Golden Serpent

CHAPTER 40

They found Paul leaning against a large blue plastic dumpster bin clutching at his left side. The blood trail from where Mac had seen him lying was thick and dark.

‘Shit, Mac,’ he grinned. ‘What is it with Aussies and trouble?’

‘Follows us round like a bad smell. Didn’t I warn you?’

Sawtell knelt and lifted the left wing away from Paul’s body. Paul winced, gasped.

Sawtell whispered low, looked under there. Dark blood oozed through layers of clothing and kevlar.

Sawtell keyed the mic, ordered his medic guy to come immediately, then had another thought. ‘POLRI there yet?’

Sawtell listened, then said, ‘Negative. Stay with the hostages until POLRI get there. Secure the area. Over.’

The Green Berets had rescued the hostages with no injuries.

Sawtell unzipped the top of Paul’s ovies and looked at Mac, who came around behind Paul, held him up and forward while Sawtell stripped down the top of the grey ovies. Unclipping the fasteners on the kevlar vest, Sawtell pulled it over from the right-hand side then peeled it downward along the left arm.

The slug had grazed straight down the left side of Paul’s ribs in the area where there was no kevlar, only an adjustable gusset. There was another slug embedded in the kevlar, folded back on itself like a rosette. The fl esh wound looked like Paul had leaned against an iron someone had forgotten to turn off. There was bone showing and a lot of blood – fi ve-inch wet scar peeled back like a madman’s laugh.

Paul was trying to keep his breathing under control, but the shock and the pain were pushing him towards hyperventilation.

Mac stripped down and handed over his white undershirt to Sawtell, who used it to stem the blood in Paul’s ribs.

Sawtell looked up at Mac. ‘Get ‘em?’

Mac shook. ‘Nope. M4s versus a pea-shooter.’

‘Gotta get you something with a bit more authority.’

‘They’re in a pale blue 5-series Beemer. Last numbers on the rego are 452,’ said Mac.

Sawtell shook his head. ‘This Garrison is starting to irritate me. A bad advertisement for Americans.’

‘What?’ deadpanned Mac. ‘They’re not all like that?’

Paul laughed.

Sawtell eyeballed Paul. ‘What are you laughing at? The dude just shot you!’

‘He’ll keep, mate,’ said Mac.

The adrenaline slowly washed off them as they spoke. Even whispers sounded like screams when you were coming down from the kind of adrenaline squirt you got from a gunfi ght.

Mac kept a close watch on Sawtell. Watched the way he talked soft, drew Paul back into the game, not wanting him to lose consciousness but also not scaring him.

The blood kept coming and Paul needed a fresh staunch.

‘Here, take this,’ Sawtell said to Mac.

Mac held the bloodied shirt as Sawtell tore down his own ovies, unfastened the bullet-proof vest and used his undershirt on the wound. Got Paul to hold it in place by relaxing his left arm on it.

The smell of cordite was still fresh in their nostrils. It hung around in the sub-level.

‘Sabaya here? Anyone see him?’ asked Mac.

‘He wasn’t in the offi ce section,’ said Sawtell. ‘Thought he might be in the warehouse.’

Mac shook his head.

‘He wasn’t down here,’ said Mac.

Sawtell stood, fi ddled with the radio and couldn’t get a signal.

He pulled it apart, blew on every connection, then slammed the transmitter box between his hands a couple of times. Turned the thing on again and gave thumbs-up.

‘Roger that. Copy,’ he said, after a pause.

Sawtell demanded to know if anyone had a handle on Garrison and the girl.

The reply wasn’t what he wanted.

‘Listen, McQueen chased them to a blue 5-series BMW. Registration includes the numbers four, fi ver, two. Four fi ver two. Got that? Blue BMW, 5-series.’

By the sounds of it, the troop had lost their trail. Sawtell snapped like someone who was way over the whole thing.

‘Okay, okay. Manz and Spikey get down here now. We’re on the sub-level of the warehouse. Bring the medic pack, okay?’ he ordered, and signed off.

He looked at Mac, who was taking in their surroundings. There were forty or fi fty shipping containers around them that by Mac’s reckoning would be stuffed with books, furniture and ceramics from all over Asia. Amongst them would be gold, drugs, counterfeit US dollars, cigarettes and whisky, maybe even some bunkered crude oil. Who knew what was in these things? He was quietly amazed that customs and the cops ever found a damned thing in such a secret yet ubiquitous form of moving goods.

Sawtell came over, asked if Mac was okay.

‘Yeah, mate,’ said Mac, thinking about how Garrison had been cropping up in chatter, briefi ngs and intel gossip for years. He wondered what role he really played and who protected him. Was it someone actually in the Agency, or was it political? Someone from State or the Oval Offi ce?

Sawtell took another blast on the radio. This time it sounded like POLRI. ‘Captain John Sawtell. US Army. We got one down, offi cer.

Need an ambulance down here. The fugitives are driving a blue BMW, 5-series…’ said Sawtell.

Sawtell never seemed to get tired, thought Mac. He operated like a machine and it was pretty obvious why the US Army had tagged him for leadership. Mac liked that he never identifi ed himself as being Special Forces. You could always tell the genuine article in the US military because they’d tell you they drove a truck, shovelled chow.

The cordite smell wasn’t getting any better. Mac wondered if Garrison was using experimental rounds. It wasn’t like any kind of fi rearm discharge he’d ever smelled.

Behind him, Sawtell signed off.

‘Smell that? That cordite?’ asked Mac.

Sawtell chuckled. ‘Shitty loads. Not yours, are they? That pea-shooter powder?’

Paul laughed too.

Mac walked forwards, sniffi ng. Something wasn’t right. One of the few things he could remember from his trips to Aberdeen Proving Grounds was to do with the smell of bitter almonds and freshly mown green grass. He couldn’t remember what they corresponded to, but they were listed as the two biggest giveaways that there was some biochem nasty lurking around the shop.

He walked along the containers: forty-footers, white and red mostly. The smell got worse. It was like he could taste it. His Hi-Tecs squeaked on shiny concrete, echoing around the sub-level. Sweat trickled down his back. It wasn’t bitter almond, it wasn’t mown grass.

It was putrid and sweet. It was human and chemical.

Most of what Mac knew about containers, he knew from Jenny Toohey. And the vivid memory he had of the work she did was the telltale sign that there was a container of slaves in the vicinity. Jenny once told him, It’s a smell you never forget. I smell it in my nightmares.

Mac froze to the spot, gulped, stomach churning. Couldn’t deny what he was smelling.

Shit and bleach.