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mortgages and prospects for their children, not a bunch of communists running around in the hills of a province that they couldn’t even find on a map.’
    The meeting ended forty seconds later and Mac noticed the ONA guys sulking while the politicians smiled at him.
    As Mac exited through the anteroom, Sandy Beech was still seated, talking on his mobile phone. The one Australian who was actually on the ground in East Timor was not going to be heard.

CHAPTER 5
    Davidson wasn’t in his office when Mac arrived slightly late. He was annoyed with himself – Davidson was not only Mac’s main mentor in the firm, he also shouted the best lunches of anyone in the RG Casey building.
    ‘Alan?’ asked the secretary.
    ‘Guilty,’ said Mac, taking the note she passed him.
    It was a tasking: back to Jakarta, reporting to Greg Tobin in the Indonesian capital.
    Breathing out, he tried to stop himself swearing. Only a few hours ago, the DDG was telling him to stick around, that he was needed during the East Timor crisis. Canberra had always seemed a little tame, but after the chat with Gleeson and the ONA briefing, Mac had glimpsed a fresh start to his career: getting back into the management end of the intel networks, golf at Federal, skiing at Thredbo, a few beers with the lads at Bruce when the Raiders were playing. It was how the office guys worked it and it had seemed within his grasp.
    Collapsing on the sofa opposite the secretary’s desk, he punched a number into his phone then stared blankly at Davidson’s note as he waited for his boss to answer. He was tired and dreaded the thought of another fifteen hours in planes and airport lounges.
    ‘Tony, just got your note,’ he said when Davidson picked up.
    ‘I’m in a meeting, mate,’ said the West Australian.
    ‘Thought Gleeson wanted me around?’ Mac pushed.
    Down the line it was obvious that Davidson was excusing himself from his present company.
    ‘Yeah, mate,’ said Davidson, slightly breathless, a few seconds later. ‘But Gleeson gets a call from McRae at National Assessments – they were at Sydney Uni law school together, right? – and McRae is going off his trolley.’
    ‘About me?’ said Mac.
    ‘Yes about you!’ snapped Davidson. ‘What’s this shit about Wiranto being a misunderstood genius -’
    ‘I didn’t say that.’
    ‘- a constitutionalist?! Shit, Macca.’
    ‘I thought they wanted my HUMINT,’ said Mac, referring to human intelligence of the type gleaned from interaction with people.
    ‘Yes, Macca – and fucking ONA have been carefully building a picture for the Prime Minister of Wiranto as a man who wants to be president and will inflict any atrocity on Timor to support that. And you walk in there and make him out to be some confused teenager -’
    ‘Actually, I said he was probably responsible for the militias in Timor,’ said Mac, not wanting to argue with his biggest supporter. ‘But Wiranto believes in constitutional government: he could have taken over when Soeharto was toppled, or launched coups when the riots started in Jakarta or when Habibie announced the East Timor ballot – but he didn’t. My point was the economic crisis puts him under pressure from his own generals to hold East Timor, that’s all.’
    The sound of Tony Davidson sighing hissed out of the phone. ‘I happen to agree with you. But that’s not where the firm or National Assessments or even the government is headed right now, okay? Gleeson wants you back in the field.’
    ‘Jakarta?’ said Mac.
    ‘The section’s got something for you,’ said Davidson, referring to the intelligence section at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
    ‘Pay rise perhaps?’ said Mac, but the line was already dead.
     
    ***
     
    The driver gave him a sealed envelope as they came into Jakarta in the white Holden Commodore. The note said: Lunch 1300. Usual place. CR.
    CR was Cedar Rail – the internal code name of ASIS’s Jakarta station chief, Greg Tobin, and the usual