Counter Attack Read Free Page A

was a little after 6.40 am and to Mac’s left the Pacific Ocean wore a pink and purple halo, waiting for the sun to peek over the edge and turn up the heat.
    He’d spent the last twelve hours reliving the scene in the hallway of the Pan Pac and berating himself. He’d seen the SingTel van on Raffles Boulevard, he’d noticed something wrong about one of the technicians, and he hadn’t acted. The old Mac would have gone into counter-measures, regardless of how unnecessary it seemed to those around him. But he’d let it slide and the price to pay was Ray Hu slumped in a hotel chair with bullet holes in the forehead and heart. Ray, who’d taught him the intricacies of banking and funds transfers in Asia; Ray, who knew exactly which corporate tax scams were being pulled by which accountants and bankers; flat-footed, desk-jockey Ray, who’d once held a gun to a bunch of thugs who’d cornered Mac in an apartment in Pandang – the chubby banker had stood tough even when he was shitting himself.
    Catching his own eye in the reflection of the window, Mac turned away. His return to the Firm had been as a manager in Operations, a step up from his previous career as a field agent embedded in companies that operated across South-East Asia. As a vice-president of sales for Southern Scholastic Books, or as an executive with Gondwanda Consulting, Mac had been under constant stress, knowing that at any moment the Indonesians or Chinese might discover his real identity and whack him. But in that role he hadn’t been responsible for others. Now he was running operations and managing teams, and his first assignment had ended in a double murder.
    The ice he held in a plastic bag against his left eye socket was melting and the second round of Nurofens he’d gulped down an hour earlier wasn’t doing much for the vein that throbbed against his cheekbone or the egg that was still growing above his left ear. Mac had never had a headache quite as bad as waking up in a hot tent with a rum hangover, but this was running a close second.
    ‘Can I take that, Mr Davis?’ asked the hostie, and Mac handed over the ice bag, which he’d wrapped in a business-class face cloth. He wasn’t just embarrassed about the shiner; people with concussion weren’t supposed to fly long distances, and he hadn’t wanted a bright-eyed hostie trying to throw the medical rule book at him. He’d have plenty of that waiting for him at home when Jen lectured him about how a father of two young daughters shouldn’t be playing dice with aneurisms.
    Emerging from the customs hall with his black wheelie bag, he spotted a small ‘Davis’ sign above the crowd and headed for the casually dressed man who held it aloft.
    ‘Mr Davis!’ said the man. ‘Welcome back, sir – the name’s Kendall, the car’s this way.’
    Mac let himself into the back seat of the white Holden Statesman standing at the apron.
    Waiting in the back seat was Greg Tobin, the Firm’s immaculately groomed director of operations for Asia-Pacific. ‘Macca! Been in the wars, old man?’
    ‘Something like that, Greg,’ said Mac, shaking Tobin’s strong, soft hand. ‘How are things?’

    Greg Tobin was only a year or two older than Mac but he’d succeeded the former director of operations, Tony Davidson, in the year he turned forty – an unprecedented elevation to run what was Australia’s most important espionage territory. Mac remembered Tobin from the University of Queensland, where he was studying law and dabbling in conservative politics. Even then there’d been something of the born-to-rule about the tall, athletic form of Greg Tobin. He was the sort of person who compelled smarter people to listen to him, then do as he said, and he did it with a combination of charm and authority. Even on the greasy pole of Canberra, Tobin had a reputation for never losing his temper.
    Making their way across Gateway Bridge as the sun rose, Mac made small talk while his mind scrambled to understand