Double Back (22 page)

Sitting in the small steel capsule in the ceiling of the torpedo room, Mac tried to stay calm as he ran through his final checks: rebreather unit strapped to his back, face mask, regulator console with compass and depth gauge, and the waterproof gear bag now attached to his belt on the side. He checked the compass, which had an orange luminous bar preset to his course heading, then he put his hand on his Heckler, holstered in a marinised pocket down his right leg.

Below him the XO peered up with curiosity. In the Oberon-class subs the diver’s lock over the torpedo room was generally used in drills for emergency evacuation.

‘Right, sir?’ asked the seaman, sitting on the aluminium stepladder that rose to the lock.

‘Good as gold,’ lied Mac, giving the thumbs-up.

‘When the inside hatch is sealed, the red light will come on,’ said the seaman, pointing. ‘Then I’ll open the exterior valves, sir, and the lock will fill in about six seconds.’

‘Gotcha,’ gulped Mac, his dinner threatening to erupt in the face mask hanging beneath his chin.

‘Then – when the pressure equalises in the lock – I’ll open the exterior hatch and the green light will come on,’ said the bloke, ‘at which point you can push through the hatch, sir.’

‘Thanks, champ,’ said Mac, struggling to control nervous reflux.

‘And I know you know this, sir, but I have to remind you: please breathe out all the way to the surface.’

‘Can do,’ said Mac, dreading the darkness that would soon envelop him like a fog, taking him back into a zone he’d sworn he’d never again enter after the Royal Marines.

The bolts in the interior hatch were slid home, leaving Mac sealed in a space about the size of a car boot, the darkness and clammy heat made worse by the dim red light above Mac’s right eyebrow and the bulky old RAN Dräger rebreather weighing down on his back like a tortoise shell.

Keeping his mask off, Mac tried hopelessly to keep his breathing regular as two metallic taps sounded on the interior hatch. The sub was running at about twenty metres and because Mac had been put in the lock at the same air pressure as sea level, he’d have to exhale all the way to the surface to stop his lungs exploding. Some frogmen put their rebreather mask on at this stage, but Mac was breathing so hard that he left his off in case he breathed in by mistake. He’d put it on when he reached the surface and had oriented himself with the shore. A small grating sound filled his ears and then the outside ocean was racing into the chamber, drenching his black bodysuit and filling the lock. Keeping his eye on the red light, Mac took last breaths as the chamber flooded and then the sparkling water that effervesced around him like a large glass of mineral water suddenly switched from an eerie red glow to a bright green hue as the bolts pulled free in the exterior hatch. He checked the depth gauge on the side of the rebreather, which said nineteen metres, meaning it had immediately acknowledged the pressure equalisation of the diver’s lock.

Pushing out of the lock, Mac left the glow of lights, plunging into the inky blackness, a sensation so overpowering that he almost gasped. There was nothing quite like being underwater in the ocean at night. Mac gave a flip of his fins, consciously blowing bubbles as he ascended. His ears screaming, he slowly slapped his fins against the water and concentrated on a gentle exhalation of bubbles, relieving his lungs of the pressure as he rose to the surface.

The blackness closed around him, inducing a nameless fear. The combat-diver section in the Royal Marines Commandos was a watershed for the young men who endured it. Having gone through the basics of free diving, SCUBA and rebreathers, one night the candidates were hauled out of bed to go diving in the dark.

Mac recalled hearing blokes sobbing in the barracks after those dives, and others who requested a return to unit. Diving at night made you face what you feared most and made you do it completely alone. Along with many of the other blokes, by the time they got to the three-hour nocturnal missions around harbours and up rivers, Mac was fortifying himself with grog to get through it. Nothing to be proud of, but there it was.

Making himself blow bubbles, Mac got to nine metres, humming ‘Nadine, honey, is that you?’ to keep him in touch with himself. Almost out of air at five metres, Mac kicked out and pursed his lips, saving the last dregs of expanding air for the final three metres. As his depth dial showed one metre, he kicked and blew the final air from his lungs and came up for air like a cork.

Gasping as he surfaced, Mac scanned the ocean. The night was dark and the sea relatively smooth. A light, warm breeze came from the west, off the Indian Ocean. Treading water, he did a three-sixty and saw no vessels, heard no aircraft. Filling his lungs with air, he acclimatised to his environment.

