Counter Attack

Chapter 8

Packing his suitcase, Mac tried to focus only on the job ahead and the corporate cover he had worn for most of his working life. He had a routine for packing his wheelie bag and readying himself for the Richard Davis collateral that would be waiting at Brisbane International Airport.

‘Think we’ll be okay with Sarah,’ said Jenny, sitting on the bed with a towel wrapped around her chest, tied off in her cleavage. It was just past eight am but she’d already done her laps at Southport pool and would be starting work at the federal police building in Robina at ten o’clock.

‘Yeah?’ said Mac, distracted.

‘I’m sharing a nanny with Sian,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s flexible. Basically, I call her when I need the help.’

Mac felt excluded. ‘Oh, when you need it?’

‘Yes, when I need it, Macca,’ she said. ‘Like this week. I don’t see you juggling when Sarah needs to be minded.’

‘Yeah, well…’ said Mac, taking his own Brut 33 deodorant from the toilet bag and replacing it with Richard Davis’s Old Spice. The SPF 30 sunscreen actually contained a gel that would turn his hair dark brown, and the tube of men’s face scrub was the Schwarzkopf N10 blonding agent that would take his hair back to its natural colour when required.

‘I mean, you only told me about this Auckland trip on Friday,’ said Jenny. ‘And you say you’re going for two weeks, but that’s not set in stone.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mac, reluctant to snap out of his focused state. ‘I told you as soon as I knew.’

It was a marriage where both of them trod carefully around the subject of their work. Jenny didn’t like to feel guilty or distracted in her job any more than Mac did in his. It was made more difficult by the fact that when the juggling had to be done, it was Jen hitting the phones and calling in favours. Mac knew that, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.

‘You can make it up to me,’ said Jen.

‘Sure,’ said Mac, preoccupied with getting his boat shoes into exactly the placement he liked. He travelled only with cabin luggage to minimise officials touching his belongings.

‘I mean, you know,’ said Jen, lying back on the bed, the towel falling off her hips. ‘Sarah’s watching the Wiggles, and…’

Mac’s wife had been a high school swimming star and an Austra- lian Universities rep in basketball. She worried that her stomach was loose and her bum was sagging after having Sarah, but Mac reckoned that she looked better in a tank top and a pair of Levis than most women looked in hundreds of dollars worth of lingerie.

‘The Wiggles, eh?’ said Mac, moving to her.

Putting her hand into his thin blond hair, she gave him the smile and Mac bent down to her, smelling the apple-scented shampoo that she used to get the chlorine out of her hair.

Kissing her, Mac let his hand slide up under Jenny’s towel, feeling the muscles and curves. Jen hooked a thumb over the band of Mac’s undies, but then suddenly pulled away.

‘Door,’ she said, pushing his chest.

Leaning into the hallway, Mac heard a famous song from the kids’ TV show, and a thumping sound that indicated Sarah was trying to dance to it.

Shutting the door quietly, Mac crossed the floor to the bed, where Jen had shoved the suitcase to the floor.

‘Thank God for the Wiggles,’ she said, grabbing him by the thigh.

‘Choo choo, chugga chugga,’ said Mac, and Jen giggled as she pulled him onto her.

The Airtrain between the Gold Coast and Brisbane airport was crowded with backpackers and retirees. Summer was starting to kick in for real and the hiss of the air-conditioning in the carriage was almost louder than the rattle of the tracks as they headed north.

Sitting at the back, Mac read the Financial Review and avoided eye contact. Something was niggling him about the Pan Pac shootings, and he couldn’t quite get it straight. The approach from Urquhart in Canberra had been a shock. Taskforces were put together to secure outcomes that were jointly agreed; even Grant Shannon from the AFP would not dispute the consensus. So why was Urquhart flitting about, looking for a traitor in ASIS?

The scenery flashed past, made dark by the heavily tinted windows. Also annoying him were the phone calls from Liesl Hu — the tone of fear that rose above her grief. Mac didn’t feel good about his lack of contact, but it wasn’t in a spy’s DNA to soothe wives when the aim was to get out of Dodge before the crocodile clips got warmed up.

