Counter Attack

Chapter 45

The streets of Kratie were crowded with busy locals and backpackers from Europe, and Mac sauntered among them, looking for unwanted attention and eyes that lingered.

Kratie was a favourite for travellers who liked places that were off the beaten track, but only if they’d already been overrun by people just like them.

Regardless of what tourists thought of it, Kratie was an important market town in north-east Cambodia. The peasant farmers loaded their boats and their carts at five in the morning and headed for the town’s markets to sell their six chickens, four ducks or three baskets of rice. The fishermen brought their catch into the market and the world of subsistence yeomanry began another day of trying to eke out a living.

‘Gets hot in the afternoon, Kratie,’ said the man’s voice beside him as he looked for a chance to cross the road and walk to the river. ‘Faces west.’

Turning, Mac came face to face with Bongo, the big face impassive beneath the dark sunnies and the Elvis haircut.

‘You following me, Bongo?’ said Mac, a little annoyed that he hadn’t picked him up.

‘Just wandered out of the post office,’ said Bongo, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Thirsty yet, McQueen?’

‘It’s an afternoon in Kratie,’ said Mac. ‘I could hit the waterhole like a lizard drinking.’

They sat at a cafe table nursing their beers while Bongo finished a cell phone call.

‘Life as a managing director,’ said Bongo as he put the phone down. ‘Phone never stops.’

‘How’s that going?’ Mac asked.

‘Busy, brother,’ Bongo replied, emptying his beer glass and gesturing for two more. ‘Friend of mine from the old days, we were talking a few years ago and he says to me, “Bongo, you make yourself into a security firm and then the mining company, the law firm, the foreign government, they use your service.” ’

‘So you’re not a mercenary anymore,’ laughed Mac. ‘You’re a company director?’

‘My accountant says I’m a security consultant; I’m a services provider,’ said Bongo, taking his fresh beer and raising it. ‘To services.’

‘To services,’ said Mac, clinking glasses and shaking his head slightly. ‘You looking after Didge?’

‘Sure — he’s a top operator: very hard, very trained and I’m paying him twice what he made in the Aussie army. Talking of money, you get that cash?’

‘Cash?’

‘Yeah, brother — I dropped it at Saba’s, in Jakarta. You forgot about that?’

‘Shit,’ said Mac. ‘The cash. Yeah, it was there — thanks.’

During their gig in East Timor a decade earlier, Mac had retrieved a few bags of cash from a Korean middleman who supplied feed stock for biological weapons. He’d let Bongo have all the dough, but Bongo had insisted that he would put some in Mac’s safe-deposit box at Saba’s Lager Haus. Following that gig, Mac had checked his box and there were pillows of cash.

‘So how we going to do this?’ said Mac.

‘Do what?’ Bongo scanned, the cafe and street like a cyborg.

‘You’re contracted to the Americans, but you’ve been hired to retrieve Geraldine McHugh by her family.’

Bongo chewed gum and stared at Mac through his sunglasses. ‘What I like about you, McQueen — you always in someone else’s business.’

‘You can get the girl, collect your fee from the lawyers — I don’t care,’ said Mac. ‘But I can’t be competing with you when I’m stealthing into that compound.’

‘So don’t compete,’ said Bongo.

‘I’m retrieving McHugh,’ said Mac. ‘That’s the gig.’

Bongo drank. ‘We can both do it.’

‘I’ll deliver her back to Oz, you’ll get a big mention in my report.’

‘If I find the girl, no one touches her — that’s when there’s a misunderstanding.’

Mac paused: ‘misunderstanding’, in Bongo’s world, was a euphemism for a dispute ending in at least one homicide.

‘I can see your position, mate,’ said Mac. ‘But if we find McHugh, the Americans must be able to debrief.’

Bongo paused, gave Mac the evil eye. ‘You told the Yankees?’

‘Told them what?’

‘That I’m working for the McHugh lawyers?’ said Bongo, stiffening as the cafe owner came from behind the counter and walked to another table.

‘No,’ said Mac.

‘Okay — you keep it that way, and if I find the girl, they can debrief.’

‘It’s not only that,’ said Mac, trying to be delicate. ‘The Australian government may not want your name associated with her rescue.’

‘That’s their problem, brother,’ said Bongo. ‘You gotta know your friends, McQueen, and they’re not in Canberra.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Means I was late for the airport this morning ’cos I got eyes on something.’

‘What?’

‘White Toyota, followed us from the hotel.’

‘Followed you?’

‘Yeah, McQueen. The driver was that one you know, with the funny skin — Eckhart?’

