Authors: Mark Abernethy
Chapter 46
The afternoon rains eased shortly after eight o’clock and the four of them made for the pre-arranged ferry ride across the Mekong.
The ferryman didn’t want the Chev on his small wooden ferry, but when Mac offered a further inducement, Sammy reluctantly agreed to pay it and they slipped into the dusk, the red sunset poking through the lifting black clouds as they reached the banks opposite Kratie.
Heading north on the riverside track, Mac rode ahead with Didge, doing not much more than sixty k an hour through the mud and puddles, keeping enough distance that the motorbikes did not look to be connected with the truck. A keen observer would see an M4 carbine over the riders’ shoulders and maybe handguns on their hips, but the locals were used to UN and World Bank consultants being accompanied by armed escorts.
It was dark as they reached the ferry head opposite Stung Treng and turned left for the interior and the wilderness of Chamkar.
Riding like that for ten minutes past peasant farms and a small village, Mac slowed to a stop in the beginnings of the forest and walked back to talk with Sammy and Bongo, who sat in the front seat of the idling Silverado.
‘Give us thirty minutes exactly,’ said Mac, as the other men set the mission clocks on their watches. ‘There’s a fork up ahead – take the left and you’ll come to the checkpoint in three or four minutes. And come in hot. Okay?’
Walking back to Didge with two Kevlar vests from the Silverado, Mac laid it out. They would take the right fork in the road, double around, neutralise the checkpoint, and wait for the others. If they got this part right, it would make the compound infiltration much easier.
‘Sure, boss,’ said Didge.
‘I’d like to avoid gunfire, if we can.’
Didge winked. ‘No worries.’
Killing their headlights as they made the fork, Mac slowed and told Didge through the radio headset, ‘It’s all yours, mate.’
Australia’s army special forces – the 4RAR Commandos and the SAS – both trained on bikes and were experts across broken ground at night with no headlamps.
After three minutes of running, the radio crackled in Mac’s ear. ‘Drop to first, boss,’ said Didge. ‘Stay close.’
Pulling off the track, Didge rode in first gear through the trees. Following, Mac struggled to stay upright as they dipped into dry creek beds, wove between trees and vines, and ducked swinging branches. Mac had no idea how Didge could see his way across the ground – there was only a half-moon and the knots of roots and collapsed tree trunks loomed up at Mac as they picked their way through the forest, the bikes purring at low revs. Mac concentrated on Didge’s bulk as it swayed rhythmically until the brake light in front of him glowed red and Mac stopped behind it. Killing their engines, Didge dismounted and crouched beside the bike. Duck-walking up to the big Cape Yorker, Mac looked over his shoulder.
‘Our eleven o’clock,’ Didge said. ‘Lights.’
Bringing up his rubber-coated Leicas, Mac stared through the trees and found two windows in a shack, glowing yellow. As the bikes pinged, Didge put up his finger, sniffed.
‘Frying fish,’ he said, nodding. ‘Raised voices – two males, maybe three.’
Mac couldn’t smell or hear a thing.
‘You want to cut the lines, boss?’ said Didge, unhitching his M4 and checking the breech.
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘If there’s a junction box, I’d rather unplug it and then replace it.’
‘Okay, boss,’ said Didge, looking at his watch. ‘We got four minutes thirty till the truck comes through. You mind if I lead?’
‘You lead,’ said Mac, glad the soldier had offered.
Checking their rifles and magazines, Didge put his left arm through the strap and flipped his elbow over it, pulling the rifle to his shoulder. It was a special forces trick to create what they called a ‘good shoulder’. If you had a good shoulder on your weapon, then you forced your shoulders and face to point where the rifle was pointed, so there needn’t be a delay between seeing the target and shooting the target. Mac hadn’t been in the Royal Marines long enough to perfect the stance, but the professionals could keep a good shoulder all day in the field and many of them swore that the habit had been the difference between a shallow grave and living to enjoy a cold beer.
Following Didge through the high-canopy forest, Mac stayed close. Didge was easily six-three but he moved like a cat, ducking smoothly under branches, fluidly stepping over logs without losing his shoulder on the weapon and avoiding the forest debris that would make a sound if stepped on.
When the shack loomed twenty metres away, Didge found a hide behind a short tree and called up Mac, pointing. Looking along the finger, Mac saw the grey plastic telecom box, about one metre up the side of the wooden shack.
