The Mandarin Code (11 page)

‘Sorry Charles, but I've been a tad too busy with national politics to focus on local life. I vaguely recall some mention on local radio, though.'

‘Yes, the police called for assistance in identifying him. At first, our man was a real John Doe, as the Americans say, an unidentified corpse fished out of the lake after a group of school children spotted him.'

Dancer dropped to
sotto voce
and Dunkley stepped closer.

‘But he was a Chinese national. Part of a team that is building the new Chinese embassy.'

The reporter was starting to get the tingle that came with the hint of a cracking yarn.

‘Was he an embassy official, Charles?'

‘Well, yes and no. And that is part of the problem and the point of this sorry story. When Catriona Bailey was prime minister, she ticked off on a deal that allowed the embassy to be built in complete secrecy with an entirely Chinese workforce. Dozens of them were flown in on diplomatic visas. The site is off limits to everyone; not even unions or local government safety inspectors are allowed in. Only a select number of local suppliers can come and go but they are whisked in and out under close watch. Of course we've sent people in under the guise of being contractors, but frankly, Harry, that site is a black box to us.'

Dancer was beginning to get animated.

‘No prime minister with this nation's best interest at heart should ever have agreed to sign off on a project like that. And now it appears we may be paying a high price for Bailey's desperation to please Beijing.'

An elderly couple appeared, looked into the room for a moment, consulted a map of the gallery and then turned to try to find whatever it was they were searching for. A few heartbeats after they disappeared Dancer picked up the theme.

‘Bailey's replacement, Martin Toohey, is just as bad. He's asleep at the wheel and his government is wilfully blind to the threat from China, especially from cyber-espionage and warfare. We've tried to warn them. The real and present danger this nation faces has been pressed home by officials at National Security Committee meetings. We've even shown the Prime Minister evidence that his own emails have been hacked, along with everyone else's in Parliament. And what have they done to defend themselves? Nothing. The government doesn't seem to care that Australia is being attacked every day in the virtual world by a country that poses as our friend in the real world. Our man, we think, was trying to alert us to the extent of that threat.'

‘Did this John Doe have a name?'

‘Yes. Lin An, but we don't know much more about him than that.'

‘So do you know what he was up to? Or why he went for a swim?'

‘We're not certain about anything. But we think he was trying to defect.'

‘How do you know that, Charles?'

‘Because we found this in his gut.'

Dancer discretely opened his right hand. A USB memory stick lay across his palm.

‘Jesus!'

‘Indeed. I wanted to show you this, just to assure you there is potentially a very big story about our man in the lake. We're still analysing the material, and, no, I can't give you too much at this stage. But I reckon you have enough to get started.'

Dunkley took out a small pad and pen from his shirt pocket.

‘Yep, but I'll have to get a few notes.'

‘Of course, but let's keep this brief.'

A few minutes later Charles Dancer turned and sauntered off, leaving Dunkley to appreciate a gallery of Australian sporting icons, and the mystery of the body in the lake.

Canberra

A pair of white pillars embossed with gold numerals – the number ‘25' – frames a steep driveway. There is nothing else to tell guests they've arrived at the Commonwealth Club.

Because if you don't know where it is, you aren't meant to be there.

Set on a gentle green rise overlooking Lake Burley Griffin, the Commonwealth is a reminder of an imperial past, one governed by strict and immutable rules. The grubby affectations of modern life are banned. Exchanging business cards is forbidden, menu prices are banished, and no cash ever changes hands. In the sedate surrounds of the dining room, the mobile phone is taboo.

Moneyed men had been refused membership because here the currency was power.

But the four men who'd gathered in one of the club's discreet rooms on this long summer evening had no doubt that they belonged. It was just one of their many certainties. They carried an unshakeable conviction that they were the sentinels of prosperity and freedom, mandarins who could outwit and would outlive the longest serving politician.

They called themselves the Alliance, an homage to the security pact between Australia and the
US
. Indeed it was the rock on which this grouping had been built, but its edifice was under threat. As power shifted from the West to the East, more quickly than they could have imagined, the meetings of the Alliance had taken on a more urgent edge.

They saw themselves as defenders of the realm, and in fact were largely responsible for Australia's national security, their CVs reflecting the close bonds forged with Team America.

Air Chief Marshal Jack Webster was Chief of the Defence Force and a decorated former pilot. He'd flown sorties during Gulf War I, when he'd been attached to the Third Marine Wing during the infamous ‘Highway of Death' attack on retreating Iraqi forces. Webster retained the physical hard edge of a man thirty years his junior and his square-jawed demeanour screamed ‘Don't-fuck-with-me'. Few did.

David Joyce, Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was a former Ambassador to the United States.

Thomas Heggarty, Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the overseas network of spies, had studied at CIA headquarters.

And domestic spymaster, Richard Dalton, had clocked up a year on exchange at the FBI. The Director-General of ASIO – the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation – could still mimic a Virginian accent on call.

But now a new world order threatened to destabilise decades of collaboration with the Stars and Stripes. The security pact with America was under threat as the Toohey Government wrestled with the rise of China, embracing the communist power in ever-closer economic and political ties.

