by Ray Scott
There was a clatter as the gun dropped to the deck and Enderby moved forward, he gave Fino a jab in the midriff.
‘Back, the two of you, back and then lie on the deck…pronto!’
They acquiesced. The expression on Fino’s face was still one that Wallace would treasure to the end of his days. On the bank the tackler had been startled when his opponent had abruptly countered and he had been thrown violently onto his back. As he scrambled to his feet a right hook deposited him back onto the ground and he was then secured by two more men who emerged from the government vehicle.
There was a buzzing sound from amidships and the dinghy abruptly shot away from the back end of the barge and headed off. Wallace didn’t see it go, but he was aware of the engine noise. His wrists were still secured behind his back as Enderby gave him a hand up; Wallace quickly moved over towards Fino and kicked him hard. He had been intending to kick him in the ribs, but was unable to aim properly and instead the business end of his shoe struck Fino’s hip bone, which on reflection was probably more painful. Wallace heard him grunt with pain, which was music to his ears.
‘All right, all right!’ Galvin pulled him away. ‘Take it easy, we’ll deal with him now.’
He ran through Fino’s pockets and produced a key for the handcuffs and Wallace felt an overwhelming relief as they were slipped from his wrists.
‘One favour,’ Wallace said to Galvin, who inclined his head sideways and raised an eyebrow.
‘Let me put them on the bastard,’ Wallace said. Galvin grinned broadly and nodded.
‘He’s all yours,’ he said. He prodded Fino with his gun and ordered him to place his hands behind his back. Wallace then clambered onto his back, dug his knee into the small of his back and secured his wrists. Thinking back, Wallace considered he may have been guilty of cowardice as the man was already secured and covered by two armed men, but his behaviour towards Wallace when he was a captive had been no better. Wallace felt he was owed that after Fino’s treatment of him when he was in that attic.
Fino was pulled to his feet and he glowered at Wallace furiously as he was escorted from the boat. Wallace eyed him levelly, but made no comment. To see him being manhandled off was enough. He wondered where Tara, Juan and Kalim were, as he watched the dinghy disappear up the canal at a fast rate, it struck him that the dinghy man could have been Juan.
Wallace could hear the radio going again and Galvin pressed it to his ear.
‘Roger!’ he said. ‘We’re on our way.’
‘What’s happening now?’ Wallace asked.
‘The man on the bank, he said something to Jack Sands, who was impersonating your friend Ben. He said something about his sister.’
‘Liz!’ Wallace went cold all over. ‘He said something about Ben’s sister?’
‘Yes, come on, we’ve got to get going.’
‘But it’s miles away.’
‘For some, yes, but not for others,’ said Galvin laconically.
Fino was escorted to a van which had drawn up, while Galvin, Enderby and McKay scrambled into the government vehicle with Wallace in the back seat, and drove off.
‘Why aren’t we going any faster?’ Wallace cried frantically. To be fair to Enderby, who was driving, they were not exactly being slouches, but had Wallace been behind the wheel he would have been going around every corner and bend on two wheels.
‘No need to,’ replied McKay. ‘This contingency was foreseen by Bill Wainwright, apart from posting Colin Rolands with Ben, when you made the call to him, he posted three men at Ben’s sisters place.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t know, none of us knew when we started out, not even Wainwright. Some information came from the computer memory sticks. It seems they knew about Elizabeth Wakefield because Ben had been telephoning her over the past few months and vice versa. The information came through while we were on our way here from London.’
‘Christ!’ Wallace placed his face in his hands. ‘So Liz is in danger.’
‘She is under protection; those guards should be there now.’
They arrived at a point near to Liz’s house; her car was parked in the drive. Wallace was frantic as they approached her house and noticed a few parked cars in the vicinity which may have meant a lot – or nothing. They drove straight into the drive and then Wallace became aware of two men standing by the side of the house. They were armed with guns, they drove straight up to them and Galvin climbed out and greeted one of the others. There was a brief conversation and the other man jerked his thumb at the house. Galvin returned to the car.