Didge pointed at Mac and made the shape of a gun, and Mac nodded; yes, he would cover Didge.
Slipping out of the shadows into the dull glow from the high windows, Didge paused like a deer, listening and scenting. Moving quickly in a crouch to the telecom box, Didge had the door flap open in two seconds, his hand went in and then the door was shut. The phone line was now disconnected.
Leaning against the wooden wall of the shack, Didge looked at Mac and put his finger to his lips, indicating they had company. Lifting his rifle, feeling the sweat run under his palms, Mac waited as plastic-sandal footsteps crushed gravel and then a figure moved from the light of the shack’s front and into the semi-darkness of the well head.
Casting a bead on the figure, Mac put his finger on the M4’s trigger – one turn in the wrong direction, and Didge’s cover would be blown. Mac would then shoot.
A loud beeping sound came from the checkpoint quarters, triggering male voices. As Mac tensed to make his shot, the figure turned, revealing a pretty woman’s face. Mac hesitated and he noticed a hunchback, but the hump moved.
‘Shit,’ said Mac. He had a woman and child in his sights.
The woman dropped her water bucket as boots clattered inside the shack, the beeping still loud.
‘What’s the beeping?’ said Didge’s voice in a whisper over the radio. ‘What’s happening?’
The woman ran for the shack as Mac burst from his hide and went after her.
Didge beat Mac to the corner and accelerated around the side of the checkpoint quarters to the road, the woman running into the night as Didge kicked the main door open.
‘Get her,’ said Didge as the door came off its hinges and the air tore open with the sound of automatic rifle fire.
Setting off after the woman, Mac wondered what he was going to do – she was within range, but he couldn’t shoot her, not with a baby on her back. The scream of a large diesel engine sounded and the Silverado arrived, its lights killed.
‘Stop,’ said Mac at the woman’s back. ‘Stop or I shoot.’
Turning as she stopped almost in front of the approaching Chev, she showed her face and Mac lowered his rifle. Heaving for breath, he turned back to help Didge and a shot sounded. Mac left his feet and headed for the dirt, feeling like a horse had kicked him in the ribs under his right armpit.
Gunfire roared and men’s voices raged, and then there was silence except for the ticking of an idling diesel.
Staggering to his knees, Mac heard boots on dirt and then he was being hauled to his feet.
‘You okay, McQueen?’ said Bongo, as Mac found his balance.
‘Don’t know,’ said Mac, barely able to breathe and reeling with confusion. ‘Was I hit?’
Lifting Mac’s arm slightly, Bongo licked his fingertips and pulled a flattened slug from the Kevlar vest, flicking it away as the heat proved too much.
‘Girl shot you, McQueen,’ said Bongo, emotionless. ‘Handgun under her shawl.’
‘The girl?’ said Mac, bending to pick up his rifle and seeing Sammy standing over a prone form on the road. ‘Where’s her baby?’
Bongo shook his head. ‘No baby.’
‘On her back – there was a baby on her back,’ said Mac, the smell of cordite and blood making him nauseous.
‘This your baby?’ asked Sammy, an AK-47 in his hand as he approached them. ‘It was slung under her shawl.’
‘Clear?’ said Bongo, as Didge emerged from the shack and scanned the road.
‘Clear,’ said Didge. ‘Maybe one got away.’
Embarrassed, Mac shook his head. A mistake like that could get your buddies killed, and once you’d made the mistake, it altered the power dynamic in the group.
‘You Anglos are funny.’ Bongo flipped a cigarette into his mouth and offered one to Sammy. ‘You think ’cos she the woman, she can’t use no gun?’
Bongo was laughing about it – Sammy and Didge joined in.
‘Sorry, guys,’ said Mac, realising he was the odd man out in a spectrum that included a Filipino, Chinese-American and Cape York Aboriginal.
‘I know you are, brother,’ said Bongo, exhaling smoke as his eyes made long arcs over Mac’s shoulders. ‘But now you in my world, right? And in my world, ain’t no damsel in the tower and no knight on the white horse neither, okay?’
‘Look, I thought she had a baby on her back,’ said Mac.
‘I know what you were thinking, McQueen,’ said Bongo. ‘But just ’cos they pretty, don’t mean they won’t kill you.’
