‘So?’
‘So,’ said Mac, looking at his G-Shock, ‘it’s almost eleven at night — that gives us about five hours to grab that file.’
Lance looked at the floor. ‘How can I help?’
‘What information were you passing to Dozsa?’
‘Dozsa?!’ said Lance. ‘You’ve gone mad.’
‘You were the only leak, Lance,’ said Mac. ‘I have to find this guy.’
‘Listen, McQueen, the operation I conducted with Liesl Hu was authorised and it came from so high up that you’d get a nosebleed just thinking about it.’
‘So you debriefed after Ray’s execution at the Pan Pac?’
‘No.’
‘You wrote a report?’
‘No, McQueen.’
‘You sent an explanatory memo by email to your controller and it’s lodged in the system with a time stamp that says you wrote it at least twelve hours after Ray died?’
‘No, I don’t need —’
‘Hear that, Bongo?’
‘I heard it, brother,’ said Bongo, lighting a cigarette.
‘You see, Lance, there is one commandment that all spooks live by in all countries and all regimes,’ said Mac. ‘And it is this: he who partakes in an operation which results in the death of one of his own guys must immediately explain himself to his fellow spooks. Right, Bongo?’
‘Written in blood, my brother.’
‘See, Lance, you ran an agent against Ray Hu and, as a result of that operation, Ray was executed. The fact that you haven’t debriefed is very fishy. It’s the kind of thing that other spies get nervous about.’
‘Look —’
‘No, Lance, I’m sick of looking,’ said Mac, raising his voice. ‘I want to listen — so start talking.’
‘I was part of an ASIO technology outfit called T4,’ said Lance, not meeting Mac’s eyes. ‘It was basically technology intelligence, of the type the Israelis and Chinese have been so good at.’
‘Successful?’ said Mac.
‘Sure,’ said Lance. ‘Smoked out some South Koreans in Perth and found an Aussie aerospace engineer selling second-stage rocket booster specs to the Chinese.’
Mac slugged at the water, his brain still fried by the Fentanyl.
‘But the DG felt it wasn’t worth our little group continuing if we couldn’t work offshore,’ said Lance.
‘So?’
‘So the idea was picked up by the PM’s office, it was authorised by the attorney-general’s, overseen by the PM’s chief of staff.’
Mac kept the pressure on. ‘And your controller?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘What was the Liesl op?’
‘Get her worried about Ray, worried about who he was dealing with and how much trouble he was in — we were concerned about the Harbour Pacific purchasing and the spooks in Defence and the Firm didn’t want to know about it. It was all too geeky.’
‘So you get Liesl talking about Ray’s conversations, especially with Dozsa and Loh Han?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what happened when Ray decided to wipe the Harbour Pacific file?’
‘Liesl called me the next morning, early, before eight.’
‘She panicked?’
‘She was scared — she wanted to meet here. We met at half past eight, she told me what she’d heard and I thanked her.’
‘Yes?’
‘I went back to the hotel and wrote a short report, sent it by secure email to my controller, and then a few hours later the news started breaking about the shooting at the Pan Pac and I got very scared — so did Liesl. I was advised to go to ground but she felt abandoned and I don’t blame her.’
‘Then?’
‘Then, about a week later, I was told to meet my controller in Saigon. Another piece of the Harbour Pacific puzzle — Jim Quirk — had been executed up there, and my controller thought the best way forwards was to piggyback a ride with an experienced field guy who was already in-country and on to Jim Quirk.’
Mac could hear Bongo laughing.
‘How was the piggyback, Lance?’
‘Scary.’
Mac believed the guy. But there was a leak nonetheless. ‘Okay, mate. I’ll leave it there. But do yourself a favour — next time you go into the field, and an experienced operator tells you to dress down, just do it.’
‘I still don’t see why.’
‘Because the idea is to blend in. The earrings just broadcast to the world —’
Pausing, Mac eyed Lance as he thought about what he’d just said. ‘Mate, how long have you had that earring?’
‘Bought it two months ago.’
‘In Singers?’
‘Yes,’ said Lance.
Walking forwards, Mac pulled it out of Lance’s ear, twirled it between his thumb and index finger. It was a silver bauble, a large teardrop. He handed it to Bongo who dropped the earring on the ground and tapped it with the shotgun stock. The ear- ring fell apart, a smaller aluminium casing rolling away from the split earring.
‘That’s our leak,’ said Mac, picking up the smaller piece and showing it to Bongo.
Squinting, Bongo held it up to the light bulb. ‘Four-month lithium battery, mini-microphone and transmitter, pushing a signal up to five miles in desert, about two miles in the tropics.’
‘They gave you top of the line, Lance,’ said Mac. ‘Would have worked until you dipped it in the Mekong. It’s just that the Israelis don’t have rivers.’
‘Shit, McQueen,’ said Lance, face deathly pale. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Didge slit the flexi-cuffs off Jon, and Tranh and Mac prepared to leave.
‘Geraldine?’ said Mac, pausing in the living room.
‘Yes?’
‘I know you have legal counsel, but without prejudice, it would help me right now if you could give me a clue about where Joel Dozsa might have retreated to.’
McHugh looked at him. She was shorter than her photos suggested and handsome rather than pretty; Mac could see in her the kind of Canberra career-type who felt they were born to be his boss. She looked away and looked back with a more open face. Then she leaned on her knees.
‘I saw you in the compound, Mr McQueen,’ she said. ‘Thank you for risking your life to rescue me — I hope that bullet wound is not too bad.’
‘I’ll live.’
‘But I need another favour before I tell you this.’
‘What’s the favour?’
‘Put a bullet in that wanker for me?’
Mac nodded. ‘That bad?’
‘He’s ruined my life,’ she said, sniffing. ‘Lured me into something high-spirited as a uni student, and he turns up a quarter-century later to blackmail me for it. Then he kills my husband.’
‘No promises,’ he said.
She took a deep breath. ‘Joel’s companies are all called Highland something or other. His compound is supposed to be secret, but one of his sidekicks — Marcus — showed me a picture of Joel’s new horse.’
‘A horse?’
‘Yeah — and in the background of the horse I could clearly see Tanah Rata, a town right up in the Cameron Highlands, off Highway Fifty-nine, I think it is.’
‘The picture was looking from the west of Fifty-nine, or the east?’ said Mac.
‘From the west.’
‘How many ridges were between the camera and Rata?’ said Mac.
‘More than two, no more than four,’ said McHugh. ‘I remember thinking that their compound must be near a tourist trail called Track Ten — but don’t quote me.’
‘They ever talk about armaments? Defences?’
‘No.’
Mac shook her hand. ‘Thanks, Geraldine.’
‘Remember — one from me.’
Mac paused in front of Bongo as he left the room. ‘Mate, Vincent Loh Han says, Where’s my frigging helo? Thought you might like to know that.’
‘Yeah, well, I was planning on bringing it back today.’