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  Looking around the restaurant, Mac saw foreign business people trying to shake money out of the tree that was Indonesia. ‘So what’s the gig?’

  Stroking his tie, Tobin reached for his beer. ‘We’d like to get a better idea of what the Indons might be up to.’

  ‘Up to?’

  ‘Yes, Macca – in Timor.’

  Mac could feel Garvs shifting his weight, uncomfortable.

  ‘What about Atkins?’ said Mac, assuming that the firm’s man in Denpasar, Martin Atkins, was the Timor guy.

  ‘Marty’s a controller now, mate,’ said Tobin. ‘He’ll be running you, actually.’

  ‘So we don’t have someone in Dili?’ said Mac.

  ‘We did,’ said Tobin, gulping at his beer, avoiding Mac’s eyes.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And we need a good operator to replace him,’ said Tobin, now looking at Mac.

  ‘Replace him? What happened to our guy?’ said Mac, his gut turning icy.

  ‘Don’t know,’ rasped Tobin, ‘but we’d like to have a chat.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Garvey came back to the table with two Heinekens and switched the discussion to the rugby league action of the past weeks.

  ‘The problems started with those hits on Martin Lang,’ said Garvey before he found his seat. ‘Can’t run around with your head sticking up like that – did you watch it?’

  ‘Highlights on satellite,’ said Mac, his mind elsewhere.

  Garvey scoffed. ‘Cowboys game was okay, but shit, Macca – losing to the Roosters?! That hurt.’

  ‘Why not get us an HR course in Oz for the grand final,’ said Mac, sipping at the beer, ‘if Tobin’s game?’

  ‘Might work – get you retrained on the expenses protocol, mate.’

  ‘Get you an equity officer,’ said Mac. ‘Rid you of these negative gender-based attitudes.’

  ‘I’ll write a memo, get it moving,’ said Garvey. ‘By the way – see fucking Hugh Jackman’s doing the grand final anthem this year? That bloke a poof?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Mac. ‘It’s just the teeth, and he can dance.’

  Around them the patrons in the Bavaria Lagerhaus – mainly expats from the embassy precinct of south Jakarta – were getting drunk and yelling at huge TV screens broadcasting sports from around the world. Europeans pointed in disbelief at Steffi Graf playing in a tennis final, North Americans barked at a NASCAR race at Michigan and the Aussies were glued to Aussie Rules footy.

  ‘So, Garvs – what’s with Dili?’ asked Mac. He was fairly strong on the Jakarta political economy side of it, but the TV reporting showed the island itself in meltdown and he needed some more background before reporting to Martin Atkins in Denpasar.

  Looking at the label of his beer, Garvey made a face. ‘You heard Tobin. We had someone – a Canadian businessman, actually – keeping an eye on things for us, but he’s dropped off the map.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘It started with a meeting,’ Garvey shrugged.

  ‘You asked him to do something?’

  ‘Yeah, we picked up on Indonesian chatter and we wanted him to ask Blackbird about -’

  ‘Blackbird,’ interrupted Mac. ‘The girl who works for the Indonesian military?’

  ‘That’s her,’ said Garvey, nodding. ‘She’s been feeding us for a few months – works in the admin section of the TNI headquarters in Dili.’

  TNI stood for Tentara Nasional Indonesia, the armed forces of the Republic and known until recently as ABRI. The military stood to lose the most from East Timor voting on independence from Jakarta, partly due to loss of power and partly because they owned most of the commercial concessions in the province. The logging, the coffee plantations, the oil and gas, and the sandalwood exports were all owned or controlled by military brass or Soeharto cronies. The new president, BJ Habibie, complicated matters: he was a non-military politician removing the army’s lucrative Timorese concessions.

  ‘So, Garvs, let’s get it straight. Was this Canadian treading on the army’s toes? I mean, was he messing with the generals’ interests?’

  Looking uncomfortable, Garvey tried to avoid the question. ‘Look, Macca, let’s just say it was our fault, okay? We asked him to make a simple inquiry and he disappeared.’

  ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘Fuck, Macca!’ said Garvey.

  ‘What?’ said Mac. ‘What’s the secret?’

  ‘No, Macca, he wasn’t alone. Least, I don’t think so.’