‘Two of your friends are in there,’ he remarked to Wallace. ‘Want to meet them?’
‘Friends?’
‘You’ll see,’ he smiled, and opened the door for him.
They entered the house but there was no sign of Liz. The back room was occupied by more men in flak jackets, and two others who were sitting on the couch, their hands behind their backs. Wallace entered the room and stared at the two on the couch, and they in turn stared back at him.
‘Good day, Mr Kalim,’ Wallace said and he also nodded at Tara.
‘Mr Wallace,’ Kalim inclined his head gravely and Wallace admired the man in that he managed to retain his dignity despite his circumstances. ‘So we meet again.’
Chapter 32
'Why didn’t somebody tell me what was going on?’ Wallace said angrily.
They were sitting in a crowded interview room at the Hockley Heath Police Station. Wainwright, Kelsey and McKay were present while Kalim and Tara had been bundled into a motor vehicle and were en route for London. The armed police had departed, while Galvin and Enderby were still within the building. Fino had been left behind and placed in a van where the canal boat was secured. Wallace presumed he too was on his way to London in company with the other two captured with him. Wallace hoped his hip bone still hurt.
Wainwright spread out his hands.
‘We didn’t know ourselves until late on. We were on our way to the canal rendezvous when we had a call from London. They had finally downloaded everything from the computer drives, and found a reference to Elizabeth Wakefield and her address. Not altogether surprising as she must have been picked up several times on the telephone via the phone bug. Accordingly London passed it to us, we contacted the local police and told them to secure the house, it was always a possibility they might turn up there.’
‘Where’s Liz?’
‘She was taken to the police station at Knowle, and later, after everything was over, she was taken to her brother’s house. We left her car in the drive to give the impression she was still in the house. Your two friends were then spotted by our men creeping up to the house, they were both armed. They left their car in a lane on the other side of the field at the back of Miss Wakefield’s house.’
‘What were they intending to do with her?’
Wainwright shrugged.
‘Maybe revenge, maybe they had hostage taking in mind for their memory sticks,’ he said. ‘I tend to support the latter since in your prepared conversation with Ben you told him you still had them.’
‘What happens now?’
‘For the present, you are free to do as you wish, but clearly your presence will be needed when we deal with the prisoners. Right now, I can’t tell you what will happen to them, Indonesia will want them, and H.M. Government wants them as well because a crime was committed on our soil. Their fate is out of our hands for the present, it hinges on Westminster and Jakarta.’
‘What about the other group, the ones who supported Ravindran. They were put onto me by Kalim. They nearly caught me at Birmingham canal basin.’
‘Have no worries about them,’ said Wainwright. ‘We discovered that Kalim had a confederate within their ranks, a mole if you like, who fed them what Kalim wanted them to hear and believe, and he also supplied Kalim with anything he wanted to know. He has now been dealt with. We also made it clear to them that we did not appreciate them running around the
countryside trying to track you down to exact their own revenge.’
‘Did you ever meet a man named Darmawan? Jusuf Darmawan?’ asked McKay.
‘Darmawan. Yes, I met him at Ravindran’s apartment. He was one of Ravindran’s colleagues.’
‘Well he wasn’t, or if he was he was playing for both teams. We tipped off the organisation that they may have a mole, we didn’t know who it was, obviously, but I gather he had been suspected before. The police found him in his own apartment. I think someone had been asking him a few questions! He’s now in hospital.’
‘What about Murray Craddock?’
Wainwright shrugged again and shook his head.
‘We keep an eye on him, but I don’t think he’ll be much trouble now. We are bugging all of his phone lines and we also have a lead into his computer. Alan Kelsey believes he is still operating his spy ring at a distance, and wants him left in place so that he can track down the others in Canberra. Don’t worry about him, when Alan has found out all he wants somebody will pay him a discreet call. I think Alan’s idea is to turn him if possible.’
