Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike (50 page)

They drank and joked, Mari saying that she might stay in Queensland this trip - could be time to join the real world and make some money with her fancy vet’s degree. They joked about her father, Huck, coming to town for Chrissie and how the big man went to pieces whenever he saw his grandson, James.

‘Dad’s a big sook,’ laughed Mari. ‘At least, with his family he is.’

Mac left them to it and walked south along the beach, watching the Pacifi c turn purple and the lights going on in the apartments along the beach. People were lighting citronella fl ares and fi ring up barbecues on their patios.

When he came into the house, the lights were down and some candles were burning on the outside table, Ricki Lee Jones was on the stereo - the fi rst album. Jenny came through and they met in the living room. She sipped from her wine, put the glass down, grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands around to her bum as she snuggled in with a smile. He noticed she’d put on lipstick.

‘What was that about brunettes?’ she teased.

‘Oh that?’ smiled Mac. ‘I’ll need to authenticate fi rst.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, I might have to do some close-range surveillance, check that you are who you say you are.’

‘Some undercover work, huh?’ she giggled.

‘Might even do a taste test,’ he murmured, kissing her neck. ‘Have to do these things properly.’

‘Invade my privacy,’ she purred, now grinding her hips into him. She put her hands up to his face and they kissed and Mac felt everything else pushed out of his mind. He felt the warmth of his wife’s arousal on his cheek as she kissed him and pushed him back to the kitchen bar. She squeezed her body onto him in undulating waves and as he lifted his right hand to her breast and felt her heart beating through her tank top, Jenny dropped her mouth to the nape of his neck and dropped her hand to his pants. He leaned back on the kitchen bar, letting her kiss him in a place that he had always guarded.

Jenny was the only person allowed to touch his neck.

She kissed him up the side of his face and came eye to eye with him. ‘Take me to bed,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. As she kissed him again he caught a glimpse of them in the mirror on the other side of the room, noticing that the tag on her tank was out. For a split second he wondered what
Esprit
would be backwards and then just as quickly he adjusted that thought to the fact that when people spelled words backwards they never accounted for the letters turning backwards too and creating whole new meanings, other languages …

Jenny disengaged and looked at his face as he tensed, then sighed as she realised she’d lost him.

He slapped at the pockets of his jeans until he found what he was looking for in his back pocket. Unfurling the enhanced latent from Mossad, with the fl ight times taken out, he looked at it again. Then he turned it around and pointed it at the mirror, adrenaline pumping through his temples. The reason the latent from that pad in the Galaxy was so confused was because the writer had initially written fl ight times, probably from a phone call. Then, at a subsequent time, when the pad was grabbed and opened randomly and the piece of paper also grabbed randomly - the diagram was now being pressed down on the back of the piece of paper that had received the fl ight times latent. So it was reversed.

The latent Mac held was now clearly identifi able as an ad hoc street map: a main road ran up and down the page with a branch road running off to the left. Written on that branch road was
Orch
, and on the main trunk was
Cav
. Ari had been half right about the circle being a tower. It was a tower that went into the ground, a stormwater drain indicated by the word
storm
, and Mac could envisage exactly where it was. Someone in Hassan’s crew - perhaps Hassan himself - had drawn a street map of the intersection of Cavill Avenue and Orchid Avenue, the main streets of Surfers Paradise, and the most crowded outdoor area in Queensland - perhaps Australia - in the nights leading up to Christmas. Mac thought about his conversation with Ari. He’d been worried about Christmas shopping crowds, but the crowds were just as big for drinking and carousing. And it was Saturday night - the last Saturday before Christmas.

His phone cut in and out as Mac ran the two kilometres north to the heart of Surfers Paradise, where Cavill Avenue hit the Esplanade. He went over the latent fax with John Morris, the cop also short of breath as Mac asked him to hold it up to a mirror.

‘Got it,’ said Morris, now at AFP headquarters in Brisbane. And then, ‘Oh shit.’

Morris said he was going to send the AFP and Queensland cops straight into the Cavill Mall area. Mac thought about how on any Saturday night the area was rocking, but on the last Saturday before Christmas it would be absolutely chockers. Every teenager, every uni student and tourism worker from around the Gold Coast and Brisbane would be on the strip that started at Surfers Paradise Beach, ran west down Cavill Avenue and then hooked north into Orchid Avenue. It was wall-to-wall bars, nightclubs and restaurants, with thousands of people on the streets. If you were trying to make a point about Aussie decadence, then a bunch of drunken young men and girls in short skirts was an easy target, and the parallels between Surfers and Kuta in their high seasons were frightening.

