The Mandarin Code

by Steve Lewis

  Despite his many failings Paxton wasn’t the government’s biggest headache. That dubious honour went to Bailey who had an almost supernatural capacity to upstage the government. Her rock-star status had forced Toohey to retain her as Foreign Minister, despite her incapacity. And every time the PM was getting some traction, Bailey would steal the limelight.

  It’s like we’re trapped in a B-grade horror movie being stalked by the Zombie Queen.

  And the diplomatic poseurs at the United Nations had made it worse by awarding Bailey a special peace prize based solely on the Foreign Minister’s non-stop string of heartfelt Tweets during the early months of the Syria crisis.

  Bailey’s online tirade had achieved nothing. Not a jot. But it triggered favourable press – which was just the kind of ‘action’ those UN pretenders adored.

  If she dies, we’re dead at the by-election. Catch 22. I wish I had stayed in Treasury.

  Papadakis tried to calm the rage that pulsed within whenever he thought about Bailey. He turned back to his iPad. There was work to do. He had to think clearly to apply the finishing touches to a plan he and Toohey had been hatching for months.

  They called it the Big Bang, their bid to break the cycle of dire news. To change the national conversation. To lay down a platform for an unlikely election win.

  We can claw this back.

  The truth was, Labor’s own research matched the public polls. The party was heading for decimation. But the internal polling also showed there was a glimmer of hope amid the ruin. While it confirmed that barely 30 per cent of the population was prepared to vote Labor, a surprising 38 per cent still identified themselves as ‘Labor voters’. If the Toohey Government could win back its base it could be competitive.

  We need to capture their imaginations and their hearts. To show only we can deliver jobs and a fair go.

  And that was what the Big Bang was designed to do. It was the ultimate circuit-breaker, a multi-pronged, multi-billion-dollar plan to boost jobs, skills, education and health.

  Privately, Papadakis admitted its purpose was to dig the government out of a hole. But he also firmly believed it was visionary and ‘Labor to the bootstraps’.

  Its long-term cost was breathtaking, and only partly offset by cutting existing spending, particularly on Defence. The real genius of the plan was the revenue stream tapped to fund it. The bulk of the money would flow from a yet-to-be-signed deal with a Chinese state-owned energy company. It had been two years in the making, driven by the PM and a trusted few in Cabinet.

  It was unique. The Australian Government would sign a 99-year lease ceding control over a massive gas-field just off Darwin to Sinopec, the world’s fifth-largest company. It would give the Chinese what they coveted: real energy security through effective ownership of every step in the supply chain.

  And it would give the Toohey Government what it desperately needed: cash. Money was a big problem: revenues were falling, government spending kept rising and the Treasurer, ridiculously, had staked Labor’s economic reputation on a return to surplus this very year.

  The beauty of the plan was that the gas-field was offshore and located in a territory, not a state. That meant all the bountiful tax revenues would flow directly to the Commonwealth, and as a bonus the Northern Territory would enjoy the benefits of massive investment. And the money would flow from the moment the deal was signed, with a $10 billion down-payment on the lease. Sinopec would then pay $1 billion a year, tied to inflation. At the end of the lease the site would revert to the Commonwealth, hopefully helping to combat the inevitable claims of ‘selling off the farm’.

  And we will deliver a massive social dividend. Whitlam-on-steroids.

  The beating heart of the Big Bang was a plan for universal mental health coverage.

  A Medicare-like set-up to cover a yawning gap in the health system. It would deliver to every family what the expensive advertising blitz would repeat ad nauseum: ‘Peace of Mind’.

  Even the economic hard-heads in the party agreed: the social benefits easily outweighed the cost. Secret focus group testing showed that the punters loved the idea.

  Papadakis scribbled small patterns as he pondered Toohey’s grand vision. This could work, could get the government back in the game.

  Sure, it was a high-wire gamble, Labor’s last desperate chance, and the Tories would ensure there was no safety net if Toohey stumbled.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Canberra

  Amanda Wade cast her emerald eyes across the paperwork, straining to find a clue that would shed light on the mystery of this Asian corpse. Facts were proving elusive.

