by Clif Miller
Chapter 13
Harry waited until the Tuesday morning to come around and when he entered the apartment he actually asked how the trip back had been. He said he’d found it hot and dusty in his sports coupe and next time he’d think better of taking the inland route. Peter said that although fairly slow the motorhome had proven its worth in the conditions with a comfortable air conditioning system. Harry joked that he’d better get a motorhome ha ha!
“I’m due back at work next week” Harry said, “so you’ll be on your own up north.”
“I thought you wanted to keep us in sight” said Peter.
“You’re doing well enough all on your own. But no more Fred Bailey encounters. Just be a bit rude to people. Don’t get into friendly chitchat encounters. Just cut them short and say you’re in a hurry, that sort of stuff” said Harry.
“Have you heard anything about the contaminated wine yet Harry?” asked Peter.
“Nothing” he replied.
“Any thoughts?” said Peter.
“They must have had a dozen places return bottles yet they’ve said nothing publicly. There’s not even been a mention on the Stock Exchange notification front. I think they’re hoping it will go away of its own accord” said Harry.
“So we are to go north and do a different type of job now?” said Peter.
“Yes” said Harry. “This one can’t fail as they’ll need to alert the public.”
“What is it this time?” said Peter.
“The same thing that you used in your attack on ‘To your Health’” replied Harry. ....“It worked well then so it will this time around also.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Start in the metropolitan area and work your way up into the Sunshine Coast. Judging by the last episode you’ll get a couple of days in before the medical fraternity wakes up that there’s a real problem. Then the Company will have to admit to the other attacks down south as well” said Harry.
“Then, of course, they’ll have to explain why they’ve kept it secret won’t they?” responded Peter.
“So the public will be screaming at them to expose all their other little secrets. It won’t matter that there’s nothing else. Pandemonium will break out” said Harry.
“So what are the specifics of the exercise?” Peter asked.
“Each supermarket should have five or six separate areas that you can hit” said Harry. “It’s the old shot of bacteria through a syringe trick. Select your targets carefully, such as a tomato or a piece of fruit that you know is not going to be cooked, or a loaf of bread and so on. Avoid anything that is vacuum-sealed whereby puncturing it will change the air pressure and ruin the salability of the product. So, you have bread and bread rolls, fruit, biscuits that have only a cellophane outer cover and inner plastic trays, breakfast cereals that are eaten without being cooked, and even dairy products such as cheeses that could be pierced through their outer wrapping.”
“So this is the same pathogen we used on the ‘To Your Health’ tablets?” asked Peter.
“Exactly the same” said Harry. “It’s a clear liquid and just a couple of drops in a tomato or in a loaf of bread will make people run to the loo for 24 hours or vomit or both.”
“So it’s not lethal then?” said Peter.
“No” affirmed Harry.
“How many stores do we hit?” asked Peter.
“At least twelve in Brisbane and surrounds first. Then depending upon whether you have time to keep going we’ll try for Canberra as well. If they’re on to you earlier we’ll abort and go to ground without hitting the ACT. Keep your mobile on and I’ll call you if things are suddenly happening that you need to know about” Harry said.
“I suppose you’ve come with everything we need?” Peter asked.
“Yes, there’s a pack of fifty syringes. They’re the small ‘hide in the palm’ type that diabetics use. They’ll hold enough of the fluid for up to six shots each. There’s twenty-five containers of the fluid so that you can dispose of each one in a needle disposal box in a lavatory after you have finished with it. But rinse it out first, eh? We don’t want anyone working out that that was the source of the little problem do we?” Harry advised.
By that afternoon Peter and Angelique were on the road north. It took almost an hour to crawl through the bottleneck of the outer suburbs before finally getting clear of the city and before Peter could relax and talk with Angelique.
“It’s a bit strange that there’s been no news on the liquor store thing. What do you think Angie?” Peter asked.
“Yes, it’s been troubling me too. Perhaps nobody complained after all. Perhaps the smell of the wine was so bad they just put it in the bin and didn’t go back to the store with it. Or perhaps the Company had lots of complaints but have chosen to keep quiet about it for fear of sparking mass panic” replied Angelique.
Soon after, they crossed the bridge that spans the Hawkesbury River close to one of their favourite mooring spots. Peter commented that it was time they got back onto the boat for some recreation.
