Second Strike

CHAPTER 52

The RAAF Hawker Falcon corporate jet collected Mac at Marcoola airport on the Sunshine Coast at six am and brought him straight to Sydney. Easing back in the light brown leather seat, Mac looked out on the tarmac of the government annexe of the airport as a silver Ford Fairlane was driven to the stationary plane.

He’d used the trip to have another look at Freddi’s second latent from the Galaxy Hotel pad. There were a few lines, if you looked closely, and there were what looked like Hebrew or Arabic scrawls.

Perhaps not useless, but not obvious. It was disappointing.

A clanging of aluminium steps presaged the arrival of the Brass and suddenly the small cabin was fi lled with suits. Leading them was Greg Tobin, the ever-bouncy, glamour-prince of Aussie intelligence who, at the age of forty, had got the job most of his predecessors had not been offered till they’d been at least fi ve years older.

‘G’day, Macca,’ said Tobin, putting out his hand. Tobin sat in the facing seat, crossed his legs, peered out the window and shot his expensive cuffs. He was a good-looking, athletic man with a habit of speaking in short grabs, which irritated the serious thinkers of intelligence.

Mac looked up and saw a face he knew from the Nudgee dorms: Dave Urquhart. ‘Hi mate,’ said Urquhart. ‘Been in the wars, huh?’

Urquhart took the rear-facing seat on the other side of the aisle.

An APS bodyguard in a cheap blue suit walked back to the cabin door and stood lookout.

‘So, we’ve been talking with the Queensland cops – nasty business, eh?’ Tobin started.

Mac nodded.

‘So, Macca,’ said Tobin, discomfi ted. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘In Noosa?’ asked Mac.

‘Yeah – thought you were going home?’

Holding his temper in check, Mac went with it. ‘I was, but I had to check on Tony. He hadn’t answered his phone for almost three days and his voicemail was locked out, which means -‘

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Tobin. ‘So how did you fi nd him?’

‘Tony?’

‘No one at the fi rm knew his address.’

‘I found out, fi eld work… Look, Greg. We have some bigger things to talk about here.’

‘Hmm?’

‘I mean, there are circumstances around this -‘

‘Yes, mate,’ said Tobin.

Looking around him, Mac felt a sudden burst of fury. The talk he wanted to have couldn’t take place in extended company.

‘You can talk, Macca,’ said Tobin.

‘Okay. I need a guard on Jenny and Rachel.’

‘Got it.’

‘And one on… um, another girl and her grandmother -‘

‘Yes?’ asked Tobin, confused. He looked across at an ASIS employee called Sandra, who was taking the notes.

‘In Sydney…’

‘Well, sure,’ said Tobin. ‘And these people would be?’

‘Look,’ Mac began. Then turning to the wide-eyed faces of Urquhart and Sandra, suddenly lost it. ‘Guys, please – time to go, eh?

I just have to talk with Greg.’

‘Come on, Macca,’ said Urquhart, his smooth voice dripping with condescension.

‘ GET OUT! ‘ Mac screamed, lunging at Urquhart, who recoiled.

‘ NOW! ‘ shouted Mac, pointing at the cabin door.

Mac sat back, head in his hands, until the rumbling of the aluminium stairs stopped. Sitting up, his eyeballs itchy with stress and fear, he looked at Tobin.

‘Sorry, Greg.’

‘It’s okay. So let’s talk.’

‘The girl in Sydney is my daughter – Sarah.’

‘Okay,’ said Tobin, deciding not to push with the questions. ‘Got an address?’

Mac handed over the piece of paper he’d prepared on the way down. Then he told Tobin the story, from the NIME investigation through to the shootings and the fact that Mossad were looking for a second device. He left out Ted’s story. He needed more time to work out what the MI6 involvement might mean. But he ended on the point that meant the others could not be present.

‘Greg, someone has been operating from within -‘

‘Mac -‘

Mac held his hand up to stop him. ‘Mate, I’m not saying it’s anyone in the fi rm. It could be someone in a friendly agency, a friendly country. Someone with enough access -‘

‘That’s a big call, mate,’ said Tobin, his mood darkening.

