Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike (15 page)

A small pile of A4 sheets had survived the fi re with some blackening. Mac picked up what looked like scientifi c papers: some in Arabic, others in English. It didn’t mean much to him but he rolled them carefully and was about to put them in his back pocket when he saw a handwritten note in blue ballpoint just below the burn-line on one of the pieces of paper.

Mac inspected it: the scrawl looked as if it said
N W
. He showed the other two. Was it just referring to north-west or did
N W
mean something special in Sumatra? Johnny and Tom didn’t think so, but said they’d ask around.

They walked the rest of the runway perimeter until they were back at the LandCruiser. Johnny lined himself up at the north end of the runway, knelt down, and by looking down the weeds and grasses that had grown through the concrete over the years determined that no aircraft had recently landed on this fi eld.

They left just after four o’clock and Mac asked how long before they were in cellular range; he wanted to speak with Joe again and Viktor would be calling back.

Moving back into the green tube of the track, Mac felt a little sheepish about coming so far out on a whim for nothing. Johnny drove and his father opened a sports bag, doling out sandwiches and small local oranges that were almost red.

Mac knew from his experience with his own father to steer clear of war-talk with Tom. He and Johnny wanted to know what their fathers had done in Vietnam but Johnny had confi rmed that, like Frank, Tom got annoyed when asked. Very annoyed. So they spoke about the guiding business and the intensity of the industry. When the gold and gem merchants made their buying trips into some very dangerous places they needed hired muscle and Sunshine provided that.

‘You know, these guys are middle-aged dudes, grand-daddies.

They’re totally hard-case,’ laughed Johnny. ‘I thought some of my old regiment mates were tough, but the merchants …’ He whistled low, shaking his head. ‘They trust no one and we’re taking them into places where there is no law. Pakistan’s north-west, Hindu Kush, inland Kalimantan - no places for a jeweller, mate, but they still go, eh Dad?’

Tom grimaced. ‘Yeah, they’re crazy but at least they know where there’s risk. Some of these oil guys we escort around Sumatra have no idea what’s out there; no concept of a teenage bandit who’d kill for a watch.’

Coming around a tight corner, there were two young boys walking on the road, carrying a jungle pig between them. Johnny swerved to avoid them, the LandCruiser slid to the other side of the track and, before he could correct it, the heavy vehicle had dropped into the rocky culvert and come to a smashing halt.

It took fi fty-fi ve minutes to get the stricken Cruiser out of the ditch and Mac could feel his momentum evaporating with the lowering sun.

They got the LandCruiser started but fi fteen metres down the track Mac realised the day was gone: the gearbox had taken a hammering and Johnny couldn’t get higher than second gear.

‘Sorry, bro,’ said Johnny, slipping an old Elvis tape into the stereo.

‘No dramas,’ sighed Mac and settled back to the hissing and crackling sounds of the King.

The Cruiser was overheating by the time they could see the lights of Medan so Tom asked Mac if they could stop at the family compound rather than continue to the Sunshine Tours depot in the city.

Mac said, ‘Sure, why not?’

‘There’s a feed in it for you,’ Tom said with a smile as they pulled through farm gates and crawled up a long drive to a series of houses and sheds.

While Tom and Johnny went into the house, Mac lingered outside, made his calls. Joe Imbruglia wasn’t answering so Mac tried Ari, who picked up on the fi rst ring.

‘McQueen, where are you?’ said the Russian.

‘Nice to hear your voice again too, mate. Where are
you
?’ Mac replied.

‘Look, we have to talk, yes?’ said Ari. ‘I’ll be in Medan tomorrow morning.’

‘So call me then.’

‘First thing,’ said Ari.

Mac hung up and checked his clean phone for messages. There was one from Viktor, saying he was calling from a payphone as Mac had asked, but was leaving a cell phone as an after-hours number.

Mac wasn’t going to use that number - all nuclear scientists and engineers were constantly under surveillance from their governments or their employers. It was a simple rule, and what he needed to ask Viktor could be the kind of thing that brought heat from the friendlies.

Mac decided to let it go until morning and start all over again.

The Hukapas’ cook had made fi sh curry stew, with rice and rotis. Mac washed up and when he came back to the family table there was a tall Maori girl, mid-twenties, walking back from the fridge with several bottles of Tiger arranged between her fi ngers.

Johnny grabbed one of the beers from her and beckoned Mac over.

‘Macca, this is my sister, Mari. Don’t think you guys have met.’

