The Shadow Game (25 page)

The sky was livid red along the carpet of clouds lined up to greet the sunrise and Yu Heng didn't like it at all.

‘Sailor take warning,' the rear admiral muttered to no one.

He'd picked up the old English naval superstition while studying at the British Joint Services Command and Staff College in London.

Yu stood on the open deck above the bridge of the
Liaoning
, gripped the rail with both hands and breathed in the bustle as the port came to life.

Like so much of the new China, the naval base, on the south side of the Shandong Peninsula, had grown rapidly. In the space of a year, three and a half thousand people from six villages had been relocated to make way for the North Sea Fleet, which patrolled the waters surrounding Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The base was also the home port of the nation's only
aircraft carrier, strategically located less than two thousand kilometres from the US overseas naval base in Yokosuka, Japan.

Even from his vantage point, Yu could see only a fraction of the sprawling base which ran from the waterfront to mountains hollowed out to house missiles, chemicals and armouries.

The admiral shook his head. ‘Too much, too fast.'

Yu was a proud member of the Communist Party, but had begun to question the wisdom of his leaders as he watched China's breakneck development. He dreaded his regular trips to Beijing where he could not find the sun in the smog-heavy sky and the stink of the air nauseated him. The oriental beauty of the old city had been buried beneath gleaming Western-style glass-and-metal towers. And, as in the West, the streets were choked with traffic.

It was all a gilt facade that papered over the many blemishes that arose when ambition outran wisdom. As with the ship he commanded, looks were deceptive.

The
Liaoning
had been transformed in 1998 from a rusted Soviet hulk into its present configuration, under the bizarre pretext of it becoming a floating casino. Probably no one, and especially not the US, had swallowed the deception, but it had allowed the Ukrainian vendors to turn a blind eye to their ship's real refurbishment.

Now the carrier was conventionally powered by four 50,000-horsepower steam turbines that combined to push it along at a top speed of 32 knots over a range of 3800 nautical miles.

It had a crew of 1960 and an air group of 626 who serviced twenty-four ‘Flying Shark' warplanes. The carrier bristled with other weapons too: four air-defence missile systems, each with an
18-cell launcher, and a pair of ten-barrel, 30-millimetre cannons, both fed by dual ammunition boxes holding a combined one thousand rounds.

The
Liaoning
was the hub in a mighty circle of steel designed to project China's power far into the blue waters of the Pacific. When it sailed it was flanked by four Luyang-class guided-missile destroyers and two 054A frigates. A Shang-class nuclear-powered attack submarine glided beneath it.

Yu commanded a carrier group that China had declared was a match for American naval might. Two years earlier, the communist power had boasted to the world that the
Liaoning
had forced the retreat of the USS
George Washington
in the Taiwan Strait.

The admiral knew that it was a public relations stunt. His group could not threaten the Americans. The trick had been to lure the enemy into a deadly bottleneck.

Once inside the Taiwan Strait there had been no room for the
George Washington
to manoeuvre and what it feared was not the
Liaoning
but the sophisticated array of area-denial weapons that lurked a hundred kilometres away on the Chinese mainland.

Weapons like the Dong-Feng 21D anti-ship ballistic missile. US intelligence dubbed it the ‘carrier killer' and painted a disturbing picture of its capability to shift in flight while moving at hypersonic speed. It carried a conventional warhead large enough to destroy an aircraft carrier in one hit, and America had no defence against it.

That explained the
George Washington
's retreat. The American president hadn't been prepared to risk the loss of a carrier strike
group with all hands. That would have forced him to declare war on China, a war he couldn't hope to win without a massive loss of life.

The experienced sailor instinctively ran his eyes along the ship's deck, looking for any sign that something was amiss. He knew every line and every limitation of the
Liaoning
, which was why he was so troubled.

He had been commanded to sail the strike group deep into the South China Sea as a warning to the US and its lackeys that Beijing would repel any move to test the twelve-nautical-mile exclusion zone around the Nansha Islands. His superiors were gambling that the Americans would rattle sabres but they would not fight.

Yu reached into his pocket, pulled out a packet of Zhonghua cigarettes and lit one with a deft flick of the Zippo lighter he had bought on a trip to Washington. He inhaled deeply and blew a long line of smoke into the still morning air.

The light on the clouds was fading from red to pink as the sun rose, but the warning had been writ large and he would heed it.

This time the Americans would be ready. He could feel it. They were wounded and angry and that made them dangerous. This time they would meet on blue water where all the players in this deadly game knew his group was no match for even a fraction of the US Pacific Fleet.

