Alan McQueen - 02 - Second Strike (27 page)

- and that is how I’m going to get paid!’

Vitogiannis hooted and slapped his leg while Grant smiled, probably amazed that someone could be so forthright. It was an old spy technique: be disarmingly honest about something people were furtive about - like The Money - and people would tend towards trusting you. The Bennelong guys had the Australian Commonwealth chewing on one ear and a bunch of Indonesian businessmen on the other. They needed someone to trust.

‘So, how do we play this?’ asked Grant.

‘We decide whether I’m on retainer and expenses, or if you prefer to pay me on capital raised,’ said Mac. ‘The capital-raising rate is one and a half per cent of the agreed value of the deal, with overages of travel outside of Sydney or Canberra. Straight charge-back on hotels, cars and fl ights - no per diems. Sound fair?’

‘I like the second option,’ said Vitogiannis, looking at Grant, who was nodding back. ‘One and a half per cent is fair.’

‘And the transaction? What are we talking about here?’ asked Mac, keeping it light yet professional. ‘I mean, so I can work out if it’s worth it for me.’

‘The initial phase is a thirty-million-dollar supply contract - that’s what we wanted EFIC for,’ said Vitogiannis, measuring every word.

‘Okay,’ said Mac, pulling a bunch of papers from his document satchel, ‘let’s do the MOU and we’ll get started.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Vitogiannis, raising his hand. ‘This is going a bit fast, isn’t it? I mean, you don’t even know what’s required.’

Mac looked at him. ‘Michael, I made some calls this morning too, and I think I’ve found your problem, and maybe also a way through.’

Vitogiannis leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. His body language said,
This bloke is a hard case
. He looked at Grant. ‘You hear that, Alex? Mr Davis thinks he’s found a way through.’

‘I heard,’ said Grant, glancing at his watch. ‘Let’s get to work. We have a lunch meeting with our partners and I need some good news.’

They worked out of Grant’s Horizon Club suite on the twenty-second fl oor, looking north over Jakarta and out to the Java Sea. It had its own fax machine and executive desk, so Mac sent the engagement MOU

on the machine while Vitogiannis pulled out fi les and Grant fi red up a black Apple laptop.

Taking a seat in front of the desk, Mac laid it out for the Bennelong team. ‘My discussions were brief this morning, guys, but the person I spoke with basically summed it up.’

‘Yes?’ asked Grant, plugging the internet cable into the back of the machine and leaning back from the laptop.

‘You see, Alex, government loan guarantees are knocked back for basic reasons: either the customer is in a nation or market considered viable for a bank or other commercial fi nancier, so the deal doesn’t need Johnny Taxpayer reaching into his pocket.

‘Or the deal itself makes a couple of the principals very rich but has got fuck-all to do with jobs or encouraging innovation or building national competitive advantage. With me?’

‘Sure,’ said Grant, nodding, ‘but I think we qualify under those two and I believe we’re also a company with a trading track record, if that’s something else you were going to mention.’

Holding up three fi ngers, Mac smiled. ‘That’s three pluses for Bennelong. But my person - and he was risking his job just to give me this small piece - he tells me that the weak link is the end-user certifi cate.’

‘What?!’ burst out Grant, a frustrated man. ‘We make control systems for power stations and public water companies!
Shit!
‘

‘You know,’ said Mac, drawing it out, ‘the candidate always thinks that the end-user certifi cate is about him. But when you think about it, it’s really about -‘

‘The end user,’ said Vitogiannis. ‘I agree, Richard - but I thought we’d provided a full dossier on NIME? Certainly everything we had.’

Mac put his fi ngers into cathedral position, pushed his nose into the gap. ‘My guy tells me that there’s worries about the - what did you call it?’

‘NIME,’ said Vitogiannis. ‘It’s an acronym, in Bahasa. Basically means something like national electricity consortium of Indonesia.’

‘Yeah, that’s it, NIME,’ Mac continued. ‘He says the principals look like rent-a-directors - you know, fronts, accountants, lawyers. Faces to put on the prospectus. But they have nothing to do with the equity.’

Vitogiannis nodded, swapped a look with Grant. ‘Okay, so …?’

Mac decided to pull back. ‘Look, guys, it’s not my deal, I know nothing about this. But if we have an NIA logjam around an end-user certifi cate, then either you tell me who these people are so I can resell it, or the minister’s own people are going to be in his ear about these people, right?’

