‘You know, McQueen,’ said Bongo. ‘Sister of Maria Gersao – Blackbird.’

Bongo dressed the girl called Marta in a soldier’s outfit, pulled her hair up and put an army cap on her head. Marta wasn’t happy with the arrangement but she wanted to be out of Bobonaro so she sat up front with Bongo while Mac sat under the canvas cover in the back of the pick-up truck, talking with Florita.

‘Maria alive?’ asked Mac.

‘Maybe, yes,’ said the girl, who Mac guessed was about sixteen.

‘You know where she is?’ asked Mac.

‘No, mister,’ said Florita, big sad eyes.

‘Rumours?’ asked Mac, knowing that East Timor had a jungle drum that was better than most newspapers for speed and accuracy.

‘Army got her, in Bobonaro. Maybe in Nusa Tenggara.’

‘Where’s your family?’

‘Maria taken by army, then Mum and Dad,’ she sniffled. ‘Then soldiers come…’

‘It’s okay,’ said Mac. ‘You don’t need to tell me.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, pushing her palms into her eyes as she started to cry.

‘Your parents, Florita – they CNRT?’ asked Mac, referring to the grouping of Timorese organisations endorsing an independence vote in the ballot. ‘They politically active?’

‘Don’t think so,’ said Florita, shutting down. Even the kids knew not to talk politics with strangers in East Timor.

‘Were they doing anything that would make the soldiers take them away?’

The kijang’s horn sounded and Bongo yelled at someone. Leaning back, Mac got a sight line through the flapping canvas canopy. They were going past Balibo’s soccer ground and a bunch of youths in Hali Lintar militia T-shirts were waving and holding their M16s aloft as the army kijang went past.

‘You from Jakarta?’ asked Florita.

‘No, I’m from New Zealand,’ he said.

‘Must not say you see Marta with soldier,’ said Florita, regaining composure and wiping tears with her fingertips. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay, sure,’ said Mac. ‘Why not?’

‘Her father very strict – so, you not saying, right?’

‘Agreed,’ said Mac, holding his hand out and shaking.

‘My parent do nothing,’ she continued.

‘Never in trouble?’

‘No, mister.’

‘What about Maria? She political? In trouble?’

‘No, mister. She work at army office – they check her out.’

Mac’s brain swam with fear and fatigue, making it hard to concentrate. Since she couldn’t tell him where Blackbird was being held, there was nothing else to ask.

‘Well, that’s it then,’ smiled Mac. ‘We’ll have you back in Dili soon.’

‘You know, my sister a good person, mister.’

‘I’m sure she is,’ said Mac, distracted and wondering what Bongo’s promised alternative route into Dili might be.

‘Army trust her, and intel too.’

‘Intel?’ asked Mac, not quite on the pace.

‘Yeah, she had meeting with intel – she say she don’t,’ said Florita, her expression conspiratorial. ‘But we see her in car with the intel man.’

‘The intel man?’ asked Mac, very slowly.

‘Yep.’

‘How did you know he was intel?’

‘Everyone know the captain,’ she said.

‘Captain?’

‘Yep, mister,’ said Florita. ‘The big malai – Captain Sudarto.’

After a couple of hours Bongo stopped the kijang and opened the canvas canopy.

‘Where are we, mate?’ asked Mac, squinting in the intense light and reaching for the sunnies hanging on his polo shirt collar. About one kilometre down a gentle, scrubby rise was the sparkling tropical sea that separated East Timor from Alor to the north. Shacks were interspersed with stands of trees and sand dunes, and a small grouping of houses and fishing boats was visible at a wharf on the rocky point.

Getting back in the kijang, Bongo drove it deep into a thick stand of bush and downwards into a creek bed.

‘You girls,’ Bongo said to Marta and Florita, and then continued in Bahasa Indonesia, pointing back to the road and the jungle above it, and then swinging around to point to the fishing village.

After he’d finished, he turned back to Mac. ‘They’ll take their chances through the bush. Perhaps you’d like to give them a little something?’

‘Something?’

‘Yeah – US dollars would be best,’ said Bongo, hands on hips like he didn’t have all day.

Mac fished in his once-khaki chinos and came out with the wad of dollars he’d last used in Suai, when he’d asked Mickey to open up the ice carton and liberate a carton of Bintangs.

‘Ten okay?’ asked Mac, handing a tenner to each girl.

Bongo reached over, pulled another two ten dollar notes from Mac’s pile and handed them to the girls as he said something in Bahasa Indonesia.

Turning, Florita looked at Mac. ‘Thank you, mister, and remember what we agree, okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Mac, smiling at her.

The girls walked up the sand and gravel road before darting into the bush.

‘So where are we?’ asked Mac as he followed Bongo down to the creek bed where he’d dumped the kijang.

‘Batugade’s eight kilometres that way,’ said Bongo, pointing to his left. ‘And Dili is thirty-five kilometres that way.’

After stripping out of his soldier’s gear, Bongo dressed in his slacks and trop shirt. Then he leaned into the covered back of the kijang and pulled out two of the M16s confiscated from the guard post, throwing one to Mac.

As they moved away from the vehicle, the military radio sprang to life and a torrent of hysterical Indonesian poured out of the speaker.

‘Found the checkpoint,’ said Bongo as they moved out for the fishing village. ‘Let’s hope they don’t find us.’

The walk to the fishing village took twenty minutes, and when they arrived at the wharf Bongo gave Mac his gun and told him to sit on a stack of fish crates and not move.

‘I’ll need those greenbacks, McQueen,’ said Bongo, holding out his hand.

‘Don’t suppose I can get a receipt?’ said Mac, handing over most of his stash.

‘Just show ’em you alive – that’s the receipt,’ said Bongo disappearing.

Down the main pier, three sail-powered fishing boats strained on hawsers. Two deckhands walked towards Mac, young men with fish crates on one shoulder and carrying each end of a large net between them, so that the middle dragged on the decking. One wore the Indonesian fisherman’s dress of singlet, sarung and plastic sandals while the other one – a Timorese – wore Lakers basketball shorts and old canvas sneakers.

They barely acknowledged Mac as they walked past, their faces the mask of constant exertion worn by their profession.

When Bongo appeared five minutes later, it was with a middle-aged Timorese man who shook Mac’s hand and introduced his workers: the two young men Mac had watched before.

‘We got a ride, brother,’ said Bongo.

‘Are we, I mean, this is okay?’ said Mac, unsure of the deal.

‘Yeah, it’s cool,’ said Bongo, gesturing for his M16. ‘Fishermen don’t care about politics – they’re too busy or too tired.’

They made their way into the back of the vessel and Mac found a good position on a pile of canvas bags, hoping he could grab some sleep. As they sailed around the point at Carimbala, Bongo lit a cigarette.

‘Get anything from Florita, McQueen?’

‘She said that Maria had been meeting with Sudarto, in his car. Know anything about that?’

‘No, I would have told you,’ said Bongo.

‘Well, it’s made everything more complex. What do you make of it?’

‘Can’t say, brother,’ said Bongo, shrugging. ‘The Canadian never really spoke to me, and I wasn’t in the room when he met with Blackbird.’

‘What about the last time?’

‘Well, yeah – I was checking the windows and balcony when he started into conversation with Blackbird. Normally, I’d secure the room and wait outside. I think he was stressed, like he wanted it over. It was a strange afternoon.’