He took another long draw on his cigarette.

Once the only reason for charting the Nansha Islands had been to warn sailors to avoid their dangerous shoals. They were much more dangerous now.

The admiral knew the islands had many names. The Americans called them the Spratlys. Another name for the largest island was ‘Storm'.

It was apt. A tempest was brewing and Yu was sailing right into it.

It was a gleaming billion-dollar shrine to the truth that Big Brother was actually watching you. Born in an era when fear was driving a national security boom, the ASIO headquarters rose six levels to form a sleek crescent on the edge of the Russell Offices Defence complex.

It was the heart of Australia's domestic spy network. More than two thousand carefully chosen and highly trained agents fed their intelligence into this building to be analysed, dissected and acted upon.

For a spy movie junkie like Brendan Ryan, this was Shangrila. The Labor MP felt a schoolboy's excitement as his COMCAR pulled up in front of the brand new edifice. Despite massive cost overruns – and rumours it had been compromised by the Chinese – Ryan had ensured that Labor's support for this state-of-the-art spy headquarters never wavered.

As Ryan approached the glass front doors a handsome woman in her early thirties emerged. Dressed in a public-service-grey pants suit, she offered a winning smile and firm handshake. ‘Mr Ryan, good morning. I'm Amy. The DG is expecting you.'

Despite his VIP status, Ryan still had to undergo ASIO's security check. He was asked for photo identification before receiving a lanyard holding a temporary pass, then a blue-tagged key for a locker in which to store his mobile phone.

‘And your Fitbit, if you have one, please,' the guard added.

Ryan snorted, the idea of wearing any kind of device designed for a fitness regime was abhorrent to him. As was the idea of fitness.

It turned out to be just the first layer of security. Ryan followed Amy to another glass door where she swiped her pass then held her thumb to a wall-mounted scanner. The door slid slowly open, left to right, and they entered a transparent holding pen. Amy turned to Ryan as the door closed.

‘Welcome to the Tiger Trap.' The spy opened her arms to embrace the twenty-first-century drawbridge. ‘The far door can't open until the one behind us closes and I swipe and have my thumbprint checked once more.'

Emerging into a long corridor they passed a display case that offered a glimpse of the agency's chequered past. Cold War relics included the iconic photo of the Russian defector Evdokia Petrova being dragged across the darkened tarmac of Sydney Airport by two Soviet goons.

Ryan paused and laughed. Either side of this memento of a dark chapter from Australia's past were displays that could
have been props in a B-Grade '60s spy movie: a camera hidden inside a hollowed-out book; and a quaintly described ‘defection kit' that included a torch and a pair of striped flannelette pyjamas.

Amy touched his arm to remind him he was there on business. He followed her to a bank of lifts where she swiped her pass again and a short time later a disembodied female voice intoned ‘Sixth Floor'.

Exiting the lift, Ryan noted that a vast atrium stood at the centre of the building, anchored by a ground-floor cafe. An array of security cameras was set into the ceiling, monitoring his every movement.

Amy led him to a heavy metal-set door designed to withstand a bomb blast. It opened to a boardroom that looked across Lake Burley Griffin to the High Court and Parliament House.

‘The DG will be with you shortly,' she said, closing the door securely before leaving.

Ryan scanned a room dominated by a light-coloured timber table with a dark rectangle contrast at its centre. He counted fourteen white leather chairs.

‘Magnificent, isn't it?' Ryan turned at the familiar voice of Richard Dalton, his long-time friend and director-general of this vast palace of intelligence.

‘It is, Richard,' Ryan said, effusively shaking the spymaster's hand. ‘It's great to know you're keeping an eye on us.'

‘As you know, Brendan, we don't need to see you to keep an eye on you. This isn't a building, it's a platform from which we operate in the physical and virtual world.'

The two men pulled up chairs facing the window, exchanging small talk on the current list of security concerns. The rise of homegrown terrorism was number one.

Suddenly Dalton's demeanour changed and he swung around in his chair so that he was facing Ryan.

‘Brendan, I called you here for a reason.'

His shoulders slumped as he seemed to shrink into his chair.

‘What I am about to tell you I have confided to no one else. You are never to breathe a word unless something happens to me.'

‘Like what?' Ryan was bemused by the abrupt turn in the conversation.

Dalton's face was anguished and he looked searchingly at Ryan, as if trying to impress upon him the gravity of his words.

‘If I should die. Unexpectedly.'

‘Mate, you're freaking me out. It's not like you to play stupid games. What are you talking about?'

