Free Counter Attack by Mark Abernethy Page B

into the room. ‘From now on, you don’t come here, okay, Tranh?’
    ‘Sure, boss.’
    ‘We change the meet each day – we’ll rotate four venues. But you don’t come to this one, got it? This is the fallback meet.’
    ‘Okay,’ said Tranh.
    Leaving the Black Stork, Mac eyed a white Toyota Camry he recognised from before he went into the tailor’s. It was parked on the other side of the road. It wouldn’t have been odd that it was still there, except this time it had two people sitting in it.
    Raising his hand, he stopped the first cyclo rider and got on.
    ‘Ben Thanh market, cam on ,’ said Mac, putting on his sunnies as he pulled the sunshade over his head. Mac liked cyclos for counter-surveillance because the cyclo rider sitting at the rear of the vehicle gave him an excuse to turn in his seat and talk, allowing him a view of the tail.
    ‘Nice day for it,’ said Mac with a smile. ‘Rain held off.’
    As they turned right and headed for Le Loi, Mac looked past the rider’s legs and saw the white Camry pull out of its parking space and follow slowly.
    Sitting back, he let the middle-aged rider work up a sweat as they pedalled along Le Loi and up to the sprawling market building with the clock tower.

    At the rear of the market, Mac hopped out and made his way into the building as the white Camry stopped a hundred metres back. He had no idea who was in that car, but in South-East Asia a Camry pulling out five seconds after you left was usually the wrong kind of attention. Maintaining a brisk pace through the crowd, he navigated the tiny aisles, heading for one of the far corners where men’s shirts hung thirty feet in the air. The noise was deafening – Ben Thanh was the biggest and most central market in Saigon, and it was so chaotic that he could barely hear himself think.
    Pushing diagonally across the teeming space, Mac finally got to the men’s section. Catching the eye of the bloke with the black money-belt and the thirty-foot pole with the hook on the end, Mac pulled out a small wad of US dollars.
    ‘I need a red shirt, for dance club,’ said Mac. ‘Black pants – nice pants. A belt, black shoes, and . . .’ He turned and searched across the sea of Vietnamese faces until he saw the hat store. ‘A hat,’ he said. ‘Big white hat, okay?’
    Eyeing the money, the trader handed his hook to a sidekick and started yelling orders at his people, pushing, jostling and cajoling. In Australia it would be called harassing an employee; in Saigon it was called service.
    Mr Hook pushed forwards the young fellow who’d arrived back with a couple of red shirts and a selection of black pants. Taking the combo that made him look least like a pimp, Mac slipped into the makeshift changing room that sat between the racks of knock-off polo shirts and the shelves of counterfeit Billabong boardies.
    Emerging, Mac let Mr Hook manhandle him, turning him around, pulling at the seams of the shirt, running his tape across Mac’s shoulders and all the time yelling at his cohorts. One got on his knees and started fiddling with Mac’s pants, but they didn’t need fixing. Whoever Mr Hook was, he’d nailed Mac’s fitting card with one look.
    ‘You are like movie star, mister,’ said Mr Hook, his smile glinting with gold. ‘I give you best, sir, and you can be in movie. My guarantee for this.’
    Another youngster arrived with three hats and two shoe boxes under his arm. Snatching them, Mr Hook snapped his fingers and a pair of black socks was placed in his hand. The first pair of shoes fitted well, and Mac took the hat that gave him a Miami trumpet-player look.
    As Mr Hook looped a belt through his pants, Mac peered between the racks of the clothing section to see if he was still being followed.
    ‘What’s the damage?’ said Mac from the side of his mouth.
    ‘For you, sir, eighty dollar,’ said Mr Hook.

    ‘ Ma qua ,’ said Mac, as a sidekick handed him a paper bag with his old clothes and shoes in