Moving slowly towards the Salazar grave, Mac reckoned the note from the drop box might still be around the gravesite. It had only been two days, and it hadn’t shown up in Rahmid’s clothes.
Mac had no doubt the note said more than Rahmid had voiced – especially if the drop box was the main avenue for communication between the Canadian and the firm. Besides, spies were experts at lying about what their documents contained. Mac once read aloud a steamy love letter to a female agent he was managing in Malaysia. The woman’s reaction confirmed she was a double agent; the letter was actually a supplies requisition variation from one part of Energy Australia to another.
Jogging the last few metres, Mac dropped to his knees and searched the grassy area for the note in the light of the half-moon. It was one of the less-immaculate plots in the famously tidy cemetery and Mac had to pull apart stands of long grass. Crawling around the back of the casement, he found the balled-up white paper sitting between the grass and tombstone, and shoved it in his pocket.
About two hundred metres to the south, Mac noticed movement and flashlights, suggesting a Brimob patrol. Crawling away from them, he found a line of crypts which gave him cover as he moved back to the cemetery wall.
‘About time,’ mumbled Bongo as he offered his hand and dragged Mac up to the top of the wall. Parked on the street was a minivan, engine running and lights on.
Raoul asked no questions as they slid into the rear seats and drove for the Turismo using the route that avoided the main roads. Mac had him as a seasoned conduit for visiting spies, diplomats and journalists.
Hitting the overhead light, Mac flattened the note from the drop box and had a look. It was a piece of A4 with one line of black print in 12-point Times New Roman, and another line handwritten in blue ballpoint. The handwritten line read: She’s not here. The printed line started with an asterisk and read: Nothing on ‘Tupelo’ or ‘Deetupelo’ – please supply more.
Thinking back, Mac tried to work out what he was reading. In his note, he had asked if he could meet Blackbird. He’d watched the cut-out arrive, open the box, pull something out of his pocket and then the drop was over and Mac had watched him leave the cemetery as the Brimob made a pass.
The only way it could have happened was that the cut-out carried a note from the firm in Denpasar or Jakarta to be dropped at the Salazar grave. So the printed reference to Tupelo was from Australian SIS, and when the cut-out saw Mac’s note, he didn’t even bother to transmit it to the firm – he simply wrote on the note.
So who or what was Tupelo? wondered Mac as Raoul took them through the back passages of Dili, around the military checkpoints. He would follow it up in Denpasar but for now it meant nothing. The Canadian had made a query and ASIS didn’t know.
‘Mate, can I borrow your phone?’ he asked Bongo.
Keying the numbers, Mac waited eight rings before an Aussie male voice picked up.
‘Devo,’ said Mac. ‘Davis, here. Richard Davis?’
After hesitating slightly, Grant Deavers picked up on it. ‘Sure, Richard – how’s things, mate?’
‘Good, thanks,’ said Mac. ‘The contracts are all signed and I was going to send some of the product home – when does the next flight leave?’
‘Top of the dial,’ sighed Deavers, ‘into Darwin.’
‘Room for product?’
Deavers paused and Mac was sure he heard the words fuck’s sake in the silence.
‘Should be room, but don’t be late, okay? Thanks, Richard, gotta go,’ said Deavers before hanging up.
Raoul made a slow pass in front of the Turismo and then along the side entrance where the fenced car park was accessed, before stopping one block east in the darkness of a banyan. Thanking their driver, Mac and Bongo walked into the darkness and moved along the leafy street, past rubbish bins and stray cats. The warm night was not attracting people into the Dili streets; the Aitarak militia, headquartered at the Hotel Tropical, had made a night out a dangerous prospect.
Slipping over the cyclone fence of the Turismo’s car park, Mac and Bongo edged around the borders of the dirt compound until they were squatting in a dark corner, away from the floodlight, looking at nine cars in a line.
‘Eight Toyotas,’ said Bongo above the din of crickets. ‘Lucky dip?’
Shrugging, Mac pressed the ‘unlock’ button on Rahmid’s key and the silver Camry closest to the hotel gate blinked its indicator lights once.
After a quick glance around, Bongo opened the passenger door, then reached in and shut off the interior light. Joining him in the Camry from the rear driver’s side, Mac searched the back seat while Bongo did the front.
There was nothing left in the car – not even a chewing gum wrapper in the rubbish bag hanging from the glove box.
‘Let’s do the boot,’ Mac whispered as he pushed his hand under the driver’s seat.
‘Hello, mister,’ came a woman’s voice, very close. ‘You want the bag?’
‘Shit,’ hissed Bongo, hitting his head on the inside of the windscreen as Mac threw himself flat on the back seat, grabbing at the Beretta in his waistband.
Looking out from where he lay on his back, Mac saw the shape of a large head on narrow shoulders peering down on him.
‘Mrs Soares,’ he said, trying to sit up and get his Beretta under his leg, his pulse whacking against his temples. ‘Nice to see you again.’
‘Mr Davis,’ she bowed, already in her silk housecoat, her hair in a net. ‘And Mr Alvarez. You must want Mr Rahmid’s bag, yeah?’
‘Bag?’ said Bongo, getting out of the car and pouring on the charm.
‘He left a bag with me, in the safe,’ said Mrs Soares. ‘You with him, right?’
‘A bag?’ smiled Bongo. ‘Gee, he confused us, right, Richard?’
‘Yeah,’ said Mrs Soares. ‘He not come back, I think, but you all friend, right?’
‘Sure,’ said Bongo. ‘Shall we take a look?’
The safe was an old black German two-key hotel lock-box, about a metre high and covered in brass plates and filigree. Opening the heavy door, Mrs Soares pulled out a black leather overnight bag with a shoulder strap and side pockets and handed it to Bongo.
Taking the bag, Bongo sniffed the air and spoke rapidly in Bahasa Indonesia. When Mrs Soares showed no interest in his sniffing, Bongo produced a US twenty-dollar note and Mrs Soares led them into the dining room, which had obviously been closed for the night.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Mac, his heart still going crazy from the fright in the car compound. ‘Intel will have eyes.’
‘They won’t think we’ll come back to Dili, let alone the Turismo,’ said Bongo, just as Mrs Soares appeared with two Tiger beers. ‘Besides, we gotta eat brother.’
Going through the bag, Bongo turned up a manila dossier that had probably once contained the papers found in Rahmid’s room, and a copy of the orders that Rahmid had translated and given to Mac at Santa Cruz.
After giving the documents to Mac, Bongo continued searching while Mac had a quick look at the dossier. It was in Bahasa Indonesia but all of the papers carried official Indonesian military and government letterheads. He’d get it translated at the section in Jakarta.
Pulling out a manila envelope, Bongo handed that over too and they both covered up as Mrs Soares delivered the evening meal. As she walked away, Mac pulled out a thin stash of eight-by-five black-and-white photos.
‘Jesus,’ he breathed as he saw the shots: Mac wandering through the Bali Museum in Denpasar; Mac being walked into an entrance way of an apartment building in Denpasar, Bongo close behind with his hand on something in his waistband; Mac standing in front of the sliding glass doors of Bali International Airport, looking around with a black wheelie bag in tow.