The Marmalade Files (5 page)

The morning sun was just visible through a thick fog as the prime ministerial car – C1 – approached the main entrance of Canberra's public hospital, the vanguard of a small procession that included two Parliamentary Secretaries and a clutch of advisers. Despite the hour, a gaggle of journalists was on hand to form a loose guard of honour.

The bulletproof glass distorted the outside world but Martin Toohey recognised several straightaway. ‘Christ, those bloodsuckers …'

Across from the main entrance, a half-dozen satellite trucks were parked on the hospital grounds, beaming live footage of the Prime Minister's arrival to a national audience. Although it was Saturday, the networks had been broadcasting since 6 a.m. and would carry on for hours yet, trying to turn a moment of hard news into a continuous reel of infotainment.

The problem, as always, was pictures. Before the PM's arrival there was nothing to actually see, except the network talking heads and people coming and going from the hospital.

The crews had been told that Toohey would have nothing to say either on the way in or the way out. What they would get in several hours of broadcasting was one shot, endlessly repeated, of several white cars pulling up and the prime ministerial entourage solemnly proceeding into the hospital, ignoring the media demands.

But that was not the point. In the world of twenty-four-hour news, what was happening was often secondary to ‘being there'. Each of the three networks and two twenty-four-hour news channels had their best-known anchors perched on stools or standing outside the hospital. In a country where not much happens, the near death of a Foreign Minister – and former national leader – was show-stopping stuff, even for a public that mainly despised politicians. Catriona Bailey was a celebrity and Australia had all too few.

‘The carrion crows,' Toohey muttered as they approached. ‘Just what do these jokers find to talk about for hours on end? And why does anyone listen?'

Mostly they talked to themselves and the public lapped it up. The semi-famous anchors in the studio would cross to the really famous anchors in front of the hospital and they would reminisce and speculate. About every half-hour they would replay the final moments of Bailey's fateful
Lateline
interview, now an internet sensation. In between they would host guests who had some level of expertise in politics or health or, even better, some personal association with the stricken Foreign Minister.

The ABC went for foreign-policy wonks and academics, while Sky plumped for political insiders and journalists from the
Australian
. But it was the commercial stations that, as always, showed real enterprise. Already this morning, an executive producer at Nine had sacked one of his underlings because Seven's
Morning Glory
had beaten his
Wakey Wakey
to Bailey's primary-school teacher.

Felicity Emerson had appeared on a stool next to the king of morning television, Peter Thompson, or, as he was affectionately known nationwide, Thommo. She had regaled the audience with a heart-warming story about how a poor but socially aware six-year-old Bailey had offered her battered teddy to the Red Shield Appeal in place of money she didn't have.

‘So she always had a deep social conscience,' Thommo prompted Emerson.

‘Oh yes,' Emerson beamed, warming to the task of embroidering the past, ‘and I remember saying at the time, that girl will do great things.'

Nine was already starting a long way behind Seven in this story because the nation knew that Thommo and Bailey shared a special friendship, struck years before she had become Prime Minister.

Together they had dived the Barrier Reef to highlight the threat of global warming and had shamed the former Coalition Government into spending more money on cancer research. Bailey was an official member of the exclusive
Morning Glory
family.

Now, about fifty metres from the media melee, Toohey got a text message.

‘Fuck,' seethed Toohey. ‘The bastard will make me pay if I don't talk to him and everyone else will crucify me if I do.'

‘So what are you going to do?'

Dylan Blair was twenty-five, good-looking, and had a way with the girls. But when it came to the media, he had no practical experience in it and no idea how it worked. Yet for reasons no one could fathom, he was senior media adviser to the Prime Minister, a title that allowed him to throw his weight around – a task he enjoyed immensely.

‘We plough through the pack and deal with the consequences later,' Toohey said. ‘We've got the reasonable defence that this is too solemn a moment for us to be doing doorstops.'

A wall of light and sound – the flash of cameras, the shouts of reporters, the whirr of motor drives – bombarded them as they emerged from their car.

‘Prime Minister, a moment …'

‘How are you feeling today, PM?'

‘Do you regret knifing her?' came Thommo's familiar voice. A question designed to provoke a reaction.

Toohey didn't blink. His face was grim determination as he walked through the hospital doors, leaving the baying crews in his wake.

 

Moments later an awkward group formed around Bailey's bed. She lay still, pale, a drip in her arm, a monitor measuring out the slow beat of her heart.

Toohey asked the obligatory question of her specialist. ‘How's she doing?'

‘Not good. It will be touch and go.'

Toohey surprised his colleagues with his response: ‘Can you please give me a moment alone with her?'

Confused looks were exchanged, but everyone was quietly relieved to be able to leave the room.

As the group moved out of earshot, Toohey looked down on his fallen colleague.

‘You selfish bitch.'

When the Argyle Apartments were first sold off the plan to eager Canberra buyers, they were touted as a ‘delightful retreat in the Paris end of Kingston'. The marketing whiz who came up with that beguiling description was later jailed for false and misleading conduct.

The final effect was more Cold War East Berlin than Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Still, the Argyle Apartments had been snapped up by hungry investors who sought the charm of inner-city living without the traffic snarls of Sydney or Melbourne. An architectural travesty on the outside, they were, however, tastefully finished with modern European appliances and smart concrete floors. All in all, they had much appeal in an upmarket suburb favoured by professionals, well-paid bureaucrats and those parliamentarians with enough cash – and confidence – to buy investment properties.