As Mac panted his way up Northcliffe Terrace on the beachfront, the Heckler chafi ng in his waistband, he argued with Morris about clearing the place. ‘What if Hassan’s people are in visual contact, like they were for Kuta?’ gasped Mac, as he waited for traffi c on Clifford, kids parking to smoke drugs and fool around. ‘What if they say,
Let’s
blow it and get out of town
?’

‘I can’t make that call, McQueen,’ said Morris. ‘Those lives aren’t mine to toy with. I want them out of there till we’ve swept it for devices.’

Mac sprinted on, coming onto the Esplanade where he could look along the main road on the beachfront and see all the pubs, bars and restaurants lit up like a garish parody of Gold Coast glitz. ‘Can’t we at least get the jammers in here fi rst, John?’ he panted. ‘If we can jam the signal then they can’t trigger the device, right?’

‘No time,’ said Morris. ‘The jammers we have access to are in Sydney and Darwin.’

‘Have you spoken with Don yet?’ asked Mac. ‘They’ve got jammers, they’ve got the lot.’

‘Yes, McQueen, I spoke to Don.’

‘Well? Are they on their way?’

‘They sent a Chinook and a Hawk down the coast from Amberley about half an hour ago. Don’t know who tipped them off.’

‘Why not send in the evacuation teams?’ Mac panted. ‘Have them primed but standing off and waiting for those signals to be jammed?’

‘Okay, McQueen.’

‘Mate, I need Don to call me, quick-smart,’ yelled Mac, giving Morris his number as he jogged past the Surfers Paradise Surf Club bar then hung up and stopped at the junction of Cavill Mall. It was crowded with families, youngsters, oldies and tourists from all parts of Australia, Asia and beyond. Christmas lanterns hung suspended across the mall area between buildings and the sound of Surfers -

the ocean, the drinkers, the music - created a roar of the Good Life, the very thing JI wanted destroyed.

The phone trilled. Mac pushed the green button, saying, ‘Don?’

‘Okay, McQueen. So you think the device is under the road?’

‘It’s what the latent says - well, it suggests it. I think we have to jam the airwaves before we evacuate.’

‘I agree,’ snapped Don, the thromp of helo motors and rotors in the background. ‘Do we have contact with the perpetrators?’

‘No, mate. I’m about to go wandering, have a nosey-poke. I reckon there’s a radio or cellular trigger on the thing and they’ll be doing a recce before they blow it,’ said Mac.

‘Many people about?’

‘Thousands already and it’s only …’ he stopped, looked at his watch. ‘Seven-fi fteen. There’ll be double that by nine o’clock.’

The pedestrian light went green and he ran across the road to the Iluka.

‘We’re three minutes away,’ said the American spook. ‘We just fl ew over the - what’s it called - the Sea Drome?’

‘SeaWorld. You got a lock on my phone?’

‘Pope Catholic?’

Patrons and bouncers alike stared at Mac like he might be dangerous as he gesticulated at Ari and Mari. They came out, met him on the pavement.

‘Everything okay, Macca?’ Mari asked.

‘Yeah, sweet,’ he gulped, still short of breath. ‘But I need you to grab Johnny and go and see Jenny. Get James and Arti over there too, okay?’ He held her left shoulder as he spoke.

‘But -‘ she started, then changed tack as she looked into his eyes.

‘Okay - you guys be careful, okay?’ She kissed Mac on the cheek, Ari on the lips, and fl ed.

Mac raced back across the Esplanade with Ari so they were on the ocean side. Down the vast beach to the north known as Main Beach they saw the powerful landing lights of the Chinooks and the red fl ying lights of the Black Hawk out the front as the helos raced south to their position. Mac briefed Ari on his latest understanding of the mini-nuke, as he called Don. ‘Mate, can you get Morris to send in the troops before you jam the airwaves?’

‘Roger that,’ said Don. ‘We have your position. We’ll land on the beach but we’re going to shut down now, okay?’

‘Okay, mate. We’re at the top of the stairs to the beach.’

He didn’t need to hang up because the line went dead as the US

Army’s signals-jamming came on. The Twentieth Support Command’s Chinook helos - the enormous twin-rotor aircraft that had become famous in Vietnam for their lifting capacity - carried a comms and signals-defeat capability equivalent to many militaries, and all on a single helo. When the Twentieth went chasing bad guys and their bio or chemical or nuclear nasties, the fi rst thing they did was shut down all radio and cellular signals in a defi ned area around the threat. It at least prevented a remote triggering.

