Sensitive New Age Spy (7 page)

‘I’ve already put in a request to Sydney Ports for the surveillance tapes,’ Julie said. ‘And for the names of every harbour pilot who qualified in the last thirty years. Since it’s a public holiday, it might take a while.’

‘If the bad guys just kept banker’s hours like the rest of us,’ I said, ‘things would be a whole lot simpler.’

It was after two when Peter and Clare got back from the hospital and they had very little to report. The ship’s choir had been formed in San Diego earlier in the year and they pretty much kept to themselves. Expressions of interest from other members of the crew had been politely but
firmly rebuffed, which seemed a bit unchristian to me, and the ship’s company had become used to having a choir whose members were as thick as thieves, which is quite literally what they turned out to be.

I was just figuring out a plan for a late lunch when I saw Julie staring up at one of the security-surveillance monitors. She glanced at me. ‘Ducks on the pond,’ she said quietly. That meant trouble.

I walked across to her desk and watched on the monitors as three white Commodores rolled onto the pier, the trailing vehicle neatly blocking the main entrance to our office. Two men in dark suits climbed out of the first car and another seven, also in dark suits, emerged from the other two. Even on our surveillance monitors you could see that the Hugo Boss threads on the bloke in the lead car would have cost twice as much as the other eight suits combined.

‘Well, well, well,’ Julie said. ‘Chapman Fucking Pergo.’

Jules sometimes has a problem with authority, but since she’s an unerringly accurate judge of character and consistently shoots the tightest groups on the pistol range, she gets away with it.

Pergo was standing in front of the surveillance camera, waiting.

‘Shall I buzz him in?’ Julie said.

I shrugged. ‘Guess so.’

Julie’s fingers moved rapidly over her keyboard, then she reached across and pressed the button that opened the
security door. As Pergo walked into the office she looked at me and said, just loudly enough for him to hear, ‘So I guess this means our no-arseholes policy is out the window then, Mr Murdoch?’

One of Pergo’s heavies accompanied him into the office while a second stationed himself outside the front door. On the surveillance monitors, I could see the others take up positions along the pier. They were all about two axe-handles wide across the shoulders, had their suit jackets fitted loose to hide a pistol in a shoulder holster, and appeared to be wearing earpieces and tiny microphones. Their body language suggested ex-Special Ops, and their bulk said almost certainly steroids. A dangerous combination, definitely not the kind of dudes you wanted to mess with.

The thug who accompanied Pergo into the office had bleached white hair and wraparound sunglasses with mirrored lenses. He kept the glasses on, which was a good thing since I was damn sure he’d have seriously creepy eyes.

Chapman Pergo was just a little taller than me, forty-ish, lithe, and he carried himself like the amateur boxer he claimed to have been. He flashed an icy smile at Julie.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Danko, always a pleasure. Enjoying the weekend?’

‘Up until quite recently,’ Julie said, deadpan.

‘And Alby, how are things with you?’ Pergo was using
his best Sloane Square drawl. He liked to play the superior Pom slumming it out in the colonies, and he was rather good at it.

‘That’s
Mister
Murdoch,’ I said.

He smiled again, with the practised insincerity that only working in Canberra can give you. ‘Of course, of course, you do outrank me – slightly. You’re
acting
department head now, aren’t you?’ He put a lot of emphasis on the ‘acting’ part.

‘And maybe you should starting acting like it,’ I said. I hadn’t pulled rank since being promoted, and it was surprising how much fun it was.

‘My apologies,
Mister
Murdoch.’

‘Apologies accepted,’ I said, ‘but let’s not be so formal. You can call me sir.’

I could see him making a mental note to break me in half at some later date.

‘So tell me,
Chapman
,’ I went on, ‘what brings you out of your burrow on such a fine afternoon?’

Pergo was a fixer for the Defence Minister, and his methods, while they suited the tenor of the current government, had made him few friends. Pergo’s style could best be described as a steel fist in an iron glove, clutching a set of brass knuckledusters and an electric cattle-prod just for good measure.

The rumour was he’d been serving with the British paras in Iraq – a gung-ho defender of Queen, flag and country – until he was chucked out after being sprung by a BBC news crew while conducting an over-enthusiastic, boots-and-all
interrogation in a back alley in Basra.