  For nearly two years, Detective Sergeant Wade, the chief coronial liaison officer for the ACT Police, had worked in this gleaming warehouse for the dead. The state-of-the-art morgue had cost ACT taxpayers $5.5 million, replacing the dilapidated forty-year-old centre at Kingston. It had been designed to store up to one hundred bodies – ambitious, because most days in sleepy Canberra no more than a dozen were stored on the slabs of polished steel.

  The body had arrived the previous evening, brought in by a funeral contractor, after its discovery by a group of schoolchildren visiting from Sydney.

  Makes a change from PE and maths.

  Vincent Duffield, a forensic pathologist with nearly thirty years experience in trying to tease secrets from the dead, had carried out the post-mortem examination five hours ago. Wade had played spectator.

  The cause of death was drowning. Although the man suffered a blow to the head, consistent with falling from some height, the water in his lungs confirmed the head trauma had not been fatal. All the signs indicated that he had taken a tumble into the lake, most likely from Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. Or maybe Kings Avenue.

  But why?

  There were no traces of alcohol in the body, so the chances that he’d been part of a group skylarking around the lake were slim.

  Suicide?

  That too was unlikely. A fall from either bridge could kill if the person landed awkwardly, but the structures weren’t terribly high and didn’t usually attract those wishing to end their lives.

  The policewoman gazed out at the light industrial landscape of this southern suburb. Late afternoon ho-hum. Nearby, a salesman was closing a deal on a Hyundai, while the local office supplies outlet looked as if it was shutting early.

  And here she was, troubled and restless, trying to commune with the dead.

  Wade was nearing retirement. Then what? Twilight days in the garden, the odd overseas trip supported by a generous super scheme, she supposed.

  I’ll miss it.

  Wade had begun her career as a beat copper in Canberra nearly thirty-five years earlier, earning her stripes as she climbed the ladder at the Australian Federal Police. She was one of its first female recruits, gaining respect and promotion due to her unrelenting eye for detail.

  She’d exploited the career opportunities that only the AFP offered. In the wake of 9/11 she had trained for the Specialist Response and Security Team as the then Commissioner turned the AFP into a paramilitary force. She’d served with the United Nations – first in Cyprus, then Timor-Leste in 2004 and South Sudan in 2006. And finally, in the dirt and blood of Afghanistan in 2008.

  The AFP was family and, not for the first time, Wade wondered how she would cope with retirement.

  ‘Amanda, are you there?’ The voice of Heather Rose: the front office clerk, roused Wade from her reverie.

  ‘Yeah, Heather, what’s up?’

  ‘Two people to see you, from the Chinese embassy.’ Rose emphasised the name of the country as if she was swallowing a razor blade. ‘They want to chat about a deceased Asian man.’

  Chinese? Maybe that’s one part of the puzzle solved.

  Wade gathered up a few papers, folding them neatly, before walking the short distance from her office to the foyer.

  ‘Amanda Wade,’ she said, extending her hand to a man dressed in a dull grey suit. She then turned to an attractive woman clad in a sma
rt-looking outfit.

  The man spoke with a heavy accent, wrestling with his English.

  ‘Hello. I am Zheng Dong, First Assistant Secretary, Embassy of China.’ He looked uncomfortable and glanced at his companion.

  ‘Weng Meihui. I am also from the embassy. Thank you for seeing us, Ms Wade. Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’

  Weng spoke with the faintest of accents, all diplomatic charm. She offered a warm smile.

  Wade’s practised eye studied the pair. Weng had the poise and beauty of a model. Tall for an Asian woman. Her face was open and friendly, and she did not look Han Chinese. From one of the regions, Tibet perhaps. Her age was elusive, but there were hints about her eyes that she was older than she appeared. The man’s cheap, ill-fitting suit could not disguise the hardness and athleticism of his body. Wade caught the calluses and scars on the knuckles of his hands, a sign of someone who had spent years training in hand-to-hand combat. But it was his eyes that sent a chill through her. So black that the pupil vanished into the iris. An assassin’s eyes.

