The white boat got to him fi rst and two young locals clambered on board, the taller one with a battered AK-47, the other one with what looked like a Soviet Makarov handgun. The third guy stayed at the helm of the white boat, letting the big black Mercury outboard idle.
Mac held his hands up but the pirates basically ignored him, the short one moving straight to the tiller and taking control while training his Makarov on Mac. The taller one pulled open the hatchway between the pilot’s and passenger seats, and disappeared into the boat’s long below-decks. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. A strange smell wafted up from the hatch door – sweet but musty.
‘How’s it going?’ said Mac, hands held high as he smiled at the gunman.
The red boat pulled up in what North Americans call a ‘hockey stop’ and two thugs in sarungs, plastic sandals and T-shirts leapt onto the black beauty and started yelling at Mac. One walked up and barrel-whipped him across the left side of his forehead with an AK. Mac staggered back but stayed on his feet. As the blood gushed down his face, Mac watched a small Malay man get out of his white Naugahyde seat, jump across to the black boat, and walk up to Mac.
‘G’day, how’s it going?’ said Mac, blood dripping off his left jaw and onto his overalls.
The little man smiled – full lips like a woman and beautiful but crooked teeth.
‘Ah, oop-oop!’ he said with a smile.
They all laughed. In South-East Asia, oop-oop meant an Aussie, thanks to what an Asian thought a kangaroo might sound like as it hopped.
‘Yeah, cheers,’ smiled Mac. ‘Sweet as.’
The little man looked him up and down, though thanks to the height differential it was more up than down. Then he pointed his thumb at his chest and said, ‘Anwar,’ and said it as though he might have been saying President and CEO of Ford Motor Company.
Mac exhaled and smiled. ‘Mac,’ he said, pointing his thumb at his own chest.
Anwar turned his mouth down in an attempt at dignity. ‘Anwar
– the boss.’
‘Sure, boss,’ said Mac, his blood now splashing on the wooden decking.
Anwar smiled and looked at his gang for vindication, and pretty soon they were laughing again, Anwar pointing a thumb at his chest and saying, ‘The boss!’
The tall pirate stuck his head out of the cargo hatch between the front seats and yelled something to Anwar.
The boss turned to face Mac slowly, shaking his head with theatrical sadness. ‘No ganja today, eh Mr Mac?’ He looked down at his feet, then looked Mac in the eye. ‘Which mean… you got cash, yeah?’
Mac shrugged, smiled wanly.
Anwar shook his head, pursed his lips. ‘No money – no ganja.
That no good for the boss.’
Mac cursed more sea gods. Benny had booked him on a frigging drug boat.
CHAPTER 45
The pirates soon found the large shopping bag full of things that Benny had insisted Mac buy before he left. Following instructions to the letter, Mac had lugged the thing onto planes, Land Rovers and drug boats. Now, as the boss and his pirates pulled bottles of Johnnie Walker and cartons of Marlboros from the bag, Mac fi nally got it.
As the tall sidekick made to strip the seal from one of the bottles of Red Label, Mac used the opportunity to score some points. ‘That for the boss,’ he said, winking at Anwar.
Anwar screamed and the tall one put the whisky back in the bag, snatching his hands away like the thing had got hot. Anwar took a seat in the front passenger seat and another sidekick pulled out a Marlboro and lit it for the boss.
Ducking his head into a sleeve of his overalls, Mac tried to stem his bleeding. The mix of blood and briny humidity was a potent smell. There was some fear in there too, and Mac didn’t want the boss smelling it.
Anwar took a huge hit on the smoke and pointed at Mac with his cigarette hand. ‘So, Mr Mac, where you going?’
‘Sumatra,’ said Mac, too freaked to bullshit the bloke.
‘What in Sumatera?’ said Anwar, a thick cloud of smoke fl owing from his mouth and nostrils.
Mac shrugged, not wanting to provoke. ‘Meeting a friend.’
Anwar nodded, serious. ‘Where in Sumatera?’
‘Idi. I’m going to Idi,’ said Mac, looking Anwar in the eye.
Like a line manager listening to some lame excuse for low production outputs, Anwar made a point of thinking through what Mac was telling him. In this part of the world, every social interaction was theatre; people played their parts and participants had to walk away with some kind of respect, even if only small or token. Anwar had demanded to be the boss and because Mac had instantly given him that respect, he was now attempting to show that he was worthy and could return it, as a professional boss of pirates should.
‘Okay, Mr Mac – I tell you what,’ said Anwar, sucking on his ciggie like it was Mum’s own breakfast of champions. ‘I gonna look for the cash, right?’
Mac nodded, wiped his forehead again, feeling the blood smear back into his hairline. His legs were getting sore standing in the one place – at least that was his excuse for why his left thigh had the shakes.
‘If there no cash on boat, you go Idi, the boss keep boat, right?’
‘Okay,’ said Mac, breathing out slow, trying to control the fear.
‘If I fi nd cash, you swimming, right?’
Mac gulped and nodded. Benny Haskell had just made his top-ten list of People Who Must Get Slapped.
Anwar’s crew spent ten minutes going over every inch of the cockpit area and the engine bays, while Mac shook with nerves, wondering if he’d ever see Rachel or Jenny again. He tried not to feel sorry for himself, but he pondered the cruelty of discovering a daughter, but never getting to meet her.
Mac watched the thorough approach to the search and Anwar’s management of his crew. It was a team of professionals. When they got to Mac’s backpack, jammed under the transom seats, the tall pirate with the blue sarung smiled with victory as he found something.
In went this hand and out came Mac’s folder with the relics of the Kuta bombing and the Hassan chase. And then the folder was fl ying casually over the bloke’s shoulder, the contents fanning out and slowly fl oating to the oily surface of the water.
‘Shit!’ muttered Mac and then saw the source of the excitement: the Glock he’d borrowed from Benny.
Mac thought quickly. ‘Hey, boss?’
Anwar turned, sucked on a smoke.
‘Take the gun, but I need my phone, yeah?’
Anwar rattled off something and the tall pirate just shrugged, dropped the backpack and showed off his new Glock to the others.
‘No cash on boat, Mr Mac,’ said Anwar.
Mac nodded, trying to quell the shakes.
‘So, I leave you two guy, yeah?’ said Anwar. ‘Take you Idi, okay?’
Mac breathed out long. ‘Okay, boss, thanks.’
Anwar yelled at the pirates. The driver waiting in the white boat hit the throttle and raced away into the distance. One of the pirates clambered into the red boat with the boss and there was a screaming of outboard motors as the craft surged up out of the water, fl ooding Mac and the remaining pirates with the pungent smell of Evinrude exhaust.
Anwar’s boat quickly became a speck on the horizon and the tall pirate moved to the front passenger seat, took the boss’s seat.
An offsider who looked like Anwar’s brother walked straight to the driver’s chair and stepped on the dead-man’s brake.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Mac, pointing at where several sheets of white paper fl oated on the slick swell. ‘I need my fi les.’
‘ Oop oop swim?’ asked the tall pirate with a sneer, and Anwar’s brother joined the giggling. Mac looked at the fl oating paper, realised he probably had two or three minutes before they were ruined. ‘Sure,’ he smiled, just some crazy Anglo who’d been in the sun too long.