Sensitive New Age Spy

by McGeachin, Geoffrey

  ‘You need some back-up down south?’

  ‘Not on the ground. I’ll move faster on my own. But if you can keep Pergo thinking you’re buying his ransom bullshit, he might leave his guard down.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘The minute I’ve got proof Pergo’s involved, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Okay. Watch your back, Alby. If this goes down the tube we’ll both go down with it. It’ll bury us.’

  ‘Yeah. Literally.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Got a plane to catch.’

  I headed towards the door, then turned back. ‘How did you pick up the bug in the phone? Boxer said it was undetectable.’

  ‘Educated guess. When my cell phone is out of my sight for more than sixty seconds I automatically consider it compromised. Standard operating procedure.’ He smiled. ‘But I didn’t know for sure until you turned up for breakfast.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Cruising men’s toilets, Boxer? That’s twice in one week. I’m shocked.’

  Boxer glared at me. ‘This is the last favour I ever do for you, Alby, you bastard. Now, where’s your boarding pass?’

  It was early Saturday morning and we were in the men’s room by the departure gates at the domestic terminal. I’d bought a ticket to Perth online and had checked in for the flight with carry-on luggage only. Boxer had done the same thing, but for a flight to Hobart. Having passed through security, we were now exchanging boarding passes, coats and hats. Boxer would fly to Perth on my ticket and in my coat and hat, and I’d be heading south.

  Boxer was pissed off because I was wearing a truly daggy, red terry-towelling sunhat and a white blazer. He was a pretty cool dresser and the very idea of having to wear that hat and blazer in public was killing him. The outfit would severely reduce his chances of making up for the missed weekend with the waitresses by renewing his membership in the mile-high club with one of the cabin attendants.

  Julie had organised for a camera case to be waiting for collection at the airfreight counter in Hobart. It had been packed and dispatched by Graeme Rutherford, an ex-field agent who worked in D.E.D.’s Melbourne office.

  Graeme had spent four months in a coma after a nasty incident earlier this year, then, in true Melburnian fashion, on the day of the AFL grand final he’d suddenly woken up in the ICU, watched his team get thrashed on TV, then checked himself out of hospital. He was as good as new now and still the best – he could pack five cameras into a case built for two and still leave room for an MP7 compact submachine gun and three 40-round mags. Our security-cleared freight-forwarding agents would helpfully ignore the disassembled weapon packed amongst the Nikons.

  The approach to Hobart was a bit bumpy, and when we came out of the clouds I was looking down at a wild ocean with big, white-tipped waves being whipped up by the wind.

  We touched down right on time and I was walking past the baggage carousel when I heard a whistle. A tall, solidly built man in a battered chauffeur’s cap was holding up a sign reading ALIBI MUDROCK. It was written in crayon on a piece of cardboard torn from a Cascade beer carton. I walked towards the man, who smiled politely as I approached.

  Would sir like me to collect his luggage?’ he asked.

  ‘That would be nice,’ I smiled back.

  The man shook his head. ‘Well, I’m afraid on that point, sir would be shit-out-of-luck. Who died and made sir king?’ And then he grabbed me.

  A hug from Ed Wardell is a bit like being wrapped in a giant bearskin rug and stuffed into a car crusher. He eased up the pressure just as I felt certain my ribs were going to snap.

  ‘How ya doin’, ya old bastard?’ he said, pumping my hand and grinning. ‘I fumigated the sheets, locked up the virgins and stocked the larder, so Chez Ed is yours while you’re in town.’

  Ed was about forty, bearded and tanned. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse, he had slimmed down recently. There was still that larrikin twinkle in his eye that said if an opportunity for mischief was coming his way he wasn’t about to step off the footpath and let it go by.

  Ed’s older brother Harry had been in D.E.D. with me, right from the time I joined. Harry was a good mate and good at his job, which led to him being gunned down in a Double Bay café at the start of the Bitter Springs fiasco. It was only six months ago, and the pain was still raw for both of us, but being Aussie blokes, we’d avoid mentioning the whole business, apart from the odd clinking of glasses in the pub. And if I knew Ed, the pub would be our first stop. It was getting towards lunchtime and I suddenly fancied a big charred steak, all bloody in the middle.