‘Urquhart,’ said Mac, the beer threatening to reflux.

‘Yeah, him.’

‘What happened?’

‘Stopped at the lights — Didge got out, went back there and asked the passenger if he knows the way to Bangkok.’

‘And?’ said Mac.

‘And this guy’s sliding down in his seat — young Aussie, look like Adam Ant with that bad hair.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Pointed, said, “That way.” Just having some fun with them but I wonder why Urquhart and the lady-man following.’

‘They know you’ve been hired to find Geraldine McHugh,’ said Mac.

‘Of course,’ said Bongo, smiling. ‘So why they following me when they know you doing the gig?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Mac, looking away from Bongo’s taunting eyes.

‘Neither do I.’ Bongo gulped his beer. ‘Anyway, you know the Yank who was killed in Phnom Penh?’

‘No,’ said Mac.

‘He worked with Sammy. His name’s Phil Brown — Secret Service guy.’

‘Okay, so?’ said Mac.

‘So I picked up the phone, talked to my guy — see about Phil Brown.’

‘And?’

‘And he’s operating as a currency investigator, with the C-note Squad. You heard of it?’

Mac recalled the US hundred-dollar bills in the back of Sam and Phil’s car. ‘No.’

‘You want to?’

‘Yeah, but —’

‘Here’s the deal, brother,’ said Bongo. ‘If I find the girl, I’m flying her back to Australia.’

Staring at the Filipino, Mac wondered how he ever put his life in this man’s hands. ‘Okay — you got it.’

‘The Secret Service’s C-note Squad is on a sweep through Asia, clearing up any counterfeiting problems with the current US hundred-dollar bills, before they’re changed to the new format.’

‘Problems?’

Bongo chewed gum. ‘There’s some illegal protocols in the wrong hands — come from Beep or BP or —’

‘BEP,’ said Mac. BEP was the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing — the federal agency that created US currency.

‘That’s it,’ said Bongo. ‘BEP protocols.’

Mac didn’t see the news flash. ‘The fact the Yanks protect their currency isn’t entirely surprising.’

‘No,’ said Bongo. ‘But my guy’s been dealing with the real C-note Squad, and Phil Brown ain’t on it.’

Back at the guest house, Mac ran up the outside stairs of the former colonial mansion as Grimshaw arrived in the car park in his green Camry. Letting himself into the second door on the left, he made a quick search of the tiny room and decided he was alone. Putting his wheelie bag on the single bed, Mac tried to remember where he’d left it or if he’d even kept it: the piece of paper he’d grabbed from the top of that box of US dollars in the back of Sammy’s car.

Rummaging through the pockets of the bag, he came up empty. Then he took his clothes from the bag and checked under the lining and in the ASIS-issued bag’s three secret hides.

He wondered if he’d even grabbed that paper — he’d been under enormous stress that night and he may have confused his desire to take it with having actually done so.

Standing to the side of the sash window, he looked down on the street and thought about what Bongo had said: Phil wasn’t from the Secret Service. So what was he doing?

Looking at his clothes on the bed, he saw the cheap market-bought chinos he’d been wearing on the night Phil Brown was killed. They had an inside coin pocket on the right hip and out of it Mac pulled a folded piece of paper.

Unfolding it, he saw a handwritten note in cursive script. Intercepted Stung Treng Province. October 12, 2009 — P, I, D, SF, SN = genuine. It still meant nothing to Mac but he decided to hang onto it anyway.

The sound of a revving motorbike sounded and Mac left his room, walked to the rear balcony of the guest house.

Below, in the parking area, Sammy flipped the stand of one Yamaha 250cc trail bike, while a local dismounted from another and put his hand out for the money.

Descending, Mac had a look.

‘Not bad — about three years old,’ said Mac, checking the tyres and chains. ‘How does yours ride?’

‘Rides okay, but it’s not mine,’ said Sammy. ‘I’m running the radio from the truck.’

‘That leaves Didge,’ said Mac, looking at the odo.

‘Not Bongo?’ said Sammy.

‘No — Didge spent a lifetime on these things in Aussie special forces,’ said Mac. ‘Besides, you’ll feel safer with Bongo, believe me.’

‘I hope so,’ said Sammy. ‘I met with Charles half an hour ago.’

‘Yeah?’

‘We can’t delay this any longer.’

‘We start early enough, we’ll have a recce of Dozsa’s compound by lunch,’ said Mac.

‘I mean, no delay,’ said Sammy.

‘What delay?’ said Mac, not getting it.

‘Waiting is the delay,’ said Sammy. ‘We’re going this evening.’