Things being what they were in Iraq, Pergo was immediately recruited at ten times his army salary to head the Black Falcon Group, one of the many dubious private security companies running mercenaries in Baghdad, and it wasn’t long before things really got nasty. So nasty in fact that after six months, with a dozen different government factions and terrorist groups offering big money for his head on a stick, Pergo was forced to flee the country.

He shipped out one evening covered head to foot in a burkah, reportedly leaving close to a million bucks in US dollars in his private safe. If he hadn’t got himself married to the Defence Minister’s daughter, he’d probably have been unemployable.

‘Perhaps you might like to introduce the rest of your associates,
Mister
Murdoch,’ Pergo said. He looked at Clare, Carter and Peter. ‘I’m Chapman Pergo, Special Assistant to the Minister for Defence.’

I made the introductions and Pergo shook hands and did the ‘very pleased to meet you’ bit with each of them, including Carter Lonergan. This seemed a little strange, given the barney I’d seen the two of them having not three hours earlier.

‘You still haven’t mentioned what brings you and the heavy cavalry down to this neck of the woods, Chapman,’ I said when all the insincere gladhanding was over.

‘I am the bearer of good news,’ he smiled. ‘By mutual
agreement, the investigations into this morning’s awkwardness on the harbour will now be handled by the Department of Defence. You are relieved of any and all involvement in this operation and are free to enjoy the rest of the holiday.’

‘On whose authority?’ I said, and from the corner of my eye I saw the bleached-blond heavy unbuttoning his jacket. It looked like Pergo wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

He took a single sheet of A4 paper from his pocket, unfolded it and held it up. ‘You may read this, but you may not retain the original or a scan or photocopy. In essence it says you are to turn over all files, notes, recordings, and any other pertinent data on this investigation collected thus far. You are to retain no copies of said files, notes, recordings or data. The letter is signed by the Defence Minister, both in that role and in the role of acting Minister for Homeland Security. It is countersigned by the Ambassador of the United States of America on behalf of the US Director of Homeland Security and the US Secretary of Defense.’

He smiled once more. ‘The letter further advises that the people in this room are forbidden to reveal any details of this morning’s events to anyone, under penalty of any or all secrecy acts and security regulations that pertain to their particular jurisdictions. And by anyone we mean anyone. I am also authorised to use deadly force in ensuring compliance with this directive. Are there any questions?’

No one spoke. When you’re screwed you’re screwed, and we were well and truly screwed. But Pergo wasn’t finished yet.

‘Lieutenant Kingston is to report to her ship within thirty minutes or she will be listed as AWOL, and Mr Sturdee I believe has an urgent meeting with the Commissioner of Police.’

Pergo’s goon pulled a file box from a shelf and casually emptied the contents onto the floor. He placed the box in the centre of the conference table. ‘All notes, diaries, PDAs, recording devices and mobile phones, please,’ he said.

He murmured into the microphone on his cuff, and on the monitor I saw one of the other heavies on the dock approach the office door. ‘Buzz him in, would you babe,’ he said to Julie.

For a second I thought she was reaching for the Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger she kept on her desk as a letter opener, but she calmly buzzed the guy in. Such restraint – must be the martial arts training.

The two heavies began disconnecting computers from their monitors and keyboards and handing them out the door to another goon, who was placing them in the boot of the lead Commodore.

‘These will be returned once we’ve removed all the data pertaining to this investigation,’ Pergo said.

When the heavies were satisfied they’d collected everything of value, they backed out of the office. Pergo did one final sweep and his eyes landed on the camera bag on my desk. ‘You had that with you this morning, I believe.’

No sense denying it. Lonergan had seen me shooting
pix on the island. Pergo opened the bag and removed the half-dozen memory cards from the holder in the lid. He put them in his pocket and reached for the Nikon. That really pissed me off. Nobody touches my cameras without asking.

‘Let me do that,’ I said, grabbing him by the wrist.

He twisted his arm to break free and I tightened my hold. The more he twisted, the tighter I made my grip. His jaw was clenched and the tendons in his neck were standing out with the strain.

‘Er, Alby,’ Julie said, and I looked over Pergo’s shoulder to the doorway, where the blond heavy was standing with a Glock pointed in the general direction of yours truly.

