Each of the pics had a thin white tape along the bottom with date and location printed in black.
Shuffling through them, Mac stopped at the last two, checking back and forth, making sure he was seeing what he was seeing. One showed an Asian man in sunglasses at an outdoor table under a Vittel umbrella – a man Mac knew as the Korean, a guest at the Turismo. The tape along the bottom gave the date as a month earlier, the location was HCMC – Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon.
The first photo showed the Korean remonstrating with someone, his cigarette hand pointing at a person obscured by a waiter. The second photo showed another man, a middle-aged Anglo with thinning hair and sunnies, shrugging at the Korean with a smile.
Mac had never met the man, but he’d been chasing his ghost. It was Bill Yarrow, the Canadian.
‘This is that Korean bloke,’ said Mac, too tired for this. ‘Did you meet him?’
‘Sure,’ said Bongo. ‘Jessica had some words with him when you had the heat exhaustion.’
‘Jessica?’ asked Mac.
‘Yeah, this guy thinks she a prostitute – asks her how much,’ said Bongo.
‘And?’ smiled Mac.
‘Jessica said, At least seven inches, buddy – sorry ’bout that.’
Bongo killed the lights and brought Rahmid Ali’s Camry to a quiet halt on the west side of Comoro, opposite the military annexe where they could see the white United Nations C-130 being loaded under floodlights.
‘That’s your ride, McQueen,’ said Bongo. ‘Better get moving – I don’t want to be here all night.’
‘You not coming?’ asked Mac, confused.
‘Nope – heading north, I reckon,’ said Bongo, exhaling cigarette smoke.
Suddenly feeling emotional, Mac opened his door.
‘Got enough?’ asked Bongo, pointing at Rahmid’s bag. It wasn’t a ton of stuff, but along with the Operation Extermination papers and the work-ups on the Lombok and Sumba companies, it might put some pieces together for someone in Canberra, especially on the eve of the independence ballot. It might even persuade some of the politicians that East Timor needed peacekeepers.
‘It’ll do for now,’ said Mac, though he felt piss-weak. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said, and they shook.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ grinned the Filipino, plunging his hand into his breast pocket. ‘Half is yours,’ he said, fanning the thousand-dollar bills.
‘You keep it,’ said Mac, getting out of the car.
‘What?’ said Bongo, leaping out into the balmy night air. ‘Finders keepers, brother – you gotta take yours!’
‘What were they paying you? To bodyguard the Canadian?’ asked Mac.
‘Three hundred Aussie a week,’ said Bongo, flicking his ash.
‘You took a bullet for that, Bongo. What about this gig? The same?’
‘Sure,’ shrugged Bongo.
‘You saved me from the interrogation, mate, and then you got me out of Bobonaro with my nuts still attached,’ said Mac, wanting to be serious but chuckling. ‘That’s the bonus, okay?’
Shrugging, Bongo walked Mac to the hole in the security fence.
‘What will you do with the car?’ asked Mac.
‘Dump it on the north side,’ said Bongo. ‘But you know what?’ he asked, turning back to the Camry.
‘What?’
‘You could do with a change of clothes,’ said Bongo. ‘You look like shit. Rahmid’s about your size – perhaps a little skinny. Could be some clothes in the trunk?’
Walking to the back of the Camry, Bongo looked over his shoulder. ‘By the way, McQueen, no one can handle that stuff we saw this morning, okay?’
‘The -?’
‘That camp, okay?’ said Bongo, putting the key in the lock. ‘Too much death hurts a man here,’ he said, tapping his chest.
Bongo lifted the boot lid open and they both jumped back.
‘Fuck!’ said Bongo as they looked down at the illuminated interior. It was the Korean with two bullet holes in his forehead.
CHAPTER 28
The Camry’s engine pinged as it cooled in the night air, punctuating their ragged breathing as they stared at the corpse.
‘Bloke from the hotel,’ mumbled Mac finally. ‘Ali did this, right?’