  ‘Of course. Why don’t we go to my office, it’s a little way along here.’ Wade led her visitors down the hall, turning into a room furnished in bland government chic.

  Once seated, Zheng spoke politely, but Wade sensed a hint of menace beneath the diplomatic veneer.

  ‘Ms Wade. The man who was found in the lake, dead. He is, we believe, an official from the embassy. He was deeply troubled and not happy with living far from his home. Unfortunately it would appear that he took his own life. My colleague and I would like to see the body. Now. Please.’

  A few moments later Wade and the two diplomats were standing alongside a sheet-covered body. She drew back the cloth.

  ‘Is this your man?’

  Zheng nodded and turned to Wade.

  ‘The People’s Republic of China has legal responsibility for this man, who was in Australia on a diplomatic passport. We will take the body with us. Now.’

  Wade was on her turf and not about to give ground to visiting bureaucrats. They knew their rights and she knew hers.

  ‘That may be, Mr Zheng, but the body has not been cleared for release. I can tell you, though, that nothing was found on the body, or among the clothing. We found no identification, no money, nothing.’

  Weng opened her black handbag and removed an envelope, offering another winning smile as she handed over an official letter from the embassy, attached to which was a passport photograph. ‘We don’t wish to cause any trouble. But we are the legal guardians of this man. His name is Lin An.’

  Wade dug in. She wasn’t to be taken for a fool.

  ‘I’m not sure that I even have the authority to release the body, particularly given that we haven’t concluded the formal investigation. I’ll have to take advice on that. In any case, it’s too late in the day for it to occur now.’ She sized up Zheng, who was now clearly displeased. ‘We just don’t allow bodies to leave the morgue without all the proper paperwork and procedures being completed. I’m sure you understand that, Mr Zheng.’

  The Chinese pair stole a quick glance at each other. Clearly there would be no cutting corners, or getting around this green-eyed gweilo. Finally, Weng spoke.

  ‘Thank you Ms Wade. We appreciate your time and, ah, assistance. We ask respectfully that you check with your superiors about making arrangements for us to retrieve the body . . . once all proper procedures have been completed.’

  ‘Of course, Ms Weng. If everything goes to order, the body should be available for consular pick-up in the next few days. But I stress this will depend on the final results of the forensics.’

  With that, she led the two diplomats out to the foyer, shaking their hands as she bade them farewell. The slightest of grins ghosted across Zheng’s face . . . or were Wade’s sharp eyes deceiving her?

  She returned to her office, preparing to make detailed notes of the visit by the Chinese, the sort of rote police work she wouldn’t miss. What she had not told them – and had not yet documented anywhere – was that the body had yielded one fascinating clue: a small USB had been secreted in the man’s intestine. It had showed up on the MT scan and Vince Duffield had retrieved it with a deft cut.

  Wade opened a locked desk drawer and held a small plastic bag up to the late afternoon light. The USB carried a single word, UNIS. It had 10GB of memory – and heaven knows what it contained on its digital circuit board.

  Earlier, she’d plugged it into her PC. It was encrypted and that alone was fascinating. Now the visit by the two Chinese diplomats had deepened her suspicions that there was a far more intriguing story behind this death.

  That meant Wade needed to push matters up a very different chain of command from the routine coronial hierarchy. She picked up her mobile and flicked through its address book, locating a man she’d first met in Afghanistan in 2008. He had been attached to a contingent sent in to track the faint footprints of Osama bin Laden. Ware had forged a bond with him in the ancient war-torn wasteland, often sharing a non-alcoholic beer as an antidote to the daily assassinations and bombings. She punched the dial button.

  After four rings, a cultivated voice answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Charlie, it’s Amanda. How are you?’

  ‘Amanda, what a nice surprise. I haven’t seen you for months.’