‘Yeah,’ said Grant. ‘It’s perhaps not so simple.’

‘Okay,’ said Mac. ‘The other part of the end-user certifi cate is something to do with defence? Nuclear research?’ said Mac, shrugging at Grant, asking him to take it from there.

‘Okay, that makes sense,’ said Grant, relieved not to have to talk about NIME. ‘When we did the buy-out from Betnell, fi fteen years ago, we inherited algorithms for uranium enrichment, for their Type-3 reactors. The management buy-out was for the control systems, but when it came to settlement they had listed these algorithms in the acquisition manifest. Our real aim was to get the naval C and C

systems and the public utility control systems, but we got this bonus that, frankly, has turned into a curse.’

‘You knew what they were?’

‘Only in the broadest sense - they’re part of the control systems for a Type-3 reactor which is not even built anymore. I have no idea how valuable they are. I only know they still work because a few years ago I had a visit from CSIRO,’ said Grant, referring to the Commonwealth’s peak science body. ‘But I always suspected they were ASIO because they asked more about my new partner, Michael, and our future plans than they did about the algorithms.’

‘Well, that’s part of the logjam right there,’ said Mac, quietly impressed with Australian intelligence for doing the footwork. ‘If we can take that out of the deal - make it transparent for Canberra

- then all we have to do is get a better picture of the end user, and I’ll massage it from there. As long as they’re not crooks or terrorists, we can probably get you over the line.’

‘Actually,’ said Grant, looking pleased with himself, ‘we’re spinning all those enrichment algorithms - and all the navy C and C

codes - into a separate company. We’ll be a cleanskin by the time we do the NIME deal.’

Mac’s ears pricked up. ‘Spinning off? You mean, selling the code?’

‘Well, a staged buy-out, really,’ said Vitogiannis. ‘Naveed has a deal -‘

Grant and Vitogiannis stared at one another. Grant broke the stare, threw his pen on the desk, looked at the ceiling. ‘Okay, Mr Davis, we signed a non-disclosure agreement with the guy representing the NIME group. He didn’t want his identity revealed, but I guess that really means to the banks and the government, right?’

‘So, who’s Naveed?’ said Mac, expressionless.

‘He acts for NIME, and put the deal together for the code,’

said Grant.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ said Alex Grant. ‘It’s fortuitous, I mean the timing and everything.’

‘Timing?’

‘Yeah - we’re signing all the code stuff over at lunch. It’ll clear the way for the main NIME deal, right?’

Stunned, Mac fought for composure. ‘It might clear the way, guys, but we still have the end-user issue. Tell me something about Naveed.’

‘Not much to say,’ said Grant, looking at his watch. ‘He’s a former banker who manages an infrastructure fund.’

‘So he’s connected with the Indonesian government?’ probed Mac.

‘No,’ smiled Grant. ‘He’s a foreigner. Pakistani, I think.’

Mac rang Davidson as soon as he got away from the meeting and they tossed around several spellings for ‘Naveed’. Davidson said he’d make some inquiries and get back on the Naveed connection, but he didn’t want Mac trying to intercept either of the NIME deals.

‘I know what your instincts are, mate,’ drawled Davidson. ‘But the gig is surveillance, right? Mainstreet is about who’s behind NIME.

That’s all you need to do, okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Mac. ‘But just so you know what’s happening up here.’

‘Roger that.’

Mac signed off and turned to Diane, who sat cross-legged on the sofa reading an in-hotel magazine.

‘I need more on Vitogiannis - sorry, I mean
Michael
,’ he said.

‘Really, Richard?’

‘Yeah, he looks sporty. You might like to lure him into some ten nis perhaps? Maybe nine holes of golf? I’ll even let you win; that might fascinate him.’

‘It’ll have to be tennis. I haven’t played golf for eighteen months because of my shoulder.’

‘He’s having a lunch meeting with NIME right about now,’ said Mac, checking the time. ‘And I said I’d catch up with them for pre-dinners at the lagoon bar.’

‘So I’m doing the afternoon shift?’

‘Pre-dinners too, if that’s how it’s heading,’ said Mac, smiling.

‘What do we want from him?’ asked Diane.

Mac thought about it. ‘Dreams and ambitions. I’m interested to know where he sees himself in fi ve years’ time.’

‘Dreams, huh? The man or the money?’

‘With blokes, it’s the same thing.’