“Perhaps we could just disappear on the boat for six months and Harry would give up on us?” said Angelique.
“We could not come back to Sydney then” Peter replied “Harry and his mob would never give up. They’d find us, the boat and whatever else we had at the time and we’d be history.”
“They don’t know about the property at Bathurst do they?”
“Not as far as I know, but where Harry is concerned I wouldn’t even be surprised if they did. He’s shown his abilities more than a few times. I’d suggest we should assume he knows about that as well.”
“And that means that George Rosenthahl would know about it also, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so” said Peter “but I’m beginning to think there’ll be no way out unless I can figure a way to get rid of Harry and make it absolutely unconnected with us. We could acquire another country estate under assumed names. The cash is there.
I’ll think about ways we might do it.”
“Ok, in the meanwhile let’s put our minds to the next job” said Angelique, more as a distraction than out of any real desire to plan too far ahead.
“Back to the task in hand then” Peter said “compared with needing to get the caps off those bottles this syringe thing should be a doddle. We just have to be mindful that eyes are everywhere and sometimes cameras are unobtrusive. So I suggest we load up a trolley with the candidate items and hide the inoculation within the trolley as we move around. Then we should go back by and just quietly replace one item at a time. We should then abandon an empty trolley say in the fruit and vegetable department as though we are going away to find something, and perhaps buy one or two things that we need and go through the express checkout with them. What do you think?”
“That sounds pretty smart. Like this for example: we pick a few tomatoes and put then in the trolley, then pick a cereal packet or two and do the same. Then we load in some bread and perhaps a packet of crisps then under cover of the items in the trolley just use the syringe gently making sure we get some of the stuff into all the different items. Then we wander around a bit, gradually replacing the items in their exact same bins and shelves as they were found” Angelique replied.
“We should make sure that when we do the inoculation we are well down to the middle of the aisles where there are no other people nearby to see what is happening” said Peter.
“Yes, and perhaps I’ll still put stuff into the trolley while you work at it” said Angelique.
Having decided on the strategy, the drive north became routine if not a little monotonous. Brisbane can be reached by road in a day from Sydney but in a slow-moving campervan the task would have required a marathon run and Peter said he was not going to do that especially since they had just crossed from Adelaide back to Sydney the previous week-end. The logical stopping point was the small coastal community of Coffs Harbour with its banana plantations and other signs that the sub-tropics were not fa
r away. They pulled off the highway and followed signs to a camping ground that turned out to be adjacent a beautiful beach.
After booking in for the night they were listening to an evening news bulletin when the third item concerned tampering with liquor bottles in both Melbourne and Adelaide. The store chain was named and of course relevant state ministers and police were involved and were hopeful of a breakthough at any time.
“Now we’ll have to be very careful” said Peter. “From the first food we spike to the discovery of a problem in Brisbane will take only about 24 hours or 36 hours if we’re lucky. So we should use the telephone directory that Harry thoughtfully placed in the kitchen drawer back there to find and map all the supermarket sites around the city. We will then use the road atlas to map our route so we can minimize time between different stores and get most of them in the bag before we are finished.”
They drove into Brisbane at about 4 pm the next afternoon and continued to a fairly central locality at Sunnybank where they had located a commercial campground. Here they booked in for three nights. They found it difficult not to be rude to the campground owner who probed and questioned them about how far they’d come and how far they were going. Unlike Fred Bailey however this was merely superficial questioning and both Peter and Angelique found they were comfortably able to give the woman enough information to satisfy her natural curiosity.
They started by 9 am next morning. Again they left the van away from the spy cameras in the supermarket car park and walked the last block or two to do their shopping. Peter carried two syringes loaded with enough material for twelve shots in all, so the task was to load up the trolley with suitable items and then do the job and be gone without attracting unwarranted attention. In any event, he thought, the camera will have a shot of a woman wearing sunglasses and her hair under a scarf and a man who parts his hair down the centre of his head and wears tinted spectacles.