While Didge and Sammy removed the three bodies and hid them in the bush, Mac ratted the checkpoint building for anything useful. It was a bunkhouse with a small stove and sink in the corner. A desk built into the rough wooden wall housed a plastic electronics box with a list of red lights and beside each one a scrawl of Khmer: the top light was still flashing.
‘Bongo,’ said Mac, ‘can you translate this?’
Bongo ran his finger down the red lights and looked at the Khmer designations.
‘They’re locations,’ said Bongo. ‘The flashing one says something like
Guard house approach
, and the others say, like,
Camp 25
,
Camp 20
and so on.’
‘I heard a beeping before we stormed this place,’ said Mac. ‘I guess that would be the flashing light – the guard house approach?’
‘They’ve got the road on optical trips,’ said Bongo, meaning light beams that triggered when people or vehicles passed certain points. ‘Wonder what else they got?’
‘I don’t want to wonder,’ said Mac.
A scuffle sounded outside, a loud screaming and male grunts. Bursting out of the cabin, Mac and Bongo ran into Didge, who was holding a young girl by the scruff of the neck.
‘Found her beside the long-drop,’ said Didge. ‘Trying to get on a bicycle.’
Rattling off some Khmer at her, Bongo nodded and turned to Mac. ‘She lives with her family, between here and the river. She rides down once a day on her bike to deliver eggs and vegetables, sometimes fish.’
Talking with her again, Bongo translated. ‘She had a cup of tea with the guards and then the guns started. She escaped out the back window.’
‘The one I missed,’ said Didge, spitting.
‘Does she want to make fifty US dollars?’ said Mac.
‘Hang on, McQueen,’ said Sammy. ‘What’s this about?’
‘We can’t get to the camp by road without Dozsa picking up the optical trip wires – we’ll need a local to take us the other way,’ said Mac.
‘How do we know there’s another way?’ said Sammy.
‘This is South-East Asia,’ said Bongo, lighting a smoke. ‘There’s always another way.’
Chapter 47
They ran west through the forest, the half-moon dappling the footpad with enough light to see ten feet in front. Didge and the girl – Tani – went ahead, setting a pace that Bongo, Sammy and Mac struggled to maintain as they slid across mud and ducked low-hanging branches. Carrying backpacks filled with food and ammo, they wore Kevlar vests and carried their M4s across their chests. It was a cross-country tab of the kind that Mac had been forced to endure in the Royal Marines, and for some reason always in Scotland. But this was different: the humidity of the forest made their skin wet beneath their vests and the monkeys were much louder in the Cambodian forest than the deer ever were in the glens.
‘That Didge,’ said Sammy, panting as they forded a creek. ‘He ever slow down?’
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘But if there’s any trouble in this bush, he’ll kill it long before it comes near us.’
After almost two hours of jogging along the jungle footpad, Mac followed Bongo up an incline and found Didge and the girl waiting and eating.
Falling to the long grass of the clearing, they caught their breath as the moon passed in and out of cloud. Finding a banana and a muesli bar in his pack, Mac ate up and then finished a bottle of water. It was almost 10.45 and he wanted to tab until midnight and then lay up, let everyone have a nap before the fun part started.
‘Another hour, then we kip for two hours,’ he said.
‘Camp’s just over the hill,’ said Bongo, who’d been talking with Tani.
Looking around for Sammy, Mac saw him crouched twenty metres away, whispering into a satellite phone. Moving towards him, Mac ate an apple and waited.
‘Charles,’ said Sammy, ringing off. ‘Says the Hawk feeds are already coming through in the infrared range.’
‘Yeah?’ said Mac.
‘There’s several aircraft on the airfield,’ said Sammy. ‘Navy analysts are saying they’re Dash-8s and extended Fokker F-27s.’
‘There were none there this morning,’ said Mac. ‘What are they doing?’
‘The imagery is consistent with the aircraft being loaded and dispatched in fast rotations.’
‘Rotations plural?’ said Mac. ‘How many have taken off?’
‘Navy got the Hawk up there at twenty-one thirty and they’ve already logged three – there’s two being loaded and another just came in to land.’
‘Christ,’ said Mac. ‘What are they loading?’
‘Can we just get down there?’ said Sammy.
The knoll looked down on Joel Dozsa’s illuminated compound, the lights making it clear which building was being unloaded and revealing the road that led to the airfield.
