Alan McQueen - 01 - Golden Serpent Read online

  They advanced through the barracks. Mac didn’t like the lights being out. It felt like a trap.

  Mac caught up with Paul and Fitzy and they paused well short of the internal doorway. Fitzy held his fi ngers over the Maglite, giving them better sight into the dark of the next room. They edged to the door, Fitzy going fi rst. Mac and Paul shouldered their M4s.

  Fitzy did head-out, head-in twice, then left his face there and looked for what seemed about thirty seconds. Taking his fi ngers off the Maglite, he shone it into the room. Boxes and sacks. Another door on the far side.

  It was turning into a rabbit warren. Mac didn’t like it. His breathing was irregular and ragged, his instincts on full alert. Paul followed Fitzy into the room, leaving Mac alone.

  Shit - I’m the sweep! thought Mac, panicked.

  As he turned to check over his shoulder, he heard the fi rst shots whistling through the darkness followed by cracks from the tunnel door. Mac fell to the ground to create the lowest profi le for the shooters, then turned and tried to shoulder the M4. Fitzy and Paul yelled at him to get down and get in the door. One of them returned fi re. Their shots pinged steel.

  Mac looked up at the far door. The shooters had shut them in.

  ‘Sorry fellas,’ whispered Mac. He’d been way too focused on what was in front of him to make a good sweep. When Fitzy had his face in that next room, Mac should have been facing the other way, weapon shouldered, covering their arses. Literally.

  He’d screwed it up.

  They stood, terrifi ed, in the small room as the bolts were slid home on the main door. The small steel door on the other side of this room was now the only way out. Felt like an ambush, Mac couldn’t breathe properly.

  Fitzy keyed the mic and told Sawtell where they were, what they needed. Sawtell said to hold tight, Gordie’s boys were on their way.

  Paul looked at Fitzy. ‘You wanna wait?’

  Fitzy shook his head and they moved to the door. Fitzy knelt, put his hand on the handle. Paul stood straight over the top of him, M4

  shouldered, then they counted in: three, two, one … Fitzy pulled the lever down, pushed the door in. The corridor on the other side was lit with a bulb. It ran for thirty metres and then turned at right angles to the left. Fitzy pushed the door all the way open, to see who was behind it.

  Mac turned, looked behind him. Turned back.

  A head peeked out from a turn in the corridor. It looked around, aimed up. Paul shot at the head, concrete sprayed and the head pulled back. Fitzy walked into the corridor, turned right, horror on his face as he threw himself to the ground. Shots rattled over him. He returned fi re.

  The head down the corridor poked out again, sent lead into the room Paul and Mac were standing in. They ducked behind the doorframe. But Fitzy was still fi ring down his corridor, stuck in a classic crossfi re.

  Paul saw it happening. Laid some bursts at the shooter on the corner, then stepped into the corridor, with the open door as cover, turned to his right and tried to shoot from his left shoulder.

  Mac tried to look past Paul to keep the corner shooter at bay. But Paul wouldn’t get out of the way. The corner shooter came out, Mac yelled and the shooter aimed up and caught Paul in the side. Paul went down.

  More rounds came in, tearing up the concrete. Mac pulled back behind the door, then looked out. Fitzy was on his feet and going down the corridor to the right.

  Mac ran into the corridor, M4 shouldered, keeping his eye on where the corner shooter had been. He advanced, popping two three-shot bursts into the corner, waited for the shooter’s head to come out, waited to blow the thing off.

  It didn’t come.

  Mac got to the corner, heaving, panting. Head-out, head-in. Did it three times. Trying to eat air. Stuck his head round. Slow.

  No one.

  Heard a voice behind him, spun. Fitzy, with Paul.

  Mac’s heart roared in his ears, like a 747 taking off, as he jogged back to Paul. It wasn’t good. He’d been shot in the side of the chest again, between the kevlar plates. Blood was coming out of his mouth and he was shallow breathing. Usually when a man was shot, hyperventilation set in. Not when you were whacked in the chest. No suction.

  Mac knelt beside Fitzy. There was nothing they could do. Mac held Paul’s head up. Fitzy pushed his hips back towards the wall. He was limp in the body.

  Paul smiled at Mac. He was a good-looking bloke, despite having a busted nose and being covered in concrete dust.

  ‘I’m so sorry, mate - sweep was never my thing,’ said Mac.