‘I'm talking about the leader of the Australian end of our little project. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jack Webster.'

Dalton's voice dropped as if he feared being overheard even in this most secure point of a secure fortress.

‘Forty years ago, good men on both sides of the Pacific lost faith in the political class to look beyond the next headline. These men of vision, drawn from intelligence, the military – and rare political figures, like you – foresaw an ever more dangerous world. So they forged the Alliance to ensure the long-term security of both nations.'

The ASIO head paused as if he was trying to convince himself of the righteousness of his extramural cause.

‘Its aim was to guide our democracies, not usurp them.'

He rapped the table to emphasise the argument.

‘We have only acted . . .
should
only act . . . to correct the errors of politicians who are driven by the winds of the day. Very rarely we have acted to remove those, like Bailey and Paxton, who posed a direct threat to our security.'

Ryan was confused and wanted Dalton to end the speech and get to the point.

‘And Richard, that is what we have done. In hindsight, Paxton wasn't in the clutches of the Chinese but he might as well have been the way he slashed the defence budget. Bailey is still a clear and present threat to national security. So far, the mad fucking witch has proved impossible to drown. But I haven't given up hope.'

Dalton shook his head, his voice now a whisper.

‘She is far more dangerous than you know. When she was prime minister she managed to compromise the entire defence and intelligence computer network. It was shovelling out information to the Chinese for about three months before we discovered the wormhole and shut it.'

Ryan was stunned.

‘Jesus, Richard, why are you only telling me this now?'

‘Webster. When he discovered the breach he was petrified Washington would cut off our access to Five Eyes. We grilled the poor bastard responsible, Matthew Whelan from the ASD. There were just four people in that room: Whelan, Webster, David Joyce from DFAT. And me.'

Ryan noticed a tremor in the intelligence chief's right hand as it rested on the table.

‘Webster's parting words are carved in my memory: “No one knows about this, ever.”'

The spymaster shifted uneasily.

‘Brendan, he meant it. Three months later Whelan died from a heart attack, a fitness freak in his forties who dropped dead during a gentle jog. And the toxicology report from the autopsy disappeared. Six months later Joyce died in a car accident.'

Ryan gazed out at the familiar and tranquil vista of the national capital, wondering if the stress of work was pushing Dalton over the edge. His extraordinary tale could not be true.

‘You think Webster killed them? Come on, this is Canberra, not Moscow. No, that can't be right.'

Ryan touched his friend's arm, trying to reassure him.

‘I'm certain he did.' Dalton was unmoved. ‘There were four men in that meeting and two are dead. And they are not the only ones, Brendan. Do you remember the security analyst who was murdered in Telopea Park some years back?'

‘Yes, Kimberley Gordon. You told me the Chinese killed her. That's what I told her mate Harry Dunkley.'

‘It wasn't Beijing, it was Webster.' Dalton was shaking his head. ‘He has an acolyte in ASIS. Charles Dancer. Acts as his garbage collector and enforcer. The night Gordon was murdered, the ASD sent a message telling Dancer exactly where to find her.'

The spy chief put his hand inside his suit jacket and pulled out a thumb drive.

‘It's all on this.'

He placed the USB on the table, then pushed it towards Ryan.

‘It was pulled from the gut of a Chinese defector who drowned in the lake. He'd downloaded a trove of information which he wanted to use to barter with the Americans for asylum. That's how we discovered the wormhole.'

Ryan picked up the USB and rolled it in his fingers as Dalton continued.

‘But I have added many more chapters to it. Everything I've gathered on Webster, using all the resources at my disposal. Like his hero, George Patton, Webster has an unshakeable sense of destiny. He believes he was ordained to rule, so killing those who threaten him isn't just necessary, it's moral.'

Dalton pointed at the memory stick in Ryan's hand.

‘What you hold would destroy him in an afternoon.'

‘What do you want me to do with it?'

‘Keep it. And if I die . . . if I get hit by a fucking meteor . . . then you'll know that Jack Webster's murdered me. If that happens, I want you to kill him with that.'

Ryan placed the USB back on the table, eyeing it as if it were a nuclear fuel rod.

‘This is way over my pay grade. Why give it to me?'

‘Because, you are the only one left I can trust.'

Ryan weighed up the words of his friend. He was still deeply sceptical, and even if it was true, the last thing he wanted was to be dragged into a power game where people got killed.

He reluctantly picked up the USB, put it in his pocket and stood to leave.

Dalton rose with him.

‘By the way, my friend, how safe do you feel?'