The Mandarin Code (47 page)

‘I know you don't need me to point this out, Mr Whelan.' Webster's voice was low and menacing. ‘That unconscionable breach of security is a sackable offence.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘What kind of phone was it?' Dalton asked.

‘It was an iPhone, early model, and I hadn't seen that many of them.'

‘So a sophisticated device capable of delivering a virus through a USB port,' Dalton said.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘But there are no USB ports inside DSD, are there?'

‘Sir, there is one. In my office. We keep it for operational reasons. But it's in the most secure part of the most secure building in Australia.'

‘Where was the meeting with the Prime Minister held?'

Whelan's head dropped. ‘In that room.'

‘And what happened?' Joyce's face betrayed the fury that was rising with every word of this briefing.

‘Ten minutes into the meeting the call from the US came and Bailey insisted everyone else leave the room.'

‘Including you?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘How long was she alone in that room?'

‘Twenty minutes. Half an hour. Long enough.'

‘Did you notice anything unusual when you were allowed back in the office?' Dalton asked.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘What?'

‘Bailey had plugged her iPhone charger cable into my computer USB port. Claimed she was running low on battery. I protested and demanded that she immediately remove it. She reminded me, again, that she was the prime minister. But she complied. After she left we ran thorough system checks. Nothing. I repeat, nothing unusual showed up.'

‘Until now,' Webster said.

‘Yes, sir. We believe the adversary left the virus dormant for years. Which is, in itself, remarkable. Our best guess is they activated the zero day program about three months ago.'

‘The Chinese are very patient people. What have they got?'

Whelan's voice fell to a whisper. ‘Everything.'

‘How can we sanitise the system?' Dalton leaned forward with such urgency that Whelan flinched, as if expecting a blow.

‘We'll have to shut everything down.' Whelan's shirt was damp with sweat. ‘I mean everything. Every single computer in DSD, Defence, Foreign Affairs and the intelligence community is now potentially infected. Every terminal, every server. We'll have to clean them all.'

Webster, usually so clear-headed in a crisis, was visibly shaken.

He walked to his window and looked across the lake to Parliament. He wondered, briefly, if it was his duty to speak out.

Should he, the most respected military figure in Australia, warn the people that their leader was a threat to national security? An agent of China.

If he spoke she would be finished. Forever.

But so would he, as leader of a Defence establishment that could not defend itself.

And what would the Americans do?

Webster shifted his gaze to the left. There, at the heart of the Russell Defence complex, an eagle astride a globe soared 79 metres into the sky on an aluminium pillar. The Australian community had raised one hundred thousand pounds to have the American memorial built in 1954. The plaque at its base gave thanks for ‘the vital help given by the United States of America during the war in the Pacific 1941–1945'. There was no more potent symbol of how deep the alliance was embedded in Australia's Defence establishment.

Now another Pacific war loomed and Australia would stand idle while the US took up the fight. Worse, his nation had blown a hole below the US waterline before the battle even began.

He turned back to the room.

‘No one knows about this. Ever.'

Canberra

Scoured and sanitised, the prime ministerial office retained a slight smell of industrial-grade antiseptic. In less than twenty-four hours every vestige of Martin Toohey's leadership had been scrubbed. For good.

Brendan Ryan had been waiting for an hour. It was the second time the Defence Minister had been summoned that day by Catriona Bailey, who had immediately reverted to type.

She had convened a National Security Council meeting for 9am and kept the entire defence and intelligence establishment in limbo for three hours. When she finally arrived Bailey had launched into a dissertation about US–China relations before demanding a pile of briefs that Ryan knew she would never read.

His rage was rising with every minute and Bailey's staff had stopped giving him updates about the progress of a video call with the Japanese Prime Minister.

It was 6.48pm and Ryan was tired and starving. An electric hum finally signalled the arrival of Bailey and the three staffers who trailed in her wake. Her chair glided past Ryan as he sat on the couch. She said nothing but slid into place behind her desk, forcing the minister to rise and move to a nearby chair.

‘James, I need something to eat and a cup of tea. Now. And where is that brief on Taiwan's defence capability?'

One adviser hustled off as Bailey barked at another.

‘When can I expect the call from Park Geun-hye?'

‘Prime Minister, we haven't yet been able to get a time confirmed with the South Koreans. Their President is in a meeting with her own national security committee.'

‘I didn't ask for your excuses. Just get me a time.'

Bailey finally turned to Ryan. Her gaunt face was layered with makeup to lift the cadaver pallor of her skin. She stretched a thin smile.

‘Brendan. You won't mind if I have a notetaker stay. My . . . condition . . . means I need an extra pair of hands.'

‘Sure.' Ryan nodded. ‘But before we go any further, I was surprised you didn't flag an election date at your press conference. As we agreed.'

‘In case you hadn't noticed, the US and China are one mistake from war. Ban Ki-moon has personally asked me to mediate. I am well placed to do that. Do you really think, in these circumstances, that the Australian people want an election?'

Bailey spat out the words.

