Counter Attack

Chapter 40

Mac stayed quiet in the back seat of the Cong An car as they pulled up outside the Mekong Saloon. Mac and the driver followed Captain Loan into the nightclub where a few patrons nursed their drinks while a young girl writhed around a pole.

A heavyset manager appeared and walked towards Loan, but backed off when she raised her badge. Ascending the stairs that Mac had climbed just a few nights ago, they reached the mezzanine, the manager chirping beside Loan like a bird.

Mac couldn’t understand what they were saying — he didn’t need to. It was obvious the manager was nervous and not used to the police being allowed in this building.

Stopping beside the door that led to the sealed computer room, Mac pointed. ‘I heard someone yelling, like they were being attacked,’ he said, trying for a truthful feel. ‘I wandered up the stairs and saw a man — an Anglo man — being dragged through this door.’

‘Who was dragging him?’

‘There were three men — they looked Eastern European, maybe Middle Eastern. Swarthy and tanned,’ said Mac.

‘And then?’ said Loan.

‘I said something like, “Hey — cut that out,” and one of them turned and came at me.’

‘He attacked you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then?’

‘I attacked him back and followed the kidnap victim.’

‘Into here?’ said Loan, pushing at the door and then clicking her fingers at the manager to unlock it.

‘Yep,’ said Mac.

At the end of the corridor they pushed through another door and Loan’s colleague hit the lights. In front of them was the internal glass office, with the exit door on the far side.

No computer.

‘The man was screaming, so I kicked through the door and stood right here,’ said Mac. ‘The man — Jim Quirk — was sitting at a computer terminal.’

‘In there?’ said Loan.

‘Right in front of us. The terminal was the kind where the keyboard is built into the screen and hard drive part of it.’

Putting her hands on her hips, Loan surveyed the room. ‘Where did Quirk die?’

‘Right here,’ said Mac, as they walked to where the computer had been. ‘The leader, the Middle Eastern bloke, smiled at me and shot Quirk.’

Mac’s throat had dried up; he needed a glass of water.

‘Shot him?’

‘In the head,’ said Mac, still haunted by that night. ‘Then he ducked out that door.’

‘And?’

‘And I left the club, got Tranh to get me as far away as possible.’

Crossing her arms, Captain Loan breathed out and looked at the ceiling and the walls, observing her environment like an interior decorator asked to quote on a job. Turning to her colleague, she rattled off a series of commands in Vietnamese.

Grabbing the car keys from the other cop and drawing Mac out by the arm, Loan walked swiftly down the corridor and then out of the club.

‘Thanks for that,’ she said as she started the car and made a fast phone call. ‘Now I have something to show you.’

Eight minutes later, Mac got out of the car in a rear parking compound and followed Loan in the back door of the criminal investigation centre for the Saigon Cong An — the first precinct building.

Inputting a code at a security door, she pushed through and then hesitated. ‘You armed, Mr Richard?’

‘No,’ he said, and they walked into the police station, took a left and went down two flights of stairs. Yells and demands echoed around the concrete-clad basement as they fronted a desk that looked like a nurses’ station and Loan snapped a few words at the young Cong An attendant who wore full greens.

Writing in the day book, the woman in greens stood and led them down to a grey steel door with a small window and the number 8 painted below it in white.

The attendant opened the door with a key from her retractable chain and Mac followed Loan inside. From behind a bolted-down desk, cuffed to a loop on the table, a thin Vietnamese man with bad teeth and big cheekbones looked at them wide-eyed. His left eye puffed closed and below it the prominent cheekbone split horizontally over a shiny skin-egg. Both nostrils were encrusted with blood.

‘Have a seat,’ said Loan, and Mac took one of the interviewer’s chairs, clocking the detainee’s blood-covered white shirt, which seemed to have a corporate decal on it.

‘His English is okay,’ said Loan. ‘Want coffee?’

‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘Name’s Richard,’ he said to the man across the desk, giving him a wink.

‘I am Luc,’ he said, nodding.

‘What are you doing here?’ said Mac.

‘I was attacked, and now I arrested,’ said Luc. ‘I told her this all. Many time, for all morning.’

‘Tell me,’ said Mac. ‘Tell me the whole story.’

‘Okay.’ Luc indicated the embroidered decal on his shirt. ‘So I fly the plane for North Star airline.’

Mac nodded. ‘At Tan Son Nhat?’

‘Yes,’ said Luc.

‘KingAir, Dash-8? Something like that?’ said Mac.

‘Yes!’ said Luc, good eye opening. ‘KingAir 200 — also Fokker 27.’

‘Not the Friendship?’ said Mac. ‘I love the F-27. Grew up with those planes in Queensland.’

‘Yes,’ said Luc. ‘North Star flying two F-27. They from TAA!’

‘Get outta here,’ said Mac. ‘Those TAA Friendships flew more outback miles than any other plane. Unbelievable.’

‘It true,’ said Luc, growing animated. ‘I tell Captain this, and she not know.’

‘Well, I know that those planes were easy to land and impossible to clean,’ said Mac. ‘So tell me.’

