Sensitive New Age Spy

by McGeachin, Geoffrey

  ‘And if I didn’t already have enough on my bloody plate,’ Sturdee said, ‘there’s that.’ He looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the Woolloomooloo wharves.

  ‘That’ referred to the bristling array of antennae rising above the Garden Island naval dockyard, indicating the presence of a United States Navy Ticonderoga-class Aegis battle cruiser, the USS Altoona. According to the not-for-publication briefing all the security agencies had received, the Altoona had been extensively refitted, with an extended stern wedge to improve fuel efficiency at cruising speed, new reduced-cavitation propellers, and an upgrade to the Baseline 7.5b Aegis Weapons System. Right now she was on a shakedown cruise, and the Sydney stopover was a long-scheduled goodwill visit.

  In the old days, a Navy cruiser was a tad smaller than a battleship but faster, with lighter armour and bloody big guns. Modern cruisers are small by comparison, still very fast, and they mount just one dinky little five-inch gun, if they’re lucky. Ships like the Altoona made up for this with Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Stinger infrared surface-to-air missiles, Penguin and Hellfire air-to-surface missiles for the onboard helicopters, and Phalanx rapid-firing guns or Sea Sparrow missiles for close-in defence. Chuck in some nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles, and one modern cruiser packed as much punch as a whole World War II aircraft-carrier battle group. It was about as close as you could get to a floating Death Star.

  On the raised helipad at the stern of the warship, I could just make out the shape of an SH 60R Seahawk helicopter, its rotor blades slowly turning, and sailors going about their business.

  Sturdee turned back towards the tanker. ‘The Navy are sending a work boat over from HMAS Waterhen with some clearance divers so we can take a closer look at our visitor.’

  ‘Sounds sensible.’

  ‘And naturally the Yanks on the cruiser are a bit edgy about all this. The captain sent over his executive officer and a couple of specialists to have a look-see. They’re up on the tower, ready to give us any assistance we might need.’

  Having a ship anchor unexpectedly within spitting distance of your poop deck would make any Navy man worth his salt nervous. I looked up at the tower. Amid our very plainclothes cops, the three Americans in neatly pressed khaki stood out like nuns in a brothel. Not as much as the crewcut CIA man in rust-red chinos and the Hawaiian shirt, though – talk about standing out like dog’s balls.

  ‘Lonergan’s up early,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Navy blokes must have given him a shout.’

  Carter Lonergan was the new CIA Chief of Station in Australia. His predecessor had copped a full magazine from an M4 carbine in the chest, in a nasty incident at the top-secret US satellite facility at Bitter Springs last February. The same incident saw me catching that bullet in the shoulder, blowing up the base, shooting my boss dead, and getting arrested and then promoted all in the same week. Probably not a career-advancement pathway they teach at the Harvard School of Business, but I could be wrong about that.

  ‘I don’t suppose Mr Lonergan has informed you whether yonder symbol of American might is carrying nuclear warheads for its cruise missiles?’ I said.

  ‘You know how it goes, Alby. “We are unable to confirm or deny the presence of…” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.’

  Same old same old. Not all American warships carried nuclear weapons all the time, and the Yanks had a policy of keeping you guessing.

  ‘Anyway,’ Sturdee said, ‘I thought you’d know, if anyone did.’

  That was a joke. ‘I’m just the boss of an intelligence service,’ I said, ‘so nobody tells me nothin’. Got any binoculars?’

  ‘Fraid not. The caretaker had a pair but Lonergan borrowed ’em.’

  I put my camera bag down, popped the clasps and pulled out my Nikon digital SLR with the 18-200 VR zoom. A quick scan of the tanker’s superstructure through the telephoto lens didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. I aimed the camera down and focused on the hull of the tanker.

  ‘Better have that Navy work boat keep well clear when it shows up, Peter.’

  ‘Yeah, what are those things?’ he asked, pointing at the hull. ‘They look like kids’ lunchboxes.’

  At regular intervals around the hull, thin black rectangular boxes were suspended by wires, just a metre or so above the waterline.