  ‘Yes Charlie, it’s been a while. I’m counting down to retirement but I’m not ringing to discuss how best to spend my super. I do have something for you, though. Something intriguing.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Canberra

  He paced the bare room, illuminated by a single fluorescent light that buzzed softly. His schoolboy error had left the knuckles on his right hand badly bruised and he counted himself lucky that no bones had broken. But he knew from long experience that his fingers would ache for days. He cursed.

  Never, never lose your temper.

  That it was imperative to stay in control had been drilled into him. His instructors had been determined to instil discipline in their promising disciple, to harness the unquenchable rage that coursed through him. That needed to be managed. Directed. But never extinguished.

  If he was honest, he would admit that he enjoyed these rare moments of letting go a little too much. The tools of his trade, strewn across the floor, were useful. But he always liked to get ‘hands on’ once the groundwork had been laid. And rage, too, could be a useful tool.

  The bunker where he was working had not yet been completed; it would one day be an embassy storeroom. It required none of the artistry that would grace the rest of the mansion. Below ground level, it was a windowless concrete box with minimal ventilation.

  The air had grown fetid as he’d worked. Others would have found it oppressive, but he felt exhilarated. He took a deep breath. The smell. It was one of the things he loved. The mud-like tone of fresh concrete mixed with stale sweat and the acidic tinge of urine. And the top note: the sweet, familiar tang of blood.

  And fear.

  Others scoffed but he had always known that fear had a smell. He had been close to it all his life. His own fear, as a child, when his father’s rages made the taste of his own blood routine.

  Then the smell of his father’s terror as he lay helpless before the blade as the rage that had been brewing exploded for the first time. That moment of sweet revenge had made him feel powerful, alive. Both his crude savagery and calm demeanour had shaken the police when they’d found him by the brutalised corpse.

  It led the State to save him from execution. Instead they would train him, still a teenager, to be a special breed of footsoldier. Because the State knew that such men were valuable. That terror had its place.

  The interrogator stopped rubbing his hand and returned his focus to the centre of the room where a shattered body was bound to an office chair. Builder’s wire bit deeply into wrists with the subject’s every agonised wrench. His white shirt was covered in blood and sick. His head flopped unconscious to the right, exposing the ragged f
lesh and cartilage that had once been his left ear.

  A thread of spittle dribbled from split lips. The little fingers from both hands were missing: tossed on the floor near a kitchen cleaver, some pliers and several teeth. A hammer had crushed toes, smashed a kneecap and broken several ribs.

  A welt just under the subject’s left eye was beginning to swell. The interrogator knew his last, ferocious blow had broken a cheekbone. And the subject had passed out, again.

  Yet he had learned nothing of the incident that had so enraged his masters. The subject had shared a room with the traitor and seen and heard nothing on the night of the escape. It had been the same with the other one.

  Both, it seems, were innocents.

  So what remained of his day’s work was simply for pleasure.

  ‘Wake up!’ he barked, as he poured water over the battered head. Slowly a mind muddied by pain and terrorised by what a fellow human was capable of cleared enough to rouse from one nightmare to another.

  His mouth tried to form a plea. A futile effort to evoke some pity.

  ‘Please . . .’ His single word came out a guttural sob.

  The interrogator felt the tingle of excitement that always came with the last desperate entreaty for life.

  ‘I now understand you know nothing about the escape.’ His voice was low, measured. ‘But you need to know this. He betrayed his nation. And you. You are suffering because of him. Believe me, I will make it end. Soon.’

  He dangled a blade before swollen eyes.

  ‘Now, let’s get rid of those pants.’

  He emerged as early evening shadows were turning to night. It was warm, the air was clear, and birds chattered in the trees that surrounded the compound. In the nearby suburbs the mundane dinner-time rituals were well under way.

  If anyone had been paying attention, they would have noticed that the lights that usually lit the building site had been extinguished.

  The interrogator paused for a moment.

  So quiet. Like the moment when death comes.