‘I’m saying what I know, Greg. A simple verifi cation of an NIA has pushed all the way back to an address that not even you or I knew. It was a straight line, okay?’

Tobin thought about it. ‘There’s a whole network of old spooks around Noosa. The address was hardly a secret.’

‘Those old boys are tight,’ said Mac. ‘Few people outside the inner circle would have known where he lived, and those who found out by fl uke wouldn’t have known what he did for a living. Tony Davidson was just a Perth businessman to most civvies.’

Tobin cocked an eye, looked out the cabin window. ‘Okay, so a straight line?’

‘Yeah. A new outer circle of economic operatives is hardly a blip on a terrorist’s radar,’ said Mac. ‘Davidson’s team was new, it was our fi rst gig.’

‘So why was there a shooter ready for Tony?’

‘Precisely,’ snarled Mac, happy that Tobin at least saw what he was talking about, even if he went back to Canberra to cover everyone’s arses. ‘The Hassan crew knew there’d be due diligence, and when the enrichment code was handed over, Davidson was going down. Then, Hassan’s people got nervous that it was me doing the investigation.’

‘You’re saying that an operator like Hassan would have learned of your involvement and assumed you’d be on to something?’

‘Correct – he would have at least heard the name, connected me with all sorts of stuff that had nothing to do with lawyers and accountants.’

‘But he wanted the enrichment codes fi rst?’

‘Yes. He didn’t want Canberra getting spooked and shutting the thing down. The hit was timed for post-settlement, post-handover because by then Hassan knew what we’d found out. He must have had an intercept on my phone or the email, and I reckon that required some inside help. Diane and I weren’t supposed to live – she’s under guard in Jakarta with two bullets in her.’

‘I’ll put the security in place this morning. What else do you need?’ said Tobin.

‘I need to be back, on full grade. And we’ll need military support.’

Tobin stared at him. ‘Military? Not AFP?’

‘AFP too,’ said Mac, ‘and they’ll need to do their ct coordinations with state police and ASIO. But this is a nuke and Hassan’s gang are all soldiers. If we fi nd them, there won’t be many arrests, I can promise you.’

‘Got it,’ said Tobin. ‘Not my call, but I think I can sell it.’

‘Not going to tell me it’s a conspiracy theory?’ asked Mac, still wary.

‘The dots join. Well, they join enough to at least check our borders, see if Hassan is in the country with this thing.’

‘So I’m back?’

Tobin nodded.

‘I can answer to you?’ Mac pushed.

Tobin hesitated, looked away and looked back. ‘Yes, McQueen, but you’re still economic, okay? Once I sell this upstairs then the whole CT apparatus kicks in and then it’s out of my hands and it’s defi nitely out of yours. Deal?’

‘So I’m an economic guy?’

‘Yeah, and no empire-creep with the counter-terrorism guys, all right? You know how they get. Besides, with Tony gone I’m going to need a controller for the economic team. Think about it.’

Tobin made to stand, impatient to get things underway, but Mac didn’t budge.

‘That everything?’ asked Tobin, hunching slightly in the small cabin.

‘No, Greg, there’s something else,’ said Mac. ‘Atkins tell you why he wanted me out of Jakarta?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ said Tobin.

‘It wasn’t true.’

‘You weren’t treading on a CT operation?’

Mac fl inched. He’d trapped Atkins in a straight-out lie. ‘No, mate, I was doing my job.’

Tobin clanged down the stairs, instructions pouring from his mouth. As the voices faded across the tarmac, Mac mulled a conclusion: in order to get Tobin focused he’d deliberately said that the insiders needn’t be from ASIS, they could also be friendly agencies or friendly countries. There was something in that. Maybe MI6’s involvement with Hassan and the mini-nukes hadn’t stopped with the Red Sea heist? The British might still be active in the Hassan fi asco. And if they were there was a good chance they were pulling some Australians along for the ride.