Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike (36 page)

invaded Iraq in ‘03, the CIA had only eleven Arabic-speaking fi eld people, while back at Langley they had so many managers that they had to fi nd more space to house them.

His face now clean, Mac eyeballed himself in the mirror. Atkins had used the word
conspiracy
, which in itself was an admission of ignorance. Way back in 1957, the old Joint Intelligence Service -

forerunner of ASIO and ASIS - had commissioned one of its analysts to assess the probability of nuclear terrorism. That report,
The Likelihood
of Clandestine Introduction of Nuclear Weapons into Australia
, was the world’s fi rst discussion of a terror campaign using a nuclear device, and the device it named was ‘a plutonium device the size of a cricket ball’.

A mini-nuke. Atkins and his ilk had taken the wrong turn by putting the idea of a mini-nuke in the crazy department - it was very real.

Mac understood why Atkins didn’t want to deal with it. If you were born in the 1960s, and grew up with the Cold War, you wanted to think that the chance of a nuclear nightmare had ended when the Berlin Wall came down. But Israel’s entire nuclear weapons program at the Dimona facility was about developing mini-nukes - devices that could be carried in a backpack. In the same year that Israel’s IDF

bombed the Iraqi fast-breeder reactor at Osirak, they tested a joint-venture mini-nuke in the Indian Ocean. It was 1979 and the partner was South Africa.

So Mac wasn’t going mad - not yet, anyway. And Atkins’ own words had confi rmed it. He’d mistakenly admitted that Hassan was in Kuta before and during the bomb blasts, a fact that the Atkins lobby had previously contested. It wasn’t ringing alarm bells, but it was starting to niggle. Why did the fi rm want him out of Jakarta?

Eight minutes later, Mac walked into the courtyard bar of the Raffl es. The air was alive with soft jazz and raucous crickets and he saw Benny at a glass-topped table beside the fountain, drinking with a pretty Chinese woman in a pale blue blouse and navy blue Andrews Sisters skirt.

Benny introduced Suzi and ordered a round of drinks, a Tiger for Mac.

‘Mr McQueen is just up from Australia,’ Benny told Suzi. ‘Very smart fellow.’

‘What do you do?’ she asked in smooth English.

‘Due diligence for the government,’ shrugged Mac, wanting to get on to something else.

‘Due diligence on what?’ asked Suzi, her demeanour disproving the theory that intellect is in inverse proportion to looks.

‘Well, exporters.’

She sat forward, wanting more.

‘Okay,’ said Mac, ‘someone wants to export to Singapore and get the taxpayer to underwrite payment? The government might be prepared to guarantee payment, but they want to know who the parties are and what the deal actually is.’

‘Sounds interesting.’

Later, when Suzi went to the ladies, Benny leaned over to Mac.

‘By the way, champ, got so tied up in those documents of yours that I forgot to pass something on.’

‘Yeah?’ said Mac, taking a swig of his beer.

‘This is a free gift to Jen, right? Just so she knows there’re no hard feelings, and then we’re square, okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Mac, smiling.

At their wedding reception at the Jakarta Golf Club Jenny had cornered Benny and told him off for constructing and maintaining the kind of secret banking and business linkages - grey networks -

that allowed the sex-slavers and human traffi ckers to get away with it. Jenny had had a skinful that night and her FBI friend, Milinda, had had to drag her away from what could have turned ugly.

‘Last week I was doing some work for a client and I got to see something I shouldn’t have seen,’ whispered Benny, scanning the courtyard for eyes.

‘Okay,’ said Mac, letting his body get lower to hear.

‘Well it seems our old friends from the Khmer Rouge are back in business, and there’s a lot of funds coming back into Singers right now.’

‘Where from?’ asked Mac.

‘South-east Queensland, judging by some of the numbers.’

‘Who?’

Benny eyed him and smiled. ‘Come on, mate, I’ve said too much.

Let’s just say that after years doing their thing in Indo and Thailand, the KRs have moved to where the real money is.’

After Suzi came back, the talk got more general. Benny was a great host as always and Suzi was a smart young lawyer fresh out of the University of Sydney Law School, doing her clerking with the legal side of Benny’s practice. Mac liked the tough but open character of middle-class Singaporeans. It was a similar trait to the Israelis. Both countries raised their kids with the knowledge that everything they took for granted could be snatched away tomorrow, so they should enjoy it - and fi ght for it. Both countries sat in the midst of an Islamic tide, both had been created by the West as Anglo-leaning capitalist democracies, and both had built the kind of national wealth that engendered nothing but resentment from those around them.