‘What’s the plan?’ asked Ari, dipping into his holster-bag to check on his weapon.

‘Remember that night in Kuta?’ asked Mac, his voice cracking with stress. ‘The night of the bombing?’

‘Yes, for sure.’

‘You told me that you’d been tailing Hassan and Abu Samir, and that they’d been on Legian Street an hour before the blasts?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think Gorilla and Lempo, maybe even Hassan, are in there right now,’ said Mac, pointing down through the surge of humanity in Cavill Mall. ‘I think it might be their MO.’

‘I think you are right,’ said Ari, squinting at the crowds.

Three helos laid up and dropped to the sand on Surfers Paradise Beach just as two police cars pulled up behind Mac and Ari. Next, a large police truck came to a halt and a couple of policewomen pulled roadblock equipment from the rear.

The noise was deafening, and sand and rubbish was thrown into the air, as the US Army landed. Mac noticed something strange about the second Black Hawk, realising what it was as soldiers emerged and ran up the beach towards Mac in camo fatigues, Kevlar vests and helmets.

The guys from the Hawk were Australians, 4RAR Commandos.

One of the Chinooks, distinctive with their massive rear-engine turrets, disgorged four men in various shades of overalls, black baseball caps and M4 assault rifl es. They looked like DIA and one of them was carrying a dark canvas bag in his large paw.

The joint team mounted the stairs and the fi rst to reach Mac and Ari was Robbo. They did a palm shake and the DIA operators came up behind, Don walking straight up to Mac. The rubber-neckers with their beers in their hands circled for a look and a teenage girl with braces complained that she couldn’t send a text.

Mac introduced Ari to the Aussies and the American as, behind them, another police car squealed to a stop on the Esplanade and an older man with grey hair and a dress cap got out and started yelling into a radio set. He turned, saw the DIA and Commandos, and came over.

Don introduced himself and the cop said, ‘Superintendent Bob Row, Queensland Police. We’ve got a call to evacuate the area.’

‘Can we coordinate?’ asked Don, pointing at Row’s radio. ‘We may need to talk.’

‘Who are you?’ asked the cop, looking Don up and down.

‘It’s okay. Your Minister for Foreign Affairs knows. We can call him if you like?’

‘Anyone here speak English?’ asked Bob Row, turning to Mac.

‘He’s US Department of Defense - Twentieth Support Command.’

‘That’s CBRNE,’ said Bob. ‘My guys aren’t suited up for that shit.’

‘Won’t matter if this thing blows,’ said Mac, then wished he hadn’t.

Bob Row stared at him with all-seeing brown eyes. ‘Great, so we’ve got a nuke in fucking Cavill Mall,’ he spat, then peeled away, yelling into his radio, ‘
Jimbo, Delia - I need everyone out, in a four-block radius of
Cavill - repeat, four blocks, hotels, roads - everything. Shut it down!
‘

Mac ran over to a large Gold Coast City Council truck which had pulled up and was idling. There were two men in the front cab and one in the crew cab behind. The bloke in the passenger seat jumped down, wearing blue overalls and a yellow hard hat. ‘Some Yank called?

That you?’

‘No, mate,’ said Mac. ‘He’s over here. Have you got the stormwater and sewer gear?’

‘What gear?’ asked the bloke.

‘You know, to pull up the stormwater covers, so we can get down there.’

‘Well, of course we do - we’re the council, mate. Sandy’s the name, by the way,’ he said, shaking Mac’s hand.

As the police began clearing people out of Cavill Mall - puzzled men and women emerging from restaurants, bars and hotels - Mac, Don and the soldiers followed the council truck down the emptying mall. The original plan had been to keep the punters quiet and not panic them, but the sight of the Commandos and the tooled-up DIA boys was making the stragglers nervous. Some of the public had started running and women were raising their voices at their kids.

The orange light fl ashed on the roof of the council truck as they got to the stormwater drain at the corner of Cavill and Orchid. Sandy pulled on his gloves, turned on a spotlight and aimed it at the large ventilated iron cover on the drain, then waited for the two workers to come around with their pinch bars. They each took a side and, on the signal, leaned back on the levers and lifted the cover out of its hole, sliding it along the paving stones on the mall.