Sensitive New Age Spy (10 page)

Pergo had that
red lights are optional
and
tailgating is a good thing
driving style so beloved by teenage P-platers and taxi drivers from Bombay to Brisbane. I tucked my legs up close to the seat, double-checked the seatbelt, and prayed that the airbags wouldn’t rupture my eardrums when they deployed.

The drive to Parliament House took seven minutes, and ten years off my life. It was worse than my ride to the Opera House in the patrol car. Doesn’t anyone watch those road-safety commercials on TV? I wondered. A couple of times I tried to snatch a quick glance at the instrument panel, just so I’d know what speed the cops would put in their report after they pulled my mangled body from the wreckage, but Pergo’s
hands on the wheel blocked my view. He had French cuffs on his shirt and was wearing gold, diamond-studded, monogrammed cufflinks. Bloody typical. What a wanker.

We rocketed past the entrance to the Duntroon military college, a blur of poplars – a golf course, I think – then we were zooming over the Kings Avenue Bridge, and suddenly on a rise dead ahead was the breathtaking dullness of Parliament House.

The new Parliament House replaced the classic 1927 building in 1988 and was cunningly designed to look like it was half buried under a grassy hillside. I don’t think the Australian public would be too fussed if someone brought in a fleet of bulldozers and finished the job, especially if they locked all the pollies inside before firing up the machinery.

In deference to the 40 kph speed signs, Pergo dropped the ute back to eighty, hung a left at the top of the hill and roared up to a driveway marked
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT ONLY
. We zoomed past all the high-security carpark checkpoints like they didn’t exist, and less than twenty minutes after hitting the Canberra runway I was inside the Defence Minister’s office.

Rupert Hall-Smith was in a very big chair at a very big desk, head down, reading the contents of a folder. He studiously ignored me. Pergo was the only other person present. I timed out the three minutes in my head.
The Boy’s Own Book of Office Power Plays
says that three minutes of ignoring a visitor to your office establishes dominance.

Right on the one-eighty count the Minister glanced up, having demonstrated who was top dog. I wondered if I was supposed to roll over on the carpet and put my legs in the air. He closed the folder and stared at me. He looked even worse in the flesh than he had on TV the night before.

‘And who exactly the fuck do you think you are, Murdoch?’ he said slowly.

Great, so it was going to be one of those meetings.

Rupert Hall-Smith did an excellent line in intimidation. Maybe it’s in the job description. I remembered the pathetic spectacle in a recent Senate Estimates hearing when high-ranking, be-medalled defence force personnel were forced to sit uncomfortably close to the Minister, as if they were at a headmaster’s interview with their mums. You could see them praying they wouldn’t give a wrong answer and find themselves demoted and out in the carpark washing the bastard’s car.

‘Hands off means hands off, Murdoch,’ Hall-Smith said. ‘Mr Pergo showed you my directive, yet you seem unable to understand simple English. The matter of that tanker and the USS
Altoona
is now out of your hands. It’s over and done, do you understand me?’

I understood perfectly. News of my visit to Priday had obviously reached the Minister’s office already.

‘And the missing nukes?’ I said.

The Minister’s face twitched. ‘I can assure you, I have it on the authority of the highest levels of the American government that the
Altoona
was not carrying nuclear weapons.’

If it
was
the highest levels of the American government they would have said ‘nuke-u-lar weapons’. My personal theory on the non-proliferation of atomic weapons was if you couldn’t pronounce the word ‘nuclear’ correctly, you shouldn’t be allowed to have any.

‘So all the warheads the ship wasn’t carrying are fully accounted for?’

‘I’ve spoken on this, Murdoch. I’m not getting into a discussion with you.’

‘Fine. Then all you have to do to get me off this case,’ I said, ‘is send a signed minute on your ministerial letterhead addressed to me as acting Director-General. Just put it all in writing and everything will be dandy.’

The Minister smiled pleasantly, which was a bit disconcerting. ‘No, Mr Murdoch, all I need to do to get you off this case is to terminate your appointment, effective immediately. And that’s what I’m doing. You are returned to your previous position and pay scale forthwith.’

