The Marmalade Files Read online

  Dunkley carefully eased the photo out of its envelope, discreetly placing it in front of Gordon as the two contemplated a menu they had little interest in ordering from.

  Gordon studied the photo for a moment or two then carefully lifted his gaze to that of his friend.

  ‘Jesus, Harry, where did you get this?’

  Before Dunkley had a chance to answer, Gordon started again. ‘Acacia … you have no idea, do you?’

  Dunkley stared at him blankly.

  ‘It’s the top-secret marking for ASIS, our international spooks. Jesus … You are sitting on something potentially dynamite. Oh, and you are also in serious breach of the “Official Secrets” component of the Crimes Act – a crime, my friend, that could land you in jail.’

  Gordon looked down at the photo again. He seemed slightly shocked, Dunkley thought. And worried. The reaction heightened Dunkley’s excitement. Somewhere in this photo was a cracker of a yarn.

  ‘Zhou Dejiang! My, you have snared a big one.’

  ‘Zhou who?’

  ‘Zhou Dejiang … yes, I’m sure it’s Mr Zhou. He doesn’t look all that different today, either.’

  ‘And just who is Zhou Dejiang?’

  ‘Harry, I thought a political junkie like you would have known of our Chinese friend. He’s one of the bigwigs in the current Politburo, the head of China’s Ministry for State Security. Their top spy. He was at one stage considered a potential candidate to become President, but there was some falling-out a few years ago, some mini-scandal that the Chinese were desperately keen to cover up. He may have got too close to the Americans … or the Taiwanese … anyway, his career path stalled for a while but in the past few years he’s been placed in charge of ensuring the Chinese population plays within the rules – the rules that its leaders decide upon, of course.’

  Gordon stared at the photo a moment longer. Dunkley could see it was triggering a grim series of connections in his friend’s mind.

  ‘Remember that unrest in Tibet a year or two ago? How the Chinese responded? We believe maybe forty or fifty monks were killed, rounded up like dogs and … well … even we don’t know exactly what happened after that. We also heard reports of one isolated monastery being raided by Chinese soldiers who proceeded to cut out the eyes of several monks they believed were orchestrating protests against Beijing. Your friend Mr Zhou was in charge of all that.

  ‘Harry, you are not playing with a nice guy. Zhou Dejiang is a nasty piece of work, even by the standards of the goons who’ve made their way up to the higher ranks of the Communist Party. So, what can you tell me?’

  Dunkley fiddled with a beer that had lost its froth, tracking finger patterns in its cold glass rim, mentally preparing his notes so he could bring Ben Gordon in on this story.

  ‘Last Tuesday, around 3 p.m., I got a phone call from someone in DFAT; they wouldn’t identify themselves but the voice sounded like that of a diplomat. He wanted to meet with me, alone, said he had something of interest. We met at sparrows, the morning after the Midwinter Ball … believe me, Ben, I was in no shape for it. The rendezvous point was down by the lake at Yarramundi Reach. Six forty-five and freezing, half-light, no one around, could have been a scene out of a le Carré novel.’

  Dunkley stopped briefly to take a swig of his Grolsch.

  ‘Anyway, this car with DC plates speeds off when I approach it; I couldn’t quite get the full numberplate. On a picnic table I find an Embassy of Taiwan envelope with this photo in it. No other identifying marks. That’s it, that’s the full story. So – now we have two out of three. Bruce Paxton and Zhou Dejiang. What do you reckon?’

  Gordon adjusted his posture and took a sip of the house white. Gone was his flirtatious manner; he was now deadly serious. ‘Firstly, that phone call from DFAT could have come from anywhere. I could make that number flash on your phone with fifteen dollars worth of kit from Tandy Electronics. I wouldn’t say that it’s not our friends in Foreign Affairs, but you … we … can’t be certain that it is. It could have been ASIS, ONA, it could even be Defence intel – there are plenty of boffins in my agency who could probably masquerade as an intern at the White House if they wanted to. And, of course, it could always be a spook attached to a foreign embassy.

