‘What happened to the office job, the nine to five?’
‘The Commonwealth has plenty of office guys,’ said Mac, not wanting to verbalise where his career was going. ‘It’s field guys they’re short on — people who can work their guts out for a couple of months without a day off.’
‘But you’ve just turned forty, mate,’ said Jenny. ‘Where’re the youngsters who want to be in the field? Don’t they watch James Bond movies?’
‘The youngsters don’t have jobs anymore,’ said Mac. ‘They have careers — they’re encouraged to hang around senior office guys because that’s how you get ahead.’
‘I thought we could at least drop the salesman act,’ said Jenny. ‘Back office at Foreign Affairs? Promotions at Austrade?’
‘That was Plan B,’ said Mac, not wanting to admit that Tobin had offered him that on re-entry. ‘Things happened quickly, I was straight into the old game and it seemed easier to resume an old identity.’
‘So?’
‘So when this is done I might turn into a communications officer at Austrade,’ said Mac, meaning it this time. ‘It’ll be plain Alan McQueen, pumping out press releases from around Asia, writing speeches for the DG and the minister — that shit.’
‘That would suit us fine,’ said Jenny, snuggling in.
‘And by the way,’ said Mac, raising his arm so she could move in, ‘it’s no carousel ride living with a cop, either.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yeah. I remember Mum trying to hide the newspaper from Dad on his days off — he’d be reading a story, then jumping on the phone to the detectives’ room, carrying on about some important connection, or an incorrect detail that the police prosecutor had laid down in depositions. It never ended.’
‘I’m not that bad,’ she said.
‘No, at least you don’t go through the births and deaths, and the auctions — Christ, the bloody auctions.’
‘Frank did?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Mac. ‘Dad would go through the auction notices, reading out the lots. If he thought some stolen machinery was coming up for sale, or a consignment had a fishy owner, he’d go take a butcher’s. He was a nutcase, and the crims hated him.’
‘Just as well you married me, eh, Macca?’ she said, bringing her lips closer.
‘Yeah, mate,’ said Mac. ‘And just as well I got that iPod player for the car.’
‘Why?’ said Jenny.
‘No more radio news,’ he said, as Jenny took a playful swipe at him. ‘So there’s no excuse to work the phone on your days off.’
‘It hasn’t happened that often,’ she said, getting serious again. ‘The Haneef thing doesn’t happen every day.’
‘Yeah, but when it does…’
‘Okay, Macca,’ she said, pulling his face to hers. ‘That would be you in the dog box, remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ said Mac.
‘Watch it.’ Jenny kissed him.
‘Oh, I watch it all right,’ said Mac. ‘But your hands are too fast.’
Chapter 43
The van’s air-con made the interior either too cold or too warm — there was no middle setting. Messing with the dial while he waited for Luc to have a shower and say goodbye to his wife, Mac’s phone sounded.
Mac hit the green button. ‘Yep.’
‘McQueen — Sammy,’ said the American. ‘What’s this text mean? A plane and a pilot?’
‘You guys good for it?’ said Mac, observing the early-morning traffic off the main boulevard of Cong Hoa. ‘We charter the plane, we get the pilot.’
‘Remind me,’ said Sammy.
‘The North Star pilot — his name’s Luc,’ said Mac. ‘He doesn’t have the coordinates but he knows how to fly us to Dozsa’s airfield.’
‘Okay,’ said Sammy, covering the phone and talking with someone before coming back on the line. ‘Can do, McQueen.’
‘Demand the Fokker Friendship and ask for Luc by name,’ said Mac. ‘Book it now and with any luck it’ll be ready by the time we’re out there.’
‘This Luc okay?’
‘His wife will decide, but I put a sweetener in there for her.’
‘Sweetener?’ said Sammy.
‘Yeah — told him there’s five thousand US, over and above.’
‘Nice, McQueen. That coming out of your pocket?’
‘We receive unto our needs, give according to our ability, right, Sammy?’
‘I went to church too, tough guy,’ said Sammy. ‘Priest said nothing about giving with another man’s wallet.’
‘Cash works best,’ said Mac as Luc emerged from his French- colonial terrace house.
Banking steeply over Phnom Penh, Luc straightened for the runway and eased the red and white F-27 onto the tarmac, its twin Pratt & Whitneys stirring Mac’s memory. When he was growing up in regional Queensland the Fokker Friendships had been a staple of travel between small cities and towns: Rockhampton — Townsville, Gladstone — Mackay, Barcaldine — Longreach. If you flew those routes, then you sat in those purring Friendships with the harsh light bending through the egg-shaped fuselage windows. The planes were still used across South-East Asia and India as milk-run planes that could take off and land on short runways and carry a surprisingly large payload.
In the passenger section of Mac’s plane were three rows of seats directly behind the cockpit and the rest was a cargo bay, hidden by a dark green canvas quilt hanging off the interior fuselage.
Bringing the F-27 to the hangar with the Aviation Services Inc. sign above the open doors, Luc shut down props, hooked his headset on the wall of the cockpit and came through to Mac while the engineer completed the logs and checks.
‘Okay, Mr Richard,’ said Luc, his face still suffering from Bongo’s beating. ‘Welcome to Cambodia.’
Opening the forward door, Luc released the folded ladder. Easing himself down the narrow gangplank to the tarmac, Mac squinted and pulled down his sunnies as the tropical sun gained intensity. It was 9.38 am and felt like thirty-five degrees.
Sammy Chan leaned against a black Chevrolet Silverado. ‘McQueen — you’re early. I like that.’
Sammy greeted Luc and Mac gave some background as they walked to the reception area of the service hangar.
‘We need to talk,’ said Mac into Sammy’s ear as Luc went over to the coffee machine and poured a cup.
‘Just have to nip upstairs, okay, Luc?’ said Mac, grabbing a coffee.
‘Um, yeah, okay, Mr Richard,’ said the pilot, averting his eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mac, moving to the stairs with Sammy. ‘I’ll get you the money.’
The first-floor area was filled with sofas and coffee tables, which looked out over Phnom Penh International through tinted floor-to-ceiling windows. At one end, Charles spoke in Vietnamese into a phone, a finger jammed in his ear as he spoke too loud. Sammy raised binoculars and scanned the airport. It was the lifelong curse of people from a military intelligence background to obsessively survey whatever ground lay in front of them. In Sammy’s case, he seemed to be focusing on the large man in grey overalls and baseball cap who was loading the black canvas duffels from the Silverado into the rear door of the F-27. The luggage man was Brian, the tall American who’d greeted Mac as he’d boarded the houseboat two days earlier.
‘Looks like we got some gear,’ said Mac, taking a seat. ‘I thought we might need some more cavalry.’
‘Because?’ said Sammy, not dropping the binos.
‘Because I had a bird whisper in my ear about this prick Dozsa,’ said Mac, sipping on good coffee — Sumatran or Timorese was his guess.
‘And?’ said Sammy.
‘A two-man Mossad hit team passed through Bangers a few months ago, masquerading as Australian forestry guys. Drove up to Stung Treng province — Dozsa’s turf.’