The photographs were transmitted inside of three minutes. Mac had heard about the joys of digital imaging but he had no idea it would be so easy. All he’d done was plug the camera into the sat phone, dial the number Jim had preprogrammed into the phone, and the contents were downloading into DIA’s computers.
‘So, you want to have a look into this VIP?’ asked Robbo, nodding at the helos in front of the airfield’s admin building.
‘Ideally, yes,’ said Mac, annoyed with himself for having already spent so much time at this airfield. ‘But we’ve got the Lombok recon and then we have to be out of Dodge, with the girl, by Sunday – I think we’ll push on.’
Mac didn’t want to become sidetracked by the sighting of Haryono. If Operasi Boa was a part of a deportation program, then it wasn’t being hatched from this airfield. He had no doubt that Haryono was a potential drug lord and that he used this airfield for taking money and distributing his product – but that was a matter for the police.
‘You said those boys with their packs come here?’ said Mac. ‘And based on the pattern, we’re expecting the full mule line to be here tomorrow?’ asked Mac.
‘Sure are,’ said Robbo.
‘Let’s keep that in mind,’ said Mac. ‘If we cross paths it’d be good to have a nosey-poke.’
As he shifted to leave, Robbo put a hand out. ‘Actually, Macca, we have a situation.’
‘Yeah?’ asked Mac.
‘We’ve detained a local,’ Robbo said, embarrassed. ‘Well, two actually.’
‘Shit, Robbo!’ barked Mac, too many pressures to juggle already.
‘Yeah – Didge was taking a pee and someone walked into him.’
‘Jesus wept!’ said Mac, adrenaline rising. ‘Where? Where’s Didge?’
‘Back there.’ Robbo gestured with his thumb.
Thirty metres into the jungle, Mac and Robbo came into a copse where the 63 Recon Troop stood around two boys in their early teens. Mac and Robbo edged into the circle and listened to Johnno talking Bahasa Indonesia with them.
‘Johnno?’ said Robbo, and indicated for him to let Mac closer to the kids.
‘Found this,’ said Toolie, handing Robbo one of the boy’s packs.
Robbo looked inside, pulled out a plastic bag, and threw it to Mac, who knew what it was before he even caught it. The clear plastic was filled with US greenbacks and the Cambodian stamp would translate as ‘Vacation Palace’.
Mac didn’t ask too many questions before the boy wearing the San Francisco 49ers T-shirt started crying.
‘Rodrigo says he never wanted to do it. He says his brother talked him into carrying these packs for the Koreans,’ said Johnno. ‘Apparently the Koreans give the packs to the mules, then they are paid at the airfield base, one dollar US per run.’
Ruffling Rodrigo’s hair, Mac switched his attention to Yohannnes, who looked cockier than his friend.
‘How’s your English, Yohannes?’ asked Mac.
‘Okay, mister,’ said the boy, scared but showing more front than his companion.
‘Where you come from today?’ asked Mac.
‘Atambua, last night,’ said the boy.
‘Who gave you the bag?’ asked Mac, bending down for his rucksack.
‘Korea,’ said Yohannes. ‘Always Korea.’
‘What does Korea say?’ said Mac, opening his rucksack and putting his hand inside.
‘He say, Take this to there,’ said Yohannes, eyes lighting up as Mac pulled the pack of Hershey bars out of his rucksack.
‘And what else?’ asked Mac, pointing at the radio handset that sat the bottom of Yohannes’s pack.
‘Call him, if problem in jungle,’ said the boy, eyes like saucers as Mac handed him a chocolate bar before giving one to Rodrigo, who cheered up with the gift.
‘What problem?’ asked Mac.
‘Soldier, thief, militia,’ said Yohannes, getting the Hershey wrapper off in record time. ‘If anyone try to take pack, if soldier around, we must call Korea.’
‘And then?’ asked Mac.
‘Then, walk back and then a lot of carrier come along then,’ nodded Yohannes. ‘’Cos safe now.’
‘Who do you take the packs to?’ asked Mac.
Pointing, Yohannes indicated the airfield.
‘You take it down there?’
‘Yes, mister,’ said Yohannes.
‘You know his name?’
‘No, mister.’
‘No?’
‘No, mister – a secret.’
‘I bet it is,’ muttered Mac, and handed another chocolate bar to each kid.