Mac shook her hand, which was wet from holding the beers, and said, ‘G’day. Alan McQueen.’

‘Well, Mr McQueen,’ said Mari smiling as they sat down to eat,

‘not one of our little Elmer Fudds are you?’

‘I’m sorry?’ asked Mac.

‘Watch it mate, she’s a vet,’ said Johnny, teasing.

‘You know,
Macca
,’ continued Mari. ‘Shoot a rare animal, go back to the suburbs and tell all the boys at the golf club what a man you are? That great white hunter crap -‘

‘Marama!’ snapped Tom. ‘Cut it out. This is Frank McQueen’s boy.’

‘I don’t shoot animals,’ said Mac calmly.

‘Well that would be a fi rst for a white man.’

‘I said cut it out, girl,’ growled Tom, his presence now fi lling the room. ‘Mac’s got nothing to do with the hunting rackets, so don’t blame him for it.’

Taking his fi rst mouthful of fi sh, Mac felt better and took a slug on the Tiger. ‘Rackets?’ he asked, not wanting to divide this family.

‘Don’t get her started, mate. She’s the Mad Vet of Medan,’ chuckled Johnny, and got a backhand punch on the biceps from Mari for his trouble.

‘Well, since you asked,’ Mari began.

‘No you don’t, girl,’ Tom interrupted. ‘Not while I’m eating.’

‘I’ll show you later, Macca,’ said Mari quietly. ‘If you’re up for it.’

‘Okay,’ said Mac, shovelling his food.

‘Okay,’ said Mari, while Johnny smiled and shook his head at Mac.

‘Sorry about before, I assumed you were a hunter,’ said Mari as she opened the door of the large shed adjacent to the house. Animal noises erupted as they entered. ‘This is the surgery.’ She nodded at a series of cages at the back and a surgery table and dispensary in front of them.

She was calmer now than she had been in the house. ‘Look, you don’t have to see her,’ she said. ‘I get upset and make people witness this stuff, but it’s not fair really - it’s not your problem.’

Mac shrugged. ‘Well I’m here now - let’s have a look.’

Following Mari down an avenue of cages, he saw all sorts of monkeys, a Siamang, a couple of orang-utans and a large dark creature lying in a stall near the back. ‘Sumatran rhino,’ said Mari, noticing Mac’s interest.

They stopped at a large wire-sided cage lined with dark straw. It was a stunning sight: an adult tigress lying on her side sleeping with two cubs buried in her teats. One of the cubs looked up at the visitors, yawned and then repositioned itself back in the mother’s tummy.

There was something wrong with the tigress’s back legs, which were heavily bandaged. From what Mac could see, there were hip-to-ankle splints under the bandages.

‘Hunting rackets,’ said Mari. ‘They catch a tiger, bust their back legs so they can’t run, and then some dickhead from Germany or the States is taken on a safari through the Sumatran jungle.’

‘What?’ said Mac, slightly confused. ‘They shoot the tiger? When she’s in this state?’

‘Of course - they pay ten thousand American dollars to do it. The locals can’t resist.’

‘That’s crazy,’ mumbled Mac, embarrassed.

‘They call it hunting.’

They sat in the large cool area at the front of the vet surgery, sipping on cold beers from the fridge and swapping stories. Mari had grown up in Perth, gone to the University of Western Australia and had been planning to work in a vet surgery before clubbing in with some other people to buy their own practice and do the whole huge-mortgage, husband-and-two-kids trip. She’d come to visit Tom and Johnny in Sumatra one Christmas and become involved with a group, Vets Without Borders, who rescued tigers and orang-utans and other distressed wildlife.

‘I never really left,’ she shrugged. ‘It sort of became my life. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll turn into the crazy animal spinster of Sumatra.’

Mac was supposed to say that he doubted that would be the case with such a pretty and smart woman, but he didn’t. ‘Yep - that could easily be it.’

She fl ashed him a nasty look and he winked, laughed.

She laughed too, reluctantly, and leaned forward on the table.

‘I really like you, Macca,’ she smiled. ‘But I’m not going to sleep with you, okay?’

Mari found Mac a camp bed and a loose Indian cotton sheet and Mac slept very deeply in the vet surgery, the whimpering of the tiger and her cubs echoing into his dreams.

Ari called at seven am and Mac gave him directions to the Hukapa compound. Then, swinging his feet out of the camp stretcher, he stood up, got dressed and went in search of the food that he could smell cooking.

