Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike Read Online Free PDF Page B

fi rm’s best-ever operatives in Beijing, with a special talent for East Asian languages and a good feel for the weird political and cultural problems between Japan, Korea and China. But now he was a reluctant offi ce guy expected to run Mac, and while they respected one another they also clashed.
    ‘Don’t give me grief, McQueen. I need you in Denpasar, now!’
    ‘What, Garvey’s in the cells again? Just tell them to hose him down - he’ll come right.’
    ‘Don’t get smart, McQueen. We’ve got a multiple IED incident in Kuta, Garvey’s gone down there as a declared but we need a covert.
    Understand?’
    Mac massaged his temples with his left hand. ‘Well, if Garvey’s running it …’
    ‘Don’t argue with me, mate. I’ve got reports of hundreds dead -
    most of them Aussies. Those JI fuckers bombed a couple of nightclubs.
    In Kuta! Eleven o’clock at night! You believe these people?’
    Mac could hear the emotion coming up in Joe’s voice. ‘So, my role is what?’
    ‘The fucking Feds have a forward command post already on the move, okay? Your job is to keep an eye on things, make sure the story doesn’t get too out of shape.’
    Mac nodded. Joe was worried about the Australian Federal Police taking control and doing naive things like telling the media precisely what was going on. Mac would need to tailor the story, stop any Boy Scout behaviour.
    ‘My cover?’
    ‘Embassy - your usual shit. If DFAT get to run the show, then you’ll have veto on the media releases. You’re public affairs, okay?’
    ‘Got it.’
    Joe told him there was an Australian Navy Sea King helo on its way. ‘And McQueen?’
    ‘Yes, Joe?’
    ‘They’re on your side. None of that survivalist bullshit, okay?’
    Mac walked slowly back to the cottage wondering what the real story might be in Kuta. His UN gig was in jeopardy - Mac could feel it. But there was a deeper worry in Joe’s voice, like the world had just changed forever.
    The Sea King landed on Seraya Beach just before four am. Mac took the loadmaster’s arm-grip and jumped on with his pack. The helo rose, turned and headed west towards Bali. Mac cadged a pair of overalls to ward off the draught, strapped himself into the awkward hammock seat and tried to think through what this was all about.
    The Australian Secret Intelligence Service was a spy agency but it was part of DFAT - the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
    So it was part of the same set-up as the diplomats and the trade commissioners. When ASIS offi cers were posted to an embassy, they were either a ‘declared’ intelligence operative or they had a cover. The cover would normally be something like a second trade attache or a diplomatic mid-ranker with vaguely defi ned public affairs duties.
    The way embassies worked - which really annoyed Australians who worked abroad for their country - was that ASIS spent as much time spying on their own people as they did trying to gain information advantages over other nationalities. To preserve that internal security capacity, ASIS offi cers working within a cover in the embassy were not usually declared to other Australians in the embassy. The ambassador might know and the ASIS station chief would know, but there wouldn’t be many outside that circle.
    Now Joe Imbruglia was sending in Mac under embassy cover, and doing so from Manila rather than Jakarta, further complicating the situation. Mac had about forty-fi ve minutes to work up his cover, get himself back into his normal role, which at most Australian embassies in South-East Asia was assistant third secretary - political, a position that conveniently had partial oversight of the public affairs and media functions. The ASIS cover role had once been assistant counsellor public affairs, but the public affairs section of the Australian diplomatic mission was being gutted and dismantled because some genius in Canberra had decided it wasn’t a specialist discipline. Mac had a view on that: if the Americans