Just how close became clearer when the US Ambassador to Australia, Brent Moreton, strode into the meeting, late and very pissed off.

Moreton nodded curtly to the four mandarins as he took his place beside Webster, throwing back a neat Scotch before slamming the table with his open palms. ‘Gentlemen, we've got a fucking big problem.'

The envoy outlined the bones of a briefing he'd been given by one of his trusted Labor sources. ‘Your prime minister is about to strike a deal with China that will make your country beholden to it. Forever.'

Webster, miffed at being out of touch, leapt in. ‘Brent, how do you mean “beholden”?'

‘Toohey plans to sell off a gas-field in the Northern Territory to the Chinese in a desperate bid to buy votes for his re-election. The strategic stupidity of it is . . . just mind-blowing.'

The Ambassador gripped his chair. He was having trouble controlling his usually implacable manner.

‘He is selling off your farm, gentlemen. And he doesn't understand that once he announces the deal, he will be a wholly owned subsidiary of China Inc. His political survival depends on them paying up. He will temper every action and every statement to ensure this deal holds until he gets to the other side of the election.'

Moreton rose and theatrically pounded a fist into his open palm, leaning towards the stunned mandarins. ‘This will hover over Australia like the blade of a guillotine.'

Webster searched for a response. But it was Joyce who leapt into the fray.

‘The Japanese will go crazy,' the DFAT boss said, incredulous and angry. ‘They've been begging us to sign an energy security pact for years. It's their number one concern. They're already convinced we've abandoned them for China.'

Other doomsday scenarios played out.

‘So we're going to set up a Chinese platform just off Darwin.' Heggarty began to imagine the possibilities offered to any spy chief worth his salt. ‘If I was running China's Ministry of State Security, I would turn it into a listening post. Our ears for the entire region to our north are based at just three places: Cocos Island, Bamaga and Shoal Bay. Every one of them will be compromised and the Chinese could listen to every call from Hobart to Broome.'

The Defence Chief finally spoke. He was horrified. ‘The range of our Jindalee over-the-horizon radar is a lot more than 3000 kilometres. Imagine what China could do? Jesus, they could monitor every RAAF and Qantas take-off and landing. And we plan to base more troops and more kit up north.'

‘And more marines,' Moreton chipped in. ‘They could monitor every movement, every joint exercise.'

Dalton saw the platform as an evil ark. ‘Well,' he said, ‘when ASIO is asked for coordination comments for the Cabinet debate, we'll red flag it as a grave security risk.'

‘Don't be so fucking naive, Richard. You won't be asked. None of us will be.' Webster was on his feet. ‘This government is paranoid about high-level leaks and with good reason. Who among us would trust anyone in that Cabinet? Toohey won't talk to any but a select few before announcing this sell-out to China as a done deal.'

‘So if they won't seek our advice, what are our options?' Dalton asked, reflecting the frustration of the room.

Webster was staring out the window as the lake caught the last glow of the sunset. He turned back to the room, placing a hand supportively on the Ambassador's shoulder. ‘This can
never
be allowed to happen.'

Canberra

Gnarled fingers danced over a battered keyboard, attempting to coax a must-read yarn from a tangled mess of background material, off-the-record quotes and join-the-dots supposition.

Harry Dunkley had sold this exclusive hard, providing his editor with the barest of outlines, promising to file early enough to allow News Corp's lawyers time to hook their claws into his copy.

It was a four-coffee-down sort of day. The time read 3.07pm on his MacBook Pro and Dunkley figured he had an hour, maybe one and a half, of scribbling and polishing before he'd hit ‘send'.

This was no run-of-the-mill yarn. Not the usual ‘scoop' hand-delivered by a press secretary patsy on behalf of some malicious MP intent on inflicting damage on a colleague or enemy. Or both.

Dunkley had taken delivery of plenty of ‘exclusives' that had fallen off the back of the proverbial truck. Words repackaged to appear on the front page the next day. All very neat and tidy. Thanks for the scoop. Now fuck off.

He stretched and scratched a left shoulder that was itchy and dry, much like the weather on this smouldering Canberra day. He checked a notepad, flicking through several pages of shorthand. He'd negotiated a verbatim quote from a ‘senior intelligence source', and this was critical to getting a legal tick without his copy being gored to death.

His hand massaged a face that hadn't seen a razor for forty-eight hours.

Dunkley liked to joke that he had a good head for print. He wasn't interested in joining those prima donnas who pranced around Sky News or ABC News 24, seeking to build their profiles as ‘political analysts'. One day, the press gallery might well be one giant TV studio. Journalists would be wandering around with cameras strapped to their heads, delivering commentary in real time. Every story would be 140 characters long.

The ether was already full enough of bullshit.
This
was what he lived for. The thrill of the chase, the scent of a big splash that would cut through the vapid nonsense that passed for news these days.

Okay, now for the lead. Plenty of drama, plenty of grunt, make it tight, and make it sing.

The body of a man dragged from Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin has been identified as one of a small army of workers flown in to build China's new embassy.