After the first store had been finished and things went according to plan, they began to count down the remaining 11 stores that they still had to do. Each different store also involved some changes of clothes and Peter found he enjoyed making small alterations to his facial appearance such as putting a plaster on his cheek or sticking a slim moustache on his upper lip. Despite sometimes having to wander a while to find clear air as Peter put it, the task was really very simple. No camera would be able to see the syringe down between the cornflakes packet on one side and the miscellaneous assortment of bread, tomatoes, biscuits and chips on the other. One insertion, a small squeeze of the trigger, another insertion and the second bit was done then the third before a new syringe was needed. Mostly at this point they moved along the aisle and put another item or two into the trolley, again waiting for a clear space and repeating the operation until at least a dozen items carried the bacteria in its colourless liquid that would leave no visible trace.
With the carefully worked out driving plan they were able to navigate to seven different stores on that first day of the operation. Back at the Sunnybank campground they enjoyed a meal in the facility’s very basic café and returned to the van to listen to the evening news. There was no news item concerning the contamination of food in Brisbane and again in the morning there was nothing untoward on the news broadcasts.
They embarked again on the task but decided that they would not get another full day in because there just weren’t enough of the same company’s stores even by the time they reached well up along the Sunshine Coast to fulfill their potential. By just after noon they had worked into all the stores from Brisbane northwards and had decided to turn around and head south again.
They had just turned to retrace their steps along the main freeway when Peter’s telephone rang and Harry said there was a news flash about food contamination in Brisbane. He also had a shock for them. The police needed to interview a couple whose photographs had been taken in several of the affected stores.
“They’ve got your mug shots” Harry stated, in a matter of fact fashion.
“Have you seen them?” said Peter.
“Yes, they’re all over the television. I don’t think they look much like you” Harry replied.
“We have to go back to the campground tonight or they’ll become suspicious” said Peter. “We booked for three nights.”
“I hope you look very different now to the photos on the television. I’ll call you tomorrow. Good luck” said Harry.
Peter stopped the van at the first opportunity and they climbed though to the sitting area. He took the glasses and placed them in a trash bag, and Angelique did the same with her scarf. Peter then brushed his hair out to remove the central part. He walked to a rubbish bin and placed the trash bag inside, making certain that it was well secured at the top.
“Right, now where have we been today?” he said.
“We’re tourists remember” responded Angelique. “We’ve been up along the coast roads and around and about the city. We’ve been driving about looking at houses as we are thinking of moving up here, remember” she said.
Peter played along. “Have we found any houses that would interest us?”
“Oh yes” said Angelique “there was a great place just in from the beach near Noosa Heads I think was the place. Really nice it was with a pool and palm trees.”
“Let’s go back to the campground and if that silly woman asks us some questions we’ll start asking about what it’s really like to live up here. You know, ham it up a little and tell her about the place we saw at Noosa Heads and so on. Any suspicions she might entertain should be allayed by that, I think” said Peter. “But before we go back, let’s both also change clothes. We’ll put on shorts as the clothes we were wearing might be evident from the store cameras.”
Now looking entirely transformed from their store appearances, the two visitors pulled into the Sunnybank campground and went to ground. They swam in the pool and again ate a rather uninteresting excuse for fish and chips at the campground café that evening.
Later the same night on the radio and television news the food contamination scare was top billing. They were under suspicion, having been seen on three different store cameras, but the images being shown were very grainy and not at all clear. They had little to worry about.
The following morning when they checked out of the campground the only comment from the woman proprietor was that they should make sure they hadn’t picked up any of that bad food as it was all over the city. “What disgusting types there are out there” she had said when Peter paid his account in cash.
On the long drive south, the radio continued with details and the fact that the police believed they were closing in on the perpetrators. It seemed that more than twenty-five people had been affected with serious stomach ailments and three had been hospitalised. The supermarket chain in question was pulling its stocks of suspect foods off the store shelves right across the city. This meant all their fresh fruit and vegetables, packaged breads and biscuits, cereals and many more lines. The cost to the store chain would be huge but more worrisome was the implications for on-going store patronage.
“That might not be good for the share price” suggested Peter, looking towards Angelique.
“No” she replied. “If only we’d known in advance of this awful event we could have done some short selling and made some money on an episode like that.”
Harry called when they were already half way home. “Won’t keep you long” he said, “George is very happy with you guys.”
“Thanks” said Peter.