  We headed to the airfreight counter where my camera case was waiting. I moved away to unlock it and check the contents. Earlier this year, one of my cases had exploded minutes after coming off a Hong Kong-bound 767 and I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Ed insisted on carrying the case and my duffle bag to the car. His shiny new Jeep Cherokee was just outside the terminal, conveniently parked in a no-stopping zone with the bonnet up.

  ‘Still having engine problems, I see.’

  Ed grinned and tossed my luggage into the back of the vehicle before closing the hood on the engine compartment and climbing into the driver’s seat. The jeep’s motor started smoothly at the turn of the key.

  Ed had a bit of a problem with rules and regulations of any kind, and claimed to have never paid for street parking in his life. All his vehicles, regardless of their age and condition, suffered catastrophic but temporary engine failure at the sight of a parking meter.

  Not that the bloke was short of a quid. Fifteen or so years back, he’d been working on an airline check-in desk in American Samoa when a famous Hollywood director on a location search had taken exception to his flight home being delayed by weather problems. Words were spoken, demands were made, and finally a punch was thrown. Ed went down like a sack of potatoes, even though he was twice the size of the wunderkind director and had been a promising light heavyweight in his younger days. The out-of-court settlement was massive. Ed came home to Tassie, bought himself a waterfront home, a boat, made some very wise investments, and settled down to enjoy himself. And for Ed, that meant getting into trouble.

  He’d been arrested by the marine police a couple of years back for allegedly poaching abalone and had unexpectedly confessed. The cops couldn’t believe their luck and the inexperienced police prosecutor didn’t even bother to prepare a case. In court Ed politely explained to the magistrate that yes, he did indeed poach abalone, since he’d found that if you fried or grilled it the shellfish tended to toughen up.

  Ed’s description of simmering the abalone briefly in lemongrass, ginger, white wine and cream was countered by the magistrate’s suggestion of a classic court bouillon. Perhaps with a touch of Pernod, he added before dismissing the case. The cops were livid, and Ed spent a couple of months in Sydney with Harry until things cooled down.

  ‘So what’s on the agenda?’ Ed said as I made sure my seatbelt was nice and snug. I’d driven with Ed before and I knew what to expect.

  ‘Lunch might be nice, for starters.’

  He gunned the engine. ‘Now, how’d I know you were gonna say that?’

  He pulled out into the traffic with a cursory look over his right shoulder, the acceleration slamming me back in my seat. He grinned at the screeching of tyres and angry horn blasts, which accompanied most of his lane changes. One of Ed’s early plans when he came into all that money was to open Australia’s first offensive driving school.

  The top was off the Cherokee and we screamed over the Tasman Bridge with Ed standing up and waving to the speed camera.

  ‘I’m trying out this new paint that’s supposed to make the number plates impossible to photograph,’ he said.

  ‘Selflessly working for the greater good of your fellow Taswegians, I see.’

  ‘Yep, I’m the Apple Isle’s own Mother Teresa.’

  ‘Still got the place at Battery Point?’

  Ed shook his head. ‘Moved out of town. Down to Peppermint Bay. This joint
is getting too bloody crowded for my liking.’

  Crowded was one thing Hobart wasn’t. On first impressions, you might get the idea the place is a big country town. It’s low-rise, with lots of convict-era buildings, wide streets and public parks. For my money it’s the perfect size for a city, big enough to support a vibrant arts community, a range of great places to eat, and all the public services you need, while still maintaining its heritage and being compact enough to wander on foot without the feeling of isolation you can get in Sydney or Melbourne.

  Ed screeched to a halt at a pedestrian crossing, to the sound of more angry honking from behind. A tall, gamine, twenty-something in ugg boots and a short denim skirt crossed in front of us and Ed wound down his window and whistled. The girl gave him the finger and he chuckled.

  Wild thing, eh? Jeez, mate, if that skirt was one millimetre shorter we’d be able to see the old map of Tasmania.’

  It seemed odd hearing the expression used in Tasmania by a Tasmanian about a Tasmanian. Odder still was having Ed swerve into a parking space outside a downtown vegetarian café.