‘Our best hope of victory is to demonstrate that I am the only person capable of leading the nation through this crisis.'

Ryan wasn't surprised by Bailey's signature self-obsession.

‘Don't kid yourself. Our best hope is that the bounce from your return lasts long enough for us to scramble a half-decent loss,' he shot back. ‘Every day we wait we'll sink further in the polls. This is about the party, not you. And we had a deal.'

Bailey fixed Ryan with a don't-fuck-with-me glare.

‘All bets are off.' The PM nodded to the notetaker. ‘Put that brief where I can see it.'

She scanned a page and turned back to the minister. ‘Brendan, I am reshuffling and offering you Human Services.'

‘In the outer Ministry?'

‘Correct.'

‘So you're turfing me from Cabinet?'

‘Correct, again.'

‘You've betrayed me.'

‘Well Brendan, now you know exactly what it feels like.'

Power, a surge of power, unfiltered. Blood coursed through her veins as she pressed her hands firmly on the arms of her wheelchair.

Slowly, painfully, she laboured and pushed until her body began to rise. Her legs, weak from months of stillness, moved. They joined the agonising task of trying to lift her body from the chair.

She stood, alone and unassisted, her staff banished from the office.

It was a triumph of the will. Her will to power. Power over herself. Power over others.

Her legs trembled under her weight. But they held. She focused her formidable will on moving just one foot. Her right. It slid forward.

Then, the left. Her hands pressed on the desk to hold some of her weight. Her left foot moved and she took a small step forward.

She reached the end of the desk and lifted her hands from it. She shook but did not fall.

Catriona Bailey locked her eyes on the map she'd installed on the wall, the sole relic in this office from her first dynasty. She stepped towards it.

Five triumphant paces. Each surer than the last.

She stood before the map of the world.

Australia was now hers again. She loved its shape. The way it sat at the centre of the world.

She looked up at China, the nation that had beguiled her since she was a child. From the moment she saw the intricate genius of her mother's Ming vase. She'd spent a lifetime unravelling the mysteries of the Middle Kingdom.

Across the Pacific to the United States, the twentieth-century superpower. Unwilling to share the earth with its latest and most potent rival.

Soon she would travel to New York to chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. To mediate as the two angry giants threatened to shatter a fragile peace.

She had been born for this, had given her life for this. Everything she'd achieved had been to prepare for this hour.

She was the bridge between East and West. Cometh the hour, cometh the woman.

She began to fashion her opening address in her mind.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the world stands at a crossroads. It can once again choose the path of war and destruction. Or it can choose the path of peace. The lives of your children and grandchildren depend on the decisions we make here today. With my guidance . . .'

‘Prime Minister, Prime Minister, are you all right?' The concerned tones of her chief of staff rang out, tearing at her, breaking her thoughts.

Bailey looked up, shaken awake, momentarily disoriented. She was still seated at her desk. Still locked in her wheelchair. Frozen by her illness.

‘Of course I am. But could you bring me my medication?'

Canberra

Canberra's brutal summer had finally broken. The first strains of autumn had dragged grey skies and more bearable temperatures to the capital.

Harry Dunkley idled his LandCruiser down a narrow dirt track to a place that he'd last visited twenty months ago on an arctic morning.

The same green picnic table marked the end of the dirt road. He jumped out of the four-wheel drive, his feet crunching over a thick carpet of eucalypt bark and leaves as he ambled towards the table. An empty packet of Winfield Blue and a discarded insulin vial littered the ground beneath it, a sign that people did sometimes visit this lonely clip of land. But mostly Yarramundi Reach stood empty.

Blackberry bushes ran thick along the water's edge, their thorny branches blocking access to the lake. A steady background hum of traffic from Parkes Way mingled with the rustle of trees and the cry of magpies and currawongs.

It was late morning on a Sunday and Dunkley had nowhere else to be.

He had decided to revisit the exact place where his misadventure had begun, that day when a black-and-white photograph forever changed his life.

From his car, the mobile rang. He ignored it.

Bugger it. It can't be a friend, I don't have any left.

It had been three days since Charles Dancer had trained a gun on him while revealing himself as Kimberley's murderer. The memory of it still shook him, as did his impotence to expose the killer and his masters.

He'd lost Celia Mathieson. He'd returned her calls only to find she was just checking to see how he was. As a friend.

He'd lost his job. No, it was more than a job. A calling. A crusade to hold those in power to account. Who would touch up the untouchable now?

And the one politician he had trusted without question had betrayed him.

He shivered, chastising himself for wearing shorts and a T-shirt. A south-east breeze had picked up off the lake, chilly by comparison with the recent stretch of hot summer days. Soon winter would grip Canberra, a depressing prospect.

He had devoted himself to this city for most of his adult life. He loved it, the endless intrigue, the heady layers of drama and soap.

Now, he'd been nearly destroyed by it. He realised with a jolt that he barely knew how the game was played.

Why hadn't he, the great investigative reporter, seen the clues that in hindsight seemed so clear?