Double Back

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Forty-seven minutes after flying out of Tembagapura, Alan McQueen looked across at the second military helicopter as they descended through the pre-dawn to the vast Lok Kok copper mine. A blond mercenary to his left unbuckled his seatbelt, stood up and aimed a ceiling-mounted machine-gun out the helo’s open door at the lunar despoliation that stretched five kilometres to the rainforest.

Pik Berger’s voice crackled in Mac’s headset. ‘As we planned it, boys,’ came his clipped South African accent. ‘Red team in the front door – blue team takes the back. I want to be home for breakfast.’

The other five soldiers chuckled and gave the thumbs-up.

‘And you, Mr Jeffries,’ said the muscular Saffa with a wink. ‘You’re with me.’

His gut churning, Mac nodded, checked his Steyr for load and safety. His infiltration of the Lok Kok mine was supposed to be a covert assignment on behalf of Australia’s SIS, a bit of friendly espionage on a Korean mine that was operating too successfully for the Australian government’s liking. The Korean company had been having problems with OPM, the West Papua movement demanding independence from Jakarta. Mac had been ‘consulting’ to the Koreans under his Don Jeffries cover. However, the mention of Jeffries’ military background had piqued the interest of the Korean management and now he was reluctantly accompanying the mine owners’ mercenaries in dealing with a hostage drama.

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