The Mandarin Code (48 page)

You dill.

He had to consider what to do next. The lifetime reporter had fielded a couple of calls from suitors offering big bucks if he would sell his soul to work in public relations. He was appalled at the idea of becoming a spin doctor, angry with himself for even contemplating it. But he had to eat.

That one black-and-white pic had given him – what? One scalp. One cracking yarn. But at what cost?

His mobile rang again. He wandered back to the car and stretched his arm through the window. He checked the caller ID. It was the one person he was happy to speak to.

‘Mate, I thought you'd be at church?'

He collapsed on the lounge, the emotion and pain of four brutal days washing over him.

‘Harry, you look like shit. Scotch?'

‘Yes, mate. A double.'

The Bailie Nicol Jarvie had an immediate effect, a warm medicinal balm that washed over the back of his throat.

‘Jesus, Harry, sip it. That's my last bottle.'

‘Sorry, Trev, been a tough time since we last spoke. Seems like weeks but it's, what, four days?'

‘Wednesday night. So yeah, Harry, four days. And I've been busy too. Why don't you bring your drink over here?'

Harris motioned to the pair of iMac's. Dunkley settled into a chair as the analyst booted the machines into action.

‘I've managed to decrypt the last of the files on Ben's Cloud, and mate, these are the most extraordinary of all.'

Dunkley was intrigued by Harris's enthusiasm, but a large part of him was over the thrill of the chase.

‘Just to get the timing clear at the start. The email you never received from Ben, the “shades of '75” note, was sent on Monday August 15, 2011. He dies three days later, on 18 August. Three days is a long time and Ben wasn't idle. As I've told you, Harry, he stole a ton of information from DSD. But that wasn't all he did.'

Harris clicked on a folder. It sprang open and there were dozens of files inside.

‘DSD's key role is to gather foreign signals intelligence. Its motto is “Reveal their secrets; protect our own”. It taps into and listens to calls from across the Asia-Pacific. It's rarely allowed to tap domestic phones. But no one is better equipped.'

Harris paused and swivelled his chair towards the reporter.

‘Harry, Ben trained the intelligence guns on their masters. He tapped the phones of everyone on the Alliance list.
Everyone
.'

Dunkley took a long swig of his whisky before tilting the glass upwards in mock salute. ‘Well, that's my girl.'

‘No question about that, Harry. But they were onto him. While Ben was raiding the DSD safe, they were gathering intel on him . . . and on you.'

Dunkley's face hardened.

‘What do you mean, Trev?'

Harris looked down at the keyboard on his desk and brushed some dust from its edge. He was troubled.

‘On 16 June, 2011, DSD got an order to open two domestic case files.'

He glanced up at Dunkley.

‘One on you.'

Harris broke his gaze and stared into the glare of his computer screen. His words were laboured.

‘And one on Ben. It tapped everything: your phones, computers, bank accounts. You name it.'

Dunkley waved at the screen with his right hand, still gripping the empty tumbler.

‘Did she find that? Is that on her Cloud?'

‘No, Harry.'

‘So how do you know about all this, Trev?'

Harris sighed. ‘Because I authorised it.'

A wave of nausea swept over Dunkley.

‘You . . . what?'

The analyst's eyes glistened. His voice turned inwards. He seemed intent on reassuring himself as much as Dunkley.

‘I was operating under strict orders. From on high. They claimed that Ben was leaking top-secret stuff to you.'

Harris swivelled his chair to face Dunkley, begging understanding.

‘How was I to know how this would end? I have lain awake for hours at night wondering whether I should have done something different. Whether I was responsible for Ben's death.'

‘How?'

Harris pushed his chair back from the desk and stood up. He walked several paces before turning back to the journalist.

‘Because on the night Ben died, a call came through to DSD asking for an exact location on him. We were tracking his movements using the signal from his mobile phone.'

‘Christ, Trevor.'

‘Yes . . . now you understand why I left DSD.'

He paused.

‘And why I'm helping you. Even though I'm breaking the law.'

Dunkley spent a long time in silence, studying the rim of his tumbler. The guilt the journalist felt over Kimberley's death was still a raw wound. He'd sought redemption by pursuing the truth and had been abandoned by everyone. So the admission by Harris had a perverse effect: Dunkley had found a traveller bearing the same burden.

