‘I don’t know what’s on my file,’ said Mac, ‘but the Royal Marines have a very simple rule for this sort of thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t go in if you can’t get out.’
‘You’d be pleased to know the US Marines don’t train kamikazes either,’ said Sammy. ‘What did you see?’
‘I saw two approaches — a goat track and an airfield — and I saw a ferry crossing from Stung Treng: there’s no bridge. I saw a town full of Dozsa informers and on the west bank I saw country so poor that a farmer’s loyalty could be bought for what you or I would lose down the back of the sofa.’
Mac took another swig of beer, eavesdropping on the back- packers, who were competing over who was staying in the cheapest guest house.
‘Pao Peng’s plan is underway,’ said Sammy, avoiding Mac’s eyes. ‘We need to be in that compound asap.’
‘How do you know about Pao Peng?’
‘I’ve spent the last seven weeks in Indochina, chasing these pricks — believe me, McQueen: the Pao Peng plan is happening.’
‘It would help if I knew the details.’
‘Here’re the details, McQueen,’ said Sammy, anxiety creeping through his growl. ‘There’s an Australian national — a high-level Commonwealth employee — being held in that compound by an ex-Mossad sociopath. How’s that for details?’
Mac eyeballed him. ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t going.’
‘I’ve told you everything I can tell you,’ said Sammy. ‘A power- ful general in the PLA is plotting to bring down the Chinese economy by also attacking the US economy. He’s using an Israeli crew — we can stop them once we retrieve that memory card and McHugh.’
The two men drank in silence for thirty seconds.
‘So what do we need?’ said Sammy.
‘We need unobserved aerial reconnaissance,’ said Mac. ‘And we need motorbikes.’
‘I can order up a Hawk,’ said Sammy; the US Navy’s high-altitude unmanned reconnaissance plane was called the RQ-4 Global Hawk. ‘They’d send one in without too many questions.’
‘Okay — can we have that in place before we go in?’
‘I’ll do it this afternoon,’ said Sammy. ‘What’s this about motorbikes?’
‘That country is hard on big vehicles,’ said Mac. ‘Your big Chevs are great on American country roads, but there’s no county ploughs in Indochina — no one’s dropping gravel and levelling it with a scraper.’
‘Okay,’ said Sammy.
‘Let’s have two blokes in the Chev, and two bikes.’
‘Why the split?’
‘Because the bike team might have to go around a certain point in the track,’ said Mac.
‘Certain point?’ said Sammy.
‘There’s a checkpoint,’ said Mac. ‘About ten miles west of the river, there’s a shack on the side of the road.’
‘Could be a farmer’s shed.’
‘So those poor farmers have invested every penny they have to run a telephone line to their shack?’
‘An Asia Development Bank loan?’
‘The line runs inland, Sammy,’ said Mac, finishing his beer. ‘It runs from the shack to guess where?’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Sammy. ‘I’ll get you motorbikes.’
‘You do that,’ said Mac, banging his empty can on the table.
Chapter 45
The streets of Kratie were crowded with busy locals and backpackers from Europe, and Mac sauntered among them, looking for unwanted attention and eyes that lingered.
Kratie was a favourite for travellers who liked places that were off the beaten track, but only if they’d already been overrun by people just like them.
Regardless of what tourists thought of it, Kratie was an important market town in north-east Cambodia. The peasant farmers loaded their boats and their carts at five in the morning and headed for the town’s markets to sell their six chickens, four ducks or three baskets of rice. The fishermen brought their catch into the market and the world of subsistence yeomanry began another day of trying to eke out a living.
‘Gets hot in the afternoon, Kratie,’ said the man’s voice beside him as he looked for a chance to cross the road and walk to the river. ‘Faces west.’
Turning, Mac came face to face with Bongo, the big face impassive beneath the dark sunnies and the Elvis haircut.
‘You following me, Bongo?’ said Mac, a little annoyed that he hadn’t picked him up.
‘Just wandered out of the post office,’ said Bongo, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Thirsty yet, McQueen?’
‘It’s an afternoon in Kratie,’ said Mac. ‘I could hit the waterhole like a lizard drinking.’
They sat at a cafe table nursing their beers while Bongo finished a cell phone call.
‘Life as a managing director,’ said Bongo as he put the phone down. ‘Phone never stops.’
‘How’s that going?’ Mac asked.
‘Busy, brother,’ Bongo replied, emptying his beer glass and gesturing for two more. ‘Friend of mine from the old days, we were talking a few years ago and he says to me, “Bongo, you make yourself into a security firm and then the mining company, the law firm, the foreign government, they use your service.” ’
‘So you’re not a mercenary anymore,’ laughed Mac. ‘You’re a company director?’
‘My accountant says I’m a security consultant; I’m a services provider,’ said Bongo, taking his fresh beer and raising it. ‘To services.’
‘To services,’ said Mac, clinking glasses and shaking his head slightly. ‘You looking after Didge?’
‘Sure — he’s a top operator: very hard, very trained and I’m paying him twice what he made in the Aussie army. Talking of money, you get that cash?’
‘Cash?’
‘Yeah, brother — I dropped it at Saba’s, in Jakarta. You forgot about that?’
‘Shit,’ said Mac. ‘The cash. Yeah, it was there — thanks.’
During their gig in East Timor a decade earlier, Mac had retrieved a few bags of cash from a Korean middleman who supplied feed stock for biological weapons. He’d let Bongo have all the dough, but Bongo had insisted that he would put some in Mac’s safe-deposit box at Saba’s Lager Haus. Following that gig, Mac had checked his box and there were pillows of cash.
‘So how we going to do this?’ said Mac.
‘Do what?’ Bongo scanned, the cafe and street like a cyborg.
‘You’re contracted to the Americans, but you’ve been hired to retrieve Geraldine McHugh by her family.’
Bongo chewed gum and stared at Mac through his sunglasses. ‘What I like about you, McQueen — you always in someone else’s business.’
‘You can get the girl, collect your fee from the lawyers — I don’t care,’ said Mac. ‘But I can’t be competing with you when I’m stealthing into that compound.’
‘So don’t compete,’ said Bongo.
‘I’m retrieving McHugh,’ said Mac. ‘That’s the gig.’
Bongo drank. ‘We can both do it.’
‘I’ll deliver her back to Oz, you’ll get a big mention in my report.’
‘If I find the girl, no one touches her — that’s when there’s a misunderstanding.’
Mac paused: ‘misunderstanding’, in Bongo’s world, was a euphemism for a dispute ending in at least one homicide.
‘I can see your position, mate,’ said Mac. ‘But if we find McHugh, the Americans must be able to debrief.’
Bongo paused, gave Mac the evil eye. ‘You told the Yankees?’
‘Told them what?’
‘That I’m working for the McHugh lawyers?’ said Bongo, stiffening as the cafe owner came from behind the counter and walked to another table.
‘No,’ said Mac.
‘Okay — you keep it that way, and if I find the girl, they can debrief.’