  ‘I don’t know about the links between Bruce Paxton and Zhou Dejiang, I’ll have to sniff around on that. But I do know that Paxton is hated by the military top brass and he, in turn, is paranoid about being spied on.’ Gordon paused, instinctively scanned the room, and continued.

  ‘Paxton thinks there are forces inside his Department determined to bring him down. Remember, he’s the first Defence Minister in a long time prepared to stand up to the hierarchy and call their bluff on their demands for more and more billions of dollars to waste on the latest hi-tech gear from France or the States. He’s been on a one-man waste-watch campaign and the CDF and his sidekicks don’t like it one little bit. The shouting matches, I am reliably informed, have been doozies.

  ‘As for the third gentleman in your photo … he has a passing resemblance to Xiu Jeng, the former Chinese Ambassador to Washington … but I would have to check that one more thoroughly.’

  Dunkley was perplexed, but tried not to show it. He had been hoping Gordon would provide the missing pieces, but now he could see that the jigsaw was much bigger than he’d thought, and even more intriguing.

  Gordon halted and locked eyes with Dunkley in a way that said he meant business. ‘Look, Harry, I don’t know exactly what you’ve got – hell, we don’t even know who gave you the Paxton photo … but, believe me, there’s a rich history there. Our Defence Minister friend is in the sights of quite a few players in this city, make no mistake about it. And if some of the bigwigs around town catch up with him, he could be toast.’

  ‘What do you mean, toast?’ Dunkley was sceptical. Paxton might be a professional scumbag, but he was no fool. He had outwitted many people over the years to advance his career and given the finger to all those who’d deemed him too thick to make it in the caged ring of Federal politics. Dunkley had spent too many years up close and personal with some of the most conniving minds in the business to ever doubt Paxton’s ability to survive.

  ‘Harry, you haven’t lost your cynicism, I see. Fair enough, doubt me if you like, but Mr Paxton, as this photo suggests, is in the sights of some very powerful people. And the fact that you have it means they want him gone. We need to find out who we’re playing with. You mind if I borrow it for a few days?’

  ‘No worries,’ Dunkley nodded. ‘I’ve already scanned it into our system and I was going to ask you to keep it in your safe.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Dunkley felt the tingle of excitement that always came when he was on to a big yarn. And having Ben’s help was a godsend. After all, if he couldn’t trust Ben Gordon – aka Kimberley – a friend he’d known for nearly thirty years, and a man who wore the sharpest dresses in Australian intelligence, well, then who could he trust?

  June 18, 2011

  The morning sun was just visible through a thick fog as the prime ministerial car – C1 – approached the main entrance of Canberra’s public hospital, the vanguard of a small procession that included two Parliamentary Secretaries and a clutch of advisers. Despite the hour, a gaggle of journalists was on hand to form a loose guard of honour.

  The bulletproof glass distorted the outside world but Martin Toohey recognised several straightaway. ‘Christ, those bloodsuckers …’

  Across from the main entrance, a half-dozen satellite trucks were parked on the hospital grounds, beaming live footage of the Prime Minister’s arrival to a national audience. Although it was Saturday, the networks had been broadcasting since 6 a.m. and would carry on for hours yet, trying to turn a moment of hard news into a continuous reel of infotainment.

  The problem, as always, was pictures. Before the PM’s arrival there was nothing to actually see, except the network talking heads and people coming and going from the hospital.

  The crews had been told
that Toohey would have nothing to say either on the way in or the way out. What they would get in several hours of broadcasting was one shot, endlessly repeated, of several white cars pulling up and the prime ministerial entourage solemnly proceeding into the hospital, ignoring the media demands.

  But that was not the point. In the world of twenty-four-hour news, what was happening was often secondary to ‘being there’. Each of the three networks and two twenty-four-hour news channels had their best-known anchors perched on stools or standing outside the hospital. In a country where not much happens, the near death of a Foreign Minister – and former national leader – was show-stopping stuff, even for a public that mainly despised politicians. Catriona Bailey was a celebrity and Australia had all too few.