Suzi was appalled by the jihadists and their methods, in contrast to some of the students Mac had tutored at Sydney Uni, who thought the bombers had a point. There was a softness in younger Australians and an appetite for received wisdom that Mac found disturbing.

He told Suzi how in one tutorial discussion, a woman in her early thirties had upbraided Mac for talking about Indonesian aggression during
Konfrontasi
in the mid-1960s. She claimed
Konfrontasi
had been an attempt by Sukarno to stop an ‘imperialist land-grab in Borneo’

and that everyone knew this. Of course, in 1963 alone the Indonesian military had carried out more than thirty bombings in Singapore, many of them on civilian targets such as cafes and buses, and Mac had asked his student how this stopped Sarawak and Sabah becoming part of the Malay Federation? The woman had stormed out, calling him a

‘Bush-lover’.

‘I know - it’s true!’ Suzi said, wide-eyed. ‘Other students were saying to me
Oooh, but the poor Muslims have a point
, and I’m like,
Naaahhh -‘

she said it with a theatrically downturned mouth and big smiling eyes, ‘
let them hang!
‘

Benny and Mac laughed, couldn’t help themselves. The Singaporean Chinese had no sense of why you’d make excuses for people who bombed cafes.

‘I’m like, to my Aussie friends,’ continued Suzi, ‘
When you live in
Singapore, you know that you are Mantiqi One - lucky to be fi rst on their list
.’

Mac met her eye as he tried to recall. ‘Mantiqi One - that’s …’

Suzi sipped her wine. ‘JI’s fi rst bombing zone. Singapore and Malaysia.’

‘Nice of them,’ growled Benny.

‘Yeah,’ said Suzi. ‘And if you’re in Western Indonesia, you’re Mantiqi Two. Mantiqi Three covers Sabah, Mindanao and Sulawesi, I think.’

‘Gee, what have they got for this - a spreadsheet?’ asked Mac.

Suzi giggled. ‘Don’t think you get off lightly. Guess where the bombs go off in Mantiqi Four?’

Mac shrugged. ‘What’s left? Flores?’

‘No, silly - Mantiqi Four is Australia.’

‘Really?’ said Mac, the humour draining from his face.

‘Yeah - Mantiqi Four. You know, the Fourth Brigade.’

Mac was woken shortly before six am by the sound of a female voice hissing. Going out to his balcony, he looked down to the rear garden where Miss Rasmi was muttering insults and waving a broom at a koel bird in the tree. After a brief shower he reapplied his mo and walked around the corner to the Raffl es for some brekkie. Businesspeople sat around the restaurant, reading the
Straits
and texting on their BlackBerries.

Seeing a table by the rear wall, Mac dropped his phone and wallet on it and walked to the maitre d’ station, ordered the full cooked breakfast and a pot of coffee, managing to not blanch at the bill.

The coffee came quickly, in a large silver pot, and he surveyed the room for a tail while he poured. He clocked an early thirties Anglo or Euro male with short light brown hair and an athletic frame in expensive but anonymous clothes. The guy looked around the room for a fraction too long as he waited for the maitre d’, and then sat two tables away.

Mac gave him a wink. ‘How’s it going?’

Smiling, the bloke played it cool and turned back to his
Straits
Times
. Mac decided he might have to fl ush the bird into the open rather than going stumbling into the bush. Firing up the Nokia, he redialled Freddi’s number. It rang twice before Freddi answered. ‘
Alo
.’

‘Fred, it’s McQueen,’ said Mac, pushing his right hand onto his ear to block out the sound of the restaurant.

‘How are you?’ asked Freddi.

‘Bad time?’

‘If I say
yes
, you hang up?’

Mac laughed. He could hear a child talking in the background.

‘Mate, I’ll call back in thirty minutes.’

‘Okay.’

‘Thanks, mate - bye,’ he said and hit the red button, took a slug of surprisingly good coffee and made for the bain-maries.

As he sat with the bacon and eggs Mac made a show of looking at his watch, then sighed and stood up, grabbed his phone and wallet and walked out of the restaurant.

‘Back in a tick,’ he said, smiling at the head waitress as he headed out. Walking through the lobby at a brisk pace, he looked for eyes, although he didn’t expect to fi nd them in the lobby. There’d be someone outside and they’d have a prop: reading a newspaper, standing at a parking meter, sitting on a park bench with a phone to their ear.

