Counter Attack

Chapter 27

The LandCruiser’s brake lights flared red as the 4x4 hissed to a stop on the concrete.

Reaching into the Mazda’s boot, Mac grabbed the Remington — from memory they were five-shooters, and he hoped Sam and Phil weren’t the conscientious types who unloaded their shotties before stashing them.

The front passenger door of the LandCruiser opened as Mac primed the Remington with a back-and-forth motion on the pump-grip and brought the shotgun to his shoulder.

Walking around the back of the car, Mac took aim and watched those creepy dark eyes withdraw on seeing the shotgun.

As the LandCruiser lurched away, Mac squeezed the Remington’s trigger. The click echoed around the quayside.

The LandCruiser’s doors opened as it slid to a stop beside one of the floating piers.

‘Fuck,’ said Mac, fumbling for the Mazda’s boot, realising he’d shut the thing.

Crawling along the car as the Israelis took position fifty metres away behind the LandCruiser, Mac ducked and pulled the boot release lever as the window above him exploded. Running in a crouch to the back of the car, he dived into the lee of the vehicle as five shots slammed into the Mazda, smashing windows and pinging steel.

Pushing the boot lid up, Mac wished his knee was up to this. He could barely straighten it.

Pulling two belts of shells from the boot as the left rear tail-lights exploded in plastic fragments, Mac knelt behind the right rear tyre, his sweaty, panicked fingers fumbling to load the Remington.

‘Shit,’ he said as he tried to get his fingernails under the brass head of a shell that didn’t want to leave its loop.

Getting two shells into the side-loading chamber, Mac stood up behind the Mazda’s boot lid, shouldering the shottie as he did so. A coughing burst of automatic fire rang out and Mac instinctively ducked while keeping eyes on the LandCruiser; the shooters were bunched behind the 4x4, but they were no longer shooting at him.

Turning to his right, Mac watched a flare of orange and blue burst out of the darkness on the far side of the warehouse as Sam and Phil unloaded into the LandCruiser, which seemed to drop a foot in height.

One of the Israelis sagged and grabbed at his shin as the rounds flew and Mac could see the man he knew as Red Shirt scrabbling into the 4x4, pulling something out of the rear cargo area.

Pointing towards the river, Red Shirt pushed the injured Israeli towards a moored boat.

The limping gunman tried to jog along the concrete causeway to the floating pier and Mac took two useless shots at him, ducking back as the return fire came in hot.

Looking up, Mac saw Phil running from his hide behind the warehouse to the lee of a flatbed truck parked between the LandCruiser and the warehouse.

Peeking over the lid of the boot, Mac watched Red Shirt pull a dark weapon from the LandCruiser. Assessing the ground, Mac realised that the warehouse was out of range of the Israeli guns, but by running to the truck, Phil had put himself in range.

As Phil laid down fire on the 4x4 — cover for Sam to come forwards — Mac reloaded the pump-action while trying to get Sam’s attention.

He screamed as loud as he could, ‘Stay there!’ Mac didn’t know what Red Shirt had pulled out of that vehicle but Phil was looking like an easy target.

Sam’s head poked out behind the warehouse corner and Mac became frantic to get his attention and stop him crossing the apron to join Phil. ‘Don’t move! For fuck’s sake — stay put!’

Sam was suddenly into the open and the air was torn apart with the sound of a gunfight jammed on full auto. Mac joined in, loosing four shots at the LandCruiser, but they did no damage except to the paintwork.

Sam was into his fourteenth stride when he took a shot in the thigh. As he sprawled, his rifle clattering free in front of him, a small rocket whooshed through the night air, leaving a blue-grey trail before slamming into the truck’s gas tank. The tank contained gasoline rather than diesel, because the orange-red fireball that instantly erupted was caused by nothing else, except perhaps propane.

Flinching away from the shock wave and then the blast of incinerating heat, Mac held up his hand to deflect fire from his eyes and saw Phil under the truck, burning like a monk.

Bile rising in his throat, Mac realised Sam was writhing on the concrete, his chinos on fire.

To his left, two of the Israelis were on the causeway, making for a speedboat that the injured shooter had throttled up and was readying to get underway.

Breaking his cover, Mac sprinted for the warehouse where a red wooden box was bolted to the wall. Smashing the padlock with the Remington’s stock, Mac tore the doors open and pulled the red canvas bag off its hooks, racing towards the flaming truck where Sam writhed as the gasoline flames burned through his cotton pants and into his leg.

Throwing the shotgun to the concrete, Mac pulled the fire blanket out as he reached the American, launching himself onto the panicking man with the blanket in front of him. In his military days, they were taught that the point of the exercise was to smother the flame — you couldn’t do that by waving the blanket and you couldn’t smother a flame when the victim was rolling around. You had to wrap the flame up like you were hugging it to death, which was what Mac did as he landed on Sam’s leg: put all of his weight and strength into holding Sam in one place and wrapping the blanket around the American’s legs and waist for fifteen seconds.

Sam eventually stopped struggling: he whimpered and heaved for breath as Mac pushed himself off and looked for remaining flame.

