‘Scotty — Mac,’ he said, gulping at the water.
‘The fuck are you?’ said Scotty. ‘What happened to the regular updates?’
‘Sorry — been out in the forest.’
‘Where?’ said Scotty.
‘Chamkar,’ said Mac. ‘I need to meet.’
‘I’m in Phnom,’ said Scotty. ‘Setting up a forward base in case you get into trouble.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m in trouble,’ said Mac. ‘Meet me in Kratie at the Sunset guest house. It’s three miles south of town, on the highway.’
After a shower in the bathroom at the end of the upstairs hall, Mac secured his room and washed the bullet hole in his calf with saline and then with the iodine solution. Dabbing it dry with a towel, gasping at the sting of the iodine, Mac restrapped himself with bandages from the American first-aid kit and grabbed a cold beer from the fridge.
Moving to the side of the window, he peeked out from behind the curtains to scour the bare dirt courtyard at the entrance to the Sunset, looking for signs of Mossad or maybe even Cambodian intel. He’d hated that story of the Dozsa crew executing the Mossad team at the guest house and he worried it might be a habit of theirs.
The entrance seemed clear. Now Mac wanted some sleep before Scotty arrived.
Picking up the discarded bandages, Mac chucked them at the rubbish bin as he walked to the bed.
Pausing as he lay on the primrose-coloured cotton blanket, he tried to filter his senses for what was wrong. Sitting in complete silence, frozen in that spot, he breathed shallowly and wondered what was out of place.
The pinging, he thought as he rose and walked to the steel rubbish bin. Why would a handful of crepe make that sound on steel? He’d reused the elastic claws on his new dressing — there was nothing hard to bounce off the steel.
Pulling the tangle of dirty bandages out of the bin, he held them up, examining them closely. Sitting in a row along the still-white inside fold of the crepe were three small black dots, each the size of a plastic pin-head. Flicking one with his forefinger, the dot stayed attached to the bandage, held in place with the tiny Velcro-like hooks that surrounded its sphere.
‘The bastards,’ thought Mac.
Dozsa’s crew had patched him up okay, but they’d planted a bunch of micro-dots in his dressings. Sometimes those things picked up conversations, but mostly they were highly effective location and tracking devices, totally hidden from all but the most paranoid victims.
Dressing in ninety seconds, Mac grabbed his backpack and left.
The red Nissan Maxima pulled up in front of the roadside soda shack just under an hour later, Scotty giving a small wave over the steering wheel as the tyres crunched on the pebbles. Mac stayed at his table out of the sun and sipped at his orangeade while he waited to get a proper look at who was occupying the passenger seat. Hand slipping into his backpack, Mac gripped the SIG and waited for the mystery man to show himself.
Walking around the Nissan, Scotty stretched and shook out a smoke.
‘Macca,’ he said, eyeing the orange drink. ‘And two of those, thanks, champ,’ he said to the owner.
The passenger door opened as Scotty lit his smoke and sat opposite Mac. Out of the car stepped a powerful man of medium height who scoped every sniper’s vantage point in a single instant.
‘Fuck,’ said Mac, relaxing and taking his hand out of the backpack. ‘I asked for assistance and they sent the cavalry.’
‘Hey, Macca,’ said Sandy Beech, eyes scanning the surrounds like a radar as he walked from the Nissan. ‘On the sugar water, mate — doctor’s orders?’
‘Yardarm’s cooling off,’ said Mac, standing and shaking hands with the ex-SAS soldier and spook.
Sandy Beech was a surprise. Military intelligence working with Aussie SIS? Not unheard of, but usually an arrangement fully declared from the outset. Sitting, they hooked into their orangeades. Mac smiled and went with the jokes, but Beech’s appearance was irritating. Sandy Beech didn’t go into the field to resolve issues — his job was to escalate them.
‘First thing we have to get organised,’ said Mac, ‘the US currency coming out of that place — it’s real. Real security features, real paper, real serial numbers.’
‘Didn’t the Yanks have a UAV on it?’ said Scotty.
‘US Navy had a Hawk,’ said Mac. ‘Can we get word to the American side that there’s between a hundred and two hundred billion worth of bad hundred-dollar notes that got flown out of there last night?’
Standing, Scotty walked into the car park and keyed his phone.
As Scotty spoke, Mac explained to Beech the night at the camp and, with a slight stammer of embarrassment, admitted that Dozsa now had two Australian hostages where he previously only had one.
‘The Yanks are on it,’ said Scotty, sitting again. ‘That Grimshaw’s a strange fish, isn’t he?’
‘What’s up?’ said Mac.
‘I don’t know.’ Scotty shrugged. ‘They’re tracking all this US currency so they can seize it, but Grimshaw doesn’t seem that interested.’
‘It’s been a long week?’ said Mac.
‘Maybe,’ said Scotty, not convinced. ‘So where’s the McHugh bird?’
‘Bongo retrieved her,’ said Mac, the words choking in his throat.
‘Morales has McHugh?’ said Scotty.
‘When I arrived to work with the Americans, they’d hired a couple of mercenaries, to even it up with Dozsa’s guys.’
‘Bongo, and…?’ said Beech.
‘An Aussie soldier called Didge,’ said Mac. ‘I’ve worked with him before — 4RAR Commandos.’
‘I know him,’ said Beech. ‘Name’s Yorantji — Adam Yorantji. Good soldier, top operator.’
‘The Yanks didn’t know that Bongo had been hired by the McHugh family.’
‘And you didn’t tell them?’ said Scotty, ticked off.
‘I wanted to do the gig and get out of there,’ said Mac. ‘Bongo and Didge are experts at this stuff, especially in the jungle, and we had a deal.’
‘A deal?’ Scotty lit another smoke. ‘Shit, mate — you had a deal with the Commonwealth.’
‘We were going to retrieve McHugh jointly but then Sammy Chan tried to kill her and my leg stopped one of his bullets.’
Scotty and Beech both looked away.
‘What’s this about, Scotty?’ said Mac. ‘You knew what Sammy was up to?’
‘I knew the Americans were very serious about this,’ said Scotty, clearing his throat. ‘I knew they didn’t want us debriefing her — that was our deal.’
‘You had a deal with the Commonwealth, boss.’
‘Fair call,’ said Scotty. ‘All I can think is that when Sammy realised that you and Bongo would end up with McHugh, he tried to drop her. They’re in damage-control mode.’
‘Macca, we’re out of time,’ said Sandy Beech, impatient. ‘What was the errand for Dozsa?’
‘He wants a swap — he hands over Lance and Urquhart, and I give him a memory chip.’
‘A memory chip?’ Beech sat up and folded his fingers through each other on the table.
‘That’s what he said — he reckons Tranh was carrying it in his Nokia, but Grimshaw doesn’t know that.’
Scotty swapped a quick glance with Beech.
‘So, you’re supposed to do what?’ said Beech.
‘Steal it and exchange it for the hostages,’ said Mac.
‘You know what to look for?’ said Beech, his voice now intense.
‘Of course,’ said Mac, shrugging. ‘It was in my backpack for a couple of days.’
Beech looked stunned. ‘Macca, you were in possession of this chip?’
‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘It’s a white SD.’