Mac was worried about how much Liesl actually knew — or had guessed — about Operation Kava. Ray Hu’s cover in Singapore was genuine: he was a fund manager who took equity positions in small defence-oriented technology companies, even if many of his leads came from Aussie intelligence. He was the real thing and he was the embodiment of the espionage cliché of hiding in plain sight. He’d been written about in the Far Eastern Economic Review and was a regular in the Asian Wall Street Journal’s tips for hot investments in the new year. He was even on a Singapore government think tank for identifying future niche industries and getting universities to support them. But aside from this public profile, Ray was a stickler for secrecy and his double life with ASIS was walled off, even from his wife.

So why, wondered Mac as the train pulled into the international airport station, did Liesl get on the phone to Jenny and allege Australian government involvement in her husband’s murder?

He wasn’t comfortable about Liesl being a loose end, even if he did like her and owed it to Ray to look after her. Emotional, grief-stricken women making phone calls about Australian complicity in double murders in a foreign country was bad enough; when they were on the right track, it could be disastrous.

As he stepped onto the platform, Mac turned for the bridge to the international terminal and breathed deeply as he walked. He had to establish if Liesl’s and Urquhart’s stories overlapped. And to do that, he would have to talk to Liesl Hu.

Waiting for his courier, Mac sat at a coffee shop on the upstairs deck of the terminal, eating a filled croissant. His seat gave him a view to the lower airside level of the large, naturally lit terminal, while also allowing him to see anyone approaching on the upper level.

At 12.15, the heavyset yet quick-walking gait of Rod Scott came into sight. He bought two Crown Lagers at the counter and moved to the table.

‘Cutting it fine,’ said Mac, whose Qantas flight left at 1.40. ‘And why’re you here? Bit below your pay grade, isn’t it?’

Sipping his beer, Scotty put his folded Courier-Mail on the table and Mac pulled it towards him and let a plain envelope slide out of it and onto his lap. Removing the Richard Davis passport, he placed it on the table with his ticket in the name of Davis.

‘I thought we should chat,’ said Scotty, removing his sunglasses and rubbing his right eye with the heel of his hand.

‘Okay,’ said Mac, not wanting the beer.

‘Mate, what was Urquhart after?’ Scotty looked around discreetly.

‘Shit, Scotty. You had someone on me?’

‘No, mate — just a routine check of the tapes in the business lounge.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Mac, catching Scotty’s guilty smirk. ‘Urquhart tried to co-opt me — reckons what happened in Singers was due to a rotten apple in the Firm.’

‘Really?’ said Scotty, brow furrowed. ‘Urquhart came out and said this?’

‘Sure,’ said Mac.

‘And you said?’

‘I told him to get fucked.’

Scotty looked confused. ‘And that was it?’

‘He gave me a card, in case I wanted to talk.’

‘Really?’ said Scotty, relaxing.

‘He wouldn’t tell me who he worked for,’ said Mac. ‘Just that it was the executive arm.’

‘Got the card?’

‘No, mate — I’m clean, remember? But I can tell you the stamp on it was a federal coat of arms.’

‘Okay, leave it with me,’ said Scotty. ‘And if he contacts you again, bring him along and let’s see what he’s on about.’

‘I’ll let him talk,’ said Mac. ‘But I’m not snitching on my own people.’

‘Oh, by the way, Macca,’ said Scotty, chugging at the beer, ‘the name is Operation Dragon, the contact protocol is standard, and your team is in place.’

‘Team?’ said Mac.

‘One asset. Local.’

‘What about Bailey?’ said Mac, who’d wanted the former navy spook.

‘Bailey’s heading up to Thailand for an APEC junket.’

‘So who’s up?’ said Mac, tasting the beer.

‘Name’s Tranh. English is passable. Has his own little IT consulting business in Saigon. He hires himself out to visiting reporters and film crews as a driving contractor.’

‘Good cover.’

‘Yep,’ said Scotty. ‘He’s also nicely connected with some of the old ARVN networks and the black markets. He can get stuff, make things happen.’

Mac looked around the concourse as a person with a Chinese name was paged. ‘Local, eh?’

‘Not that kind of local,’ said Scotty, clocking Mac’s face.

‘In Saigon,’ said Mac, ‘they’re all that kind of local.’