Redback (25 page)

'If they're not one and the same,' Gideon said.

'You still think the Americans were helping Mila Ifran's
rebels?' Ryder's tone suggested the theory was quite within
the realms of possibility.

'It wouldn't be the first time. And how better to look heroic than to free hostages you'd taken
yourself.'

'You need a holiday, Bryn; you're getting more cynical than I am,' he said.

'Then shoot me now, Boss, please. I thought I had years to catch up to you.'

Eric Ryder had been part of the action for way longer than Gideon or any of her Redbacks, and had
seen more death and destruction, in more world hotspots than he probably cared to recall. An SAS
trooper, more often than not on covert missions, he had 15 more years of engagement in foreign and
dangerous parts than even Triko, who was the oldest on Gideon's team. The Director of Back Door
since its inception five years before, Ryder was part boss, part mentor, part uncle, and friend to
them all.

To Gideon, Ryder was the closest thing she'd ever had to a father. It was he who'd requested her
for the position of Redback commander and joint recruiter.

'So what have we got?' she asked him.

Ryder gave the thumbs up to Oliver, who looked, as always in these moments, like a supremely
satisfied cat.

'First call,' Oliver explained, 'is an incoming one to one of Alan Wagner's research assistants,
in fact his most tenacious assistant. This bird deserves a raise, or maybe a job with us.' Oliver
tapped one of his keyboards to play the recorded telephone conversation through the Recon Room's
speaker system.

'Berenice Nyland?'
It was man's voice, with an American accent, asking the question.

'Yes, how may I help you?'

'I believe you've been looking for someone who will talk about the recent incident in the
Pacific.'

'If you're talking about the hostage incident on Laui Island, then yes.'

No mincing words with this girl, Gideon thought.

'I was there,'
the man said.

'Were you one of the hostages?'

'No. I was there to expedite their release.'

'You don't sound like an Australian,'
she said.

'Yeah well, believe me, I wish I had been with them. I was with the other team.'

'The other team?'
Berenice was giving nothing away.

'Yes. My team created a significant, ah, diversion, but did not rescue anyone.'

'A diversion? Is that what that was?' Gideon snorted.

'Can you tell me who you are?'
Berenice asked.

'I'd rather not at this stage. But trust me, I can give your man the story he is looking
for.'

'Okay, I don't mean to be dismissive, but you haven't really told me anything that we have not
been putting out there in order to get a response.'

'Right, um,'
he hesitated.
'Tell your man we landed on Laui at 6.32 pm. If the hostages
were even still on the island at that stage, he will know that it was us who blew up the swimming
pool.'

'You blew up the swimming pool? What on earth for? What did that achieve?'

Gideon was amused that Berenice hadn't been able to resist that question.

'Not a lot, as you can imagine,'
the man said, wearily.
'I'll call back in two hours on
this number. If your guy wishes to meet, make sure he's available to talk to me then. I will not
call again after that.'
He hung up.

'When was that?' Gideon asked.

'At 11.30 this morning,' Ryder said.

'Please tell me he rang back.'

Oliver, with a Cheshire cat grin, said, 'One-thirty on the dot.

This time we traced the call. Our mystery 'maybe-commando' is ringing from a small hotel in
Singapore.'

'That's good,' Gideon noted.

'Why is that good?' Ryder asked.

'The fact that he's an American in Singapore and not some yobbo in Manly is promising.'

Ryder frowned. 'But we don't want Wagner to get a story out of this, whoever it comes from.'

'No, we just don't want him to make a story out of
us
, Boss. But we can't keep a good
journo - well a talking-head with expert staff - from doing a story at all. He was right in the
middle of it, so it would be strange indeed if he didn't. Other journos would jump on the story
then.'

'True,' Ryder agreed.

'Also, I'm curious as to what happened on Laui.'

'You? Curious?' Ryder made it sound like a rare thing indeed.

'Yes Boss; sometimes,' Gideon said impatiently. 'I want to know why - no, how - a SEAL operation
could have been such a monumental fuck-up. It is not how they do things.'

'Also true,' Ryder shrugged then nodded to Oliver.

'Berenice Nyland.'
It was the voice of Alan Wagner's prize investigative ferret again.