  ‘So?’ said Mac, looking around to make sure no one was listening in; the Lagerhaus was owned by a former Indonesian intelligence agent and you never quite knew who was lurking.

  ‘Look,’ said Garvey, ‘Tobin wants to keep this simple – find what happened to the Canadian, find Blackbird, debrief and get out of Dodge. That’s the gig.’

  ‘Who was with the Canadian?’ said Mac, knowing that Garvey would break.

  ‘Shit, Macca. I’m actually not supposed to know that.’

  ‘So who told you?’

  ‘Scotty.’

  Mac laughed. Rod Scott was one of the Old School of Australian intelligence, from the Cold War days. After his recruitment and his year with the Royal Marines in Britain, Mac had been rotated into the end of the first Gulf War where Rod Scott had been his mentor and guide. Scotty had showed him where to burrow into a government structure as a war ended, how to get the files and the influence you wanted, how to apply for and get the appointments that would ensure wheat contracts, oil concessions and construction work for Australian interests in the post-war rebuilding. His outrageous stories about Imelda Marcos were legendary and Mac knew that if a rumour came from Rod Scott, it was probably true.

  ‘Who, exactly, was there?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Well, Blackbird, for a start,’ said Garvey. ‘Like Tobin told you.’

  ‘She was there when the Canadian disappeared?’

  ‘Could be like that – or the Canadian never got to the meet.’

  They stared at each other, Mac giving his old mate the don’t-fuck-with-me look.

  ‘This is why they want it kept simple,’ said Garvey. ‘The last thing we need is you chasing ghosts all over Timor, doing your superhero thing.’

  ‘Might help, that’s all,’ said Mac.

  ‘Mate, Marty will take you through that – he’s your controller on this, okay?’

  ‘Who else was there?’ Mac pushed.

  ‘Tobin will have me shot if I tell you that.’

  ‘I never liked you much anyway.’

  ‘I’m not saying any more,’ said Garvey, standing to go. ‘Let’s just say we’re fairly certain he had muscle with him at the time.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Mac, getting annoyed.

  ‘Don’t make me say it, mate,’ said Garvey, grabbing his mobile phone from the table.

  Watching Garvey move towards the exit beneath the faux Bavarian tack hanging from imitation hewn wood beams, the picture finally came together, and Mac knew why the firm wasn’t admitting to the full scenario.

  ‘Not Bongo?’ Mac called to his friend’s back.

  As Garvey hit the swinging door with his shoulder, he raised his middle finger without looking back.

  Mac waited seventeen minutes for the signal from the Lagerhaus security guy that Saba – the bar’s owner – was ready to see him.

  Bongo Morales was a former Philippines NICA operative who’d been trained in special forces by the Americans for CT work in Mindanao. Because he had a Javanese mother and spoke fluent Bahasa Indonesia, he’d later worked as a freelance hit man in Aceh, hunting the separatist GAM guerrillas for Indonesia’s military intelligence. Bongo was smart and dangerous, with a reputation that could easily hurt politically ambitious people like Tobin – hired guns were always the easy way of getting violence off the books, but when things turned bad they could be a liability. Mac suspected that Bongo was being excluded from the official record because the ASIS lunchers didn’t want to justify his presence in a ministerial memo, known as a CX. If Bon
go was being excluded, it was because something went wrong in Dili and Mac didn’t want to land in that disintegrating city with Bongo holding a grudge against Australian intelligence.

  They moved down the corridor and the Lagerhaus security guy searched Mac for weapons before leading him into Saba’s office, a white-tiled bunker with a desk at one end and a sofa and armchair set-up in the middle. A middle-aged Javanese man walked around the desk and shook Mac’s hand, gesturing to the sofa.

  ‘Mr Mac,’ smiled Saba, a flash of gold at the bottom of the right front tooth. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while.’

  ‘Been up in Mindanao,’ said Mac.

  ‘Not Irian Jaya?’ asked Saba, using the Indonesian term for West Papua. ‘That wasn’t you at Lok Kok?’

  Mac laughed and so did Saba. Spies liked to one-up each other with superior information.

  ‘It’s nice up there this time of year – nice and cool,’ said Mac, brushing a phantom crumb from his chinos.

  ‘So what can I do for you?’