  My lentil burger might have been about as good as a lentil burger ever can be, but since I’d had my heart set on a hunk of rare, grain-fed sirloin, maybe served on a sweet potato, apple and sage rosti, with a red wine sauce and caramelised onions, I was never going to eat more than a mouthful.

  Ed munched his way glumly but resolutely through a huge mixed salad. He used to boast that he hadn’t eaten anything green since he was five, apart from lime jelly. In the old days, his idea of meat and three veg was a T-bone steak with French fries, roasted spuds and a creamy, cheesy potato gratin. Adult-onset diabetes had forced him to change his ways. Under protest and doctor’s orders, he’d switched to a healthy diet to save his life and he reckoned it was slowly killing him.

  Over lunch, Ed brought me up to speed on what he knew of the Gaarg Foundation’s foray into Tasmania.

  They bought Adamek Island from the government about a year or so back. Ninety clicks off the coast, out that-away.’ He pointed towards the south-east. ‘It’s basically just a bloody big rock sticking out of the Southern Ocean – an abandoned whaling station with a lighthouse that was automated in the 1970s, a bunch of cottages in various stages of falling down, a muttonbird colony, and more friggin’ nasty black tiger snakes than you can shake a stick at, if shaking a stick at a joe blake is your idea of a good time. Plus,’ he continued, ‘the island gets gales blowing up from the Antarctic that would freeze the balls off a brass monkey.’

  ‘Sounds attractive,’ I said. ‘Can you get me out there?’ I wasn’t happy about involving Ed after what had happened to his brother, but I didn’t have much choice.

  ‘Sure. But it’ll depend on the weather. Today’s out of the question, I’m afraid, there’s a big swell running. There’s supposed to be a change on the way, though. I reckon we could have a go in the morning. It’ll cost you, big time.’

  ‘Name your price.’

  ‘Dinner. You’re cooking.’

  A sign outside the gallery read LUCAS BAYVEL – NEW IMAGES and the framed photographs that covered the walls inside had three things in common: they were stunning, they’d all been taken from the air, and every single one of them featured a lighthouse.

  ‘I wonder what Freud would have made of a man obsessed with photographing lighthouses?’ I said, looking round.

  A tall thin man in his forties sitting behind the desk near the entrance looked up. ‘Probably the same thing he would have made of photographers who run around in shooting vests with dozens of pockets all over them,’ he said. ‘It was all bloody sex with Freud.’

  He stood up and walked around the desk. ‘You know, Tasmania started as a dumping ground for the very worst of the worst, the vilest of the vile, the most incorrigible of miscreants for whom there was absolutely no chance of redemption. And now you’re here! You’re only about two hundreds year late, Alby.’

  Lucas and I shook hands and I introduced Ed.

  ‘Wardell?’ Lucas said. ‘Not related to Harry, by any chance?’

  Ed nodded. ‘My brother.’

  ‘Good bloke, Harry,’ Lucas said. ‘You could rely on Harry. I was sorry to hear about it.’

  ‘How’s Joy?’ I asked. ‘Still flying?’

  Lucas was a WorldPix and D.E.D. veteran who specialised in aerial photography. He’d had a rule about not flying with female pilots until he turned up one day to do a shoot of Uluru and found all five-foot-nothing of Joy Janssen doing a pre-flight on the Cessna. What happened thirty minutes later was legend, with either little Joy or six-foot-two Lucas accidentally knocking the Cessna’s radio to ‘transmit’, broadcasting Lucas’s induction into the mile-high club to the bemused crews of almost a dozen domestic and international aircraft in the vicinity.

  The Civil Aviation Safety Authority investigators had been unable to trace the aircraft or the pilot, and Joy and Lucas were married within a month. Lucas retired from the spy game and they now ran JoyFlights Aerial Expeditions out of Hobart airport. They also worked together on Lucas’s obsession: photographing every lighthouse in Australia.

  ‘So what brings you to Tassie?’ Lucas asked. ‘Business or business?’

  Adamek Island,’ I said. ‘But that’s for your ears only. Anything you can tell me?’