  ‘The carrion crows,’ Toohey muttered as they approached. ‘Just what do these jokers find to talk about for hours on end? And why does anyone listen?’

  Mostly they talked to themselves and the public lapped it up. The semi-famous anchors in the studio would cross to the really famous anchors in front of the hospital and they would reminisce and speculate. About every half-hour they would replay the final moments of Bailey’s fateful Lateline interview, now an internet sensation. In between they would host guests who had some level of expertise in politics or health or, even better, some personal association with the stricken Foreign Minister.

  The ABC went for foreign-policy wonks and academics, while Sky plumped for political insiders and journalists from the Australian. But it was the commercial stations that, as always, showed real enterprise. Already this morning, an executive producer at Nine had sacked one of his underlings because Seven’s Morning Glory had beaten his Wakey Wakey to Bailey’s primary-school teacher.

  Felicity Emerson had appeared on a stool next to the king of morning television, Peter Thompson, or, as he was affectionately known nationwide, Thommo. She had regaled the audience with a heart-warming story about how a poor but socially aware six-year-old Bailey had offered her battered teddy to the Red Shield Appeal in place of money she didn’t have.

  ‘So she always had a deep social conscience,’ Thommo prompted Emerson.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Emerson beamed, warming to the task of embroidering the past, ‘and I remember saying at the time, that girl will do great things.’

  Nine was already starting a long way behind Seven in this story because the nation knew that Thommo and Bailey shared a special friendship, struck years before she had become Prime Minister.

  Together they had dived the Barrier Reef to highlight the threat of global warming and had shamed the former Coalition Government into spending more money on cancer research. Bailey was an official member of the exclusive Morning Glory family.

  Now, about fifty metres from the media melee, Toohey got a text message.

  Mate, consider it personal favour if U stop 4 a chat, Thommo

  ‘Fuck,’ seethed Toohey. ‘The bastard will make me pay if I don’t talk to him and everyone else will crucify me if I do.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  Dylan Blair was twenty-five, good-looking, and had a way with the girls. But when it came to the media, he had no practical experience in it and no idea how it worked. Yet for reasons no one could fathom, he was senior media adviser to the Prime Minister, a title that allowed him to throw his weight around – a task he enjoyed immensely.

  ‘We plough through the pack and deal with the consequences later,’ Toohey said. ‘We’ve got the reasonable defence that this is too solemn a moment for us to be doing doorstops.’

  A wall of light and sound – the flash of cameras, the shouts of reporters, the whirr of motor drives – bombarded them as they emerged from their car.

  ‘Prime Minister, a moment …’

  ‘How are you feeling today, PM?’

  ‘Do you regret knifing her?’ came Thommo’s familiar voice. A question designed to provoke a reaction.

  Toohey didn’t blink. His face was grim determination as he walked through the hospital doors, leaving the baying crews in his wake.

  Moments later an awkward group formed around Bailey’s bed. She lay still, pale, a drip in her arm, a monitor measuring out the slow beat of her heart.

  Toohey asked the obligatory question of her specialist. ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘Not good. It will be touch and go.’

  Toohey surprised his colleagues with his response: ‘Can you please give me a moment alone with her?’

  Confused looks were exchanged, but everyone was quietly relieved to be able to leave the room.

  As the group moved out of earshot, Toohey looked down on his fallen colleague.

  ‘You selfish bitch.’

  June 19, 2011

  When the Argyle Apartments were first sold off the plan to eager Canberra buyers, they were touted as a ‘delightful retreat in the Paris end of Kingston’. The marketing whiz who came up with that beguiling description was later jailed for false and misleading conduct.

  The final effect was more Cold War East Berlin than Boulevard Saint-Germain.