I released Pergo’s right wrist, flipped open the memory-card panel on the Nikon and popped out the card. Pergo took it with his left hand and slipped it into his pocket. He started massaging his right wrist.

‘That was fun,’ I said. ‘We should do it again sometime. You ever go anywhere without Snow White and the Seven Psychos?’

Pergo smiled at the challenge. ‘Any time you like, boyo. Just name the place.’

Boyo? Sloan Square to Belfast in one easy step. ‘Queensbury Rules?’

‘If you prefer. But you should remember the first rule of boxing, Murdoch – never punch above your weight.’

‘I’ll take my chances, Chapman,’ I said. ‘I heard your nickname in the ring was the Glazier. One win, one draw,
seven losses – five by knockout. Smart money says you had a glass jaw and no bottle.’

Pergo stared at me. ‘Like I said, boyo, any time.’ He turned quickly on his heel and walked out the door.

Julie started a slow handclap. ‘Well played, Mr Murdoch. Nothing like a couple of blokes having a dick-measuring competition to liven up the afternoon.’

Clare was staring at the empty doorway. ‘Can someone tell me what the heck is going on?’

‘We’ve been shut down,’ Lonergan said. ‘We’re off the case.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I think maybe I’d better give you a ride back to the ship, Lieutenant.’

Something in Lonergan’s matter-of-fact summing up of the situation made me think he’d known exactly what was coming before Pergo’s convoy even rolled onto the dock.

Clare was looking at me. ‘Probably wise to make a move,’ I said to her. ‘You don’t want to have an AWOL charge on your service record.’

She kept looking at me. And it was a look that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but in a nice kind of way.

‘Maybe we can have lunch sometime,’ she said. ‘Given the circumstances, I think the
Altoona
will be in port a little longer than we expected.’

She was right about that. I couldn’t imagine the cruiser upping anchor any time soon. As for having lunch together, I’m never one to knock back the advances of a
beautiful woman, and, well, a man has to eat.

I handed her my WorldPix business card. ‘Sounds great. Why don’t you email me your contact details?’

‘That might not be a good idea, Lieutenant,’ Lonergan warned. ‘This is an extremely sensitive situation.’

‘Don’t worry, Carter, I’m an extremely sensitive guy.’

Julie chimed in. ‘Yeah, Carter, haven’t you heard? Alby here’s your genuine, all-round sensitive New Age spy.’

I ignored that. ‘Lieutenant Kingston, is there anything you don’t eat?’

She smiled. ‘I’m omnivorous, and I have rather a voracious appetite.’

My kind of girl. That made up for the decaf and the soy milk.

Carter and Clare drove away in the Chevy Suburban and Peter left straight afterwards for his meeting with the top brass.

‘Too bad Pergo got your images from the island,’ Julie said, surveying the wreckage of the office.

I pulled a memory card out of the coin pocket of my jeans. ‘You must have heard me say it to the Dedheads a hundred times: always take the memory card out of your camera as soon as you finish shooting something important. You can replace your hardware, but when the images are gone they’re gone forever. Luckily, for once I followed my own rule.’

‘You went to a lot of trouble to stop Pergo getting a blank card.’

‘Couldn’t let him think I was giving it up without a fight. Pergo’s no fool – if I’d made it too easy he would have been suspicious.’

‘He’s going to be very pissed off, Alby,’ Julie said. ‘And more so when he tries to access those hard drives. I’ve got them configured to reformat themselves after three failed attempts to bypass the security system.’

‘Can they get around that and retrieve the data?’

‘Of course, but it’s going to take them a lot of time and effort.’ She kicked a side panel on her desk, a concealed drawer slid open, and she took out two mobile phones, tossing me one.

‘A bit basic, but they’re prepaid so we should be secure for a while. I don’t fancy using a mobile after Pergo’s had his greasy mitts on it.’

‘Good thinking, Miss Danko,’ I said, dropping the phone in my pocket. ‘And now, what do you reckon, should we call it a day?’

‘Fine by me. But don’t forget to check your email when you get home.’

‘You think Clare’s that keen?’ I asked.

‘Settle down, Alby, she just left. But God yes, she’s gagging for it. Especially after that little display of testosterone with Pergo.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘
Is there anything you don’t eat?
Jesus, I thought I was going to have to throw a bucket of water over the two of you.’