The Shadow Game (17 page)

It was hotter than Satan's sauna and Rafael Weiss was melting. The Labor pollster was three hours north of Cairns and the air conditioning in his rental had died without warning.

The bitumen on this Far North Queensland highway was blistering, the tropical air wet and humid. Cramped in his Hyundai, with another hour of driving ahead of him, the native Victorian tugged at a tailor-made shirt that stuck to his ample frame like cling wrap and cursed Catriona Bailey.

The opposition leader had dragged him from his comfortable Melbourne office to meet up with her manic, non-stop tour of electorates near and far. ‘Campaign Insane', one insider had dubbed it. Today she was in the seat of Leichhardt; specifically, Cooktown. Population: 2330.

‘There are more people in Fountain Gate on a Saturday afternoon than in that pissant town,' Weiss yelled out the window. ‘Why. The. Fuck. Am. I. Here?!'

He knew why. Like everyone else he was terrified of the former prime minister whose relentless pace had seen a mass exodus of staffers. The body count was now in the dozens. But in spite of her temper and her disability, she ploughed on, determined to visit every electorate before the next poll.

The professional pollster shook his head. Privately and grudgingly, he would admit that her campaign was working. The polls showed that. Bizarrely, the political cyborg was Ms Popular.

He picked up his mobile, bored by the track that was playing. He needed a dose of good old-fashioned rock; he needed Kiss. He wanted his favourite track from his favourite album.

The first few chords of ‘Hotter than Hell' crashed through the stereo. Weiss yelled ‘Come on!'

Then the car speakers fell silent as its Bluetooth signalled ‘No service'.

‘Faaaarrrkkkkk.'

The Police Citizens Youth Welfare Association could hold four hundred people, but Weiss counted twenty-three. Of these, five were Bailey staffers and there was a youngish reporter from the
Cairns Post
.

The pollster had been told to wait until Bailey finished a question-and-answer session scheduled to run for twenty minutes.

That was ninety minutes ago, and Weiss noticed even the Labor diehards were drifting off to the toilets and not returning.

Then he heard the first cheerful words of the day: ‘I think we'll leave it there.'

Weiss finally got his audience with Bailey at 10pm, but only after the Labor leader had cleared a list of appointments she deemed more important.

Despite the long delay, Bailey offered not so much as a ‘thanks for coming'.

‘How are the tracking polls going?' she demanded, as she examined a print-out of the next day's schedule.

‘I'm well thanks, Catriona, how are you?' Weiss replied.

‘What?'

‘Nothing,' he said, quickly adding, ‘The polls are good. Just like they were a fortnight ago. You've maintained a consistent lead across all demographics since last year's Budget.'

Bailey was impossible to read. While she beamed in public she rarely smiled in private; instead she exuded disdain, bordering on contempt.

Weiss had sometimes wondered why Bailey was a professional politician, when she so clearly despised people. Now he knew the answer: power.

‘What about the focus groups?' she snapped.

‘People think Scott stands for nothing. The knights and dames stuff killed her, confirmed their worst fears. They think she's never had a tough day in her life, but you . . . in that wheelchair . . . that alone shows you know what it's like to suffer.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Yes. People are getting very nervous about the state of the world. The rise of radical Islam and the aggression of China and Russia are really bothering the punters. In a dangerous world they think Scott is weak on national security.'

‘What makes people feel safe?' Bailey's expression changed almost imperceptibly. Clearly this shard of information was intriguing.

Weiss mopped his face with a drenched handkerchief.

‘The cops. The army. Our alliance with the United States. Forget what the luvvies say about the Americans, most voters want the eight hundred–pound gorilla at their back.'

Bailey nodded. Then without a hint of thanks or a farewell she glided from the room, driven by the whirr of an electric motor and the adulation of the people.

Weiss called out a piece of advice in her wake.

‘So Catriona, whatever the question, the answer is “Back the Yanks”.'

The towering bronze letters paid homage to the Australian expanse: WIDE BROWN LAND.

It was early evening and Harry Dunkley had driven to the National Arboretum for a rendezvous with a mate of Trevor Harris. He'd been given few instructions except to meet by this sculpture in the heart of the new botanical garden at the western end of Lake Burley Griffin, overlooking the city.

The sun was setting and a breeze from the Brindabellas was pushing the temperature south.

At first he thought he was alone, but as he neared the sculpture a slightly built man emerged from the shadows. He wore a smart overcoat and offered a tentative smile as Dunkley approached.

Dunkley thrust out his hand a little too forcefully. ‘Harry Dunkley.'

‘Yes, I know. Benny Hadid. Nice to meet you.'

Elfin-featured and pallid, Hadid looked like he'd stepped from a Tolkien novel. He was probably in his mid-forties, although an excessive comb-over may have exaggerated his age. Dark brows and deep worry lines hardened his face, and a nervous twitch hinted at a lifetime of avoiding other people's gazes.

Whatever his peculiarities, Hadid was considered one of the best forensic accountants at the Australian National Audit Office, a dogged public servant who loved to sniff around the financial entrails of big government deals. Trevor Harris had given Dunkley the threads of Hadid's career: of Armenian descent, he'd spent two decades inching his way up to being the auditor's top gun through good old-fashioned hard work. Looking at him now, Dunkley suspected there was little in Hadid's life beyond his job.

He'd risen to become the Executive Director of the Performance Audit Services Group, exposing numerous questionable schemes along the way. Under his leadership, the group was charged with running the ruler over Defence and its multi-billion-dollar procurement budget. It was a rich field. Defence had been a notorious money pit for decades. After 9/11, the task of holding the military to account had become even more fraught as successive governments ladled ever greater amounts of public money into building Australia's national security capability. And the brass thought they were gods, above the reach of mortals and hostile to the scrutiny that Hadid believed was essential in a democracy.