They rode in the back of the S-class, taking a stop-start journey into downtown. The traffi c went from bad to worse in Jakarta and Edwin held forth about it.

‘When I come from Manila ten year ago, Jakarta is mad and crazy, but still you can get around. But now -‘ He held his hands up in the Asian shrug as they came to another stop.

‘What about the BusWay, Edwin?’ asked Mac, referring to the Jakarta bus system where buses had their own lane - the idea being that if the buses had an express lane and priority at intersections, it would encourage car owners into public transport.

‘It good idea,’ said Edwin, ‘but this is Jakarta. People see empty bus lane and they drive in it.’

Diane and Mac laughed. Jakarta was like that.

‘Yesterday, I am driving hotel guest and other driver has tried to get over the kerb, into bus lane! But he get car stuck on concrete divider and so no bus can get down BusWay lane! And there traffi c jam in his car lane!’

Diane giggled.

‘So two POLRI come, scratch head. Ten POLRI come, scratching head. Not knowing. So I get out of this car,’ he said, gesturing to the dashboard, ‘and I yelling,
Push the car off the divider!
And fi nally, they pushing it off, and by now there twelve bus waiting to go through.’

Edwin shook his head, sighed. ‘Jakarta is like diffi cult woman.’

They dropped Diane outside one of the huge shopping emporia and took off. Mac hadn’t wanted her walking around Jakarta on her own while they were doing an op, but she showed him the little chromed Colt Defender she had in her clutch bag and it made him feel better. Besides, Mac had an appointment with someone he didn’t want Diane knowing about.

They continued into a district with wide boulevards and trees in south Jakarta, turned off into one of the dusty but stately side streets and stopped at the corner. Mac hefted the backpack containing his laptop and asked Edwin to meet him at that same corner in one hour.

He walked up the street, taking basic counter-surveillance precautions.

Crossing the road, he ducked into a fruit shop and waited, bought a mandarin. There was no tail, no eyes and no cars with magazine-readers, so he continued up the street and went into a place called Konstelasi Komputer
-
Constellation Computers.

Pushing into the cool dimness, a brass bell rang as Mac clocked computers, servers and laptops arranged down the sides of the store, some of them running. A young local with a Metallica T-shirt slouched behind a glass cashier desk, reading a PlayStation magazine.

‘Richard Davis here for Charlie, thanks,’ said Mac, giving the bloke a wink.

Stretching, the youth walked to the beaded curtain and yelled something at it. By the time someone had yelled back at him, the youth was slumped back on his stool, investigating
SmackDown! vs Raw
.

A face appeared behind the beaded curtain, paused for a second and then pushed through. He was in his late thirties, round-faced and had all his hair, with a pair of sunnies pushed up into it. Glancing over Mac’s shoulder, he jerked his head sideways.

‘Macca, how you doing?’ asked Charlie, giving Mac a palm-grip handshake after they’d passed through the curtain.

‘Can’t complain, Charlie, you know how it is.’

‘Hungry?’

‘Sure,’ smiled Mac. Charlie was big on food and any invitation to dine with him was an experience.

‘We’re sitting down for lunch,’ said Charlie, easing into a torrent of Bahasa and then a bow. The Javanese were ritualistic about inviting people to eat in their home and offi cially inviting a guest was a part of the process.

They ate in the backyard, under a thin tarp, Charlie on the barbecue cooking a special octopus recipe from his mum in east Java. Charlie’s wife, Marika, rolled her eyes as she poured tea for Mac. ‘Charlie think his mum makes best cooking,’ she said to Mac conspiratorially, ‘so I say,
Fine - go and live with Mum, but if you live in Marika house, you get what
Marika cook!
‘

‘Don’t listen to her,’ yelled Charlie from the barbecue as he waved smoke away. ‘She don’t cook anyhow.’

Charlie had been a whiz-kid at BAIS and one of the fi rst intelligence people Mac knew of who had tried countering the Chinese in cyberspace. At a time when the Aussies, Poms and Yanks thought the internet was for war-gamers and propeller-heads, Charlie had found what the Chinese were using the internet for and was taking the ball up to them. He was so far ahead of the curve that when he pulled a stunt of opening a couple of dam gates on the Yangtze River hydro system, the Yanks took notice and seconded him into Langley.

Like many spooks, Charlie had walked away when he’d had kids.

But he still did a lot of contract work for the Indonesian intelligence services, which was what Mac was after when they adjourned to Charlie’s offi ce after lunch.