‘Good,’ Wallace said. ‘Actually I didn’t dislike the bloke, he was a bloody bore but he didn’t strike me as dangerous.’
‘He was in his days at the Defence Ministry, and may still be if data is still being siphoned out to Moscow,’ said Kelsey coldly. ‘His value to his masters was that he looked quite innocuous and acted accordingly. After he took off from Canberra we analysed what we thought he had betrayed, that man has much to answer for.’
‘Well, I think that just about wraps everything up,’ announced Wainwright. He made some notes on the pad before him and slowly rose to his feet. ‘Nice to have been working with you again, Alan,’ he turned to Wallace. ‘What will you do now, Mr Wallace?’
‘Take a brief holiday here,’ Wallace said feelingly. ‘Probably go to Scotland for a few days, I have some contacts up there. Then off to the United States where I have some assignments lined up.’
‘Good, well keep in touch,’ said Wainwright. ‘Tell us exactly where you’re going for the next few days or weeks, we may need you. I think we’ve got this Kalim character wrapped up nicely, but we don’t want him getting off the hook because of technicalities.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Wallace replied, the idea had its attractions. After the scares he’d had over the last few weeks, constant contact with Wainwright or Kelsey and their minions would give him an added feeling of security. As Wainwright gathered up his brief case, shook hands with the local police inspector, and made for the door, a thought struck Wallace.
‘That restaurant,’ he said, Wainwright paused and turned around. ‘Where did they figure in all this?’
‘Restaurant?’
‘The one where the bastards tried to poison me.’
‘Ah!’ Wainwright nodded thoughtfully and came back to the table. ‘To be fair to the restaurateurs; they did not. It was a familiar story; the proprietor had close relatives back in his home country, parents and siblings. Kalim used his official position to make threats against those relatives and demanded co-operation. We interrogated them at length, it’s a family business and virtually everyone in the place is a family member. Apparently Kalim persuaded them to accept Juan Rivera as a waiter for the one night. He explained it was in the national interest, their national interest that is, not ours that Rivera be allowed to wait on the table where you were being entertained by Kalim. The proprietors and staff knew nothing of what they were actually up to, we have questioned them and I’m convinced of that.’
‘They thought of everything didn’t they?’ Wallace said bitterly. Nevertheless, he thought of the friendly young waitress, and experienced some relief that she wasn’t involved in the plot.
‘In our line, we have to, and so do they,’ commented Wainwright.
‘What was Kalim’s objective, who was he?’ Wallace was sitting in the car outside Ben Wakefield’s house in Knowle. McKay had driven him from Hockley Heath Police Station.
‘Kalim?’ McKay switched off the ignition and half swivelled to face Wallace. ‘I can’t tell you everything that drove him, perhaps only he could tell us that. He is, or was, a member of the security police. I guess from that point of view, he and I were in the same business. But at that point things became different.’
‘Why?’ Wallace asked. ‘Or rather, how?’
‘Firstly because of where we live; you and I are Australians, we live in a country that is one land mass, in the main anyway, I know we’ve got Tasmania, King Island, Rottnest Island, Norfolk Island and other odds and sods, but basically we are one country within one continent. In addition we are a secular and unified society, though admittedly in recent years we’ve been letting in too many who seem to want to stay separate, but that’s another story.’
He paused as a young woman dressed in sports gear came into sight and jogged past, they both eyed her speculatively until she passed behind the vehicle.
‘But Indonesia consists of hundreds of islands, some of them are big ones but some are very small. Also, they are different people, differing tribes, many have difficulty in relating to the central government and many resent being lumped under the Indonesian umbrella. In the past we’ve had East Timor breaking away, there’ve been rumblings in West Papua, and Aceh has had a rebellion. There are also religious blocs and some of them are very strict, or fundamentalist. Some of them want to break away and form their own religious states. You have only got to look at the Middle East to see how radical they can become.’
‘So Kalim was a fundamentalist?’