  Paul slurred, blood dribbled out of the side of his mouth. ‘Fair’s fair, mate. You saved me once.’

  Mac thought of how their three-day intense friendship had grown since their fi rst conversation in a hangar at Hasanuddin. Thought that nothing except shit like this could make two people so thick so fast.

  Paul reached for the thumb handshake, pulled Mac down, whispered through blood. ‘There was someone in Sulawesi.’

  ‘Garvey?’ asked Mac.

  Paul’s eyes rolled back and he slurred, his London accent getting thicker as he tired. ‘Then I’d ‘ave t’ kill ya.’

  Paul gripped Mac’s hand really tight, like he was trying to feel life.

  ‘Get these cunts, willya?’ he whispered.

  Then he died.

  Mac slumped. Sniffed a bit. It had been a long, long seven days.

  Fitzy gave Mac a thumb-shake. Wrapped his left hand over that.

  ‘He’s gone, McQueen. But we can keep going.’

  Mac nodded.

  ‘And for what it’s worth, I don’t sweep too good neither.’

  They nodded. Mac kept it tight.

  ‘Mate, what was down that one?’ asked Mac.

  ‘Another door. Try your way?’

  They got to the corner, crept around it. The hallway had no door they could see, it just doglegged in the distance and had several passages off it.

  They kept walking, Fitzy’s M4 shouldered the whole time.

  From the distance, sounds of gunfi re thudded and echoed around the complex. It was hard to tell where it was coming from or how many people were involved, but it lasted for a solid forty seconds.

  Fitzy and Mac sped up. A sudden commotion sounded ahead as people spilled into the hallway, no doubt urged on by the Green Berets.

  Fitzy peeled off two three-shot bursts, dropped one of the men.

  Then nothing. Out of load.

  Mac picked up the fi ring, hitting one in the leg. The bloke staggered and a third man turned and fi red. It went high, took out a light and rained concrete dust on Fitzy and Mac.

  Fitzy had reloaded. The shooters took off and Mac started after them, squinting through dust, keeping his gun on the guy he’d shot in the leg. Saw him pulling out a handgun. Mac put a three-shot burst into him and the guy dropped.

  Mac kept walking. Looking behind him he saw Fitzy was catching up. He waved the American through and Fitzy took point. They paused at doorways, looked in. Mac checked behind them. Looking for shooters. They’d given up on the VX search for the time being. The plan now was to clear the tunnel of tangos and then let the Twentieth come through. The fi rst job was to stop these shooters getting out of the place with the bomb.

  They followed the shooters up to a larger room and paused. It felt different.

  There was a desk and comms gear on the side, some black gear bags, a green canvas bag, a sofa and some chairs. Mac had a sensation up his spine: they were in the command lair.

  Mac sensed movement, saw a man on the other side of the room.

  Peter Garrison smiled straight at Mac and raised his SIG. Mac raised his M4. Garrison shot fi rst, missed. Mac got off a shot but Garrison had already twisted back into the recess he’d come out of.

  Mac launched himself into the offi ce, heard Fitzy yell, No! Then Mac’s legs were sailing out into midair, his body level with the ground, and as he free-fell his head smashed on the steel ramp that had dropped down beneath him.

  Last
thought: Not great at point either.

  He tried to stop it coming but for the third time in as many minutes, Mac vomited into the sack. It hit the cloth right in front of his face and dribbled down to his chest and round to his ear. Vomiting was a normal part of recovery after he’d been knocked cold.

  He felt like crap and had no idea how long he’d been out for. He struggled to piece it together. As best as he could get it, he’d run over an old-fashioned spring-loaded bear trap. The legend of the Yamashita tunnels was big on bear traps and sliding walls: all that shit. But Mac might have actually stepped on one.

  Now he was on what felt like a quad bike trailer travelling at about thirty miles an hour. He was lying on his side, his wrists lashed in a St Andrews Cross on his chest. When they went over a bump his head banged on steel and his eyeballs ached. The back of his brain felt bruised.

  Mac tried to get his mind into gear. Listened for the voices: Tagalog.

  Tested his brain for drugs: could count, could rattle off ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Tried to sense direction: west? Same direction as the main tunnel. He didn’t know.

  He’d know soon enough.