  ‘They’re anti-personnel mines,’ I said. ‘Perimeter defence weapon. Russian MON 50s, I think, very similar to the American Claymore. Remotely triggered. Anyone gets too close and bang – they cop around five hundred high-velocity steel ball-bearings smack in the kisser. That work boat would end up looking like a piece of grey Swiss cheese. Same goes for the sailors in it.’

  Sturdee turned white, grabbed for his radio and started talking very fast.

  THREE

  There was a rumble of boat engines from the direction of the jetty and a minute or so later a familiar voice asked, ‘Coffee?’

  The cardboard tray held six styrofoam cups with lids. Julie was wearing Nike runners, shorts, a singlet top and a light bomber jacket. Only ten minutes behind me, yet she looked clean-scrubbed, fresh-faced, and there wasn’t a single blond hair out of place. And she’d managed to stop off and get coffee.

  But I shouldn’t have been surprised. My second-in-command was what some might call an assertive driver.

  ‘I left your truck down by the Opera House,’ she said.

  I took a coffee from the tray. ‘There’s supposed to be a total exclusion zone around here, you know.’

  ‘That might be so, but a winning smile and a dozen donuts can get a girl almost anywhere with the boys in blue.’

  I sipped my coffee. It wasn’t very good coffee but it was coffee. Shame the cops on shore had snaffled all the donuts. I hadn’t had breakfast yet.

  Peter Sturdee, who had turned round at the mention of donuts, finished his radio call and took a cup. ‘Thanks, Jules,’ he said. ‘Bit of a surprise you answering Alby’s phone. I thought maybe I’d dialled the office by mistake.’ There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

  Julie smiled. ‘He made me dinner and plied me with wine in the hope of having his wicked way.’

  ‘Hey,’ I protested, ‘I only wanted to give my new stove a burl.’ Me and Julie and wicked ways was a concept I’d long since given up on.

  ‘Alby’s just had one of those swish, stainless-steel Smug super-kitchens installed,’ Julie said, putting down the tray of coffees.

  ‘I thought it was Smeg,’ Sturdee said.

  ‘You obviously haven’t talked to any of the bastards who own them.’

  Sturdee started to smile, then his radio crackled and he turned away.

  Julie stared up at the tanker, then across at the bridge and the Opera House, taking in the situation. ‘This looks like it has the potential to get a bit ugly,’ she said as she twisted the top off a Goodie orange juice.

  I nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  Sturdee’s radio conversation was brief. ‘Navy got the message, Alby,’ he said, turning back to us. ‘They’re keeping well clear. And they’ve spotted some activity at the back end of the boat.’

  ‘That would be the stern,’ Julie said. ‘Of the ship.’

  Sturdee looked at her.

  ‘North Narrabeen Sea Scouts,’ I said.

  Sturdee took a sip of his coffee. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘two bods in black ski masks just unfurled a banner. It says “Halifax” and the numbers “one nine one seven”.’

  ‘Jesus H. Christ!’

  Sturdee and I both stared at Julie. She’s usually not one for religious profanity, though she can do an excellent line in straight-out obscenity if you push her enough.

  ‘My bet is it’s supposed to read 1917,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll bite,’ I said, and a few moments later wished I hadn’t.

  ‘Halifax, as in the city in Nova Scotia,’ Julie explained. ‘In December 1917 a freighter called the Mont Blanc caught fire following a collision and drifted into the main harbour af
ter the crew abandoned ship. Even though she was crammed full of high explosives intended for the allied armies in France, she had no Dangerous Cargo flag flying. At about 9.20 in the morning, with the whole town standing around watching, she drifted up against the dock and blew herself to pieces, taking most of downtown Halifax with her. Close to two thousand people were killed, and thousands more were badly injured.’

  ‘Bugger me dead!’

  I glanced across at Sturdee. ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ I said. So the guys on the ship were serious, but what the hell did they want? Was this a threat, a warning, part of a demand? But for what?

  ‘Then there’s the really bad news,’ Julie continued.

  ‘It gets worse?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s sitting low in the water, which means those LNG tanks are probably full. You need to talk to Emergency Services about the possibility of a blevy.’

  ‘A blevy? What the fuck’s a blevy?’

  ‘B-l-e-v-e: stands for boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion,’ Sturdee said quietly. ‘It’s what happens when a storage container holding flammable liquefied gas under pressure fails as a result of a leak or fire.’