Mac saw her as he was halfway down the Raffl es front steps. The other tail was a late-twenties Anglo or Euro brunette in a burgundy skirt suit, standing next to a car pretending to be on the phone. Mac continued down the steps and paused at the forecourt, looked directly at the girl and feigned surprise at being made. Running around the side of the building, through the gardens, he strode into the courtyard where he’d been with Suzi and Benny the night before and then let himself into the side alcove of the Raffl es lobby. Moving forward quietly, behind a porter’s trolley, Mac scanned the vast area, thankful for the air-con. To his left he could see the retreating form of the male tail, the large wood and glass doors swishing behind him.

Taking a deep breath, Mac walked across the lobby and into the restaurant, smiled at the maitre d’ and resumed his seat.

The eggs and bacon were still hot.

Freddi picked up on the fi rst ring when he redialled.

‘How are the kids?’ asked Mac.

‘They’re great - it’s their dad who get annoy.’

Mac chuckled.

‘So, where are you, McQueen?’ asked Freddi.

‘Surabaya.’

‘Just seen it on the Weather Channel - is it true, what they say?’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Mac, amused that Freddi was such a good operator. ‘A little west of there. So, mate - what’s up?’

‘Thought you might tell me.’

‘Maybe we should tell each other, eh Fred?’

‘Sure, so where are you?’ asked Freddi, not giving up.

Mac sighed. ‘On the Peninsula. But I wanted to know about the object, from the hotel?’

‘Yeah - nice call. We got a number.’

‘Anything from it?’

‘Got an interview.’

‘And?’ said Mac.

‘Going to have a look.’

‘Where?’ spat Mac, not able to hide his interest.

‘In Archipelago, yeah?’

‘
Shit
, Freddi!’

‘Yeah, McQueen?’

‘Okay, I’m in Singers.’

‘Behaving yourself?’

‘Got a tail but they’re standing off.’

‘Who?’

‘Look Euro but probably Americans, judging by the girl’s make-up.’

‘What do they want?’

Mac shrugged, looked around the restaurant. ‘Beats me. So, we still chasing Hassan?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Where we going?’

‘Don’t know about
we
.’

‘Come on, mate. You might be interested in what
I’m
on to.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ said Mac, wanting to be back on the trail.

‘Guys might not want it like that.’

‘But Fred, the guys don’t know what I bring to this, right?’

‘What do you bring?’

Mac had one eye on the restaurant entrance, his mind racing. ‘Can you get me on board?’

‘I can try.’

‘Second me? You guys have done it before.’

‘Maybe, McQueen, but I don’t decide that.’

‘I know, but you can sell it.’

‘Okay - I try.’

Mac ran through the conversation with Benny but referred to Hassan as ‘our guest’ and JI as ‘the associates’. He ended with the bit about the previous transaction between the al-Qaeda account and Hassan’s account happening ten days before the Bali bombings, and the current one - only the second ever - occurring two days ago.

‘You’ve got the fi les?’ asked Freddi, now on high alert.

‘Yeah, whole hard drive of them.’

‘And you can get to them?’

‘In my pocket, Freddi.’

‘Okay,’ said Freddi, ‘hang on and I get back.’

They hung up and Mac poured more coffee. The double team hadn’t reappeared, which meant they were handing over to another crew or they were waiting outside and would simply walk up and ask to have a chat.

The phone trilled, Mac picking up before the fi rst ring had ended.

‘Can’t detour to Singapore,’ said Freddi immediately.

‘Can we meet up?’

‘About one o’clock, your time,’ said Freddi.

‘Where?’

‘The place.’

‘The place?’

‘Yeah, you know, McQueen -
that
place.’

Ari was waiting in the foyer of the Riau when Mac got back from meeting with Benny. He looked the same in the face but was now dressed more like a controller. But when he stood up, smiled and offered his hand, Mac saw that Ari Scharansky still had that bull neck and big arms; still a little mad, still a very dangerous individual.

‘Ari! How’s it going?’

‘Morning, McQueen,’ said Ari with a fond smile as they shook.

‘Should have shouted me breakfast, mate. Would have saved me fi fty bucks.’

Ari winced. ‘Shit! Breakfast at the Raffl es? You must have well-trained accountants in offi ce, yes?’

Mac laughed. He’d never had a single expenses claim in his career that hadn’t had at least one item queried or denied. ‘So, Ari. How did you fi nd … ?’ Mac’s question petered out as his eyes took in Miss Rasmi’s front desk, with the security grille down and Closed sign on it. Shaking his head, Mac looked back at his mate from Mossad.