By the time they arrived home the following afternoon the target company had admitted the full scale of the liquor store attacks in Melbourne and Adelaide as well as the food contamination in Brisbane and the two attacks were seen as probably not connected. So, if two groups or sick individuals have taken it into their heads to attack this supermarket chain ‘where will it end?’ was the line the press began to take. All this helped the share price plumb new depths.
Then the radio news carried some
more details: the police were somewhat circumspect but did let drop that they were following certain leads involving possible connections between the tampering events and that there was also an unsolved murder of a former police officer in Victoria that might be connected with the same case. The policeman’s notebook had been found and on it were scrawled the sentences: ‘Jim Archer not who he says he is. Staying Best Western campervan’. Peter breathed easily. He had booked into the motel at Warrnambool under a false name. He had also used false licence plates for the campervan and he hoped Fred Bailey had made a note of them.
Harry’s group in California completed the buy back of the company stock after a thirty percent slide in the share price. Peter estimated that their windfall gain was likely to have been about twenty million dollars but he had no real means to verify this. He knew however that Harry would tell him a figure on which his percentage would be based.
Less than a week after their return from Brisbane, Jim and Peg turned up at the apartment looking rather concerned.
“We had a visit from the police and they were asking whether we knew anyone who might have used our names when they visited Warrnambool a few weeks ago. Of course we said ‘no’ and we were able to prove that it wasn’t us but we wondered whether it was you Pete?” said Peg, on entering the apartment.
“It was one of the few slips I made on that trip Peg” confessed Peter.
“What happened?” said Jim.
“Well, this elderly guy got chatting with us in a restaurant and persisted to the point that he held out his hand and introduced himself as Fred something and I just used the first name that came into my head, ‘Jim Archer’. — Sorry” said Peter.
“The police said that the couple had a motorhome with licence plates that didn’t match the owner, or rather that had come off another camper vehicle, and that the people checked into the local motel under an assumed name as well” said Jim.
“Yes, that was us, Angie and me” said Peter. “We were doing a little job and didn’t want any record of who were in case the vehicle was recorded on a security camera.”
“You are running a real risk using borrowed licence plates now, they have instant computer links to the registration records and they’ll know if you’re illegally on the road” said Jim.
“I know, mate. That’s how Fred Bailey came to work out that we were under false identities” said Peter.
“So what happened to Fred?” asked Peg.
“Literally, I do not know” replied Peter. “All I do know is that he appears to have met an untimely end somewhere between Warrnambool and Mount Gambier.”
“Was it connected to your little venture?” asked Jim.
“Harry Goldsmid may have had something to do with it” said Peter.
“Enough said” replied Jim.
“So what else did you learn from the police?” said Peter.
“They are looking at every Jim Archer in the country to try to nail down the connection to the killing” said Jim.
“How much do you think they know?” said Peter.
“They know several things. They know the killer drives a motorhome, has a wife possibly named Sandra, uses borrowed licence plates, sometimes stays at motels for a change from the motorhome, therefore isn’t truly in love with the motorhome but is probably using it because it provides cover for other activities and uses false names when checking into motels but that’s about it.”
“So they’ll be warning all motels to watch for a motorhome owner whose licence plates don’t tally with the names he gives when checking in, right?”
“That’s about it” said Jim.
“And the connection with recent contamination problems in different cities leaves a possible resident of Sydney as the most likely culprit because Sydney has so far escaped the attacks?” murmured Angelique.
“They did add one other thing” said Jim. “They think they got a photo image of the culprits from multiple shots of the same couple in several of the affected supermarkets in the Brisbane and Gold Coast areas. They’re taking these images around the various camp grounds and motels in the greater Brisbane area and having a look at all the campervan registrations there over the last few weeks.”
“Thank goodness we’ve used false identification then” said Peter.
“They might still come knocking” said Jim. “I think I’d make sure there was no evidence lying about. Trash anything and everything that might give them a link.”
“Good thinking” said Peter. “I’ll get onto it.”
By the time Jim and Peg departed Peter was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He wasted no time. From end to end the motorhome was checked for anything that might reveal their recent travels. Brochures collected along the way, campground receipts and any other traces of their visits were removed. The chemical contaminants and the spare syringes had been trashed in Brisbane but Peter still had the spare licence plates. These he decided were too dangerous to hold on to so a quick visit in the coupe saw them slip quietly beneath the waters at the yacht club. They had also trashed all items of clothing that might have been identifiable from the store video footage, but Peter thought they should also trash shoes and other apparel items. This was done courtesy a waste bin at a nearby refurbishment site.