The coffee was delivered and Mac offered his cup to Luc. Taking it, the man — who Mac estimated was in his late thirties — pushed his arms onto the table and eyed Loan before turning back to Mac with a conspiratorial look.

‘You must carry some strange passengers,’ said Mac.

‘Yes, and when I fly Mr Smith and his friends, it start normal.’

‘Who is Mr Smith?’

‘He the man who hire us two month ’go. We flew him Saigon to Stung Treng province and north from Banlung,’ said Luc. These were the wild northern provinces of Cambodia — the final outposts of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge and all the child slavery and heroin production that was part of the communist utopia.

‘What does Mr Smith look like, Luc?’

‘He not skinny, but not big neither,’ said Luc, looking at the table like he was appraising a wine. ‘He got tan, and he the bald.’

‘Strong eyes?’ said Mac.

‘Yes,’ said Luc, sitting to attention. ‘Very strong eye, very dark eye.’

‘You own North Star?’ said Mac.

‘No, mister,’ said Luc. ‘But Mr Smith only want deal with me. He pay in cash, but I the one who deal with it.’

‘What are you flying to Cambodia?’

‘People, bags,’ said Luc.

‘You look in the bags?’ said Mac, winking.

Luc looked embarrassed. ‘Only once. It was much, much money — American money.’

‘Anything else you carry?’

‘Whatever they want.’

‘They?’

‘Mr Smith have friends — maybe ten.’

‘Mr Smith’s friends — they businessmen? Engineers? Soldiers?’

Shrugging, Luc looked away. ‘Some, like me; some, they are like you, mister.’

‘Aussie?’

‘No,’ said Luc, miming to indicate muscles.

‘Okay, okay,’ said Mac, aware that Loan was smiling beside him. ‘Five days ago, maybe Mr Smith is in a hurry. You remember that night?’

Luc blushed through his facial injuries, averted his eyes.

‘It was a crazy night, huh?’ said Mac, nodding and smiling. ‘Lots going on?’

‘Yes,’ said Luc.

‘What happened?’

‘Mr Smith call me on cell phone, tell me he need the plane urgent, right?’

‘What time?’

‘Three in morning,’ said Luc. ‘My wife real angry.’

‘So you go to the airport?’

‘Yes, and pick up engineer on way.’

‘And then?’

‘Mr Smith and his friends are waiting, and we get plane ready, and they come on board.’

‘Were they relaxed?’

‘No! They nervous and Mr Smith angry with me.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cos when I ask if the woman is okay to fly, he grab me by throat and tell me, “There is no woman — you never saw woman.”’

‘Tell me about the woman,’ said Mac calmly, though his pulse was jumping.

‘She tired, or maybe drug.’

‘She Vietnamese, Cambodian?’

‘No,’ said Luc, shaking his head. ‘When I close the main hatch, I hear her speak to Mr Smith and she Aussie, mister. She talk like you — she look like you.’

‘And then?’

‘I fly to airfield in north of Stung Treng, I land and Mr Smith give me cash.’

‘Some for North Star, some for you?’

‘Yes, mister,’ he said, looking at the floor. ‘I not racish — I like Aussie. I try help the woman.’

‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘You remember the airfield?’

‘I know how to get there, and it in flight log,’ he said. ‘But airfield not on map.’

‘So what happened, Luc — you get in a fight?’ said Mac, thinking he would need to get this man out of the cells.

‘No, I going work at airport this morning and then I kidnap,’ he said, lip quivering.

Mac averted his eyes. ‘By Mr Smith?’

‘No. The men, they beat me, want to know where the Uc woman is.’

‘This is the woman on your plane? The drugged one?’

‘Yes — they say, “Where Geralin? Where Geralin?”’

‘Geraldine?’ said Mac.

‘Yes — that what I say. I tell them the place I take her has no name, but they don’t believe me.’

‘They?’

‘A big ape — I think he police or soldier,’ said Luc, eyes moistening.

‘And?’

‘And very big Aussie,’ said Luc, shaking his head at the memory.

‘He look like me too?’ said Mac.

‘No — he dark. Very dark and very big.’

‘The other one?’ said Mac.

‘He same as you — but he Indonesi, Philippine maybe,’ said Luc.

‘What you tell him?’

‘I tell him it all, mister,’ said Luc, crying now. ‘He… he…’

‘He frighten you, Luc?’

‘Yes!’ said Luc. ‘I put my foot through window when they putting the bag over my head.’

‘The bag?’

‘Yes, they want me to fly them to Geralin!’

‘And then the police came?’

‘No — my engineer ask if I okay.’

‘Where did this happen?’ said Mac, confused.

‘In toilet, at work,’ said Luc, tears on his cheeks. ‘They waiting for me.’

‘Tell me about these people,’ said Mac. ‘How did they speak? Walk?’

‘The big ape — he call me “brother” all time, and then he hit me.’

‘Did you hear a name?’ said Mac.

‘Yes — I tell her,’ he said, pointing at Loan.

‘Tell me.’

‘The biggest one, he call the ape Bongo.’

‘Bongo?’ said Mac.

‘Yes,’ said Luc, nodding too hard. ‘Bongo — and he say he coming back.’