Through his binos, Mac could make out a series of trucks backing into the loading bay of the long building that dominated the compound. Large white packages the size of wool bales were slid across rollers by the Chinese workers, from the loading bay into the trucks. The trucks were driven to the airfield, reversed up to the rear cargo doors of the planes – which now waited in a line – and the decks of the trucks were hydraulically raised to the height of the doors and the planes loaded.
Adjusting his field-glasses, Mac could see each plane taking between seven and ten of the bales, depending on the configuration of the plane. Waiting to be loaded was a North Star plane that looked like the one Mac had flown in with Luc.
The noise from the turbo-props echoed in a din around the valley, which suited Mac. Moving the Leicas back to the compound, Mac saw what looked like a barracks and, beside it, a large house. Further out, facing a large parade ground, was a machinery shed.
‘That house, between the factory and the barracks,’ said Mac, as Sammy raised his own field-glasses.
‘Yep?’ said Sammy.
‘I’ll bet that’s Dozsa’s house – and McHugh’s current address.’
‘Looks like the whole party is happening at the factory and airfield,’ said Sammy. ‘We should come around the back, past the barracks, and storm the house.’
‘Storm it?’ said Mac, dropping the Leicas. ‘I thought we were retrieving McHugh?’
Sammy hesitated. ‘Sure.’
‘We won’t be retrieving anyone, Sammy, if we start kicking down doors, making it like the movies.’
‘Yeah,’ said Bongo, joining them. ‘Let’s isolate the Israelis, and when we know where they are, find the captive.’
‘Okay,’ said Sammy.
‘Our lead,’ said Bongo, moving away with Didge.
Returning to his backpack, Mac knelt and pulled out the Colt and a webbing containing four mags for the M4.
‘So, where my money?’ said Tani, giving Mac a start. He’d forgotten she was with the party.
‘Sammy?’ said Mac, looking for the American, but he’d disappeared.
‘You promise,’ she said, and Mac realised she wasn’t a kid – she was at least eighteen.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Mac, slapping his pockets. ‘I did promise.’
Looking at what he had on him, Mac found one-dollar notes and fives, but no tens. The only note he could give her was a US hundred-dollar bill. Reluctantly, Mac handed it over, reminding himself to get it back from Sammy.
‘This one no good,’ said Tani, doing the theatrical frown of South-East Asia.
‘Hundred dollar,’ said Mac. ‘I only promise fifty.’
‘Not this,’ she said, handing back the money, shaking her head.
Holding it to the moonlight, Mac wondered what her prob- lem was.
‘Bongo,’ he said, gesturing for the Filipino to leave his intense chat with Didge and join him. ‘Tani doesn’t like the hundred-dollar bill. What’s the problem?’
Bongo and the girl spoke for thirty seconds and then Bongo grabbed the greenback.
‘Tani says they make these down at the camp,’ said Bongo. ‘Make more of these than birds in the jungle.’
‘How –’ began Mac.
‘She been down there when her dad delivers food supplies,’ said Bongo. ‘Says there’s a factory in that long building – factory that makes money.’
‘What is this place? And where’s Sammy?’
Standing, they walked to Didge, who was checking his rifle. ‘Seen Sammy?’ said Bongo.
‘Went that way.’ Didge hooked his thumb in the direction of the camp. ‘In a hurry.’
‘No kidding,’ said Mac, turning to look at Tani. ‘You know your way around that camp?’
‘Yes, mister.’
‘You lead.’
Panting behind the tall machinery shed, Mac regained his composure as they surveyed the ground and Bongo chatted to Tani. The growl of propellers and groaning hydraulics filled the valley.
‘She says the last time she came here, a few days ago, there were guards at the rear entrance of the barracks.’
Following Bongo’s gaze, Mac saw the rear steps of the barracks building, with no guards.
‘What’s that?’ said Didge, pointing. ‘Behind the house.’
Didge’s eyesight was acute: there was a small movement through the trees, about sixty metres away, in the shadows of the main residence.
‘That Sammy?’ said Bongo.
They craned to see, but the movement didn’t repeat itself.
‘Leave her here,’ said Mac. ‘Let’s look at the barracks.’
Moving along the wall of the machinery shed, Mac stopped at the entrance to it and realised the entire front section was missing.
‘Look at this,’ whispered Bongo.
