Free Double Back by Mark Abernethy Page A

and observed the Kopassus spooks at the Camry. The standing one said his goodbyes and walked into the military building as two of the men in the car opened their doors and got out to stretch on the footpath, their SIG Sauer handguns obvious beneath their trop shirts. The driver leaned out his window and said something, and the two standing on the footpath looked up and started across the street towards the Watu Selatan building.
    Releasing the curtain, Mac exhaled in a hiss of tension. This was not how the first contact of an assignment was supposed to go. He had an entire three weeks to be tailed, tricked, trapped and interrogated. They hadn’t even got him drunk or sent him the pretty girl, and the Kopassus spooks were already coming at him like a scene from a spaghetti western.
    A short Javanese man swept into the reception area, the long sleeves of his batik shirt unusual for Dili. ‘Mr Richard!’ he gushed as he held out a business card. ‘Adam Moerpati – manager – so nice to meet.’
    Responding with his own card and gushy greeting, Mac took in the guy’s expensive dental work, which was the kind the Jakarta elites had done in Singapore. As they moved down a cool hallway and into Moerpati’s office, his new best friend asked about the flight and the hotel.
    ‘Turismo?!’ said Moerpati, with a theatrical Javanese shrug, gesturing for Mac to take the sofa. ‘For a man of your success, not the Resende?’
    Mac loved the way the Javanese wrapped an insult in a compliment.
    ‘Well, you know, Mr Moerpati – they book me where they book me,’ said Mac.
    ‘Adam, please,’ said Moerpati, offering a box of cheroots and putting one in his own mouth. ‘I get you good rate at Resende,’ he winked. ‘No worries.’
    Taking Moerpati through the costs and freight charges with the Panamanian and Mexican icon-makers, Mac explained that his company wanted to dominate the Australasian icon trade and that if they could get better margins from East Timor along with the better shipping rates, he’d like to talk about a deal.
    Mac used his basic technique of mixing vagueness with specificity to draw the man closer. Businesspeople felt their souls were appreciated when you could recite a few basic unit volume and margin figures about their trade and allow them to embroider the general comments with their own insights. By the time the receptionist brought the coffee, Mac knew Watu Selatan intended to keep trading after the independence ballot and that the Jakarta elites believed East Timor would not be allowed to entirely secede from the Republic.
    Finishing his second cheroot, Moerpati admitted that Mac’s visit was well timed. ‘We had Canadian here, wanting to deal,’ he confided.
    ‘So where is he?’ asked Mac. ‘Should I be speaking with this guy?’
    ‘No, no,’ laughed Moerpati. ‘He gone, right? Now you here!’
    ‘So – he’s gone,’ smiled Mac, keeping it light. ‘To Kupang? Denpasar?’
    ‘I not know,’ the other man said. ‘The peoples come – the peoples go. Who know, right?’
     
    The Kopassus spooks were waiting for Mac outside the building as he emerged into the heat of the afternoon. The larger of the two asked Mac’s name, confirmed that he was staying at the Turismo, and asked him to follow.
    There was little chance of escape; Mac might have been able to disarm the one to his left, shoot both of his escorts, drop the Camry driver – who was still behind the wheel – and make his getaway in the heisted car. But to where? Timor was an island under military guard, with one soldier for every forty occupants. There were three roads out of Dili and military roadblocks everywhere. So, keeping a smile on his face, Mac decided to bluff it out, even as his gut churned with fear. When Canberra know-it-alls pushed their arguments for appeasing the Indonesian government, they never quite grasped reality. They weren’t the bastards getting their feet broken or having quick-lime rubbed in their