‘Sure,’ said Bongo, reaching across the corpse and grabbing the handles of a black Adidas sports bag.
The Korean’s pockets yielded a Motorola mobile phone, a money clip containing US dollars and a small leather fold with a DBS Visa card and an American Express card, both in the name of Lee Wa Dae. Reaching into the pockets under the card slots, Mac pulled out a stash of paper and unfolded it.
‘Bloke’s name is Lee Wa Dae,’ said Mac, ‘and judging by his love of the Hotel Maliana, he’s based in Kupang, or spends weeks there at a time.’
Bongo gave a low whistle as he pulled a transparent plastic Ziploc bag from the Adidas bag and handed it to Mac before grabbing another. The size of a small cushion, the bag was filled with wrapped stacks of used US dollars, mostly hundred-dollar bills from what Mac could see.
‘Must be fifty, sixty thousand in here,’ said Bongo, checking the extremities of the sports bag and coming up with a stainless-steel Colt Defender – a compact automatic pistol favoured by women because it fits in a purse.
‘What’s this?’ asked Mac, holding the plastic bag in front of Bongo and pointing at the Thai or Cambodian script stamped in blue ink on the bag. ‘That say Palace or something?’
Nodding, Bongo traced his finger under the lettering. ‘Yeah, brother – I think it say Vacation Palace Hotel and Casino, Poi Pet, Cambodia.’
‘Isn’t that…?’ asked Mac, his voice trailing off as he saw lights moving through the trees at the other end of Comoro’s runway. They had company, probably military security.
Heart thumping, Mac shut the trunk, plunging them into complete darkness. About a mile south a Toyota 4×4 with the military police light-bar on the top motored across the base of the runway. It slowed, then turned left towards Mac and Bongo.
‘Gotta go, brother,’ said Bongo.
‘Want some?’ said Mac, pointing at the Korean’s money as he picked up Rahmid Ali’s overnight bag.
‘Only if you take some too,’ said Bongo.
‘Not for me personally, mate, but take a bag for yourself.’
Grabbing a cushion of money, Bongo hustled into the Camry. ‘I’ll put some into that safe-deposit box of yours. Remind me – Pantai in Makassar, right?’ he said, referring to a hotel in Sulawesi where Mac kept money, guns and alternative identity documents.
‘Don’t get cheeky,’ said Mac as Bongo started the car. ‘Get out of here, and call me in a couple of days, huh? Let me know you made it.’
‘Sure, brother,’ said Bongo, then floored the Camry onto the ring road, keeping the lights off.
Grabbing both bags, Mac ran in a crouch to a small hole in the fence, where the cyclone wire had peeled back from a concrete post. The military police vehicle revved louder, its headlights splashing around the scrub as Mac pushed the Adidas bag and Rahmid Ali’s leather hold-all through the gap and made to go through himself.
Putting one foot through the hole and then ducking down to push himself through sideways, Mac had his back to the concrete post as the MP 4×4 slowed, its tyres crunching on the gravel. Lurching away from the hole, Mac aimed for the drainage ditch where he’d already thrown the bags, but came up short.
‘Fuck!’ he muttered to himself as his belt caught on the concrete post.
As he struggled to free himself, the military police vehicle came to a stop, pretty much where Bongo had parked the Camry. Mac lay down as flat as he could, hoping the grass around the fence line would cover his body. The vehicle’s engine whirred and Mac listened to the voices of the soldiers chattering as a hand-operated searchlight strobed back and forth along the fence, illuminating Mac as he hovered above the ground, held by his belt.
Gulping, his heart going crazy, Mac slowly reached behind to the Beretta in the small of his back as the military police radio crackled close by. Getting his fingers around the grip, Mac eased the handgun out of his chinos and brought it around under his face, so he could smell the gun oil. Then, without moving his head, he looked back at the 4×4 and was instantly blinded by the searchlight as it penetrated his grass cover.