Lifting the dive console so he could see the compass better, he aimed himself along the course where the compass spindle lined up with the setting made by the orange bar. Besides the compass, Mac also had the GPS on his right wrist, but he would use that later for confirmation – he wouldn’t swim by it.

Making a final check of the regulator settings as he trod water with his fins, Mac breathed in and out – nice and slow – the familiar closed-cycle hiss of the rebreather on his back keeping time with his breaths.

Dipping his head below the surface, Mac swam to about two metres, pulling the compass in front of his eyes. Finding his course, he balanced his kicking with his breathing, and set out for the south coast of East Timor.

Fifty metres from shore, Mac trod water, removed his mask and scanned the beach. He was searching for a rocky point overlooked by three pines, the tallest on the left, the smallest in the middle. But Mac wasn’t looking at a rocky point – he was looking at a white-sand beach with no pines.

Checking on the GPS, he realised he’d come into shore too far east. Refastening his mask, he swam submerged along the shoreline for ten minutes before checking on his GPS and coming up to the surface. In front of him were three pine trees overlooking a rocky point, with a mix of beech trees and palms stretching away on either side. The tide was out revealing a tongue of sand between two lines of rocks. With any luck, he’d get out of this swim without scraping himself on the rocks and avoid the scourge of combat divers: tropical ulcers.

Getting into the shallows, Mac crouched in the lapping waves while he removed his mask and fins, keeping his shoulders under the water. Seeing no one on the point, he waded through the shallows and jogged to a hide below a rocky outcrop, his legs almost giving way beneath him. It was 1.09 am local time – nine minutes late for the RV, which wasn’t bad for a bloke who’d had to swim it rather than be delivered by boat.

Unharnessing the rebreather unit, Mac dropped it on the sand, removed his neoprene head piece and pulled the Heckler from its holster. Casing the area, he moved out from the behind the rock and stealthed towards the trees, wanting the cover of foliage.

Making beyond the rocky point, he got to the tree line, panting as he crouched behind a fallen log, the warm breeze drying his wet scalp. This was one of the more heavily patrolled areas of East Timor and, with the ballot getting closer, it was now Indonesian Navy, Marines and Army patrolling the land and sea borders, not just the militias. Looking into the trees, Mac searched for a good hide while he waited for the Commando escort from 4RAR.

The stand of trees looked clear of unfriendlies and Mac was readying to move when he heard someone speak.

Throwing himself to the ground and rolling away, Mac came up with the Heckler in cup-and-saucer, his heart banging in his throat.

‘Settle, Macca,’ came an Aussie voice from somewhere in front of the tree line. ‘You’ll hurt yourself carrying on like that.’

‘Identify!’ rasped Mac, barely able to get enough air in his lungs.

‘Robbo, from Holsworthy,’ came the voice.

Next thing Mac knew, Jason Robertson, the sergeant with the 63 Recon Troop, was walking into the open, M4 assault rifle over his forearm.

‘Robbo,’ said Mac, relief replacing panic.

‘Shit, Macca,’ said the Aussie as he approached, hand outstretched. ‘Like the bodysuit, mate – that lycra?’

While Mac got out of the diving suit and into his clothes, Robbo mumbled into the field radio strapped to his head. Soon after, two other commandos sauntered from either end of the rocky point.

‘This is Beast,’ said Robbo, gesturing at a heavyset Anglo with thinning red hair.

‘Mate,’ said Mac, shaking.

‘And Didge. Our night tracker.’

They shook and Didge – a large, dark Aborigine – flashed his teeth. ‘Made you swim, eh bra?’

‘Yeah, the cheeky buggers,’ said Mac, smiling. ‘Probably ask for their gear back and all.’

Tying the laces on his Altamas, Mac couldn’t douse his curiosity any longer. ‘So, Robbo – what’s with the new dress code?’

‘Orders,’ shrugged Robbo, nodding at the other soldiers, who were dressed like they were on a hunting trip. ‘Got a message couple of days ago, after that army supply depot was bombed – go to civvies.’

Mac chuckled, realising Bongo’s enthusiastic approach to his work might have pushed Canberra into changing the orders for political damage control: it was now a covert action and if caught they’d be shot as spies, not imprisoned as soldiers. That wasn’t new for Mac, but he hoped it wasn’t going to distract the soldiers.

‘So what do you know about the gig?’ asked Mac, checking the contents of his waterproof bag and repacking what he needed in a small rucksack.