‘Well Trev, there's plenty of blame to go around. The only way we can make it up to Kimberley is to finish the job she started. What's in those files?'

Harris's face lightened. He nodded, moved back to his keyboard and clicked on a Waveform icon.

‘Tapes, Harry. Hours of them. This one is from 17 August, 2011.'

The familiar voice of Australia's Defence Force Chief sprang out of a pair of Harman Kardon speakers.

‘Brent, good news,' Jack Webster said. ‘There'll be a story in
The Australian
soon, one that will blow Paxton out of the water. The Defence Minister is dead.'

For once Harry Dunkley was early. It was nearly 5pm and he ordered a beer while his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the Kingston Hotel.

The main bar was near empty, a handful of Sunday afternoon drinkers watching a one-dayer on wall-mounted TV screens.

From the in-house stereo, Elvis Costello was blasting out ‘Oliver's Army' in 4/4, the British songster wailing about being anywhere else but here.

Here's to that, Elvis.

He wasn't a regular but Dunkley had spent enough hours sinking his wages into pool-and-gin nights to know the Kingo's back story.

The hotel had been built more than seventy years ago, and in 1963, it famously hosted a meeting of the thirty-six members of the ALP's federal conference. Labor's parliamentary leaders, Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam, were photographed cooling their heels in the street, waiting to be told what the party's election platform would be.

The trope of the ‘faceless men' was carved into the political lexicon right here.

Nursing his schooner, Dunkley moved away from the bar. He'd been told to look for a particular poster. It was in the furthest corner, a quiet nook only occasionally disturbed by a bubble of electronic music from one of ten poker machines.

The wood-framed print carried the image of a Chinese beauty sitting on a chair. She had an open face and beguiling smile. The strap of a blue evening gown fell off her right shoulder. Her left hand was pulling back her hair. And foregrounded in the alluring scene were three packs of Golf cigarettes.

‘Beautiful, isn't she?' Bruce Paxton stood captivated by the poster, cradling a long cool glass of amber. ‘Ever since I came to Canberra this has been my local. I always sit right here.'

‘G'day, Bruce. It's pretty old. Bit like this place I suppose.'

‘Yep. The owner, Steve, tells me he picked it up in Beijing years ago for a song. Along with all the others.'

Paxton's gesture swept the room and Dunkley, for the first time, noticed the common theme of the artwork.

The MP sat down heavily on a stool. His shirt, a size too small, had one too many buttons undone. His athleticism had faded, but he was still imposing. His right hand carried a hardness that showed a history of manual labour.

And his gloved prosthetic left hand was a symbol of his wild union past.

The MP put his elbows on the table with his beer between them as he slapped his right fist into the palm of his left.

‘Before we start I need to get something off my chest.'

‘You called the meeting, Bruce. Go for it.'

‘I always had time for you in the past, but that story you wrote about me and that Chinese money was a stitch-up. I broke no laws and you destroyed me.'

Dunkley met Paxton's stare. ‘Bullshit, Bruce. The article was accurate and fair. You knew you were doing the wrong thing, otherwise you wouldn't have hidden tens of thousands of dollars from the Electoral Commission. Your bad luck was that I tracked down your sidekick Doug Turner and he decided to rat on you.'

Paxton's drawl edged up a notch. ‘I was set up, Harry. You know that.'

‘Well, that part is true.' Dunkley drank a generous pull of beer. ‘And if it makes you happy, I was set up too. By the same people. So there you go. As you'd know, Bruce, it's a big wheel that doesn't go round twice. And I've sunk lower than you.'

‘You have, mate. Welcome.' Paxton smiled and the men clinked their glasses.

‘So why did you call me here, Bruce – to revel in my misery?'

Paxton shook his head.

‘Actually, I thought that if there was one bloke who might understand my plight it would be you. I might be on the canvas but I've never ducked a fight. Neither have you. And clearly, Harry, you buy some outrageous stories.'

They laughed, revelling in each other's misfortune.

‘Well, I've heard your story, Bruce, and it's pretty out there.' Dunkley turned sombre. ‘Have you heard from the Ambassador's wife?'

