Silence.
‘No one else is here.’
Silence.
‘Just the cuffs.’
Silence.
‘Okay, I got that. But he’s not going anywhere, I mean -‘
Silence.
‘Only got one set. Actually, there’s more in the car…’
Silence.
‘Okay, okay. I’ll stay with him.’
Mac chuckled. The APS guy was big and built. He was straightforward too, probably recruited from a detectives’ room in Brisbane or Perth. Mac had already seen three chances to incapacitate him, get the cuff keys from the leather pouch on his belt, take his Glock and get on the run again. He could even have switched into the bloke’s blue ovies, taken his cap and his Commodore, driven out the security gates like he did this for a living.
But it wasn’t going to happen. Mac’s wrist was playing up and he’d asked Nigel to secure him at the ankles.
Nigel came into the offi ce, put a mug of tea on the fake wood-grain desk beside Mac, keeping his distance, his hand unconsciously dropping to the Glock on his right hip.
‘Cheers, mate,’ said Mac.
‘No worries.’
Mac checked out the mug he’d scored. ‘Couldn’t have got something even more appropriate, could ya?’
He turned the mug to Nigel. It said All Men Are Bastards.
Nigel laughed. ‘Sorry, mate. Secretaries!’
The CNN story churned on. They had a reporter called Stan in front of what looked like the convention centre at Raffl es City. Stan seemed excited… still no confi rmation, Betty, but insiders at this IMO security conference are telling us to expect a surprise guest speaker this morning. The military are already moving people back and it looks like we’re going to have half the downtown area shut down for this.
And I can inform our viewers that the worst-kept secret around here is that we’ll be hearing from the Chinese Army’s Xiong Ming…
The anchor, Betty, cut over, And who is Xiong Ming?
… Betty, he’s the PLA’s Supreme Marshal and as such he controls the PLA General Staff. The PLA General Staff is enormously powerful – it’s military, of course, but it’s also political, economic and social. The PLA General Staff has an infl uence over all Chinese government policy and -
So what’s he doing in Singapore for this conference? asked Betty.
Betty, we can only guess at what Xiong Ming is going to say. But the fi rst point is that Xiong is not known for public appearances, and it’s rumoured that he’s never left mainland China in a declared manner. Secondly, we know Xiong has been the loudest voice in the East Asian area for a concerted military approach to maritime security in the South China Sea and Malacca Strait. Xiong was one of the architects behind the push for the Chinese naval base on the Spratlys and he’s considered more of a hawk in maritime matters than even the Americans. So – because this is an IMO security conference – insiders are expecting him to spell out the Chinese vision for secure trade in the future. Singapore is buzzing with the rumour that Xiong is going to publicly – for the fi rst time – advocate an offi cial Chinese naval presence in Singapore. If that’s what he does, it’s worth noting that he’s also the senior voice in Beijing for a ‘Greater China’ policy. Betty…
The shot was on the anchor again, who thanked the reporter and segued into a story about a new tollway.
Mac liked hearing Stan in the mornings. The Aussie accent and everything. But the story itself worried him. Xiong was an immensely powerful fi gure in Beijing and his Greater China outlook even scared a lot of the political hard-heads of the Communist Party. Xiong speaking at an IMO conference in Singapore was symbolic and Mac hoped the speech wasn’t about naval bases. He didn’t think the Singaporean police were going to like the story either. If Xiong was fl ying in and it was already being broadcast as a rumour, the police would go to controlled airspace, a total hassle for any law enforcement or civil aviation type. They’d be doing that while also trying to deal with Golden Serpent down at Keppel.
Mac could just sense some of the outbursts and recriminations being fl ung around down at MPA operations centre right now. Hatfi eld saying, Where’s your Em-Con? Who’s in charge? The Singaporeans saying, How do you lose one hundred and eighty bombs loaded with VX nerve agent?
‘Politicians are all the same, aren’t they?’ said Nigel, snorting.
‘Doesn’t matter what language they speak, they’re always talking about what they’re not talking about. Know what I mean?’
Mac smiled. Knew what he meant.
It was 8.20 am when Garvey turned up, Nigel walking him through to where Mac was. Mac put down the new IBM mug he’d been given.
‘Garvs. ‘Zit going, champ?’
Garvey put his hands on his hips. No shake. Looked around the offi ce, nodding his head. Looked at Mac.
‘What? No broken wrists? A bullet wound, perhaps? Not losing your edge are ya, mate?’
Mac smiled. No heart in it.
‘Saw Marlon last night. Down at MMC,’ said Garvs.
MMC was the Jakarta hospital used by Americans and Australians.
‘How was he?’ asked Mac.
‘Oh, I dunno, worried about the shoulder reconstruction.
Worried that his kids might be worrying about their dad. That sort of thing.’
As Garvey moved to sit on the desk, Mac noticed a Glock on his hip, under his shirt.
‘Didn’t know you were S-2, Garvs.’
Garvey shrugged. The two men stared at one another as if fi fteen years of friendship had never happened.
‘Still looking for a fl ight. May be this evening, get you into Darwin,’ said Garvs.
Mac nodded.
‘Mate, just go along with the process, huh? Let’s see if we can salvage something.’
Mac looked at him, unsmiling. Garvs was the sort of person who’d hear phony Americanese like process and salvage and tell someone to get their hand off it. Times had sure changed.
‘We going to debrief?’ asked Mac.
‘Haven’t been asked to. But if you want to talk…’
Which strongly suggested that Garvs was wired.
Mac changed tack. ‘What’s Xiong doing in Singers?’
‘Maritime security. That’s the conference, isn’t it?’
‘Why would Xiong come in to talk about that? Bunch of pirates, terrorists messing with the Chinese economy? It’s a pretty old story.’
‘Could be that naval base shit again,’ said Garvs, sniffi ng and looking away.
Mac’s ears pricked up. Skin crawled. A sixth sense, when someone has verbally slipped and is using nonchalance to recover. Where had naval base come from?
He looked at Garvs, but the big guy was looking out the venetians.
Trying to change angles.
‘So where you been, old man?’ said Garvs, too casually.
‘Just looking into things,’ said Mac.
Garvs crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Things, huh? Where?’
Either Garvs was foxing or the Twentieth’s reputation for maintaining a fully classifi ed operation was holding true.
‘Round the archipelago. You know how it is.’
‘How it is was that you were on a plane back to Sydney, last time we spoke,’ said Garvs, forced smile.
‘Yeah,’ said Mac, like he was a teenager weighing which rock concert he would get tickets for. ‘But there were loose ends. Things didn’t add up.’
‘What’s this? Hawaii 5-0?’ said Garvs.
‘In your dreams I guess that makes me Dano.’
The two stared at each other, the years compressing.
The front doors suddenly opened and an Aussie girl in her twenties and two British girls came through, laughing about what someone did to ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ at the karaoke last night. Realising Mac and Garvs were there they blushed, shut their mouths, walked through to the admin area.
Garvs got up, shut the door behind them. ‘See, Macca, I can’t work out why you went back to Sulawesi.’
Mac shrugged. ‘Told you, things didn’t add up.’
‘What things?’ Garvs was making swirls with his fi nger on the desk.
Mac fi xed him with a look. ‘I realised Garrison had to be working with one of our guys. I decided to fi nd out who.’