The Mandarin Code

by Steve Lewis

‘Because we found this in his gut.’

  Dancer discretely opened his right hand. A USB memory stick lay across his palm.

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Indeed. I wanted to show you this, just to assure you there is potentially a very big story about our man in the lake. We’re still analysing the material, and, no, I can’t give you too much at this stage. But I reckon you have enough to get started.’

  Dunkley took out a small pad and pen from his shirt pocket.

  ‘Yep, but I’ll have to get a few notes.’

  ‘Of course, but let’s keep this brief.’

  A few minutes later Charles Dancer turned and sauntered off, leaving Dunkley to appreciate a gallery of Australian sporting icons, and the mystery of the body in the lake.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Canberra

  A pair of white pillars embossed with gold numerals – the number ‘25’ – frames a steep driveway. There is nothing else to tell guests they’ve arrived at the Commonwealth Club.

  Because if you don’t know where it is, you aren’t meant to be there.

  Set on a gentle green rise overlooking Lake Burley Griffin, the Commonwealth is a reminder of an imperial past, one governed by strict and immutable rules. The grubby affectations of modern life are banned. Exchanging business cards is forbidden, menu prices are banished, and no cash ever changes hands. In the sedate surrounds of the dining room, the mobile phone is taboo.

  Moneyed men had been refused membership because here the currency was power.

  But the four men who’d gathered in one of the club’s discreet rooms on this long summer evening had no doubt that they belonged. It was just one of their many certainties. They carried an unshakeable conviction that they were the sentinels of prosperity and freedom, mandarins who could outwit and would outlive the longest serving politician.

  They called themselves the Alliance, an homage to the security pact between Australia and the US. Indeed it was the rock on which this grouping had been built, but its edifice was under threat. As power shifted from the West to the East, more quickly than they could have imagined, the meetings of the Alliance had taken on a more urgent edge.

  They saw themselves as defenders of the realm, and in fact were largely responsible for Australia’s national security, their CVs reflecting the close bonds forged with Team America.

  Air Chief Marshal Jack Webster was Chief of the Defence Force and a decorated former pilot. He’d flown sorties during Gulf War I, when he’d been attached to the Third Marine Wing during the infamous ‘Highway of Death’ attack on retreating Iraqi forces. Webster retained the physical hard edge of a man thirty years his junior and his square-jawed demeanour screamed ‘Don’t-fuck-with-me’. Few did.

  David Joyce, Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was a former Ambassador to the United States.

  Thomas Heggarty, Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the overseas network of spies, had studied at CIA headquarters.

  And domestic spymaster, Richard Dalton, had clocked up a year on exchange at the FBI. The Director-General of ASIO – the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation – could still mimic a Virginian accent on call.

  But now a new world order threatened to destabilise decades of collaboration with the Stars and Stripes. The security pact with America was under threat as the Toohey Government wrestled with the rise of China, embracing the communist power in ever-closer economic and political ties.

  Just how close became clearer when the US Ambassador to Australia, Brent Moreton, strode into the meeting, late and very pissed off.

  Moreton nodded curtly to the four mandarins as he took his place beside Webster, throwing back a neat Scotch before slamming the table with his open palms. ‘Gentlemen, we’ve got a fucking big problem.’

  The envoy outlined the bones of a briefing he’d been given by one of his trusted Labor sources. ‘Your prime minister is about to strike a deal with China that will make your country beholden to it. Forever.’

  Webster, miffed at being out of touch, leapt in. ‘Brent, how do you mean “beholden”?’

  ‘Toohey plans to sell off a gas-field in the Northern Territory to the Chinese in a desperate bid to buy votes for his re-election. The strategic stupidity of it is . . . just mind-blowing.’

  The Ambassador gripped his chair. He was having trouble controlling his usually implacable manner.

  ‘He is selling off your farm, gentlemen. And he doesn’t understand that once he announces the deal, he will be a wholly owned subsidiary of China Inc. His political survival depends on them paying up. He will temper every action and every statement to ensure this deal holds until he gets to the other side of the election.’

  Moreton rose and theatrically pounded a fist into his open palm, leaning towards the stunned mandarins. ‘This will hover over Australia like the blade of a guillotine.’

  Webster searched for a response. But it was Joyce who leapt into the fray.

  ‘The Japanese will go crazy,’ the DFAT boss said, incredulous and angry. ‘They’ve been begging us to sign an energy security pact for years. It’s their number one concern. They’re already convinced we’ve abandoned them for China.’

  Other doomsday scenarios played out.

  ‘So we’re going to set up a Chinese platform just off Darwin.’ Heggarty began to imagine the possibilities offered to any spy chief worth his salt. ‘If I was running China’s Ministry of State Security, I would turn it into a listening post. Our ears for the entire region to our north are based at just three places: Cocos Island, Bamaga and Shoal Bay. Every one of them will be compromised and the Chinese could listen to every call from Hobart to Broome.’

  The Defence Chief finally spoke. He was horrified. ‘The range of our Jindalee over-the-horizon radar is a lot more than 3000 kilometres. Imagine what China could do? Jesus, they could monitor every RAAF and Qantas take-off and landing. And we plan to base more troops and more kit up north.’

  ‘And more marines,’ Moreton chipped in. ‘They could monitor every movement, every joint exercise.’