  Mac woke up to hands pushing him upright, dry vomit clinging to the right side of his face. Someone whipped the sack off his head. He blinked, tried to look around, felt sea air on his face. A Filipino was in front of him, holding a Ka-bar. Lowering it, he cut Mac free.

  Blood surged into Mac’s hands. It hurt and he rubbed his wrists, looked about. He was sitting on a steel trailer hitched to a Honda quad bike. They were on a spur and down beneath them, to what Mac thought was the north, waves washed into a small bay. It was night, there was an almost-full moon and the thromp of helos sounded from a few miles away.

  His hand went up involuntarily to the back of his head. Sore as.

  ‘Hit yourself real good, bro.’ The voice was Filipino with an American accent.

  Standing right there, not three feet away, was Abu Sabaya.

  They eyeballed one another and then Sabaya smiled, put his hand out. ‘Aldam.’

  Mac took it. ‘Mac.’

  Sabaya laughed, yelling, ‘I told you they called him Mac.’

  A white man in a polo shirt and chinos spoke from the seat of a quad bike. Peter Garrison. ‘McQueen’s what the Agency calls him.

  Thought we’d stick with the program.’

  Sabaya was in his trademark black T-shirt, Levis and runners. His black sunnies were pushed up on top of his head. In the moonlight Mac saw what Paul meant by the southern Filipinos looking more Polynesian than Asian.

  Mac looked from Garrison to Sabaya. ‘This when I die?’

  Garrison lit a smoke, pointed at Sabaya, like it was his call.

  ‘Small chat before we get to all that drama, hey McQueen?’ He sniggered, sucked on the smoke. ‘All Aussies this persistent?’

  ‘All Yanks this greedy?’ asked Mac.

  Garrison laughed, shook his head. ‘Shit, McQueen. You go down there? To Kaohsiung’s warehouse?’

  Mac nodded.

  ‘Don’t think they had enough of the stuff?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘Weren’t they paying you anyway, to stage the Golden Serpent thing?’

  Garrison laughed, slapped his leg. Looked at Sabaya. ‘Didn’t I tell you AT? Huh? I told you this guy was pure Tintin, didn’t I? Hundred per cent boy scout.’

  ‘You honestly thought the General Staff was going to wear that?

  Write it off to spillage?’ asked Mac.

  Garrison grimaced, changed the subject. ‘Hey, McQueen, you get my present? That fucking dog? Little Snowy? Decided not to shoot it.

  Just for you.’

  Mac nodded. ‘Found the dog.’

  Garrison giggled, sobered up. ‘No, I was happy with the dough.

  Fifty million US was fair. Chinese have always treated me okay. Good payers.’

  ‘So?’

  Garrison pointed at Sabaya. ‘So our God-botherer here took exception to certain investments the PLA General Staff is committed to. Went all religious on me.’

  Sabaya looked into the American, the way Sonny Makatoa could look into a man. ‘Sometimes the only way to control demand is to control the supply. That’s economics.’

  Garrison laughed. ‘Yeah, but economists don’t heist the Chinese generals’ gold stash just to stop a casino being built. Shit, messing with a Chinaman’s gold - that’s an unhealthy way to live, bro.’

  ‘Macau isn’t a casino. It’s an entire zone. It’s going to be fi ve times the size of Las Vegas.’

  ‘So it’s big?’

  ‘It’s an affront.’

  Garrison shrugged at Mac as if to say Silly Muslims.

  Mac thought about what Sabaya had said. The Chinese government had given the go-ahead to develop Macau as a huge ‘lifestyle resort’

  zone. Roughly translated it meant a place where you had casinos, horse tracks, prize fi ghts and poker tournaments, all in the same area.

  It would be fed by low-cost airlines from around Asia. The deal would be: if you gamble enough money, we’ll comp you a fl ight in from China or the Philippines or Burma. The General Staff were probably as cornerstone investors, like the mafi a was in Las Vegas.

  Conservative Muslims thought gambling was against God.

  Thought it tore apart families and kept poor people poor. Same as what some Christians thought.

  Mac looked at Garrison. ‘You still Agency?’

  Garrison sucked smoke. Exhaled. ‘Then I’d have to fuck ya.’ He laughed, slapped his leg again. ‘It’s not what it seems, kemosabe.’

  ‘No?’ said Mac.

  Garrison shrugged, fl icked the smoke without looking where it went.

