Mac ran up the front steps of Arafura Imports in central Darwin, and entered the reception area, pushing up his sunglasses.
‘Just in time for your new phone, Mr Davis,’ said Sally the receptionist, pushing a brown box across the counter. The Arafura Imports office on Cavanagh Street was a corporate front for Australian SIS, and Sally sometimes found herself working as a stewardess in Qantas first class or as a concierge in the Marriott group.
‘Suppose a nine-mill is out of the question?’ joked Mac, as he signed the receipt docket.
Sally found a spare mug, poured Mac a coffee and escorted him through two PIN-enabled security doors and into one of the meeting rooms, where Tony Davidson sat at a conference table, phone to his ear.
Putting his coffee and bags down, Mac took a seat on the other side of the table and listened to his boss make placatory sounds to a desk-jockey. As the phone hit its cradle, Davidson stood to his bearish six foot five and extended a paw.
‘Macca,’ he said with a smile. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you to stay out of fights?’
Shaking his boss’s hand, Mac smiled back and said his hellos. His face was still a mess: two black eyes, a fat lip and a big lumpy shiner on his left cheekbone. Whatever disagreements Mac had with Bongo’s operating style, he now had total empathy with the Filipino’s need for payback – Bongo could have Benni Sudarto, Mac would take Amir.
‘Larrakeyah okay?’ asked Davidson, taking off his suit jacket and hanging it on the back of the door. ‘No one playing at nosey-buggers?’
‘No, it seems fine – but if you want me staying five-star, I’m game,’ said Mac. ‘Sheraton will do.’
Starting with a brief story of the East Timor mission and its dual goals – Blackbird and Boa – Mac included Bongo’s role as subtly as he could, although it still elicited a wince from Davidson.
‘Shit, Macca – Morales is a hit man, isn’t he?’
‘He was also at the meet where we lost the Canadian and Blackbird,’ said Mac. ‘I wanted him to brief me, and, well we came to an arrangement and he rode security for me.’
‘Okay,’ said Davidson, a little annoyed.
Answering some basic questions about the operation, Mac went over the meetings in Dili, describing how the Indonesian military-commercial establishment was still operating as if they expected no political change in East Timor. Then Mac told of being invited to the Lombok facility in Bobonaro district and being asked to do some procuring for Major-General Damajat, the man who appeared to be running the show. Putting the vial from Damajat’s office on the desk, Mac disclosed where he’d stolen it from.
‘It might be nothing,’ said Mac, nodding at the vial. ‘He says it’s about re-engineering a disease in order to cure it. But their procurement is covert and I’m fairly certain the Canadian was doing this job before me.’
‘Sydney’ll take too long – be faster to get it analysed by the Americans in Denpasar,’ said Davidson, poking at the clear vial which contained a tobacco-coloured liquid. ‘So, you’re in his office and Damajat thinks you’re the Canadian’s replacement – but then the Sudartos make you?’
‘Yeah – I’m Damajat’s best buddy, and then I get jumped by Amir Sudarto and a couple of Kopassus intel goons.’
‘So, a possible schism in the Indonesian military?’ said Davidson, making a small note in his ever-present detective’s pad. ‘Sudartos and Damajat not working to the same agenda?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mac.
‘What about this death camp?’
‘Between a hundred and a hundred and thirty bodies, all ages and genders, all dead,’ said Mac, pausing as he remembered the sight. ‘Actually, one girl was still alive – Falintil rescued her.’
‘Were they shot?’ asked Davidson.
‘Poison, probably.’
‘Official?’ asked Davidson. ‘A military operation?’
‘Kopassus, for sure,’ said Mac. ‘I had an eyewitness account, third party. Joao – the Falintil leader – told me that a bloke called Antonio who had defected from the 1635 Regiment, was -’
‘That’s the locals’ regiment?’
‘That’s them,’ said Mac. ‘This Antonio drove an army truck in Bobonaro district and he said that he’d delivered supplies to this secret camp up in the hills behind Memo.’
‘On the border.’
‘Correct.’
‘I agree – Memo sounds like a death camp of some sort,’ said Davidson, mulling on it. ‘But what sort of supplies do you take to a death camp?’
‘Don’t know,’ admitted Mac. ‘But probably not food.’
For the next hour, Mac worked with Davidson to integrate some of the stranger revelations of the operation into a cohesive narrative.
‘The first problem came with Rahmid Ali.’
‘The guy from the President’s office?’ asked Davidson.
‘Yeah,’ said Mac, wondering how much credence to give the Indonesian spy who had ambushed him at Santa Cruz cemetery.
‘You believe he was there on the President’s authority?’ said Davidson.
‘He seemed genuine, and I got his sat phone to see who he’s been calling,’ said Mac, pointing to the pile of evidence he’d brought back from Dili.
Leaning forward, Davidson pushed a button on the desk phone and asked Sally to come through.