Harris had said that while Hadid might appear timorous, when it came to defending his work he was fearsome and intense.

Dunkley pulled on his jacket to ward off the breeze that was washing over the arboretum. He was uncertain how hard to press
this new contact, reluctantly given up by Harris. Flattery was usually a good way to start.

‘Trevor tells me you're one of the best in the business.'

‘Does he? That's nice of him.'

‘You two go back a way?'

‘Yep, a few years now.'

Hadid was fidgeting with a button on his coat, his eyes darting around the deserted landscape.

Christ, thought Dunkley, there's no one here, mate.

Dunkley had been in this dance for information many times. The first few steps were always awkward. Move in too hard and the waltz could end before the band warmed up. After all, they were little more than strangers. But there was one thing the veteran journalist was certain of: Hadid had shown up at the meeting. That meant he wanted to talk and sometimes the best approach was to say nothing and let the whistleblower lead.

On cue, Hadid broke the silence.

‘Something doesn't fit, Mr Dunkley.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘What has Trevor told you?'

Dunkley played dumb. ‘Not much . . . um, can I call you Benny?'

‘Yeah, of course. Well, all I can tell you . . .' Hadid's voice trailed off. He was clearly thinking through how much he would say.

Dunkley realised he had to give this nervous tic of a man some assurances.

‘Benny, if it helps, I've got no notepad, no tape recorder; I'm not working on a newspaper anymore. I'm doing some research
for a former prime minister. I'm not even sure there's anything here to chase—'

‘Oh, there is something here to chase, Mr Dunkley.' Hadid's eyes flashed a glance at Dunkley before darting away.

‘Well then, Benny, perhaps you can tell me what that is? And please, call me Harry.'

Hadid buried his hands in his coat pockets. ‘Air Warfare Destroyer. I presume you've heard of the program?'

‘A bit . . . but defence procurement was never my forte,' said Dunkley. ‘Always reckoned they had too much to spend and didn't give a rat's how much they wasted.'

Hadid smiled properly for the first time.

‘The organisation I work for, the Australian National Audit Office, conducted a formal audit of the AWD project throughout 2013, reporting in early 2014. The bottom line was that the $8.5 billion scheme to build three destroyers was well over budget, $302 million to be precise, and climbing. I qualified the audit, refusing to sign off on it.'

Dunkley looked down on the city across the lake, the first flicker of lights appearing as the last fingers of daylight reached over the Brindabellas. It sounded like a pretty boilerplate Defence overrun to him and he hoped he wasn't going to freeze to death as the bureaucrat relived every line of a multi-volume report.

His companion was getting more agitated as he spoke.

‘That should mean something, Harry. There should be consequences. I was expecting that Defence would be torn apart at a Senate hearing. But no. On the day of the hearing the departmental secretary came with defence chief Jack Webster
in tow. I have never seen a performance like it; Webster was charming and staggeringly arrogant by turns. He had every member of the committee fawning over him. They waved his dodgy books through.'

Hadid's face had become less distinct in the twilight, but that only served to emphasise that he couldn't keep the rest of his body still. He moved his shoulders and shuffled his feet as he spoke. Dunkley thought that he had rarely seen anyone who looked so uncomfortable in his own skin.

‘So I went back to the books. And conducted one of the most exhaustive audit processes I've ever done. I chased every dollar down every sinkhole in that department. I did it all in my own time: early mornings, late nights, every weekend.'

Hadid shuddered to a stop and for the briefest of moments he didn't move a muscle. He looked up from his feet and stole another glance at Dunkley.

‘Billions!' His voice squeezed out as a disbelieving rasp.

‘Billions of taxpayers' dollars are missing, all buried in a procurement project so long, so large and so complex they could be hidden. My final report is almost done. What I believe we are seeing amounts to the biggest fraud in the history of the Commonwealth.'

Dunkley urged Hadid on.

‘Where did the money go?'

‘Most of it was ploughed back into Defence. The entire computer system has been rebuilt. What I don't understand is why. If it was necessary, they could have asked for the money and they would have got it. But it doesn't matter why they did it. It's
illegal to procure money for one project and spend it on another. This time heads will roll at Defence.'

Despite his coat, Hadid shivered.

‘And I believe it is worse than that. This time there will be no escape for the sainted Jack Webster. Several million dollars seem to have been siphoned off into an account for which he was the sole signatory. That breaks every rule.'

Dunkley was stunned and for the first time in many a long month he itched to be back in journalism. This was the kind of story he used to dream about, one that deserved a banner headline stretched across all eight broadsheet columns.

‘Benny, if your report is nearly done and you have the authority of the audit office behind you, then publish. That will bring the whole show down.'

Hadid rocked from foot to foot, shrugged his shoulders and pushed his hands deeper into his pockets.

‘I'm only telling you this because I'm not sure that my report will be published. I've done all this in secret. Recently I've been getting questions from higher up. My boss has been asking what I've been up to and I suspect he's been searching my files.'

Hadid shook his head.

‘But I've told no one about this, other than Trevor. Now you. I knew how sensitive it would be and I want all the evidence to be bulletproof before I take it further. I've hidden the work deep in our system. How could anyone know about it?'

Dunkley looked out at the lights of Canberra.

‘Believe me, Benny, there are no secrets here. You can't run and you can't hide anything from these people.'

The drive back to Canberra's CBD took barely ten minutes, even in the inexplicably heavy traffic converging on Lady Denman Drive as it swept around the lake.

Dunkley hit a few buttons on his iPhone and waited for an answer, keeping watch for the ACT's notoriously punctilious traffic cops.

‘Martin, how are you? Dunkley here. Tell me, what do you know about the Air Warfare Destroyer?'