  And that couldn’t be good, I decided.

  ‘As the liquefied gas heats up,’ Sturdee went on, ‘it produces explosive vapour at a faster and faster rate. When it reaches the point where the tank can’t contain the pressure, it ruptures and all the remaining gas vaporises and ignites simultaneously — ka-boom! And we’re talking about one hell of a big ka-boom. Massive fireball, flying chunks of red-hot metal, and a huge pressure wave that flattens everything in its path. You can get a blevy from something as small as a barbecue gas bottle or as big as that.’

  He indicated the tanker with a tilt of his head. ‘It was one of the scenarios in last year’s terrorist-attack exercise. Hijacked LPG road tanker set on fire in the CBD. The computer modeling of the blast on a blevy incident simulator wasn’t real pretty. And given that each of those four domes there looks like it’d hold about five hundred of those road tankers…’

  No one spoke for a very long minute.

  Why hadn’t I taken my mate Armando up on his offer of spending the weekend on his farm? Rolling hills, acres of olive trees, a well-stocked larder, and a cellar full of wines that would make you bloody weep.

  ‘So what’s the difference between LNG and LPG?’ I asked Sturdee.

  ‘I’m a bit fuzzy on that one. We need to ask an expert.’

  I looked up at the group on the Martello tower. ‘There’s no one from fire services here yet?’

  Sturdee shook his head. ‘Three suspicious packages turned up at the oil refineries out at Moorebank a couple of hours ago, so the Major Incident bods are all out there.’

  ‘Can we call someone?’

  ‘Nope. The packages look like they’re wireless-linked, so they’re under radio silence at the site. They’ve promised to get back to us as soon as they can.’

  ‘But any fireman would be able to tell us what we’re dealing with here, wouldn’t they?’ I looked at Julie, who flipped open her mobile and hit a number.

  Julie’s younger sister had a penchant for members of the fire brigade. If anyone could put their hands on a firefighter at short notice it was Michelle. Julie walked away and started talking as soon as the phone was answered.

  Carter Lonergan ambled over and joined us. A lot of men seem to amble over and join me when I’m in Julie’s vicinity. I put my sunnies back on. A residual hangover, a wild ride in a cop car, bad coffee and Lonergan’s Hawaiian shirt were an unsettling combination.

  ‘Nice shirt, Carter,’ I said. ‘Gives the TV news crews something to focus on. Do they sell them in the gift shop at Langley?’

  ‘They do as a matter of fact, right beside the secret-agent radio cufflinks and the suicide pills.’

  Crikey, a CIA agent with a sense of humour. What would they think of next?

  ‘So Alby,’ Lonergan said, glancing at his watch, ‘exactly what do we have on our hands here, any idea?’

  The accent was Manhattan, Upper East Side, and the scar on the cheek Afghanistan, post-2001. Carter Lonergan was in his mid-thirties, around six feet, good-looking, I guess, with sandy-coloured, Ginger Meggs-ish hair. He was nowhere near as big a pain in the arse as his predecessor had been.

  ‘No threats or demands as yet,’ I said. ‘And as far as I know, no one is claiming responsibility. You have any leads?’

  ‘No, but it’s bad timing, what with our new cruiser there in port.’

  Maybe I was wrong about the pain-in-the-arse thing.

  ‘Perhaps we can get them to hold off blowing up the city until after she leaves?’ Sturdee suggested. ‘If it’s going to be inconvenient for you.’

  Lonergan held up his hands. ‘No offence meant.’

  ‘Heaps taken,’ Sturdee said with a cold smile.

  I was impressed. Peter Sturdee was really shaping up as a special liaison officer.

  ‘So you haven’t considered the possibility that whatever the hell is going on here might be due to the presence of that ship, Carter?’ I said.

  ‘No radio chatter, no insider dope, no buzz about anything like this at all. And believe me, we’ve been watching and listening.’

  Ever since an explosives-packed motorboat had rammed the guided missile destroyer USS Cole in Yemen’s Aden harbour in 2000, the Americans had been ultra-sensitive to the vulnerability of their warships in port. They kept both ears open for even the smallest hint that one of their vessels might be on a target list.