‘Looks like it, one of the islands was rumbling with discontent, the Army had suppressed it, and people like Ravindran escaped and came to London, where they were still working for an independent nation of their own. But Ravindran was a moderate, just a nationalist, but others, like Kalim, were religious fundamentalists and wanted it, if they could break away, to become a religious state subject to religious law.’
‘But surely Kalim was one of those suppressing it.’
‘In name only, he was in an ideal position to tip off his insurgent friends what the government was doing. And don’t forget, Britain had traitors in M.I.6, remember Philby, Maclean and Burgess, and the Americans recently uncovered a KGB agent named Robert Hanssen in the F.B.I a few years back. Also remember that Chief Petty Officer from the US Navy who was a KGB spy? We’ve also had defectors from the KGB in Australia, remember Petrov?’
‘Guess so,’ Wallace said. ‘It shows you can’t trust everybody.’
‘You can’t,’ McKay said. ‘The problem from the West’s point of view, and Indonesia’s, is that an independent island state can easily be usurped or taken over. This nearly happened with Grenada in the Caribbean, a coup nearly handed the island to the Communists, and a Communist base there with the reds in full control could have caused grave problems. There was a similar scare in British Guiana many years before that. Imagine what a hot bed of disruption could be caused if Norfolk Island was taken over by a rogue regime, or maybe Kangaroo Island or King Island and heavy arms began moving in or terrorist schools began corrupting youth. Indonesia certainly does not want a terrorist base on their doorstep.’
‘Or if a fundamentalist regime took over Tasmania or Rottnest Island.’ Wallace added.
‘Too bloody right,’ said McKay. ‘Or in England’s case, if anyone was to establish a base in the Isle of Wight or Isle of Man.’
‘So Ravindran was murdered to prevent him leading any revolt within the island?’
‘He was too moderate; they wanted it to be led by a firebrand. As for the assassination itself, better that it be pinned onto the national of a nearby country, one with whom their nation was conducting delicate negotiations.’
‘But if they wanted to secede how would jeopardising the negotiations assist them?’
‘The bigger share for the country, the bigger share for all its component parts, whether independent or not,’ McKay said. ‘But their prime aim was to absolve
themselves from Ravindran’s assassination.’
He looked at his watch.
‘Time I went,’ he reached out and they shook hands. ‘It’s been an interesting three weeks or so, Harry. What will you do now?’
‘I’ll take a quick trip to Scotland, and I’m booked to go to America. I never thought I’d make it when I was in that house at Albrighton. I’ll ask Liz if she’d like to come with me, it’ll be for about three weeks and then I’m back to Oz.’
‘Reckon she’ll come back to Melbourne with you?’
‘I’ll work on it,’ Wallace said as he got out of the vehicle. ‘She and Ben didn’t want to come to England. I know she was most upset at having to leave. Their parents were whingeing Poms.’
‘There’s a few of those about,’ said McKay. ‘There are probably more here than in Australia these days.’
Wallace was about to close the door, when another thought struck him.
‘What happened to Juan?’
‘Juan?’
‘The waiter, what was his name…Rivera?’
‘Ah! Rivera. We think he was involved in the attempted canal boat heist. He was probably the one who escaped in the motorised dinghy. We haven’t caught him yet.’
‘He didn’t strike me as Indonesian.’
‘He isn’t, he’s a Spaniard. We know him well, we’ve crossed paths before. He’s a mercenary, pay him enough and he’ll do anything, or kill anybody. He’s a bastard.’
‘Oh Christ! He’s still loose?’
‘I shouldn’t worry; you’ll be safe enough now. The reason they were trying to kill you was to prevent Kalim’s involvement becoming public knowledge. Now we all know, as does Jakarta. Rivera won’t bother you now, what’s the point? Let’s assume he kills you…’ Wallace blenched and McKay waved his hand in a placatory fashion: ‘…sorry Harry, just thinking aloud. But if he did, who is going to pay him? Kalim’s no longer in circulation, and knowing Rivera; he doesn’t do anything or take any risk for nothing. Continuing to go for you would be quite pointless.’