They did not have long to wait. The police arrived the following afternoon to find Peter and Angelique enjoying the downstairs communal pool. Ushered inside the apartment, they waited while the pair dried and dressed.
“I’m detective senior sergeant Wordsley and this is Sergeant Smithies” the senior officer said, flatly. “I wonder if we can ask you about your recent travels in your motorhome?”
“Certainly” said Peter “only too glad to be of assistance.”
“We’ve had a description of a van very much like yours in the vicinity of a serious crime in Victoria a little over a month ago. There are only about ninety of your type of van that have ever been manufactured in Australia so we are going to see the owners of all of them” stated Wordsley.
“Have you been in Victoria with your van in the last month sir?” said Wordsley.
“Well yes, said Peter. We drive around quite a bit when we get time to go away. We’ve been down in the Gippsland area a few weeks ago, yes.”
“And did you go to Warrnambool?” said the officer.
“No, we do intend to travel the Great Ocean Road at some future time but no, not so far” he lied, holding his breath.
“And what about Brisbane, Sir. Have you been up there lately?”
“No” said Peter, hoping they could not prove it.
“It’s funny” said the officer “we have a picture of a gentleman and of a lady taken with a security camera in a supermarket in Brisbane. I’ll show it to you.”
Wordsley pulled out the enhanced image of a gentleman and lady together that looked remarkably like them. Peter was astonished but then saw that the faces were partially averted from the camera and the glasses had done as intended; hidden the nose and brow. There would be no way that they could call it a positive identification. So he went into his dramatic role:
“Isn’t that amazing?” he said. “That’s almost like us, but we weren’t anywhere near this part of the world. I mean if you look carefully you’ll see the hair style is not mine and I don’t wear glasses at all” said Peter.
“People can disguise their appearance Sir” said Wordsley. “I wonder if you’d mind if we had a look inside your campervan?”.
Peter was tempted to ask if he had a search warrant but this would not have been wise in the circumstances so he just shrugged and said:
“Of course not.”
The search revealed nothing. But Wordsley was a smart cop.
“Most people don’t leave their vans as clean as yours after a trip” he said. “I can’t see any evidence of any trips you might have done in the van.”
“I do try to keep it clean” said Peter, a little lamely.
“Thank you for your trouble Sir” said Wordsley and the pa
ir departed.
On the return to Headquarters Wordsley told Smithies that he thought they’d found their culprits but as they had no firm evidence it was unlikely they’d get anywhere with the investigation. Smithies suggested that they might contact the Prudential Regulators to follow up any strange share manipulation in regard to the recent food and liquor spiking. And Wordsley said that that was a brilliant idea.
When Harry called at the apartment he was in a jovial mood.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about” he said. “We were requested by the metropolitan police to do a search of your share trading activity of late and we’ve found out that you haven’t bought or sold shares for almost four months. So Wordsley has run up against a brick wall. Oh dear, oh dear, who’d want the lot of a policeman” he said.
“I don’t like it” said Peter. “I had the feeling Wordsley knew who we were. I don’t think he’ll give up so readily. He kept looking at the profiles in the picture then back at Angie and me as though he was sure. Fortunately Jim’s warning gave us just the chance to clear the evidence or he would have had us banged up by now.”
“I came round to tell you that the next quarter’s payment of one million dollars together with a bonus of two and a half million dollars has been paid to George Kuidel on your behalf and that he’s fixing up the US tax component. The funds will be in your account within the week” Harry said, flatly.
“What about Wordsley?” said Peter. “Can we convince him that he’s on the wrong track?”
“There are ways” said Harry. “Leave it with me.”
A week went by and then Peter and Angelique heard on the news that two police detectives had been killed in a bizarre car accident on the Pacific Highway north of the city. Their names: Wordsley and Smithies. Harry’s capacity to take care of people who got in their way sent shivers up Peter’s neck but strangely he felt it also freed his conscience for some not too distant task he might have to perform himself.