The door that Mari had disappeared through the night before was locked, a sign on it reading
Dilarang masuk -
no admittance. Mac assumed that didn’t apply to him and pushed on the door, but it didn’t give. He peered through the porthole, trying to work out the secret handshake, and saw an open area with fi ve or six picnic-style tables and bench seats crammed with kids, all eating. Mac got the attention of one of the young women who was supervising and she waved his way and went into what he assumed was the kitchen.

He wandered around the clinic area, checking on the tigress, who snarled and hissed at him as her cubs burrowed into her full belly.

Turning back, he heard the sound of kids yelling as the door swung open and then shut. Mari greeted him with a tray of fresh fruit, toast and a mug of what he prayed was coffee.

‘Morning,’ she said. She was quite tall and had the sort of athletic frame Mac liked, but he was happy she’d set him right the night before.

They sat at the table chatting as Mac buttered his toast, before noticing a bowl of what looked like dark red maple syrup.

‘Sumatran wild honey,’ said Mari, following his gaze. ‘Bunch of us buy it from the Batak people if they agree to stop burning the forest, killing the tigers.’

‘And it’s working?’ asked Mac.

‘Sure, but it’s the female economy,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘It’s the blokes who can’t resist Westerners coming in with all this money and wanting to shoot a tiger, grab an orang-utan.’

The honey was beautiful, sweet but also smoky.

‘So, what’s with the kids?’ asked Mac.

‘Some are orphans. Some have been rescued from the - you know

- the sex rackets.’

‘Shit!’ said Mac, sipping on the coffee. ‘So you keep the door locked in case they run away?’

‘No,’ said Mari, her face stony. ‘It’s to keep men out. No males are allowed in that area.’

‘Bit harsh, isn’t it?’

Mari shook her head. ‘Men have been the problem for those kids, not the solution.’

They talked and Mac gave her Jenny’s number in Jakarta; told her what Jenny did with the transnational sexual-servitude taskforce and how the key to Jenny’s work was intelligence gathering and intelligence networks. She needed people like Mari.

‘She sounds great. I’ll defi nitely contact her,’ said Mari, dropping the tough-chick act.

‘Sure is. You two would get on,’ said Mac.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Because you’re both quite, umm,
assertive
about the difference between right and wrong,’ Mac replied, winking.

Mari laughed. ‘Beautifully put, Mr McQueen. Ten out of ten for diplomacy.’

There was a banging at the door and Mari went to it while Mac fi nished his coffee and looked around for his boots. ‘That’ll be Ari

- he’s picking me up. He’s a friendly.’

Mari opened the door and let Ari in. The Russian nodded at her and padded across the concrete slab, casing the place, walking like a bad guy in a Western movie. He was in Levis and a dark blue trop shirt. His holster-bag hung around his middle and his sunnies sat up on his thin sandy hair. Shaking Mac’s hand, he took a seat and helped himself to the fruit.

‘Okay there, champ?’ said Mac.

‘Okay if not so hungry,’ said Ari, not getting it.

‘This is Mari,’ said Mac as he grabbed his Hi-Tecs, got a sock on.

‘She’s a vet, from Australia. This is her set-up.’

‘Nice,’ said Ari, looking around. ‘Good location for the little animals.’

‘Thanks,’ said Mari.

‘And not such little animals,’ said Mac. ‘Mari’s got a tiger.’

Ari arced up, totally interested. ‘Tiger! I love the tigers.’

‘I’m just checking on her now,’ said Mari. ‘You can come and help me if you want.’

Ari got to his feet and they disappeared down the line of cages while Mac found his Heckler and checked the phones. Then he wandered down to the tiger cage and stopped as he saw Mari put her arm around Ari’s shoulder and whisper in his ear. He was about to say something smart when he saw Ari’s back heaving.

While Ari drove the silver Nissan Patrol to the Polonia, Mac fronted him with a simple choice. Pulling out the folded papers he’d grabbed from the Pulau airfi eld, he waved them in the Russian’s face. ‘Mate, these are yours to read, maybe copy - but we’ll have a quick chat fi rst, okay?’

Ari looked at him, looked at the bunch of papers. ‘Chat?’

‘Yeah,’ said Mac. ‘I don’t have the full picture. I don’t even know what I’m doing here, and some bastard is going to start with the explanations.’

‘Me?’

‘No one else in the room.’

Ari looked resigned. ‘What are these papers? Where did you get them?’

‘Know that airfi eld where Hassan’s team tried to land yesterday?’