  ‘Remember a bloke called Bongo?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I need to talk – and I mean talk,’ he said.

  Saba nodded and Mac pulled an old credit card receipt from his wallet, wrote his mobile number on the back.

  ‘A message?’ said Saba, slow and steady like the first sentence of an interrogation.

  Mac thought about it. ‘Tell him a blackbird sings but I don’t know the tune. Can do?’

  ‘Maybe,’ shrugged Saba, folding the receipt into an origami bird.

  CHAPTER 7

  When Mac first spotted him, Martin Atkins was sitting at a small tea stand in a side avenue of the Bird Market, about sixty metres into the sprawling mass of Denpasar’s Satrya Markets. On either side of Atkins were lines of birdcages stacked four or five high, their owners walking back and forth with their money pouches, ready with extended hooks should anyone want to inspect a bird.

  Ignoring Atkins on the first pass, Mac came back the same way five minutes later having made a few zigzag and double-back manoeuvres to shake whoever was following. Taking a seat in the shade of the tea stand, Mac asked the old lady for a green tea and turned to his controller when she’d left.

  ‘Marty,’ said Mac. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Atkins, sipping his tea. ‘You’re late.’

  ‘I’m alive – it’s a preference of mine.’

  Atkins looked away, gave a slight sigh. His hair was a shade darker than Mac’s blond, but otherwise they were similar in age, build and background. Where they differed was the emphasis of their professional lives. Mac lived his life as if every day could be the one where he was kidnapped or killed. Atkins wanted to be like Greg Tobin – an office guy with a management instinct rather than any field craft. Waiting for a contact in a market was unnatural for Atkins; he’d rather be around the corner, in his office, writing a memo that made himself look like the only smart man in a sea of dumb-arses.

  ‘There’s a package waiting in your hotel,’ said Atkins, looking away. ‘You’re Richard Davis, going in from Denpasar on the morning flight, a businessman from Arafura Imports. You’re based in Sydney and you’re looking for sandalwood opportunities, especially Catholic icons – Mother Marys, that shit, okay?’

  ‘Turismo?’ asked Mac.

  ‘That’s the one – Terri has you in a long-term room, for three weeks to start with and then on a needs basis.’

  Terri was the accountant who ran the ASIS front company in Sydney. She took the calls and cleared the mail for Mac’s forestry consulting firm, his textbook company – Southern Scholastic – and various other shams, such as Arafura Imports. When people tried to verify Mac’s business bona fides they usually got a total going-over as regards their creditworthiness and corporate registrations. Mac always felt comfortable that Terri dealt with the back office.

  ‘So what’s the gig?’ asked Mac, smiling at the old lady who brought his tea.

  ‘Find Blackbird, establish whether it’s viable to start running her again…’

  ‘And?’

  Looking away at the crowds, Atkins attempted to make himself seem relaxed. ‘If you can do so covertly, establish what’s meant by “Operasi Boa”.’

  Mac paused, wondering where that had come from. ‘Boa?’

  ‘Like I said.’

  ‘Like a feathery scarf?’ said Mac, making sure he had it right.

  ‘That’s it, McQueen. Operasi Boa.’

  Staring at each other for several seconds, they broke with smiles.

  ‘What’s the secret, Marty?’ said Mac. ‘What is it?’

  ‘That’s your job, mate.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Mac, too tired for the hokey-pokey.

  ‘All I know is what I’ve been briefed on,’ said Atkins. ‘The Canadian was tasked with getting Blackbird to find out about Boa.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We don’t know if he did, or if the meet happened,’ said Atkins, gulping his tea. ‘It’s probably best if you start from scratch rather than guessing at what Boa might be.’

  Smiling, Mac decided to let it go, though taking craft advice from a man who did management courses at Melbourne Business School was a little rich. ‘You weren’t running the Canadian?’

  ‘I was,’ said Atkins. ‘But a week before we lost him, our higher-ups got a hard-on for this Boa, so I became a conduit. You know how it is.’

  Nodding, Mac knew how it was. ‘So who is he, this Canadian?’

  ‘Bill Yarrow – wanted by Canadian Customs for import fraud. Owes them millions in unpaid excise. It’s in your package.’

  ‘But I’m not looking for him?’