Damn. Much as I wanted out of the top job at D.E.D., there was no way I was giving up on the investigation now, and this was going to cramp my style somewhat.

‘Furthermore,’ the Minister continued, ‘the Honourable Gwenda Felton is your new head of department.’

Struth. The Honourable Gwenda Felton, Companion of
the Order of Australia and former Member of Parliament, was generally regarded as having the compassion of Vlad the Impaler, the dress sense of Bozo the clown, and the subtlety of one of Marshal Zhukov’s World War II Red Army artillery barrages. It was also universally agreed that she was dead from the neck up. What the Honourable Gwenda Felton did have going for her was loyalty. When the Prime Minister said jump, all the party faithful asked how high, except for Gwenda who rushed out and got herself a trampoline.

Having made a total hash of her last three portfolios, without career consequences, Gwenda had recently been forced to resign her seat in parliament after an unfortunate incident involving refugees, a talkback radio shock-jock, and a comment she made when she thought the microphones were turned off. Even in a government whose code of conduct was so slackly enforced that clocking the Leader of the Opposition with half a house brick during question time would only get you a smack on the wrist, Gwenda had to go.

She got the usual golden handshake, lifetime use of the honorific, and the promise of the next available cushy public service appointment. How Hall-Smith could justify making her Director-General of an intelligence service in these days of a war on terror was hard to fathom. Then again, she pretty much terrorised everyone who worked for her.

‘I think D.E.D. will benefit from a new broom,’ the Minister said.

‘A new broom can be very useful for sweeping things under the carpet.’

‘Very droll, Murdoch. ’

‘Look, the official line might be that the two warheads don’t exist, but everybody in this room knows they do and that they’ve been stolen, and that people are dead because of it. Nothing you do to me can change the facts, so somebody better find those nukes and find them fast, because if they go off you won’t have a broom big enough to clean up that mess.’

The Minister’s face turned a strange shade of purple. He looked like a man whose blood pressure was in the high triple digits and climbing.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ I said, ‘I need to shower and frock up. I’ve got a birthday party to go to.’

It was just a short walk down the hill to the Hyatt. I still had plenty of time to check in and freshen up, and I was confident my luggage would be in the room and the rental car in the carpark. The Com Car driver would know better than to screw with Pergo, that was for sure. I wondered why I didn’t have that kind of smarts.

Working for Gwenda Felton was going to be interesting. I couldn’t wait to tell Julie but I decided to save it for when I got back to Sydney, since I really wanted to see the look on her face.

But it was the look on Hall-Smith’s face that occupied me most as I headed up the drive to the Hyatt. The Minister was running scared and that had me worried. When the people who are masters at putting the frighteners on the rest of us get edgy, maybe it’s time we all got nervous.

It took a very long, very hot shower to get the Minister’s ire out of my pores, but by 7.45 I was all glammed up and ready to party. I splashed on some Geoffrey Beene Grey Flannel aftershave, grabbed the rental car keys from the concierge, and stepped out the front door of the Hyatt into a media scrum.

The journos and photographers were focused on the steady stream of luxury cars dropping off a series of handsome, elegantly dressed, bejewelled couples. From the plates on the limos I deduced there was a diplomatic reception happening, and I hoped the Hyatt bouncers would manage to chuck out the last of the drunks and the strippers before I got back from my night on the tiles. I knew how much the Corp Diplomatique liked to party; some nights they were still hitting the mineral water as late as 10.15.

A limo glided to a stop right in front of me and a muscular bloke in the passenger seat jumped out to open the door
for the Japanese ambassador and his missus. The lady was beautiful, petite and delicate, swathed in silk and pearls, and as she smiled for the press pack a couple of camera flashes went off.

‘
Murderers!’

It was a woman’s voice, almost right in my ear, and it scared the crap out of me. Immediately afterwards, a great stream of red liquid arced upwards and then down towards the ambassadorial couple. A bodyguard stepped in front of the ambassador’s wife and copped the liquid full in the chest as a barrage of camera flashes lit up the driveway.

Was it blood? I wondered. An anti-fur demo? But the ambassador’s wife was wearing a silk wrap, with not a bit of mink or ermine to be seen.

‘Whale murderers!’
the voice shouted again.