‘So what do you think he wanted?’ asked Davidson.
‘He wanted me to take that,’ he said, pointing at the English translation of Operation Extermination that Davidson held in his hands, ‘and he wanted it to be taken up by Aussie intel and military.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Habibie’s isolated and he needs Canberra to be kicking up a fuss about the Indonesian Army in East Timor, not going along with the generals.’
There was a knock at the door and Sally entered.
‘Get me the full logs on this phone, okay, Sal?’ said Davidson.
‘Sure, boss,’ she said, smiling at Mac as she took the phone.
‘And I need it asap.’
After she closed the door, Mac continued. ‘Revealing something like Operation Extermination could weaken the generals, but only if there’s international outrage.’
‘And if Habibie sticks his neck out too far in Jakarta, he gets it chopped, right?’ asked Davidson.
‘Yep,’ said Mac. ‘He’s trying to take the Republic into a democratic era but he doesn’t have a military power base. The military is also worried about the DPI gaining too much popularity post-Soeharto,’ said Mac, referring to the left-wing political party headed by Megawati Sukarnoputri.
‘Okay,’ said Davidson, weighing the documents and staring at Mac over the top of his reading glasses. ‘Let’s say Operation Extermination is real and there’s a deportation project planned for East Timor – what’s this false-flag thing that Ali was talking about? What do you make of that?’
‘Ali said the real campaign that was hidden behind Operation Extermination was called Operasi Boa,’ said Mac.
‘We know about that, right?’ said Davidson, flipping back through his notebook.
‘It was one of my targets in Masquerade,’ said Mac. ‘The meaning of Operasi Boa was what the Canadian was supposed to establish at his final meeting with Blackbird.’
‘Of course,’ said Davidson. ‘And?’
‘Well, then Bongo took him out – he thought I was being threatened.’
‘So let’s get it straight,’ said Davidson, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head. ‘The President’s office signs off on orders from the general staff. Those orders are Operation Extermination, a depopulation program for post-ballot East Timor. But the President’s office has a spy among the generals who reveals there’s something much worse hidden behind Extermination – it’s called Operasi Boa and we have no idea what it might be?’
‘That’s where we’re up to,’ said Mac.
‘I suppose it comes back to Ali’s credibility, and he’s not totally the good guy,’ said Davidson, reaching for his coffee, ‘because you found a corpse in his car, right?’
‘The Korean – Lee Wa Dae,’ said Mac, spelling the name.
‘Who is?’ asked Davidson, jotting a note.
‘I thought he was just a rude Korean businessman – he was staying at the Turismo. But in Ali’s bag there was a bunch of telephotos, two of them featuring Lee Wa Dae meeting with Bill Yarrow,’ said Mac as he handed over the manila envelope.
‘Yarrow’s our Canadian, right?’ said Davidson, pulling the eight-by-fives out of the envelope and going through them.
‘That’s him,’ said Mac, craving another coffee.
Pausing and looking back and forth between two of the telephotos, Davidson’s forehead creased.
‘Saigon?!’ he said. ‘What the fuck is our Canadian doing in Saigon with this Korean prick?’
‘That’s what I wanted to talk about, Tony,’ said Mac, pushing the black Adidas bag across the table. Pulling out one of the cash-cushions, Davidson held the US dollars in front of him and looked down at the logo on the bag. ‘We know what this says?’
‘Vacation Palace Hotel and Casino, Poi Pet.’
‘Oh really?’ spat Davidson, throwing the cash on the conference table and looking at the ceiling. ‘Poi Pet! That’s great, that really is.’
The Vacation Palace was a Cambodian money-laundering operation run by the North Korean generals. Their heroin money came back from the United States, Canada, Australia and France and was exchanged for chips in their own casinos. Having been laundered, the subsequent US dollars paid out by the cashiers were used to buy real estate, gold and businesses all over the world.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ whispered Davidson, reaching for the phone and dialling.
‘Judy,’ he said into the phone, ‘I need a priority work-up on Lee Wa Dae – Korean or North Korean – and I need it yesterday, okay?’
As he spelled the name Mac could imagine Judy Hyams scrawling on her notebook, putting her ego aside to deal with Davidson’s demands. A part-time lecturer at the Australian National University and a full-time head of research at ASIS, Judy suffered Davidson’s demands in a way that women weren’t supposed to in the 1990s. Still, she always got the leave she wanted and Davidson religiously remembered her birthday.
‘Thanks, Jude…’ he barked, but didn’t put the phone down.
‘We do?’ said Davidson, addressing the phone with a new tone in his voice. ‘Let’s have it.’
He listened and then, putting the phone down, took off his glasses and massaged his eyeballs with his left hand.
‘Lee Wa Dae is known to us, apparently,’ he said, peering out from now-bleary eyes.
‘Who is he?’ asked Mac, troubled by Davidson’s demeanour.
‘He’s a bag man for the North Korean Army’s drug business.’