  ‘Look, Singapore is going to have a Chinese naval base on it regardless of what the Indians like you and I do about it. You may not understand this, Mr Boy Scout, but there are Americans - Agency big-wigs, swinging dicks from State - who think the world would be a better place if the Chinese Navy could deploy in the Malacca Strait.’

  Mac couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Oh, really? The Americans?’

  Garrison pointed at Mac with his lighter. ‘You gotta stop with the Cold War theory, bro, and think about the future. No nations, just economies.’

  Mac shook his head. ‘Sounds like something they’d teach you in a third-rate business school.’

  ‘You’re laughing, McQueen. But you’re just a worker bee like me.

  I bet there’re people in your government who’ve already decided it’s a no-contest if the Chinese want warships in Singapore. Shit, I know a lot of Singaporeans who would sleep easier if the Chinese Navy was camped on the perimeter.’

  Mac shrugged. He knew there were those theorists. Knew about the theory that Singapore was too small and vulnerable to control the economic and geopolitical importance it had inherited. That neither India nor China wanted Singapore and the Malacca Strait being the weak link in what would be the world’s biggest trade partnership within two decades.

  Mac’s eyeballs pulsed and he winced. The Big Picture theorising of spooks was a well-worn cliche for Mac. Some spies were never happy just doing their job.

  ‘Look, the geopolitics is great, fellas. But about the VX …’ said Mac.

  Garrison got serious. ‘Insurance, bro.’

  ‘Against what?’

  ‘Green Berets. DIA. SEALs. You been asleep?’

  Mac looked around. Realised there were three more quad bikes parked on the trail. One had an object the size of a couple of basketballs strapped to its trailer, under a blanket.

  Mac looked at Sabaya. ‘Please. Tell me that’s not the nerve agent.’

  Sabaya deadpanned Mac.

  ‘Sure is, bro,’ said Garrison.

  Mac held Sabaya’s stare but spoke to the American. ‘You know, Garrison, I may be a boy scout, but that’s a frigging warhead.’

  ‘Yeah, so?’

  ‘So, if it goes off it kills everything. Keeps on killing till it dissipates in the sea. And in the sea it becom
es harmless in - what

  - six weeks?’

  ‘Well then, DIA better back off, huh?’ said Garrison.

  ‘Think that’s going to protect the locals? Any kids live round here?’

  Sabaya sneered at Mac.

  Mac saw an opportunity. ‘Of course, a child’s welfare isn’t really your concern, eh Peter?’

  Garrison looked confused.

  ‘I mean, with all those Cambodian kids locked in that container in your warehouse?’

  Mac had a sudden fl ash of Jenny’s strength with those kids.

  Garrison gulped, fl ashed a sideways glance at Sabaya, who stared at him. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, kemosabe.’

  ‘Sure you do, Peter. There were about seventy of them, mostly seven-, eight-, nine-year-olds. They were in your warehouse, mate.’

  Sabaya talked soft, said to Garrison, ‘I told you not to use any place belonging to the Amron brothers.’

  ‘Yeah, but I just needed to get a place with no leasing problems.

  I didn’t know they were still doing that shit. Honest to God, AT.’

  Sabaya turned back to Mac, a new look in his eye. ‘I’ve heard enough. Time to move.’

  Sabaya put his hand out and one of his sidekicks slapped a Browning in it. He held it up to Mac.

  Mac took a breath, closed his eyes. Thought about a cold beer but saw Jenny instead.

  There was a gunshot.

  Mac was still alive. He opened his eyes, gulping for breath, and saw Garrison slumped on the quad bike. Saw him slip off and hit the ground.

  Sabaya gave back the Browning, looked at Mac.

  ‘Here’s the deal, McQueen. You get the US Army to get that thing the hell out of my country. And I’ll let you do the same thing.’

  Mac said nothing, thinking.

  A sidekick went to the quad bike, unhitched the trailer with the VX on it.

  Sabaya shook his head. ‘Never wanted that thing. Just wanted the gold.’

  ‘Pretty large stash to put in one place, isn’t it?’ asked Mac.

  ‘That’s why we’ve been dropping it all the way up here,’ said Sabaya.

  It fi gured. Mac didn’t think that what he was seeing in the tunnels added up to what was stolen from Kaohsiung Holdings.

  The thugs unhitched the trailer Mac was sitting on and started their quad bikes. The fi rst two accelerated away, along what in Queensland was called a fi re trail.