They gave him five minutes’ rest in a small copse overlooking Maliana. Retching until he thought his jaw was going to seize, Mac allowed Bongo and a guerrilla named Joao to wash his eyes with bottles of water from the creek.
‘Don’t rub, Mr Richard,’ said Joao, a straight-haired mestizo local who was built like a middleweight. ‘Just let water do the work, okay?’
As they got the petroleum soot out of his eyes, Mac saw that Bongo had re-dyed his hair to black. His eyes slowly stopped running with tears and he became aware of three other men crouched around him, dressed in various combinations of jungle fatigues and armed with automatic rifles.
‘Ready, brother?’ asked Bongo, looking at his watch.
‘Well, I can see. Does that count?’ said Mac, throat like sandpaper.
They stood to go and Bongo did the introductions, at which point Joao took over, saying, ‘We travel all night, okay, Mr Richard?’
It was one of those South-East Asian statements made as a question in order that everyone save face.
‘That would be fine, Joao,’ said Mac, still croaky. ‘Thank you. Obrigado.’
‘And, not the offence to you, sir, but please – no question about where we going?’
‘That’s fine, mate,’ smiled Mac as he tested his knees again. ‘Anywhere out of Bobonaro is good with me.’
Joao packed water bottles into a small rucksack and they got into formation, one of the guerrillas at point with Joao in behind, and Mac sandwiched between Joao and Bongo. Turning to Bongo, Mac remembered something: ‘Mate, we need to get back to the Camry -’
Bongo smiled and held out Mac’s Beretta and Rahmid Ali’s papers. ‘Thought you might want these, brother.’
‘Better watch it, Morales,’ said Mac, jamming the papers in his chinos pocket. ‘Someone might think you’re a professional. What happened to you guys, by the way?’
‘We lost you after we dealt with the rapists, then we picked up with these guys.’ He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That’s what the gunfight was about – these guys and the Lintar militia. They weren’t after us, we just got caught in it.’
Taking a deep breath, and preparing for the worst, Mac got a question off his chest. ‘Mate, the kids – did they make it?’
‘They made it,’ said Bongo.
‘Are you sure?’ said Mac, wanting to be absolved. ‘I mean -’
‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ said Bongo, laughing. ‘That girlfriend of yours made sure of that – she’s a real tigress, that one.’
‘So where’s Jessica?’ asked Mac as they started walking under a half-moon.
‘She’s safe,’ said Bongo, who had his own rifle – a Heckler & Koch G3 by the look of it. It was old now but still a good weapon, and the best you could buy in the 1970s.
‘Where?’ asked Mac, checking his Beretta for load and safety.
There was a loud throat-clearing sound and the guerrilla leader was suddenly in Mac’s face. ‘Simple rule when you travel with Falintil,’ said Joao, ‘don’t ask where you going, don’t say where you been. Okay?’
True to his word, Joao made them walk through the night. Mac had it as westward, which worried him. He’d hoped to be tabbing east, away from the paranoia and malevolence of Bobonaro.
They spent two hours climbing into the mountains, Joao handing Mac a heavy drill shirt as it got cold and damp. Then they were descending, into a landscape that was punctuated with greenery but with rolling alpine grasslands and outcrops of rock between the stands of bush.
Finding a river bed in the lowlands, they drank and rested under a stand of trees for fifteen minutes, speaking in low tones.
‘Probably wondering why we going west, right?’ asked Joao, opening a parcel of waxed paper and sharing out a carcass of cold chicken.
‘Sure,’ said Mac, chomping on the spicey wing but tasting only gasoline soot. ‘Thought you guys liked to travel through jungle?’
‘Got something to do first,’ said Joao. ‘Mr Manny asked if we could get you on our way, okay?’
Mac nodded then checked the vial in the laces loop of his boat shoe. It was still there. ‘So, Joao, what’s your story?’
‘Just doing my part,’ said Joao, his eyes not leaving Mac’s.
‘You military?’
Smiling, Joao turned to the other guerrillas and rattled off something in Tetum, and they all laughed.
‘What’s funny?’ asked Mac.
‘He’s a teacher,’ said Bongo quietly, ‘but trained in the seminary. Joao’s ordained, okay, brother?’
They reached their destination and lay behind a bushy spur while Joao and Bongo moved to the ridge and took turns with the binos. Mac’s G-Shock said 4.41 am. He yawned and shivered, a little unsettled at being out of the loop.
Returning to the main group, Joao did not look happy.
‘It looks abandoned,’ said Joao. ‘Gates hanging open, and, um…’ he cleared his throat and looked away.
Mac got a look from Bongo and decided to stay quiet.
‘What Joao’s saying is there seems to be bodies in there,’ said Bongo softly.
‘Bodies?’ asked Mac.
‘Yes!’ said Joao, chest heaving. ‘Lots of them.’
The camp was deserted but the barracks and the offices had been left, with all of the furniture and beds removed. The ablutions block – built for at least thirty men – was cleared of everything, including the taps and shower heads.
‘Left nothing but the bill,’ muttered Mac as they followed Joao’s torch outside.
‘The Java way,’ snorted Bongo, lighting a cigarette. ‘Why give when you can take? My mum told me that, and she should know.’
The six of them stood on the veranda of the main office and looked over the camp’s outdoor area. There was a large open-sided shelter to the right – iron roofing held aloft on telegraph poles – and a cyclone fence around an open grassed area of about six hectares. To the left, the cyclone gates hung open, a dirt approach road shimmering in the gloom of pre-dawn.