The speedboat revved hard and Mac looked to his left, watching the Israeli crew accelerate up the river and into the darkness as more gunfire sounded. Ducking into one another, Mac and Sam waited for the volley of rifle rounds but none came.

Mac peeled back the fire blanket and found the left leg of Sam’s chinos was charred and there was a blistered, purple mess up his thigh.

‘You’ll live,’ said Mac, panting.

Sam, grimaced, his lips white in the way that signalled he had about thirty seconds before he passed out from shock and pain.

‘Let’s get you in the car, trooper,’ said Mac, picking up Sam’s rifle and groaning as he stood and put full weight on his knee.

‘Phil?’ said Sam, looking at the truck’s gutted chassis.

‘Didn’t make it,’ said Mac, holding out his hand. ‘Can you walk?’

Sam reached out his own hand, coughing as the hot gasoline soot started descending. Pulling him to his feet, Mac put an arm under the other man’s armpits and wrapped it around the shoulder blades.

As the American put weight on his injured leg, he heaved with the pain. ‘Holy Christ!’

Two steps short of the Mazda, Sam slumped unconscious and Mac dragged him to the back door and fireman-lifted him inside, laying him across the back seat.

The ride to Calmette Hospital took four minutes but it felt like an hour as Mac dodged the cyclos and motorbikes on the dark streets, trying to make out their shapes through the cracked windscreen. The soft tropical air flowed through the Mazda, entering via the side windows that no longer existed, and Mac blinked hard, hoping for tears as the gasoline soot worked its way into his eyeballs.

The emergency room took Sam immediately. Awake but groggy, Sam gave Mac an open-palmed shake.

‘Thanks, mate,’ he said, doing a croaking rendition of an Aussie accent.

‘No dramas,’ said Mac, and the American had a drip spiked into him before being wheeled away on a gurney.

Pulling his Nokia from his pants, Mac realised it was switched off — the damn thing had run out of battery.

At the nurses’ station he asked about a recharger, but when none was forthcoming, he wandered outside, got in the Mazda and made for the Cambodiana.

The streets were thinning out as he pulled into the parking lot of the Cambodiana. After a three-minute recce he walked down a service alley that led to the loading bay behind the kitchens and laundry. Taking a right turn into an alcove just before the lobby, he found himself in the security room. A local man in a Cambodiana shirt looked up from his desk, above which the surveillance cameras displayed their black and white shots of hallways, bars and poolside areas.

‘Hi, Richard Davis, with the Tranh party in rooms 303 and 305,’ said Mac, smiling and holding out his hand, seeing the name tag identifying the man as ‘Poh Khoy — Security Manager’.

Poh rose, took his hand and made a small bow. ‘Yes, Mr Richard.’

‘Just want to bring you in on something, Poh,’ said Mac, lowering his voice and making a show of looking back over his shoulder.

Poh walked past Mac and shut the door.

‘Earlier this evening I got a letter under my door. It contained some threats against me and my family.’

‘Mr Richard, this hotel is not —’

‘I know, I know, mate,’ said Mac, showing his palms to the security man. ‘This is a great hotel and security is always very good. I just need to see the surveillance tapes for this evening, see who was posting us nasty notes.’

‘Rooms 303 and 305, you say, Mr Richard?’ said Poh, tapping on his keyboard. A box came up onscreen and he selected ‘third floor west’ from a drop-down menu then entered a time field, starting at six pm and ending at ten pm.

Mac looked at his watch — 10.06 pm.

‘Okay, so here is the hallway,’ said the security man. ‘Your rooms on right side of hall. Fast-forward now.’

Taking a seat, Mac watched the footage rocket along: room-service people pushed trolleys; a manager carried a big bucket of ice to 307; porters collected the spent room-service trays; two Asian children chased each other up and down the hall until their mother leaned out of a door on the left side of the picture and ordered them inside.

Mac had lost interest and was about to head up to the suite when the high-speed tape showed two men walk past the door to 305 — Mac and Tranh’s suite — and then walk back to it.

‘Here — right here,’ said Mac, clicking his fingers at the screen as he sat upright.

It slowed to real time and Mac read the time code: 21.14 — quarter past nine.

The two men wore black baseball caps pulled low and shirt collars flipped up. Mac identified them immediately: one was Red Shirt, and the other the injured speedboat driver. They crowded the door and then they were inside.

‘Fuck,’ said Mac.

It was brazen — they were either taking the piss or they were desperate for something. In general, if you operated covertly and a gunfight had brought you into the open, you didn’t double back into enemy territory such as a hotel room or house. You stayed hidden, surveyed subsequent movements and decided whether you were blown or if you could proceed.

Making himself breathe in and out slowly as he watched the men disappear into the room, Mac watched the time code. At 21.15, they emerged again and headed away from the camera, walked past the elevator and exited through the fire door.

Mac had performed more covert nosey-pokes than most people had had sex. And he knew there was only one way you could make a search in under a minute: you had to know what you were looking for, and exactly where to find it.