  ‘She’s a nice-looking light. Twenty-two metres high, sixty metres above sea level, constructed from cast-iron segments. Originally used a Chance Brothers lens and a vapourised kerosene light source. She’s now fully automated, running a quartz halogen lamp powered by a solar array, flashing one in nine seconds at 63 000 candelas, visible for thirty-three nautical miles.’

  ‘I actually meant the island,’ I said. ‘Got any snaps?’

  Lucas placed a large folder on the desk and riffled through dozens of prints before pulling one out. ‘Here you go. Taken in 1996 on the twentieth anniversary of the de-manning of the station. Bastard of a place, really. Cold, bleak, and bloody windy. Posting of last resort for lighthouse keepers in the old days.’

  The photograph showed a large barren rocky outcrop in the middle of the vast blue sea. There were steep cliffs on all sides, with white water everywhere as the waves of the Southern Ocean battered the shoreline. A white tower stood high above what looked like a ruined settlement on a small harbour. Lucas handed me a magnifying glass.

  ‘That’s the old whaling station, abandoned in the 1850s. Apparently the island was heavily forested before the whalers came. They chopped everything down for fuel to fire the try pots for rendering down the blubber. They reckon you could smell the island twenty miles off.’

  I ran the magnifying glass over the coastline. ‘Any place a bloke could go ashore if he didn’t want to go up to the front door?’

  Lucas looked at me for a minute before leafing through more prints. He pulled out another and pointed to a small inlet. ‘It’s on the eastern side, ’bout halfway up. Might be possible to climb up the cliff face from this little beach. A dinghy or Zodiac might make it in, but it’d be hairy. You’d want a calm day.’

  Ed picked up the magnifying glass, had a look and grunted.

  ‘You know that the Gaarg Foundation moved in a while back?’ Lucas said. ‘Joy and I flew out there about six months ago to update the photos for the new book I’m working on. There was a hell of a lot of activity happening – new buildings, wind generators, helicopter landing pad.’

  ‘Got any pictures of all that?’

  Lucas shook his head. ‘A chopper took off from the island and some bloke pointed what looked like an M16 at us, so we figured it wasn’t worth it. That water is bloody icy and you wouldn’t last five minutes in it, even if you survived the impact. I must be getting old, Alby, but no photo’s worth dying for.’

  ‘I’m with you there, mate,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the info. Say hello to Joy for me.’

  Will do. And if you decide to go out there uninvited, Alby, take a box of chocolates.’

  ‘Got one,’ I said.

&n
bsp; ‘Hard centres?’

  Armour-piercing.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I don’t miss the old days, Alby, not one bit,’ Lucas called after me as we walked out the door. ‘You look after yourself on that island.’

  As we headed to the Salamanca markets, I was thinking about Harry and young Max and some of the other Dedheads who were no longer around. That was the thing about not missing the old days, you had to be alive to do it.

  It was a sunny afternoon and the markets were packed with tourists and locals. By the time we got to the food vans at the bottom of the hill, I was certain we weren’t being followed. With apologies to Ed and his diet, I grabbed a roll stuffed with slices of freshly roasted lamb and a serve of delicious tiny Dutch pancakes called poffertjes, and ate as we walked. Once I had a proper lunch in my belly, we headed over to Constitution Dock to pick up the ingredients for dinner.

  On one of the fish punts moored at the dock, a bloke in a blue plastic apron was filleting salmon, occasionally tossing a carcass out into the water where a sleek, happy-looking seal was waiting patiently. When it scored it floated on its back to tear the fish carcass into bite-size chunks. Looking at the seal’s fat wet round belly, I realised I probably shouldn’t have eaten all those poffertjes.

  I bought snapper and Spanish mackerel fillets from Shane’s Punt, along with prawns, scallops and mussels, and some fish heads and trimmings to make a stock. Walking back through the markets, I grabbed a baguette, tomatoes, leeks, fennel, garlic and saffron. As we headed to the jeep, Ed told me about meeting Artemesia at several rowdy anti-logging meetings.

  The old Artemesia can get pretty bolshie when she’s wound up,’ he said.

  ‘You never struck me as the environmentalist type.’

  Ed shrugged. ‘I reckon those conservationists might have a point. If we keep chopping into the old-growth forests the way we are, the old map of Tasmania may wind up with a full Brazilian.’