Apart from the sheer horror of what he’d witnessed, Mac had never realised what a logistical nightmare the whole thing was. Now he could see why Jenny was gone for days and weeks at a time, working herself to a standstill. Once you found a container like this, you had to work back to the ship, back to the freight company, back through the terminal gate-logs, back to the trucking companies and the clients in order to see where it came from and whether there might be more like it. And then you had to work forwards, too, try to fi nd where other containers from the same source might be going, where another box full of children might be sitting, waiting for the paedophile industry to hand over the money.
It was a harrowing detail for cops and Mac knew it chewed them up at a hell of a rate. Not only did they have to make arrests and have an evidence bag at the end of the process, they also had child victims in the most appalling and distressed states. There were only so many hours in the day; only so many resources. Only so many containers you could search.
In front of Mac the liaison people from various embassies attempted to straighten out the in-country cooperation angle with the POLRI. The way it usually worked was the police had a job to do and wanted to take statements from those involved in, or witness to, the incidents, regardless of their nationality. The liaisons’ job was to insist that that was not in the spirit or the letter of the agreement between the countries.
The Yanks had no interest in allowing a Special Forces captain to make a statement to Indon police. And the British weren’t even acknowledging Paul. A Pommie liaison woman’s voice rose over the pack. ‘If there was a British national involved in this incident – and I’m not confi rming there was…’
Mac saw a Javanese BAIS operative he knew, Edi Sitepu. He was listening in on the diplomatic hoo-ha. He caught Mac’s eye and came over.
They shook and Edi sat down. ‘Can’t work this one out,’ said Edi to Mac. ‘Lots of talking about Abu Sabaya, but was he here?’
Mac shook his head, sipped some water. He hoped at some stage during his lifetime that smell was going to get out of his mouth.
‘Garrison and Sabaya must have split. Don’t know where either of them are.’
‘That Peter Garrison. Bad news that one,’ said Edi, shaking his head. ‘You know we tipped off the Americans about him last year?’
Mac didn’t know.
‘But it turned into this.’ Edi nodded at the British and American embassy folks doing their thing.
Mac remained silent, exhausted, over it.
‘The thing to do was to get us in a loop, hey Mac?’ said Edi.
Normally Mac loved the way Indons got Western phrases slightly wrong, but his mood was too bleak. ‘Would have been great before Bali, too, eh Edi?’
Mac shouldn’t have said it.
Edi’s face darkened. He and Mac hadn’t always seen eye to eye.
The Timor thing and Mac’s involvement in some aspects of it had created a stand-offi shness between them, even though they could have shared some more basic operational chatter over the years. Thing was, Mac’s legacy in Timor saw him gravitate closer to the old President-controlled BAKIN – now BIN – at the expense of the armed forces-controlled intelligence organisation, BAIS. So it was hard for Mac to simply make a call to Edi and get him in the loop on something like Garrison and Sabaya, even though he wanted the Indon perspective.
‘Look, Edi, why don’t I tell you what I know and you tell me how we’re going to catch these pricks – fair?’
Edi shrugged.
‘So what are the cops saying about the bodies up there?’ asked Mac.
‘Dunno, Mac. They not talking with us.’
Same old same old, thought Mac, wearied by it alclass="underline" cops, spooks and military refusing to speak to one another.
He reckoned a solid police ID on Garrison’s thugs – the ones who didn’t make it past Sawtell’s boys – might be useful.
‘You got anything on the BMW?’ asked Mac.
‘Corporate registration in the name of a shelf company. Import/ export. All the usual shit. Nothing linking it with Garrison, but we’re following up right now.’
‘So, how’d it go down in Singapore?’ asked Edi, pushing for his own information.
Mac felt like Edi was going too far.
‘It was a decoy, mate. Sure of it.’
‘Decoy for what?’
Mac shrugged. ‘Just didn’t feel like real terrorism.’
Edi made a humming sound deep in his throat. ‘Funny timing though, eh Mac?’
‘Timing?’
‘You know, with Xiong in Singapore the same morning.’
Mac looked at him, his interest aroused by the Indonesian perspective. ‘Tell me.’
Edi shrugged. ‘Probably nothing. What do the Americans call it?’
‘What?’
‘Inciting incident? Something like that?’
Mac was so tired, but he smiled. ‘Inciting incident?’
Inciting incidents were what the CIA created in order to justify a response, usually of a military nature. They’d get their contractors to stage an atrocity somewhere and then false-fl ag it – get the media and other governments to pin it on the government they wanted to invade or launch a coup against.
Mac was running fl at-out trying to see where Edi got Singapore into the mix. ‘You’re not telling me the CIA is in this? Garrison is a black sheep, far as I can tell. He’s not with the program – is he?’
Edi smiled. Big Javanese smile. ‘Mr Mac, inciting incidents don’t have to be Agency. Just see this from Asian eyes. Which country wants a reason for Singapore to embrace its military? Perhaps in the form of a naval base?’
Mac clicked. ‘So the Chinese get an incident that focuses the need for their military presence in Singapore. What do Garrison and Sabaya get?’
‘Don’t know,’ Edi mused. ‘Some of that Chinese gold?’
Mac thought about it. The Chinese economy was the world’s fastest-growing, but at the highest levels of its government, everything was still transacted with gold.
‘You saying the Chinese paid Garrison and Sabaya to pull that thing on Golden Serpent?’
‘Sure. Does the CIA use its own people or offi cial budget to pull its stunts? Remember Irangate? That was an off-the-books funding operation to get money to paramilitary contractors in Central America.’
Mac nodded. ‘I guess it was.’
‘Garrison is probably tolerated in the Agency because he’s their funding guy,’ said Edi.
‘Know what, Edi? You in the offi ce tomorrow morning?’
Edi shrugged.
‘I might call you,’ said Mac.
‘You do that.’
Mac noticed one of the POLRI women had given Paul a bottle of water, but he wasn’t drinking it. Mac opened it, gave it to him. ‘Keep the fl uids up, mate.’
Paul had been strapped by the medics and was referring to his rib-wound as a ‘nick’. He drank, his face a mask of impassivity. Mac wondered if everyone still had that taste in their mouths.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Mac. ‘We’ve forgotten about some thing, haven’t we? The other hostage, the offi cer from Golden Serpent.’
Paul shrugged.
‘Well, what’s that about?’ asked Mac.
‘Either they’re going to make more demands, or they’ve got another ship,’ said Paul, then looked away, wincing with the pain in his ribs. ‘You saying that there’s no more demands? What they came for is actually on a ship somewhere?’
‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, if we agree the Singers thing was a hoax?’
‘A decoy.’
‘Okay, decoy,’ said Mac.
‘So why did Garrison come to Jakarta?’ said Paul, suspicious.
‘Don’t know, mate. Take care of business? It’s where his hostages were.’
‘And where’s Sabaya gone?’
‘What if where he’s gone has nothing to do with it? What if the key to this is what’s on the ship he’s hijacked?’ said Mac. ‘Remember Wylie saying the third hostage is a Canadian bloke with a lot of experience in these waters?’
‘And Sabaya referred to the Canadian as the “asset”,’ said Paul, his face lighting up. ‘You know, there was that strange thing in Singers.