As they walked down the slight slope, bush rats fled across the ground like a dark carpet. The first bodies were two women and three children – all naked. Mac crouched, inspected the younger of the two adult corpses, looking for a cause of death. On the other side of the group of corpses, Bongo was doing the same thing.
‘No bullets,’ said Bongo. ‘No strangulation. No struggle, no violence. No obvious lesions or punctures.’
Waving for Joao’s torch, Bongo had a closer look at the female corpse’s face. The lips were swollen.
‘Poison?’ asked Mac.
‘Probably, but let’s look, okay?’ said Bongo, moving off.
‘Guess you’re not a salesman either, right, Mr Richard?’ asked Joao, but not challenging.
‘Like the wise man says,’ said Mac, moving behind Bongo, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’
As the light increased, the scale of the deaths became apparent. As many as a hundred and thirty naked bodies lay across the grassed area.
‘It’s like Jonestown,’ said Mac, panting slightly as they got to where the bodies were most numerous, under the shelter.
‘All Maubere,’ said Joao, meaning they were Melanesian Timorese locals, as opposed to the Portuguese and Indonesians.
Two shoes lay on the ground just outside the shelter, worn and mismatched. Looking around at all the barefoot bodies, Bongo spat. ‘Java thieves – even took their shoes.’
They stood staring, overwhelmed by the combination of evil and pettiness.
‘What is this place?’ asked Mac finally. ‘Concentration camp?’
But Joao didn’t respond because he was on his knees, vomiting.
They sat around the communal water pipe, drinking water and eating the last of Joao’s chicken from the waxed paper lying on the dirt. From the east, Mac saw the line of pale blue and red pushing at the horizon.
‘This wasn’t what you expected?’ Mac asked Joao, trying to work it out.
‘No. We’d been hearing about this refugee camp since early this year,’ he answered in a faraway voice. ‘The militias and soldiers have been clearing the villages and moving displaced people up here for months, but no one ever came back – it was all rumour.’
‘Refugees? From where?’ asked Mac.
‘From the south coast, Mr Richard,’ said Joao, slightly sarcastically. ‘You know, Cassa, Betano, Same, Suai? Anywhere they burn the house, steal the animals, kill our people.’
Mac nodded. ‘So the rumours? What were they?’
‘Our people in FPDK,’ said Joao, referring to the pro-integration movement that opposed independence, ‘they tell us that the military is up to something in Bobonaro, something that they not telling.’
‘Jakarta’s keeping it secret from the local pro-integrationists?’ asked Mac, surprised that FPDK wasn’t more involved with plans to keep East Timor in Indonesia.
‘Yeah, and maybe a secret inside of military too,’ said Joao. ‘We have people inside army and they didn’t know. Then we get some defections, right? From the 1635 Regiment.’
Mac nodded; the Indonesian Army’s biggest locally raised regiment in East Timor was the 1635.
‘This defector – Antonio – he really upset when he gets to us, tells about the camp south of Memo where he drove a truck,’ said Joao.
‘That where we are? Memo?’ asked Bongo.
‘Yep, about twelve kilometres south.’
‘What did this defector see?’ Bongo continued, lighting a cigarette.
‘Antonio said they always delivering people, but the population never seemed to rise,’ said Joao. ‘That’s how the rumours started of the death camp in Memo. This place.’
A diesel engine revved somewhere over the horizon, and they all stood, following Joao in a jog towards the gates. Turning left, they climbed to higher ground and Mac crouched in the scrub as the diesel revved through a gear change.
Short of the scrub, Bongo stopped. ‘What’s that?’ he demanded, pointing at the shelter in the camp yard.
Ducking back behind the scrub, Mac couldn’t see anything except bodies in the dim light of pre-dawn.
‘What?’ asked Joao, going to Bongo’s shoulder.
‘There! There!’ said Bongo, bringing his rifle across his body.
But Mac didn’t look where Bongo was pointing, because five hundred metres to their south a black LandCruiser was cresting the rise, followed by an army transport truck with a D6 bulldozer on its trailer.
‘Guys,’ hissed Mac from his hide, still feeling vulnerable after the beating at the Ginasio. ‘We’ve got company!’
Ignoring Mac and the two vehicles, Bongo and Joao stood in the open looking over the camp yard.
‘Guys!’ said Mac, desperate to stay concealed. ‘Get down – the Indonesians are here!’
Joao handed the binos to Bongo and, putting his hand on the Filipino’s big back, pointed. Bongo’s head went up and down twice and Mac heard him mutter, ‘Yep, yep.’
Mac groaned inwardly, realising his day was about to fall apart: he wanted to get to a phone, and to Blackbird – and he wanted to get to the bottom of Operasi Boa. And then he wanted to get as far away from Bobonaro regency as he possibly could. A tall order, but one he could keep juggling and resolving if he could just keep his momentum and stay away from whatever Bongo and Joao were dreaming up.
Bongo slid in beside Mac in the hide, checking the mag on his rifle.
‘There’s a girl down there in the camp, still alive,’ he said, excitement in his dark eyes.
‘Pity about the timing,’ said Mac, wanting Bongo to drop the whole thing.
‘Timing’s perfect,’ smiled Bongo, slapping the mag into the G3.
‘For what?’ screeched Mac.
‘Save her,’ said Bongo as Joao crouched behind him. ‘We’ll just make it if we move now.’
‘We?’ asked Mac, but Bongo and Joao had already gone, leaving the three guerrillas to cover the camp yard.
Every fibre in his body wanted to turn the other way, run back into the hills and get back to the gig. But when Mac started running, it was in a crouch, behind Joao.