'Is your man there?'
It was the same American again.

'Yes, I'll put him on.'

'Alan Wagner here.'

'Mr Wagner, as your offsider no doubt told you, I have information regarding the hostage
incident in which you were involved.'

'So you were one of the Navy SEALs who blew up the island?'

Gideon rolled her eyes. 'Good one Alan. Tell him what happened, don't ask for info.'

For a few seconds there was nothing but a strange muffled noise, possibly a conversation filtered
through a hand over the receiver.

'I think that was Berenice hitting Wagner with a desk chair,' Oliver explained. '
So
wishing I could've helped her.'

Gideon gave Oliver an understanding nod; the poor guy had been listening to Wagner's phone calls
for nearly two days.

'Do you want to know what I have to tell you, or not?'
The American had obviously decided
to continue.

'Yes, of course. This whole, ah, incident has been traumatic, for myself personally. I wish to
get to the bottom of what happened on that island and why,'
Alan said.

'My men and I are being made the scapegoats for the…'

'Debacle?'
Alan suggested, in a not even remotely helpful way.

The man sighed.
'Yes, the debacle.'

'Okay, but apart from that admission, I need some other proof that you are kosher,'
Alan
said.
'You've no idea how many calls we've had on this matter.'

'Exactly two,' Oliver said. 'And both from this guy.'

'You and the other hostages were taken off the island by a group of Australian commandoes and
taken to New Zealand by submarine and then helicopter.'

'Wow. Is that what we are?' Gideon smiled.

'And you?'
Alan asked.

'We, apparently, arrived just after the Australians did; but were involved in a firefight with
the rebels who had taken you hostage.'

'Just after?' Gideon laughed. 'We'd been lounging in those sand dunes for five hours before they
arrived and we made our move.'

'Shut up Bryn,' Ryder said.

Oliver, who hit the pause button every time someone in the room passed comment, hit it again.

'Okay, you appear to be the real deal,'
Alan was saying.

'I cannot go on camera,'
the real deal stated,
'or give you my name, but I am prepared
to meet and give you the story.'

'Excellent,'
Alan said to him, and then,
'Berenice, can we make a time for him to come
in?'

'Mr Wagner.'
The guy's tone suggested he was sorry he'd made his call.
'I cannot, and
will not, come to you. I am not even, surprisingly, in Australia.'

'Oh.'

'I will meet you in Singapore on Sunday.'

'Singapore? But…'

'Yes, Singapore. Can you make it?'

'Um…'

'Good. I will call you back on this number at 6 pm, your time, today; at which time you will
tell me where you will be staying in Singapore, and give me a cell number on which I can reach you
at any time.'

'I can give you the phone,'
but the line was already dead,
'number. Bastard!'
Alan hung up his end too.

'What do you think?' Ryder asked.

'If he wasn't on Laui, then he's been briefed by someone who was,' Gideon said.

'But why?'

'Why was he briefed? Or why was he on Laui?'

'No Bryn. Why did he call Alan Wagner?'

'The guy said his SEALs were taking the fall,' Oliver volunteered.

Gideon leant back in her chair. 'While that is such a government thing to do - and I don't just
mean the American administration, as we all know from personal experience right here at home - it is
not
something the military would do. There is no way the US Navy would allow that to happen
to its own.'

'So, what then?' Ryder asked.

'So this whole thing is very suss.' Gideon pulled at the front of her singlet to un-stick it from
her body.

'Okay, I've got a few theories,' she said. 'This interview is a set-up by the US Navy to find out
what Alan Wagner knows about their cocked-up mission. Or it's a set-up by the CIA who wants to know
what Alan knows about us - you know 'the commandoes' who beat them to it. Or the guy is neither, and
the bungled mission was not a SEAL deal, but some other kind of black ops.

'If it's the latter then, either it's still a quest for info, or the bloke screwed things so
badly that he is copping the blame.'

Ryder got up to wander the room, while Oliver added his thoughts. 'I'm hoping he's a CIA hitman
who wants to lure Wagner to a sticky end to silence him once and for all.'