So that was the story. It was whales, not fox or sable, that the protest was about. And I could smell it now, not blood, paint – red plastic paint. But there was no mistaking the symbolism.

The Japanese couple were whisked into the hotel while security and the press pack closed in on the paint thrower – a woman in her fifties with long white hair and dressed like a rich hippie. She looked familiar. The journos were shouting over each other, and all the questions started with ‘Miss Gaarg, Miss Gaarg…’

So it was the famous Artemesia Gaarg, reclusive multi-billionairess, philanthropist, and champion of the world’s
whales. There was quite a little press and security scrum developing around me, so after quickly checking for paint splashes on my dinner suit, I headed to the car. Right now the last thing I needed was another bunfight.

The rental Toyota was in a front parking bay, and as I unlocked the door I looked back at the mêlée outside the hotel. Flashes were still going off and I could just make out Artemesia Gaarg as she shouted anti-whaling slogans at the TV cameras.

It was quite a well-staged media event, as these things go. The photographers had been ready and waiting for the paint hurling, and even though Artemesia had missed the ambassador’s wife, the incident would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country tomorrow morning, and probably on the international wires as well, proving that what they said in the ads was true – you do get great coverage from a four-litre can of Dulux Wash & Wear semi-gloss.

As I pulled out of the driveway I glanced in the rear-vision mirror, and in amongst the jostling journos and cameras and microphones I caught a quick glimpse of an attractive brunette standing just behind Artemesia – and blow me down if it wasn’t the lovely Cristobel Priday.

The sign outside the winery read
RESTAURANT CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY
. The carpark was chock-a-block so I parked on the gravel on the edge of the road, and as I rolled to a
stop there was a slight
pop
from the front of the car. When I climbed out to have a look the driver’s side front tyre was hissing softly as it slowly deflated. Bugger. I was all shiny and clean and the last thing I felt like doing was changing a tyre in the dark.

I decided to sort it out later and headed up the pathway to the winery. It was a typically crisp Canberra evening and my exhaled breath condensed to white mist in the cold, woodsmoke-scented air. A beautiful vintage Indian motorcycle was parked right outside the restaurant’s main door. It was a ’47 Chief with the full-skirted mudguards front and rear. Painted all white, the bike was pristine, right down to the leather seat and the thin leather streamers hanging off the handlebars. Damned thing looked brand new, which I knew it wasn’t since they’d stopped making Indians in the early 1950s.

It was warm inside the restaurant. The place had low ceilings and dark wood panelling and looked like a 1930s Bavarian hunting lodge. The smell from the crackling log fires and the aroma of smoked meats added to the effect. All that was missing was a couple of boars’ heads on the wall, some yokels in lederhosen, and Hermann Goering warming his fat arse at the fireplace.

The joint was packed and there was a lot of laughter and the sound of clinking glasses. Candles in brass holders on the tables threw off a warm glow. A quick scan of the room revealed that all the guests were women.

‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘Lezzos by lamplight.’

A tall woman standing at the bar turned around and looked at me. ‘You sucking round for a knuckle sandwich, shit-for-brains?’ she said.

I sized her up. She was wearing tight white leather trousers and a white leather motorcycle jacket over a white silk shirt. The leather looked butter-soft and screamed Italian tailoring. She stood around six feet tall but her motorcycle boots, also white, added another inch or two. A blazing mane of curly red hair, a slender but curvy figure, and a face like an angel completed the picture.

‘Oh yeah,’ I said, ‘and who’s going to give it to me? You and whose sister?’

The woman suddenly reached across and grabbed me. When Gudrun Arkell, five times Walkley Award-winner and doyenne of the Canberra Press Gallery, kisses you, you know you’ve been kissed. There were a lot of women in the national capital who could attest to that.

‘Happy Birthday, Goods,’ I said, disentangling myself from her embrace. ‘And so I don’t put my foot in it tonight, we’re still sticking with that just-turned-thirty story, right?’

Gudrun grinned and used her thumb to wipe a smear of red lipstick from the corner of my mouth. ‘Did you see the bike?’ she said.

‘Couldn’t miss it, babe. It’s bloody beautiful.’