‘No.' Paxton glanced at the poster between them. ‘And if she could get in touch she would. Even if it was just to let me know she was okay.'

Harry lowered his voice. ‘She was special to you . . .'

‘She was, mate.'

‘I'm sorry.'

There was an awkward silence, broken by the ring of a jackpot and the clatter of a small wave of coins spilling into a metal tray.

‘Do you have any evidence of these other murders?' Dunkley was happy to move from difficult emotional terrain to the more familiar ground of facts and questions.

‘Only what Mei told me. But I'm sure she was telling the truth. She was terrified.'

‘Yeah, that fits with one thing I know. The Japanese are convinced there's a killer on that compound. I have photos of him. Looks like a nasty piece of work.'

Dunkley traced the rim of his glass.

‘Were you in Cabinet when Bailey gave China the go-ahead to build that compound?'

‘No mate, outer Ministry. But I do know that the brass were still whinging about it when I became Defence Minister. Maybe I should have listened to them. I'm changing my views about the threat China poses.'

‘Yeah, well I've completely changed my view about your fucking defence chiefs. But do you think that Bailey is a threat?'

‘Look. I went to China in the '80s and Bailey was based at the embassy for six months. They tried to recruit me. And. They. Failed.' Paxton tapped his prosthetic hand three times. ‘But if they tried with me they would have tried with her.'

Dunkley drained the last of his beer. ‘Have you ever heard of a group of bureaucrats called the Alliance?'

‘The Alliance? Sounds like a fucking insurance company. But no, Harry.'

‘Well, they were the ones who wanted to kill you off, and to scuttle the gas deal with China. And Bruce, they won.'

‘I had no doubt that the brass wanted me gone when I cut their cash. I didn't think there was a vast conspiracy, though.'

‘Well, now it's my turn to tell an outrageous story. I think a bunch of mandarins has been interfering repeatedly to shunt the government into the arms of Uncle Sam.

‘And this interference went so far as launching a series of cyber-attacks on Australia and making it look as though the Chinese were behind it. They even gave it a 007 code name: the Lusitania Plan.'

Paxton put his glass down.

‘Fuck! Back up, Harry. I know about the Lusitania Plan. It's an Australian training project, based out of HMAS
Harman
, a few miles down the road. We wanted to develop the same kind of unit as Cyber Command in the United States. The Lusitania Plan was our test-bed. I ticked it off as Defence Minister. It's the sort of thing we should be putting our money into. It's twenty-first-century warfare, not the big ticket bullshit the brass is addicted to.'

The revelation floored Dunkley.

‘Jesus, Bruce, I thought the US was behind this. A nudge to push us back into their tent. But this . . . these attacks . . . you say we had the capability to launch them from Canberra . . .'

‘Well, it was the kind of capability we were developing.'

‘If it originated here, it would be treason.'

‘No, Harry. If they a shot down a prime minister, it would be a coup.'

The two men fell silent as they pondered the unimaginable. Around them, the hotel bar drifted through the mundane rituals of a Sunday afternoon.

‘So what do we know, Bruce? The Chinese are dangerous. The Yanks can't be trusted. And there are traitors in our ranks.'

‘Harry, you know what they say: politics is the womb of war. In this world you need allies. Turns out the enemy of my enemy is my only friend. Perhaps we need to forge an alliance of our own.'

Dunkley scratched at his ribcage. ‘We ain't holding many aces, Bruce. Neither of us has much credibility.'

‘True that, Harry. But I do have parliamentary privilege and I plan to use it. So, what have you got?'

‘Well, Bruce. Turns out that I've got tapes. And they tell quite a tale.'

A broad smile split the MP's face as he downed his last mouthful of beer. He placed the empty glass on the table, diverting his gaze to the Chinese beauty before fixing his one-time tormentor with firm resolve.

‘Well then, Harry. Here's to the future. Let's publish. And be damned.'

Dozens of people volunteered help and advice in the many months that it took to research and write
The Mandarin Code
. Some wish that assistance to pass unacknowledged. Those who have kindly allowed us to name them here did so on the strict understanding that we would make it clear that they do not endorse any of the book's contents.