One half of the shed was a hangar, containing a silver-grey MH-6 helicopter, its size and bubble-covered cockpit making it readily identifiable as the Little Bird reconnaissance helo used by the US military.
At the other end of the shed was a fleet of Toyota LandCruisers and a Mercedes-Benz Unimog truck.
Jogging across the dirt towards the barracks, Mac joined the other two at the rear steps. Hiding in shadow, they listened for movement but all they could hear was the commotion from the factory and airfield.
‘Didge, you on point; McQueen and I will cover.’
‘Copy,’ said Didge, sticking his face out beyond their hide. ‘On my three.’
Counting it out, Didge slipped around the corner and up the six or seven stairs to the back door of the barracks as Bongo and Mac covered the approaches.
‘Door’s unlocked,’ said Bongo, and Mac skipped up the stairs. As Bongo passed through, a crashing sound came from the direction of the house through the trees.
Pausing, Bongo and Mac stared at one another in the dark. Then the shooting started, from a single source – no responding fire. Voices screamed and bursts lit up the house, the windows looking like a TV was flashing on and off inside. It sounded wrong.
‘Let’s move,’ said Bongo.
Pushing into the dark of the barracks, Mac realised they were in a vestibule, an area deliberately separated from the dormitory. Tani had been right – there had been guards stationed here, because this was the stockade. Every military barracks had one.
Slipping slightly, Mac felt his bad knee give way again, the pain erupting in the joint. A hand held him up and he realised he’d slipped into Bongo. Beneath them, on a chair, was a Chinese soldier with a dark grin across his throat. Mac had slipped in the blood resulting from Didge’s handiwork.
His pulse going haywire, Mac found his feet again and followed Bongo towards a door that now swung open. Stopping behind Bongo, he looked over the Filipino’s shoulder and saw a cell. Didge was kneeling on the floor, whispering encouragement to a blonde woman as he used the guard’s keys to undo her manacles.
She sobbed, her crying getting louder, and Bongo stepped further into the room.
‘Name’s Bongo,’ he said, voice low but friendly as he held her by the biceps. ‘John and Margaret sent us – your childhood cat was called Sadie, a silver chinchilla whose favourite meal was the eels you caught in the creek.’
The woman blubbered and launched herself into Bongo’s arms.
‘That would make you Geraldine McHugh,’ said Bongo. ‘I’m here to take you home.’
Nodding for Didge to hold her, Bongo whipped off his back-pack. Mac had wondered at the overstuffed pack and now he saw the reason for it as Bongo pulled out a spare Kevlar vest and eased McHugh into it.
Turning for the door, Mac tried to block Bongo. He wanted to stay close to McHugh: there was a debriefing to go through yet, a detail Bongo didn’t have to concern himself with.
‘Where to now?’ said Mac, still panting slightly.
‘Phnom Penh,’ said Bongo.
‘Saigon suits me better,’ said Mac, regretting it immediately.
Bongo’s SIG was not pushed in Mac’s face like it would be in a gangster movie, but it was pointing at Mac’s throat and it had Bongo Morales on the other end of it.
‘Out of here, right now, with my client – that suits
me
, brother,’ said Bongo. ‘So you either swim with this, or you swim against.’
Gulping, Mac nodded and stood aside. ‘Remember our deal – I get to debrief with the Americans.’
‘The Americans?’ said McHugh, coming alive. Her voice was raised and Bongo swapped a quick look with Mac.
‘It’s okay, you’re safe,’ said Bongo, staring at Mac and gesturing for Didge to follow with McHugh.
The way Bongo had said
okay
was a veiled warning to Mac and he decided not to push the American angle. As they moved to the back stairs of the barracks, sliding in the blood and trying to stop McHugh reacting badly to the corpse, they paused. Across the dirt, people ran from the house, one limping, a little girl running for her life. Two bodies lay dead on the ground.
‘What?’ said Mac, seeing a hit, not a rescue.
People shouted and ran up from the factory while a man walked among the bodies, checking them with the toe of his boot. The man looked up and stared at the four of them.
‘It’s Sammy,’ said Bongo as they saw his face illuminated by the house lights.
Sammy started jogging towards them, M4 held across his body. His boy scout demeanour was long gone – now he ran like a trained killer.
‘What’s the problem?’ said Mac, trying to understand.
But the conversation was over. The first shots from Sammy’s rifle had slammed into the door above McHugh’s head.