  Julie snapped her phone shut and walked back to us. Lonergan, who had developed a severe and unreciprocated case of the hots for Julie as soon as he’d met her, was now smiling at her like a lovesick puppy. It was pathetic. I just hoped he wouldn’t make any sudden moves, since Julie held black belts in tae kwon do and karate, and her equivalent of a smack on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper could be pretty awesome.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Lonergan,’ she said, smiling sweetly.

  I was familiar with that smile. It meant ‘Not in a million years.’

  ‘Find out anything?’ I asked her.

  ‘We got lucky. Mish was entertaining an off-duty, Hazmat-qualified Instant Response Team officer.’

  ‘Instant response, eh?’

  Julie narrowed her eyes at me and continued. ‘Natural gas is mostly methane, which is liquefied by chilling to minus 260 degrees centigrade then stored at around normal atmospheric pressure. Those domes are insulated, dual-layer high-nickel steel, designed to keep the gas cool.’

  ‘So what are the odds of a blevy with our mystery ship if things just happen to go pear-shaped?’ I asked.

  ‘Moot point,’ Julie said. ‘The good news is that oceangoing LNG tankers have an almost perfect safety record.’

  Like a fool I asked if there was any bad news.

  ‘A worst case scenario would be like Armageddon, only hotter and nastier. The energy potential of your standard LNG tanker is equivalent to 700 000 tonnes of TNT.’

  Sturdee stared at her. ‘Seven hundred thousand tonnes of TNT?’

  ‘Or putting it another way,’ she continued, ‘that ship holds the explosive power of around fifty Hiroshima-size atomic bombs.’

  FOUR

  Peter Sturdee was looking decidedly pale.

  ‘How long before we can get an OAT in place?’ I asked.

  OATs, or Offshore Assault Teams, are four-man SAS or Commando units specifically trained for operations against maritime targets. If anyone could sort out what was going on aboard the tanker, it would be the OAT bods. And if anyone on the tanker made the mistake of getting in their way then they’d live to regret it, but not for very long.

  ‘Well, it’s just dumb luck,’ Sturdee said, ‘but there were a couple of OAT units exercising on the Bass Strait offshore oil and gas platforms this weekend. They took off from Sale for Bankstown airport an hour ago.’ He checked his watch. ‘They’re due to touch down in ten minutes. A pair of Army Blackhawks, s
crambled from Holsworthy Special Ops Base, are standing by to ferry them straight here.’

  ‘Who authorised that?’

  ‘Like I said, I was the only one out here, so…’

  It was a ballsy move on Sturdee’s part, but at least now we had something in our favour – or we would have when the OATs arrived. I started down towards the Fort Denison flagpole, motioning to Julie to join me.

  ‘Technical question,’ I said when we were alone, ‘since you’ve been working in upper management a whole lot longer than I have. Who the hell is actually running this show?’

  Julie shrugged. ‘Bit of a grey area, I’m afraid. It’s probably still a state police matter right at the moment. Officially, if Peter wants the OAT boys to board the tanker he’ll have to ask you.’

  ‘But do I have the authority to order an attack on that ship?’

  ‘You know how it works, Alby. If you order an assault and it all pans out okay, then the answer is yes, you do. And every other security-department head who took a three-day weekend will be seriously pissed off at their career blunder and will white-ant you for the rest of your life. But if it all goes pear-shaped, then the answer is no, you exceeded your authority, and those same departmental heads will be thanking their lucky stars they were smart enough to take the weekend off. And there’ll be an in-camera senate inquiry in Canberra and they’ll all merrily set about crucifying you.’

  ‘Well, that certainly helped clarify things, Jules,’ I said, ‘thanks a heap.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ she smiled. ‘That’s what I’m here for. But look on the bright side, mate, if this whole thing does blow up in our faces we really won’t give a rat’s anyway. Not if we’re standing right here.’

  She had a point. I looked at my watch. I had maybe twenty-five minutes before I had to make up my mind about ordering an assault on the ship.

  Sturdee joined us. ‘I’ve got a police chopper on its way to do a reconnaissance sweep over the tanker. And the boys on shore are doing a breakfast run.’