Ducking his head as he descended from the deck into the houseboat, Mac saw the interior of the boat bore no relation to its rustic facade. Sammy used a swipe card to move through the security doors which closed with a whoosh behind Mac as they moved past another two guards, who patted Mac again and ran an explosives detector over his body.
Mac and Sammy entered a room filled with comms and IT equipment; there were video monitors showing real-time footage of what looked like a UAV circling over Asian jungle; one operator was glued to a monitor, reading out locations to someone over his headset. The monitor seemed to be showing cell zones for a phone connection.
‘Nothing here for you, McQueen,’ said Sammy, and Mac followed him into a smoky low-ceilinged office. Against the far wall, on the other side of a dark wooden desk, a middle-aged man leaned back in a chair beneath a line of portholes, blowing cigarette smoke at the ceiling.
‘I didn’t say you were fucking me, Darryl,’ said the American in a superior east-coast drawl. ‘I said you were trying to fuck me. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
Looking up, the man — a tanned, silver-haired sixty-year-old who could pass for late forties — smiled and sucked on his smoke as he turned an expensive lighter end over end on the desk.
‘Yeah, yeah, sweetheart,’ he purred menacingly into the phone. ‘Retract that sentence from your report and we’re all buddies, right?’
As he was about to put the phone down, he laughed suddenly. ‘You know me better than that, Darryl,’ he chuckled. ‘I don’t threaten people — I bury them.’
Hanging up, the man stubbed out his cigarette and moved around the desk, not taking his eyes off Mac.
‘Alan?’
‘That’s me,’ said Mac.
‘The name’s Charles. How do you do?’ Charles held out his hand. ‘Hope you don’t mind first names — it keeps things simple, okay?’
Mac took the strong, dry hand and looked into pale eyes hooded by a high, intelligent forehead. First names didn’t worry Mac and he was accustomed to the way the American intelligence community reverted to them.
‘Sun’s over the yardarm,’ said Charles, moving like a cat towards a large refrigerator. ‘Beer, Alan? Bud, Millers, Tiger?’
‘Cold and wet is good,’ said Mac. ‘Thanks.’
Taking a seat in a leather easy chair, Mac sipped at his ice-cold Budweiser as Charles slugged at his beer and lit another smoke. For an older bloke he had a hard stomach and powerful arms.
‘I’m sure you have things to do,’ said Charles, in a voice that was friendly yet authoritative. ‘So I’d like to push this along.’
‘Sure,’ said Mac.
‘Some of our investigations have fallen flat in the past couple of weeks and the problem seems to come back to the Aussies,’ said Charles, smiling. ‘Sam mentioned the possibility of a joint operation, which might give both of our teams the chance to open up, to share the wealth as it were.’
‘That was the idea,’ said Mac. ‘It seems we have a mutual enemy.’
‘It seems so,’ said Charles. ‘By the way, thank you for your efforts on the docks the other night — Sam owes you his life.’
‘No worries,’ said Mac. ‘I’m just sorry I couldn’t have stopped Phil catching one.’
‘Rocket-propelled grenade,’ said Charles, shaking his head softly. ‘What kind of maniac carries that around in his car?’
‘What I said,’ said Mac.
‘I suppose it’s obvious we are highly motivated about interview- ing this woman, Geraldine McHugh?’ said Charles, who seemed both old-money and diamond-hard. A strange combination.
‘I got that idea,’ said Mac. ‘There’s also the matter of a memory card — I had it until two days ago.’
‘I’m interested in that,’ said Charles.
‘I didn’t know what it was.’
‘So you weren’t briefed on the card?’ said Charles, in a way that made Mac realise it was important.
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘Not until it was stolen from my hotel room, and then I was accused of being a traitor.’
Charles squinted. ‘I guess there’re different Australian organisa- tions working on this, right?’
‘I’d rather not comment,’ said Mac.
‘Just like we had no Aussie comment on the Dr Lao episode?’
Mac stayed silent. It wasn’t his place to discuss Lao’s treason, but the Americans certainly had a right to know if their testing was compromised.
‘Just so we understand one another,’ said Charles, keeping it relaxed. ‘The ability to stop a Chinese ballistic missile mid-flight is something the Aussie Navy might thank us for one of these days.’
Clearing his throat, Mac maintained steady eye contact.
‘Anyway,’ said Charles. ‘Sammy tells me you have a head start on us with McHugh.’
‘I know Captain Loan, from the Cong An in Saigon,’ said Mac, watching Charles’ eyes for a sign of recognition.
Charles gave nothing. ‘And?’
‘And she’s investigating me for the murder of Jim Quirk at the Mekong Saloon.’
‘So?’ said Charles.
‘So Loan connected the death of Jim Quirk with the disappearance of Geraldine McHugh on the same night, from Cholon.’
‘Cholon?’ said Charles. ‘Who told you Cholon?’
‘Loan — she wants to work with me,’ said Mac. ‘I was going to look her up back in Saigon.’
Charles’ left eyebrow rose and he exchanged a look with Sam.
‘Well, Alan,’ he said, ‘that sounds promising.’
‘That’s where I come in,’ said Mac. ‘What’s your end?’
Leaning back, Charles levelled a look at Mac. They held the stare for several seconds, then Charles looked away.
‘My end is this,’ said Charles carefully. ‘There’s a plot by a powerful faction of the People’s Liberation Army to hurt the Chinese and American economies and throw the world’s financial system into disarray.’
‘The PLA?’ said Mac, wondering how the world’s largest military organisation became involved. ‘What happened to the Israelis?’
‘Forget all you know — this is about a power struggle in Beijing, using contractors in Cambodia and Vietnam,’ said Charles. ‘You interested?’
‘Shit, yeah,’ said Mac.
‘Good,’ said Charles. ‘So let’s talk.’
Chapter 36
Growing discomfort made Mac move around in his chair. The story Charles was telling him was a few levels above what he’d prepared for when he arrived in Saigon.
‘The Chinese government is nominally communist,’ said Charles, starting on his second beer. ‘But the communist ideology, as a means, is distinct from the system as an end. History shows us that Chinese ruling systems all come and go but the imposition of authority and order are central to the Chinese experience.’
‘Sure,’ said Mac, knowing some Chinese history.
‘So communism may have been the flavour since 1949, but the reality of Chinese government is different.’
‘The reality is power factions, like any system,’ said Mac.
‘Precisely,’ said Charles. ‘We’ve had basically thirty years of economic progressives who have opened up China’s economy and allowed the development of an aggressive, wealthy middle class.’
‘I see,’ said Mac.
Charles lit a cigarette. ‘And you know what that means?’
‘Economic liberalism usually means social and political liberal- ism, even if only by degrees,’ said Mac, mentally dipping into some of his old history papers. ‘So if the Chinese middle classes become wealthy, successful and educated, the next thing that happens is their children want political representation.’
‘Australians seem to understand this instinctively,’ said Charles. ‘Americans are enjoying their cheap consumer goods so much that they don’t realise the source of these goodies is at a crossroads — a potentially shattering crossroads.’