and Didge joined in.

‘Sorry, guys,’ said Mac, realising he was the odd man out in a spectrum that included a Filipino, Chinese-American and Cape York Aboriginal.

‘I know you are, brother,’ said Bongo, exhaling smoke as his eyes made long arcs over Mac’s shoulders. ‘But now you in my world, right? And in my world, ain’t no damsel in the tower and no knight on the white horse neither, okay?’

‘Look, I thought she had a baby on her back,’ said Mac.

‘I know what you were thinking, McQueen,’ said Bongo. ‘But just ’cos they pretty, don’t mean they won’t kill you.’

While Didge and Sammy removed the three bodies and hid them in the bush, Mac ratted the checkpoint building for anything useful. It was a bunkhouse with a small stove and sink in the corner. A desk built into the rough wooden wall housed a plastic electronics box with a list of red lights and beside each one a scrawl of Khmer: the top light was still flashing.

‘Bongo,’ said Mac, ‘can you translate this?’

Bongo ran his finger down the red lights and looked at the Khmer designations.

‘They’re locations,’ said Bongo. ‘The flashing one says something like Guard house approach, and the others say, like, Camp 25, Camp 20 and so on.’

‘I heard a beeping before we stormed this place,’ said Mac. ‘I guess that would be the flashing light — the guard house approach?’

‘They’ve got the road on optical trips,’ said Bongo, meaning light beams that triggered when people or vehicles passed certain points. ‘Wonder what else they got?’

‘I don’t want to wonder,’ said Mac.

A scuffle sounded outside, a loud screaming and male grunts. Bursting out of the cabin, Mac and Bongo ran into Didge, who was holding a young girl by the scruff of the neck.

‘Found her beside the long-drop,’ said Didge. ‘Trying to get on a bicycle.’

Rattling off some Khmer at her, Bongo nodded and turned to Mac. ‘She lives with her family, between here and the river. She rides down once a day on her bike to deliver eggs and vegetables, sometimes fish.’

Talking with her again, Bongo translated. ‘She had a cup of tea with the guards and then the guns started. She escaped out the back window.’

‘The one I missed,’ said Didge, spitting.

‘Does she want to make fifty US dollars?’ said Mac.

‘Hang on, McQueen,’ said Sammy. ‘What’s this about?’

‘We can’t get to the camp by road without Dozsa picking up the optical trip wires — we’ll need a local to take us the other way,’ said Mac.

‘How do we know there’s another way?’ said Sammy.

‘This is South-East Asia,’ said Bongo, lighting a smoke. ‘There’s always another way.’