Unit Six was a stand-out, gorgeously furnished with a blend of imported lounges and tables, its walls lined with an impressive collection of indigenous Australian art.

Ben Gordon had bought the two-level townhouse four years ago, regretting none of the $850,000 he'd spent. Enterprising agents would regularly tell him that he could sell for a handsome mark-up – close to one million, according to one blond-streaked prince who'd said all the right things … up to a point. But Gordon was having none of it. He needed some stability in his private life, which had swung between disaster and catastrophe for much of the past twenty-five years since he'd left Sydney.

He'd arrived in the national capital in late 1985, on a windswept Sunday after a four-hour drive down the Hume, negotiating two rainstorms and the treachery of a single-lane highway that snaked around Lake George.

He'd gone straight to work in ASIO, surprised and delighted that his peculiar blend of talents and obsessions could be put to good use in the national interest.

On this late Sunday morning, the apartment filled with the scent of fresh lilies and long-stemmed roses from the nearby Bus Depot markets, Gordon poured a black coffee from his Diadema espresso machine before firing up his impressive network of computers.

‘Thunderbirds are go,' he said quietly to himself.

Despite owning one of the most expansive private databases and most secure networks of computers in Canberra, the task seemed daunting. He was starting with just two names – Bruce Paxton and Zhou Dejiang – a mystery third man and the Acacia
marking. It was an intriguing cocktail, one that had immediately captured his imagination, and one that would have been far easier to understand if he could have accessed the DSD's vast data banks. But working on a project like this at the directorate was a huge no-no – every keystroke was logged and employees who breached the strict security protocol would be quickly shown the door. Or worse.

Gordon had spent years building up his credentials and skills, proving to his superiors that he could be trusted with the nation's most sensitive matters, even while wearing the most revealing of dresses. He'd been a fastidious worker and was now far too valuable for DSD to let go, even when the top brass got wind of a trannie working in the senior ranks of intelligence.

Like all computer junkies Gordon spent hours each day working with random data that meant absolutely nothing to most normal people. What set him apart from the scores of other PC hacks was that his home, instead of being littered with empty pizza boxes and soft-drink bottles, was always spotlessly clean – and tastefully finished with
Vogue
-like touches.

 

First, Zhou Dejiang, Gordon thought. An impressive CV sprang to life, courtesy of his access to Chinese data and his fluency in Mandarin. Much of it was already known to him; he had memorised the names and spouses of most of the top ranks of the Chinese Politburo – the murderers and torturers who controlled the daily lives of the mighty nation's 1.3 billion folk.

Okay, thought Gordon, we know about his upbringing, his graduation from the University of Peking, a stint at London's
School of Economics – his first taste of the West – his return to Beijing and the long march to the upper levels of the Chinese Communist regime. But what was the photo trying to tell us? What were his links with Paxton? Where did they start and where did they lead?

Gordon punched in ‘Bruce Paxton' to see what would emerge, and wasn't disappointed when a lengthy list was displayed on his main screen. Database One was doing its job, uploading line after line of useful information about Paxton's early career in the United Mineworkers, his elevation to the helm of the powerful union, his first taste of notoriety after a march on the West Australian Parliament got out of hand and Paxton and a few of his cronies ended up in the back of a paddy wagon on the way to an overnight stay in Perth Central.

Another coffee was needed, a caffeine hit to get the brain into gear. Even security analysts succumbed to the lazy tones of a Sunday afternoon. Gordon had made slow progress, but patience and diligence were the keys to good intelligence gathering. The most valuable breakthroughs rarely came without hour upon hour of often tedious research and mind-numbing checking. This task would be no different.

Zhou Dejiang and Bruce Paxton – what
was
the link? Was there a hidden meaning?

Gordon kept on searching, urging his machinery to spit out something that would offer a hint on a relationship that led – where?

And the mystery third face in the photo? That would need another kind of software: face recognition technology. Australia's
intelligence community – flush with funds after 9/11 – had invested heavily in this software breakthrough. The Australian Federal Police, ASIS, ASIO and even some of the States had rolled it out. Gordon had been impressed when shown how it worked and had managed to persuade a contact at the AFP to ‘lend' him a shadow program.

Now it was time to put this sucker into action. Harry Dunkley, he knew, had been making inquiries of his own about Zhou Dejiang, but the two had made little headway on the third face, and that was hurting like hell.

The original pic lay on the table before him. He scanned it and highlighted the face of the unknown third man, before revving up the application. The minutes ticked by, the software refusing to give up the man's identity.

‘C'mon, my friend,' Gordon coaxed.

Yet another fill of coffee – and the screen had frozen on two images. The scan of the original photo and a match.

Zheng Wang. The name meant nothing to Gordon and, irritatingly, the program had spat out only those two words. He keyed them into another database, and an immediate jumble of information appeared. ‘My God, there are a lot of you.'

He scrolled through page after page of Zheng Wangs, none with accompanying photos. After a fruitless thirty minutes, he made a note of the file before closing down his computer network.

He made for his hall cupboard, a splendid seventeenth-century French piece crafted from solid oak, to grab a scarf and his favourite cashmere jacket.

A walk in the brisk Canberra air was called for, to clear the head and get the circulation flowing in feet which had been cramped by a new pair of Tods.

He would deliver the name of the third man to Dunkley, let his friend take on the quest to find the meaning in that, while he focused on the more pressing task of chasing down the link between China's top spy and Australia's Defence Minister.