I must have gaped and my jaw probably dropped. It took me a beat to recover, but by then he'd grabbed my hand and was shaking it hard. He ran his other hand over his bald skull.
'It's Colin Kennedy. Didn't recognise me without the mop, eh, Paddy? Well, it's been a while and some of us've got more testosterone than others, eh? You're looking great, Paddy. Bit greyer, but fit.'
He was a big bear of a man, wide and thick with shoulders like the old-time blacksmiths. There was a tattoo on the back of his left hand. Not a prison job: a flag and a chevron- army.
'Gidday, Colin. Yeah, it's been a while. How long would you say?'
'I'd have to think. Look, I just have to pick up some mail for the camp and then we can have a beer and a yarn.'
'Right, I'll buy the beer. What's your go these days?'
'Fosters, same as ever. Hang on.'
The woman behind the counter was waving a thick stack of envelopes at him and he went across to collect them. I approached the man scraping grease from the hotplate.
'A six-pack of Fosters, thanks, mate.'
'Col only drinks long necks.'
'Six of 'em, then.'
He opened the fridge, took out the bottles and put them in a plastic bag. Kennedy gave me a thumbs-up and we went outside.
'Clem doesn't mind if we crack a couple out here,' Kennedy said. 'The local copper doesn't mind either if he gets one.'
We sat on the bench on the porch outside the shop. Kennedy found a bottle-opener among the metal objects dangling from his belt and whipped the caps off two bottles. We clinked them and drank.
'You mentioned a camp, Col. Wouldn't be the Western Warriors' place, would it?'
'Sure is. Hey, d'you remember that stoush we had with those poofy sailor boys in Townsville? That was a go, eh?'
I never liked Fosters, too sweet, but I downed a bit and undid the top buttons of my shirt to show the scars from my heart operation.
'Fact is, Col,' I said, 'I had a heart attack a while back and it knocked me around a bit. Fucking eight-hour operation, would you believe? They pulled me through it but I lost a bit along the way. Memory's not that flash. Sorry.'
'Shit, mate, sorry to hear it. You were one of the fittest blokes in the unit. Fittest officer, that's for sure, and you didn't pull rank on us NCOs.'
I grinned. 'Yeah. 'Less I had to.'
'When the word came down from above. Right. Well, we were a wild bunch all right, but that was what we were supposed to be.'
I nodded. 'So what're you doing now?'
He had the level of the bottle well down and some of the ebullience was seeping out of him.
'Ah, got into a bit of strife after I left the army. Wife trouble, grog trouble, money trouble, you know.'
'Tell me about it.'
'I'm in with this Western Warriors mob. Bit of a Mickey Mouse show to be honest, but they like a bloke with experience of the real thing. Hey, you haven't said what you're here for, Paddy.'
I thought. I didn't know how long I could sustain the charade. Colin Kennedy obviously hadn't been reading the newspapers. If there were other former comrades of Patrick at the Western Warriors camp it was better than even money that one of them would know he was dead. But if it got me into the place it was worth the risk.
'I'm trying to catch up with a bloke I want to talk to. I heard he was one of this mob, and I thought I'd come up to take a look.'
He drained his bottle. 'Yeah? Who would that be?'
'Frank Szabo.'
'Frankie? Yeah, he's here. How'd you hear about him, Paddy?'
I tapped the side of my head. 'Like I say, I'm a bit vague about where and when.'
His voice took on a solicitous tone. 'You been inside, Paddy?'
I nodded. 'Berrima. While back.'
'Hard case, Frankie, or was. I reckon he'd be glad to talk to you. How about you follow me up there? I'm in the Land Rover. That yours, the Camry?'
'Hired. How's the road?'
'Okay since we put some work into it. Just take it easy.'
I gave him the bag with the remaining bottles. 'For the mess.'
A battered khaki Land Rover stood a few metres from my car and a couple of others that had arrived while we were talking. I'd noticed it, but hadn't seen the 'WW' painted on the door, half covered in mud, until I got closer. It had a vaguely military look, like Kennedy himself.
He reached the 4WD, tossed the mail inside and put the bottles on the passenger seat. He turned back to me and I tensed, because his manner had changed a little.
'You were always a crafty bastard, Paddy. Thinking of joining up, are you?'
I shrugged. 'Probably past it.'
He brushed the side of his nose in the old soldier's gesture. 'We'll see. Stay back a bit and steer round the puddles.'