‘Take this good-looking Aussie bloke up to Bobonaro without wrecking his new perm.’

‘That’s about it,’ smiled Mac, disassembling and then reassembling the Heckler before jamming it into the hidden holster he had at the small of his back. ‘No details, but basically there’s three sites – two recon, one snatch.’

‘Will the snatch be voluntary or involuntary?’ asked Robbo, pensive.

Mac hadn’t given that much thought. ‘She’s on our side, mate. We do the gig, and then you and I will decide the best exfil from there, okay? I’m not particular so long as I don’t get any holes in me.’

‘Okay, Macca,’ nodded Robbo, pulling two apples from his backpack and offering one to Mac. ‘Who is she?’

‘It’s not important. What’s important is where we snatch her from – it’ll be hot, mate, so I was hoping for a little more cavalry.’

‘Got three more up the hill,’ said Robbo, jacking his thumb over his shoulder. ‘We’ve been in an OP for two weeks – we’re working men, Macca.’

‘Okay for comms?’ asked Mac, standing and looking around him.

‘Yep.’

‘Any contact?’

‘No, mate – we’re clean and we’re green,’ said Robbo.

‘Good, ’cos the recon elements are hush-hush, okay?’ said Mac.

‘Suits me,’ said Robbo, signalling for Didge and Beast to prep for moving.

There was usually some tension between the special forces and intel guys on an escorted mission. Mac had the technical leadership in terms of determining if the mission objective had been met, but in reality he allowed all the operational decisions to be made by the Robbos of the Australian military. When Mac had worked with Rod Scott in Iraq during the aftermath of Desert Storm, he’d learned the rules fast. After one incident, in which a couple of CIA geeks had wasted an entire morning by micromanaging the US Marines Recon escort team, Scotty had taken Mac for a drink and given him the drum. ‘Your job is to score the goal, not referee the match,’ he’d said. ‘If God had wanted you to be a soldier he’d have given you a dodgy haircut!’

‘So?’ asked Robbo as they assembled.

‘So, get us to Maliana in one piece, and let’s nail this thing without ruining my perm,’ said Mac.

‘Bagged and tagged,’ said Robbo, as they slung their rifles.

‘And the spook buys the beers,’ said Beast, before Mac ducked under a branch and was plunged into the dark of the jungle.

They made fast time, moving in a close-formed duck line behind Didge. As promised, the big Cape Yorker was the night tracker, moving with constant speed and amazing silence through the pitch-black. It was clear the rest of the troop trusted him totally.

After ninety minutes they hit a river valley and Didge moved to a light jog up the centuries-old footpad that followed the waterway, past villages of three huts and cattle standing in wallows on the river bank. Hitting the head of the valley, Didge slowed to a march and they climbed over a saddle to a natural vantage point tucked under a ridge line, looking south to the Timor Sea in the distance.

Calling a rest, Robbo pulled a pair of binos from his backpack and scoured the area while Mac sat with the others, slugging down water from a bottle and eating the small local bananas.

‘Here she comes,’ mumbled Robbo.

Turning around, Mac realised there was a slight halo on the ridge behind them, and silvery light on the ocean. The moon was coming out. As always in the tropics, it was an amazing thing to watch.

‘So why do they call you Didge?’ asked Mac, trying to peel a second banana without breaking it, his hands still clumsy with exertion.

‘’Cos they’re cheeky bastards, that’s why,’ said Didge, slugging at the water, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

‘Stick around,’ winked Beast. ‘You’ll see for yourself.’

‘And what does the Beast refer to?’ asked Mac, though he had his suspicions. Growing up in Rockie meant knowing blokes who earned that title the hard way.

‘Always up for a blue when he’s pissed,’ said Robbo, chuckling.

‘That wasn’t my fault, Sarge, and you know it,’ said Beast as Didge joined in the laughter.

‘Yeah, mate, but it’s always not your fault when you’re three sheets,’ said Robbo, joining them on the ground and grabbing a banana.

Looking at his G-Shock, Mac saw they’d only been going two hours and his new boots were already giving him grief.

‘How much further, Dad?’ asked Mac.

‘Two more legs like this and we’re at the OP, mate. Then we’ll get some sleep and plan the recon and snatch for tomorrow night, copy?’

‘Roger that,’ said Mac, wincing at his relative lack of fitness, something that didn’t show up until you had to run through the jungle with special forces guys. ‘How we looking, with the Indonesian Army?’