Looking down on the airfield from the OP, Mac slugged at water and tried to get his mind clear. He hated complications, disliked civilians involving themselves in the action.
‘What do you want to do with them?’ came Robbo’s voice from behind him.
‘Can’t let them go down to the base,’ said Mac, eyes on the admin block. ‘We’d be made and we still have two locations to cover.’
‘So?’ asked Robbo.
‘So I don’t want them with us either,’ admitted Mac. ‘We don’t have enough food, and we don’t have the numbers to run a security detail while doing the op.’
‘It’s better than the alternative,’ said Robbo after a pause.
‘The choice is between bad and worse,’ said Mac. ‘Bad might be one thing; worse might be six troopers and a spook getting torn to pieces by a door-gunner doing some target practice. We’re sitting ducks out here once we’re made.’
‘Well, the obvious is out of the question, Macca,’ said Robbo, uneasy, his foot kicking into the dust.
Jaw muscles clenching, Mac tried to stay calm. ‘The fact that we both know the obvious sort of resolves the question, doesn’t it?’
‘My boys wouldn’t let us do it, McQueen. And I’d side with them, so no – it doesn’t resolve the question.’
Mac nodded and looked down at the ground, tried to think of a way forward. ‘Okay, Robbo. The lesser evil is taking them along but we need a stop-loss.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Robbo. Mac knew he’d been a handy bullrider as a teenager and Robbo sometimes took his leave in Canada and the United States, taking eight-second rides for cash. There was a coiled quality to the man that wasn’t always relaxing to be around.
‘If they directly endanger our lives, then we vote on it,’ said Robbo. ‘There’s seven of us, so stop-loss is four votes in favour.’
‘And the proposer gets the gig,’ said Mac.
‘Of course,’ said Robbo.
It was 12.34 when they arrived at the escarpment overlooking the river gorge. The local boys walked in the middle of the troop, rope nooses around their throats which were connected by a rope leash to Toolie’s hand. The idea was that if they tried to run, a decent tug on the leash would tighten the rope around their necks.
‘This your footpad?’ Mac asked Yohannes.
‘Yes, mister,’ said the boy.
‘Got an idea,’ said Mac.
They stopped and Johnno and Didge jogged up a rise to assess the ground ahead.
Pulling the money bags from the boys’ packs, Mac smashed the radio on a tree and threw it in pieces on the ground.
‘Never liked that radio much anyhow,’ mumbled Beast.
After asking Beast for his knife, Mac cut a slice into the inside of his forearm and held the wound over the first empty pack, letting the blood run over it.
‘Robbo, can we get some more blood?’ asked Mac.
Nodding at Beast, the big redhead took his knife back and gave Mac a questioning look.
‘The other one,’ said Mac, ‘and some on the radio if you want.’
When there was enough blood to make it look good, Mac asked for Rodrigo’s shirt, took it and wrapped it around a small log, making sure the 49ers emblem was visible. Then he tied it up by the sleeves on the reverse side, hoping it would look like a boy floating in the river at the foot of the gorge.
After swinging the log back and forth until he had some momentum, Robbo let go of it and they watched as it arced through the air and plunged into the river twenty metres below. Within seconds, the T-shirt-covered log had submerged and disappeared, ruining the desired effect of a body floating in the river.
They watched and waited, but the log didn’t resurface.
‘Fucked that up good and proper,’ mumbled Robbo.
‘Have to think of something else,’ said Mac. ‘Just don’t want the Indonesian Army chasing us for their money.’
As they took turns on the water bottles, Robbo and Mac looked at the map and decided on the safest way into the Lombok facility.
Panting, Didge and Johnno came down from the peak.
‘More helos heading for that airfield,’ said Didge. ‘Four of them.’
‘No interest in us?’ asked Robbo. ‘Shooters hanging out the doors?’
‘Couldn’t see,’ said Didge. ‘Too far away and they were gone before we got the binos on them.’
‘Okay,’ said Robbo, nodding. ‘Let’s move.’
Mac pulled the rucksack over his shoulders onto his wet back, letting out the straps slightly. He was now carrying what he estimated was two hundred thousand US dollars through the Timor bush.
Didge led them out, and as he did, he looked over the escarpment. ‘Shit!’ he said. ‘That looks like the kid.’
Looking over, Mac saw the 49ers T-shirt floating with the other logs in the river eddy. It looked like a body and, with any luck, the people looking for their money might think that the boys had been whacked.