After a few kilometres the road deteriorated and Kennedy's advice about staying back made sense. Then the surface improved with gravel filling in the potholes and a slight camber on the bends. The bush was thick on both sides as the road sloped up and the air got colder. I had the window down to enjoy the smells and the sounds. A little bit of country air, however cold, does you good. Kennedy speeded up on the better surface; we rounded a bend and the camp came into view.
We crossed a narrow, shallow creek on a concrete ford and then a cattle grid in front of a high gate in a high cyclone fence. Electronic. After a brief pause, the gate swung open; the booth I'd seen in the web photo looked less formidable in reality and was unoccupied. We entered what once must have been a farm of some kind: a few hectares of cleared, flattish land, with a scattering of buildings-an old timber house, a demountable that looked like a schoolroom and two Nissen huts flanking a bituminised square with a flagpole in the middle. Kennedy swung the Land Rover around to where another bitumen strip was marked out as a parking bay. I followed him, stopping beside a canopied truck that looked even more military than the 4WD.
I had the. 38 in the shoulder holster but had made sure the flannie hung loose over it and that the denim jacket didn't promote a bulge. I got out of the car and joined Kennedy as he walked towards the house.
'I'm gonna deliver the mail, check in with the CO and then we'll hunt up Frankie. Out with a skirmish group at this time, I reckon.'
'How many people here, Col?'
'You know better than that, Paddy. Operational information.'
We were close to the house and I saw a man coming through the door. His walk was a self-important strut.
'Who's the pocket Napoleon?'
'Shut your fuckin' trap!' Kennedy snapped as we got closer.
Kennedy presented the mail to the man who stood on the verandah the best part of a metre above him. He needed the extra height-couldn't have topped 155 centimetres. He wore modified military dress like Kennedy, no insignia but the cut of his clothes was superior and his voice had a clipped precision.
'And who is this, Kennedy?'
'Old army mate, sir. Paddy… Patrick Malloy. First Lieutenant.'
'Vietnam?'
'Yes, sir.'
He didn't leave the verandah, but he bent and reached down with his hand. 'Peter Foster-Jones, Mr Malloy. Very glad to meet a fellow officer.'
We shook hands and Kennedy explained that I wanted to talk to Francis Szabo. Foster-Jones nodded, lost interest, turned his attention to the mail. 'Carry on, Kennedy.'
I thought, Francis? At least there was no saluting.
Kennedy waited until we were out of earshot before he spoke. 'Sorry to snarl at you, Paddy, but that little prick takes all of this very seriously. Or pretends to. I'm not sure. Thing is, it's an easy job, full bed and board and decent pay for us old soldiers. You want to think about it.'
'Okay. Where does the money come from?'
'Who knows? Who cares? Corporations mostly, I reckon. They send executives here for toughening up, leadership training. That shit. Most of 'em've never lifted anything heavier than a golf club.'
We left the cleared area and were walking down a track into the bush. 'Do they benefit from it?'
'Some do, some run screaming back to Mummy.'
Every hundred metres or so, the trees on both sides of the track were marked with splotches of white paint. Kennedy saw me noticing and grinned.
'Orienteering,' he said. 'Some of them've got the sense of direction of a headless chook. They need marks all the way home.'
'What's Szabo's role in all this?'
'You'll see.'
We took a narrow track leading to a creek and Kennedy gestured for me to move slowly and quietly and keep to the trees beside the path. After a minute he stopped and pointed. We were at a high point of the creek bank and, fifty or sixty metres away, I saw a group of men, camouflaged with bits of bush and leaves, wriggling forward on their bellies. They reached the water, hesitated, then kept going, still crawling and keeping their heads above the water. After crossing the creek they leapt up and charged into the bush, shouting and firing.
'Pop guns,' Kennedy said.
'Real water though, and bloody cold.'
'Toughening up.'
Kennedy squatted down and lit a cigarette. 'First of the day,' he said, offering me the packet.
I shook my head.
He gave me a quizzical look. 'You used to be a chain smoker.'
'I quit.'
'How?'
I traced a line down the centre of my chest. 'I had no choice. What're we waiting here for, Col?'
'They'll be along soon, looking like drowned rats.'
About twenty men, carrying weapons I couldn't identify and answering to Kennedy's description, appeared from the bush. They waded across the creek. A few sneezed. They set off along the path in reasonable order. Bringing up the rear was a tall, dark man whose clothes were dry. I'd never laid eyes on him but he was the image of his father: Frank Szabo, son of Soldier.