‘We’re in a quiet corridor – it’s why we use it to get up and down to the coast,’ said Robbo.

‘Quiet corridor?’ asked Mac. ‘Thought it was pretty dangerous on the south coast, around Suai?’

‘It is,’ smiled Robbo. ‘That’s why we’re in West Timor.’

Fifteen minutes later, Mac stood with Beast on a deserted mountain track, bathed in moonlight. An engine revved suddenly, followed by the sound of wheels spinning before a battered white kijang bounced onto the track twenty metres away, Didge at the wheel.

‘Your coach, sir,’ said Robbo from the passenger seat as the kijang pulled up, monkeys and birds kicking up a protest.

Having seen the checkpoints across the island, Mac was paranoid about doing this. ‘No way, mate, I’m not driving into a Kopassus ambush.’

‘This road’s got no army, no militia, Macca. Trust me – this is how we move around, it’s quiet up here.’

‘It’s not quiet anywhere on Timor,’ mumbled Mac, climbing into the tray on the back of the kijang, Beast joining him.

The road was a disaster and the kijang kicked like a mule, each time landing Mac on the most tender part of his bum. Four times they had to get out and push the vehicle across washouts and landslides, the jungle so close that trees constantly washed across the tray, threatening to take Mac’s face with them.

‘Where you from?’ he asked Beast.

‘Winton, mate. Heard of it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Mac. ‘I’m from Rockie – played some footy up there couple of times.’

‘Yeah? For who?’

‘Junior Capras, group reps – usual shit.’

‘They let you out alive?’ said Beast, referring to the intense passion rugby league aroused in Winton.

‘Yeah, mate,’ said Mac. ‘But the ref didn’t make it.’

As promised, the road was quiet, and at 4.16 am, they put the kijang in its hide and set off eastwards, aiming for the border of West and East Timor, about eight k south of Memo.

Keeping to a light jog now that there was moonlight, they covered the jungle floor quickly. Heaving for breath and fatigued, Mac came to a halt with the rest of the troop shortly after five o’clock. They were looking over the river that formed the border. Beyond were thick stands of forest that shone in the moonlight. Below them was a hairpin in the slow-moving river, an apron of river rocks on the inside of the bend and then a river flat of about five acres before the bush started.

‘That’s the bush market,’ whispered Robbo, pointing down at the grassed river flat at the big bend. ‘That’s our observation. There’s a hundred people down there most days,’ he said, referring to the OP – or observation post – that was a hide set up to observe a piece of territory.

Murmuring into his headset to let the team across the river know they’d arrived, Robbo waited for a response then gave the nod. Didge slid down the long river bank to the water’s edge, sweeping the area with his rifle.

Giving the thumbs-up, Robbo followed, taking Mac with him. The water was cold as Mac followed Robbo into the river and they waded across chest-high, covered by Didge. On reaching the other bank, Mac tucked in behind Robbo, who was now covering for Beast, and then they fanned out and covered for Didge as he waded across the river.

They followed the river downstream for five minutes and then went into the jungle and doubled around the long way before arriving in a totally concealed hide in the hills behind the bush market. Lifting a flap of branches, Robbo gestured Mac inside while Beast and Didge recce’d the approach area for unfriendlies.

Behind the flap was an area set up with sleeping bags – called ‘farters’ in the Australian Army – stacks of cold rations and radio equipment. Looking around, Mac was impressed with the place but caught his breath when he realised a large set of eyes were only a few centimetres from the left side of his face.

‘Shit, mate!’ he exclaimed. ‘Give me a fright, why don’t you?’

‘Johnno,’ came the voice. ‘You must be the spook?’

Mac shook hands, his heart pounding. As his eyes adjusted he realised Johnno was a Maori bloke. ‘Something like that.’

‘Johnno’s our comms guy,’ whispered Robbo as Beast and Didge squeezed into the hide. ‘Other two – Toolie and Mitch – are down at the OP. You can doss there,’ he said, pointing to a space in the gloom.

Throwing his rucksack into the corner, Mac paused.

‘It’ll be okay, mate,’ whispered Didge, seeing Mac’s hesitation. ‘Army rules – don’t mess with another bloke’s stuff. Okay?’

Didge said it like it was one of the Ten Commandments.

‘Okay,’ said Mac, his fatigues dripping river water as he pulled the briefing papers from his bag and followed Robbo through the exit on the other side of the hide.