Counter Attack

Chapter 33

Hanging up, Mac tried to stay calm. Saba might have mangled the Aussie saying, Give it a miss, but he’d nailed it in one. It was precisely the smartest option available to Mac: to meet Scotty at the airport, fudge the McHugh search, grab his wife and get the hell out of Indochina before Jenny established a link between Quirk and the Israelis and decided to raise the roof.

He needed a plan for getting where he wanted to go rather than just reacting to events. He needed the information ascendency — the main building block of all intelligence professionals — yet Mac realised he hadn’t checked the identities of the Israelis, or even if that was their nationality. He’d been tweaked to their status and background by Maggins and it had conformed with what Mac knew about some of their techniques: the box surveillance around the Mekong Saloon had been pure Mossad, right down to the man with the newspaper waiting beside the entry. The light-bulb bomb at the Cambodiana was also a good indication, as were the clothes: the Mossad had spent decades trying to coach their operators into chameleon wardrobes yet for some reason they couldn’t help but dress like someone’s great-uncle. The Sansabelt slacks, the Seiko watches, the sensible shoes and the ankle-breezing trouser hems, all worn with an intense confidence which gave it that Mossad smell.

But Mac needed more and he knew who could help. Phoning Indonesia Telekom directory, he asked for Konstelasi Komputer in Jakarta and waited while the line buzzed and chirped.

A young male employee answered and Mac asked to be put through to Charlie, the owner.

‘He out,’ said the lazy kid, a person Mac knew from his last visit to the shop.

‘Can you take a message?’ asked Mac, and rattled off his number and the beginnings of a long message. ‘You’re getting this, right?’

The kid issued a snide sigh. ‘Okay, okay, I get him.’

Charlie came on the line. ‘McQueen — that you?’

‘Hey, Charlie,’ said Mac.

‘What up?’ said the man who’d turned cyber counter-measures against the Chinese into an art form.

‘I need to access a website without anyone knowing where I am,’ said Mac. ‘Can do?’

‘I can route you through a bot-relay, that what you mean?’

‘It has to be secure,’ said Mac. ‘It’s sensitive.’

‘This one’s used by the MSS,’ said Charlie. ‘That secure enough?’

Paying off the cyclo rider, Mac descended to the footpath in central Phnom Penh. The streets teemed with locals and Mac felt like the last Anglo left on the planet as he moved among the throng.

Ducking into a street-front cafe, he ordered fish curry and a beer and sat with his back against the side wall, from where he could see most of the street. The clouds were building high and dark and the humidity closed in as if a heavy drape had been dropped on the city. Although his stomach was clenched with stress, he knew from experience that he had to make himself eat. You never knew when the next meal was coming so it paid to force it down when you could.

The curry was excellent and the beer cold, and as he waited for Charlie to call back, Mac pondered the Bongo Morales complication. Bongo was about eight years older than Mac, a former Philippines intel operator who’d also been trained by American outfits such as US Marines force-recon and made a name for himself in Mindanao, chasing and killing terrorists. He didn’t just outgun the bad guys — he could out-think them as well. One of the stories that had created the legend of Bongo was the time his cover as a first-class steward on Garuda Airlines had been exaggerated and he’d ended up sitting at the flight deck, flying a 737 to Denpasar. Bongo was the original chameleon spy who could switch from a peroxide-haired gay hustler working out of the Shangri-La to a jungle-stalking hit man — and make the transition faster than most people could tie their laces.

He’d gone freelance in the mid-1990s and become a consultant to the Indonesian Kopassus regiment as they tried to subdue the GAM separatists in Aceh, at the north end of Sumatra. When the Indonesians wanted to test their new American-supplied cluster bombs on civilian villages, Bongo had not reacted well. The result was the Kopassus colonel decided not to push his luck, and Bongo walked away.

Mac had worked with him in East Timor during the independence ballot of 1999. In a very ugly finale to a flawed gig, Mac had been left on an airfield in East Timor to face the Indonesian Army, while Bongo had flown away in a borrowed helo. In the soldier world, Bongo owed Mac — owed him big. On the other hand, Bongo had saved Mac during a shootout in a Dili warehouse. Regardless of what Mac thought of the IOU equation, he knew Bongo would decide for himself. Which was the main problem with Bongo Morales: whether you worked with him, for him or against him, he was never confused about what he was going to do next, and he sure as hell didn’t need anyone’s input on the matter.

Now, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff had decided that in order to save the PM from political embarrassment, Scotty and Mac were going to get to Geraldine McHugh before Bongo Morales. That sort of challenge could only have come from a whiteboard in Canberra. Bongo Morales might enjoy the rivalry or he might not. But if he resented the intrusion, there was a high likelihood that he’d remove the threat. Just like that. You’d be pig food before you had a chance to utter a single fuck you, Morales.

Sipping on his beer, Mac remembered the last call he’d wanted to make.

He dialled the number in Singapore and was put through to two intermediaries before a switch clicked over and Benny Haskell was on the line.

‘Macca,’ he barked. ‘You ducking me?’

‘No, mate. Changed phones.’

‘Secure?’

‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘What’s up?’

‘Thought you might like an update, courtesy of my mate at the ministry,’ said Benny, who had a friend in Singapore’s internal intelligence agency.

‘What’s he got?’

‘The investigation took a strange turn when the Americans turned up,’ Benny told him.

‘Americans?’ said Mac, massaging his temples.

‘Yeah, these men in black have been running around, going through all of Ray’s books for the funds.’

‘The investment business?’ said Mac.

‘Yeah. So someone asks one of these Yanks what they’re looking for. They can’t see what it has to do with Chinese spies and ballistic missiles and Ray’s execution.’

Mac was lost. ‘Yeah?’

‘Two hours later, my mate is officially warned off by the Singaporean Prime Minister’s office.’ Benny laughed. ‘Told him to let the Yanks have what they want and back off.’

‘Who are the Yanks?’ said Mac.

‘This is the good part,’ said Benny. ‘The senior bloke’s from US Treasury intel, and the underlings are Secret Service.’

Mac reached for his beer. ‘The Secret Service guys guard the President, don’t they? What do they want with Ray’s fund?’

‘Guarding POTUS isn’t their only job,’ said Benny.

‘Remind me,’ said Mac.

‘They also have a big intel and investigation unit for protecting the US currency.’

‘Currency?’ said Mac. ‘You mean they catch counterfeiters?’

‘That’s right,’ said Benny. ‘Look, I have to go now but I’m having a drink with my mate tomorrow — I’ll call you if there’s anything more.’

‘Okay, Benny.’

‘And Macca — be careful.’