Gideon laughed. 'In that case he's probably really Jana Rossi, impersonating an American bloke. I
know one thing, whoever he is and whatever the real reason, we should be in on that meeting.'

'Why? It's not our concern.'

'Unless, of course, this American gets or has more intel on us, and gives it to that lugnut.'

'Good point.'

'I think we might have to offer this hound a big distracting bone.' Gideon pushed her chair over
to the workstation next to Oliver's. 'We certainly need to try and take control of the situation.
Okay mate, bring me up a nice big map of South-East Asia, with a sidebar on the current locations of
all A and B-grade celebrities. We need to find that special job for Fido Wagner.'

Oliver hit his keyboard with lightening speed and seconds later the requested map and information
popped up on the 60 cm LCD screen in front of them.

'I love this technology,' Gideon said. 'Although mostly what I love is that you know how to work
it. Okay, we need to match Alan Wagner with the most likely celeb in order to get
him
insisting that he meets this CIA-SEAL-scapegoat, um, there,' she pointed, 'instead of Singapore. As
I will already be there - assuming you remembered to book everything, Oliver - then I can stone both
my birds.'

'By yourself?' Ryder asked.

Gideon glanced at the Boss, as he swung around on his sixth return trip pacing the room, and said
'Better book Coop and Triko to come with me. The other guys are way overdue for time off.'

'Woo-hoo, what about her, Bryn?' Oliver indicated the picture of a person called Sophie Deans
that he'd brought up from the celeb list.

'Is she famous?' Gideon asked.

Oliver's gobsmacked reaction answered that question. In fact it seemed even the Boss, a man she
figured well beyond any midlife need to be ogling waif-like 20-something brunettes with very large
boobs, seemed to know who this Sophie person was. What's more he too was stunned that she
didn't.

'What?' she shrugged.

'You really need to get out more Bryn,' he said.

'Probably, but clue me in here guys, who the hell is she?'

'You mean apart from being the daughter of Dan and Edie Hannon,' Ryder began.

'Oh, well them I know.' Of course she did. Gideon wouldn't exactly be Australian if she didn't
know the nation's best-loved television and showbiz couple. They'd been news for near on a century,
well, half of one.

'So, apart from that? And please don't tell me she's a Paris - you know, just famous for being of
famous stock.'

'No. Sophie's an entertainer in her own right. She's acted on
Home
and Away
and
stuff like that, she's a singer, with at least two top-ten singles, and she's written a novel, about
a couple of chicks backpacking to Tibet.' Oliver said all this as though it was a good thing.

Gideon faced him. 'Despite your amusement at the gap in my knowledge, I don't feel deprived for
not knowing this any sooner than - well, now. That you know it all, however, is a worry.'

'But it's his job to be a know-it-all,' Ryder said.

'Oh ha. Do you want the know-it-all to organise an interview between Sophie and your Alan, or
should I just go home now?' Oliver was almost purring in anticipation.

Gideon resisted an urge to pat him on the head.

The Hotel Windsor, Melbourne
Friday 2 pm

Jana headed through the lobby of Melbourne's 'grand old dame' into the hotel's
signature restaurant, 111 Spring Street, where she was to meet the incomparable Ruth Jardine for
afternoon tea. After calling the Sydney telephone number on the letter from the Helix Foundation,
she'd been informed that Ms Jardine was 'not in town at the moment'. When the personal secretary had
ascertained who and where Jana was, however, her tone changed to friendly enthusiasm. It seemed Ms
Jardine was not in town because she was in Melbourne and staying at the Windsor, where she'd be for
only one more day. The secretary felt certain that Ms Jardine would make time to see her.

How very strange indeed. Here she was, the soon to be un-employed Dr Jana Rossi made to feel,
bizarrely, as though she was the important one in this equation. Ruth Jardine was one of Jana's
heroes - hell, the woman was a national treasure - but had said she was 'thrilled' to take tea with
a stranger.

Jana saw her host at a window table on the far side of the elegant Victorian era dining room.
Ruth Jardine was a striking-looking woman in her early 60s, handsome rather than beautiful, with
strong features, thick straightish collar-length auburn hair. As Jana got close enough to make her
presence known she saw piercing, astute and very green eyes that seemed to quickly sum up her
appearance.