  ‘If he turns up, bring him in,’ said Atkins. ‘He’s of interest, sure, but the priority is Blackbird.’

  ‘Who’s my contact?’ said Mac.

  ‘Blackbird,’ said Atkins, his face grim.

  ‘She still around?’ asked Mac.

  ‘We have to establish that one way or the other,’ said Atkins.

  ‘How do I get to her?’

  ‘We use a cut-out – but I can’t send you to him,’ said Atkins. ‘He’s in a sensitive position and we’ve guaranteed his anonymity.’

  Mac nodded, thinking. A cut-out was an unidentified person who communicated via drop boxes. The theory was that using cut-outs protected the local asset from being compromised, and left the intelligence officer as an unknown person who just left and received notes in a pre-arranged place: the drop box. But while the theory of cut-outs worked well on a whiteboard in Canberra, they were merely a professional challenge to Mac and people like him.

  ‘What’s the cycle?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Santa Cruz cemetery, twenty-one left, seven right, Mondays and Fridays.’

  It was currently Wednesday.

  ‘And what’s our status with the Indons in Timor?’ asked Mac, knowing that although the Indonesia-backed militias were clearing villages in the lead-up to the independence ballot, the Australian government was holding off on sending in a presence.

  ‘Our status is a friendly neighbour, giving moral support at this difficult time,’ said Atkins.

  They both chuckled. The Australian government had Royal Australian Navy surveillance vessels – declared and covert – steaming the Timor Sea, right across the underbelly of East Timor; there were RAN clearance divers not only in Dili’s harbour, but in Atambua and Kupang – the heart of Indonesian Timor. There was nothing friendly about the Timor Gap gas fields off the south coast of East Timor, gas fields that Australia felt it was better placed to control than Indonesia.

  ‘By the way,’ said Atkins, ‘the phone lines are compromised out of Dili, and that includes cellular. There’s a radio for emergencies at Santa Cruz thirty-five right, seven left. Otherwise, you collect the intel and walk it out. To me, okay?’

  Accepting Atkins’ handshake, Mac stood to go before noticing his colleague’s discomfort and pausing.

  ‘Anything else?’ said Mac, scoping the cro
wded market for eyes.

  ‘Look, mate, after the Lok Kok thing, they want me to ensure… I mean, it’s not my -’

  ‘No firearm – that it?’ said Mac, breathing out.

  ‘Wasn’t my call,’ said Atkins. ‘I’d never search you, but just so we’re clear.’

  Walking up Veteran Street in the heat of late morning, Mac paused by a juice bar near Puputan Square. His hotel, the Natour Bali, was just around the corner in downtown, but he didn’t want to head there just yet. He was tired and needed sleep, but he wasn’t going to nap until he worked out who his tail was and what he wanted.

  After buying a watermelon juice in a flimsy plastic cup he strolled into Puputan Square, glancing sideways behind his sunnies as he put the straw in the hole. His tail was a mid-twenties local in black slacks and white trop shirt pretending to browse at a newsstand thirty metres away. The tail’s eyes flicked up momentarily as Mac looked away and kept strolling casually into the square towards the Bali Museum – a sprawling complex of temple-like buildings which doubled as museum pavilions.

  Falling in with a party of Dutch and American tourists, Mac wandered across a lawn and through a large temple gate, trying to place the tail. He was a pro, although he didn’t have a military build. Mac made some jokes with the Americans in order to give him sight lines on his six o’clock, but he couldn’t place the bloke’s intention. It wasn’t a hit, which was just as well because Mac wasn’t armed. If the tail wasn’t a shooter, then it remained to be seen if this was about contact or surveillance. Either way, Mac wanted to seize the initiative and panic some answers out of the bloke before he could think too clearly.

  Turning to listen to one of the Americans’ jokes, Mac saw the tail merge with a guided tour party which was moving towards Mac’s group. Mac continued walking with his party into the north pavilion which was cool, thanks to the high, vaulted ceilings of the tropical architecture. They walked through the exhibits of giant Balinese dance puppets, demon masks and shadow puppets. Some of them were centuries old and reflected a culture that the Dutch, Catholics, Javanese and Muslims had been unable to dilute. Keeping the jokes going with the Yank couple behind him, Mac was able to slow his group until the guided party were almost merging with the Dutch and Americans.