Mark Abernethy - Second Strike

First published in 2008

Copyright (c) Mark Abernethy 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968

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The author, Mark Abernethy, asserts the Moral Right to be identifi ed as the author of this work.

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ISBN 978 1 74175 561 9

Typeset in Joanna MT 12.5/15.5 pt by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed and bound in Australia by Griffi n Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 STRIKE I

Flores, Indonesia, 12 October 2002

They sat like surfers waiting for a wave, the four of them dressed in thin black wetsuits facing south-west into the Indian Ocean. Huge blue-black and purple cloud formations loomed above as if declaring an end to the dry season and signalling the start of the monsoons.

The swell lapped into Macs rebreather harness as his eyes scanned the horizon for signs of the target through the salty humidity. Behind him the sounds of bird life and monkeys occasionally drifted from the remote southern shores of Flores.

Alan McQueen looked at his G-Shock: just past 2.07 pm. Thirty-seven minutes past schedule for the start of Operation Handmaiden, and the crew were getting restless.

Anything, Maddo? asked Mac softly.

The man to his left shook his head, not taking his eyes off the horizon. Want me to call it in? he mumbled, lips hardly moving.

No, said Mac. Sosa knows what hes doing. If the targets there, then well know about it. Mac didnt mind incoming calls, but he wanted to avoid the potential locating beacon you put up every time you keyed the mic on a radio.

The Combat Diver Team providing Macs escort was known as Team 4. All of them navy special forces based out of Western Australia, theyd fl own in two days ago to perform a frogman snatch at sea. It was the most diffi cult naval commando mission, which suited Team 4 just fi ne. They sat astride a partially submerged infl atable vessel known in the Royal Australian Navy as a sled and as a skimmer by the British, each man strapped into his own seat. When the sled was fully submerged it became a battery-powered diver-propulsion vehicle capable of carrying fi ve combat divers for about thirty kilometres, though there were only three combat divers with Mac on this job.

In the bow of the sled was a blond guy, Smithee, and to Macs right was a huge Aussie-Leb they called Pharaoh, one of the largest combat divers Mac had ever seen. The divers were usually built like gymnasts or boxers, but Pharaoh looked more like The Worlds Strongest Man, as if he should be lifting balls of stone onto oil barrels. There was a large V-shaped object on Pharaohs back, strapped over his rebreather pack and pointing over the level of his head.

Sitting in front of Mac was the team leader, Doug Madden, known simply as Maddo. He was a medium-height, dark-haired Kalgoorlie boy who, like most special forces blokes, conserved his energy until sudden outbursts of critical violence were required.

The spare seat was for a bloke named Ahmed al Akbar. A Saudi banker and accountant, Akbar used a legitimate trade fi nance program in South-East Asia to oversee Osama bin Ladens investments in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Following the September 11 bombings in New York and Washington, the Americans had hit back with an Allied invasion of Afghanistan that had broken the Taliban. But the invasion had also created a diaspora of senior al-Qaeda and Taliban fi gures whod fl ed the al Farouq camp outside Kandahar and spread out through South-East Asia. Now, intelligence agencies like Israels Mossad, MI6 and Macs employer - the Australian Secret Intelligence Service - were focusing on what were known as deceptions and provocations. That is, getting the bad guys to go after one another, with a little help from your friendly neighbourhood spook.

Akbar was making his monthly tour of terror camps, and intelligence had him using a regular sea route that started in Surabaya, hooked under Bali and Flores before heading north for Sulawesi and then Mindanao. The point of Operation Handmaiden was to snatch the fi nancier from the vessel he was in and feed a rumour back to the tango community that hed fl ed his Jemaah Islamiyah minders and cut a deal where he ratted out the Moro separatists. There were few organisations in the world that were game enough to go after OBL, but the Muslim gangs of the southern Philippines were up there with the White House, Downing Street and the PLA generals, as outfi ts with the stones to try and hit Osama where he lived. It was a simple plan that hinged on snatching Akbar without signs of a struggle.

Mac checked his gear for the twenty-third time: face mask, hoses, harness, handgun, knife, duct tape, a bag fi lled with goodies, a hard plastic syringe case and a foil of Xanax. Breathing deep, pain fl ared in his chest. Hed joined the combat divers only a day before, straight from the Bali Sevens, a seven-a-side rugby tournament held each year at Kuta Beach. In one of the group matches hed been tackled ball-and-all by a big Yaapie mining foreman playing for a Malaysian team and could barely breathe after the hit. Hed backed up for another match against the Darwin Dreadnoughts an hour later, playing in agony. He suspected a cracked or bruised sternum but hadnt gone to Denpasar Hospital because his team, the Manila Marauders, had a no-piker policy: that is, you played and drank, played and drank for the whole week - no pikers.

The RAN rebreather rigs required deep and regular breathing by the divers, and Mac had no idea how hed manage or how he might justify failure to Joe Imbruglia, the ASIS station chief in Manila whod wanted Mac to fl ag the sevens and do the snatch. Well, mate, at least Ididnt pike on the boys, eh? wasnt likely to go down too well.

The call came from Sosa at 2.11 pm saying he now had eyes on the target from his recon point on the headland. Maddo relayed the update to Team 4 and they fell silent as they waited for the ship.

Mac used the rising adrenaline to run through every last detail of the Akbar snatch in his mind. He visualised it, breaking it into pieces like scenes in a movie. He forced himself to imagine three different disaster scenarios and his exact response to each. The third contingency was a white fl ag - abandon the snatch and pull an escape and evade, an E&E, to a predetermined point.

This last option wasnt defeatist. During Macs stint in the Royal Marines Commandos the chief instructor, Banger Jordan, had told them there was no such thing as a mission without an exit.

In a professional outfi t therere no heroes and no cowards, only alive guys and dead guys, Banger had growled. The alive guy knows where the exits are.

Macca, your eleven oclock, called Smithee.

Mac saw it immediately. A faint plume of diesel exhaust signalled the arrival of their quarry. By the look of it, the small ship would be on them in fi ve minutes. Mac looked at the others - the boys were ready.

Your call Maddo, said Mac. Im good.