  Still, the Argyle Apartments had been snapped up by hungry investors who sought the charm of inner-city living without the traffic snarls of Sydney or Melbourne. An architectural travesty on the outside, they were, however, tastefully finished with modern European appliances and smart concrete floors. All in all, they had much appeal in an upmarket suburb favoured by professionals, well-paid bureaucrats and those parliamentarians with enough cash – and confidence – to buy investment properties.

  Unit Six was a stand-out, gorgeously furnished with a blend of imported lounges and tables, its walls lined with an impressive collection of indigenous Australian art.

  Ben Gordon had bought the two-level townhouse four years ago, regretting none of the $850,000 he’d spent. Enterprising agents would regularly tell him that he could sell for a handsome mark-up – close to one million, according to one blond-streaked prince who’d said all the right things … up to a point. But Gordon was having none of it. He needed some stability in his private life, which had swung between disaster and catastrophe for much of the past twenty-five years since he’d left Sydney.

  He’d arrived in the national capital in late 1985, on a windswept Sunday after a four-hour drive down the Hume, negotiating two rainstorms and the treachery of a single-lane highway that snaked around Lake George.

  He’d gone straight to work in ASIO, surprised and delighted that his peculiar blend of talents and obsessions could be put to good use in the national interest.

  On this late Sunday morning, the apartment filled with the scent of fresh lilies and long-stemmed roses from the nearby Bus Depot markets, Gordon poured a black coffee from his Diadema espresso machine before firing up his impressive network of computers.

  ‘Thunderbirds are go,’ he said quietly to himself.

  Despite owning one of the most expansive private databases and most secure networks of computers in Canberra, the task seemed daunting. He was starting with just two names – Bruce Paxton and Zhou Dejiang – a mystery third man and the Acacia marking. It was an intriguing cocktail, one that had immediately captured his imagination, and one that would have been far easier to understand if he could have accessed the DSD’s vast data banks. But working on a project like this at the directorate was a huge no-no – every keystroke was logged and employees who breached the strict security protocol would be quickly shown the door. Or worse.

  Gordon had spent years building up his credentials and skills, proving to his superiors that he could be trusted with the nation’s most sensitive matters, even while wearing the most revealing of dresses. He’d been a fastidious worker and was now far too valuable for DSD to let go, even when the top brass got wind of a trannie working in the senior ranks of intelligence.

  Like all computer junkies Gordon spent hours each day working with random data that meant absolutely nothing to most normal people. What set him apart from the scores of other PC hacks was that his home, instead of being
littered with empty pizza boxes and soft-drink bottles, was always spotlessly clean – and tastefully finished with Vogue-like touches.

  First, Zhou Dejiang, Gordon thought. An impressive CV sprang to life, courtesy of his access to Chinese data and his fluency in Mandarin. Much of it was already known to him; he had memorised the names and spouses of most of the top ranks of the Chinese Politburo – the murderers and torturers who controlled the daily lives of the mighty nation’s 1.3 billion folk.

  Okay, thought Gordon, we know about his upbringing, his graduation from the University of Peking, a stint at London’s School of Economics – his first taste of the West – his return to Beijing and the long march to the upper levels of the Chinese Communist regime. But what was the photo trying to tell us? What were his links with Paxton? Where did they start and where did they lead?

  Gordon punched in ‘Bruce Paxton’ to see what would emerge, and wasn’t disappointed when a lengthy list was displayed on his main screen. Database One was doing its job, uploading line after line of useful information about Paxton’s early career in the United Mineworkers, his elevation to the helm of the powerful union, his first taste of notoriety after a march on the West Australian Parliament got out of hand and Paxton and a few of his cronies ended up in the back of a paddy wagon on the way to an overnight stay in Perth Central.

  Another coffee was needed, a caffeine hit to get the brain into gear. Even security analysts succumbed to the lazy tones of a Sunday afternoon. Gordon had made slow progress, but patience and diligence were the keys to good intelligence gathering. The most valuable breakthroughs rarely came without hour upon hour of often tedious research and mind-numbing checking. This task would be no different.