  Dalton saw the platform as an evil ark. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘when ASIO is asked for coordination comments for the Cabinet debate, we’ll red flag it as a grave security risk.’

  ‘Don’t be so fucking naive, Richard. You won’t be asked. None of us will be.’ Webster was on his feet. ‘This government is paranoid about high-level leaks and with good reason. Who among us would trust anyone in that Cabinet? Toohey won’t talk to any but a select few before announcing this sell-out to China as a done deal.’

  ‘So if they won’t seek our advice, what are our options?’ Dalton asked, reflecting the frustration of the room.

  Webster was staring out the window as the lake caught the last glow of the sunset. He turned back to the room, placing a hand supportively on the Ambassador’s shoulder. ‘This can never be allowed to happen.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Canberra

  Gnarled fingers danced over a battered keyboard, attempting to coax a must-read yarn from a tangled mess of background material, off-the-record quotes and join-the-dots supposition.

  Harry Dunkley had sold this exclusive hard, providing his editor with the barest of outlines, promising to file early enough to allow News Corp’s lawyers time to hook their claws into his copy.

  It was a four-coffee-down sort of day. The time read 3.07pm on his MacBook Pro and Dunkley figured he had an hour, maybe one and a half, of scribbling and polishing before he’d hit ‘send’.

  This was no run-of-the-mill yarn. Not the usual ‘scoop’ hand-delivered by a press secretary patsy on behalf of some malicious MP intent on inflicting damage on a colleague or enemy. Or both.

  Dunkley had taken delivery of plenty of ‘exclusives’ that had fallen off the back of the proverbial truck. Words repackaged to appear on the front page the next day. All very neat and tidy. Thanks for the scoop. Now fuck off.

  He stretched and scratched a left shoulder
that was itchy and dry, much like the weather on this smouldering Canberra day. He checked a notepad, flicking through several pages of shorthand. He’d negotiated a verbatim quote from a ‘senior intelligence source’, and this was critical to getting a legal tick without his copy being gored to death.

  His hand massaged a face that hadn’t seen a razor for forty-eight hours.

  Dunkley liked to joke that he had a good head for print. He wasn’t interested in joining those prima donnas who pranced around Sky News or ABC News 24, seeking to build their profiles as ‘political analysts’. One day, the press gallery might well be one giant TV studio. Journalists would be wandering around with cameras strapped to their heads, delivering commentary in real time. Every story would be 140 characters long.

  The ether was already full enough of bullshit. This was what he lived for. The thrill of the chase, the scent of a big splash that would cut through the vapid nonsense that passed for news these days.

  Okay, now for the lead. Plenty of drama, plenty of grunt, make it tight, and make it sing.

  The body of a man dragged from Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin has been identified as one of a small army of workers flown in to build China’s new embassy.

  All the workers on the highly secretive building are Chinese nationals travelling on diplomatic passports and the site is immune from local laws under a deal struck with the Labor Government.

  Little is known of the dead man, Lin An, prompting intelligence officials to voice their concerns that the embassy site might pose a national security threat.

  The mysterious death comes on the back of a spike in Chinese-based cyber-espionage against Australia.

  The Australian has learned that Cabinet’s National Security Committee has been briefed twice in the past six weeks on ‘specific threats’ from Chinese cyber-units.

  And the emails of key government figures, including the Prime Minister, are understood to have been hacked. US intelligence officials alerted their Australian counterparts and provided evidence that China was the source of the attacks.

  Worried intelligence officials have accused the Toohey Government of being ‘asleep at the wheel’.

  The project’s secrecy has also prompted concerns over worker safety. Union and ACT Government representatives are barred from the site and there appears little they can do to ensure no one is injured or killed.

  Jesus, that should get their attention.

  Dunkley sat back and studied his handiwork. Thirty years in the hard news business and he still got a thrill when it all came together, when the usual grind of daily journalism gave way to a big delicious fillet of prime news.

  This was a news story that mattered and could make it onto the international stage. If it wasn’t legalled to death.

  He checked the time: 3.18pm, and there was still no response from the PM’s office. He’d gone to them an hour ago with a series of questions. This was too big a story for him to simply ring the press office at a quarter to six and demand an instant response.

  He rechecked his notepad, wondering if he had missed some vital piece of information. He’d already written around six hundred words. It would bump out to seven hundred, once the flacks in the PM’s office stopped panicking and actually scripted some bullshit response.

  Dunkley’s mobile rang. It was Eleanor Todd, the PM’s hardboiled senior press secretary, who, mercifully, had replaced Dylan Blair six months ago, bringing some much-needed grunt to the role.

  ‘Hello mate. You calling to invite me to the Lodge for dinner?’

  ‘Hah, very funny, Harry. You know why I’m calling. Listen, I’m about to send you a formal response but, um, can I ask, off the record, if you don’t want to take a breather on this one?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Eleanor, not unless you’re telling me I’m completely off track – and I don’t expect you’re about to do that?’

  ‘No mate, but Harry, we’re dealing with a pretty sensitive matter here, national security and all, and, ah, well it would be nice to be able to walk you through it, the nuances and the consequences, if you go to print. Not me personally, but someone very senior. Maybe the Attorney?’

  ‘Danny Maiden? You are kidding, Eleanor. In the three years he’s been Attorney-General, he’s barely grunted in my direction. He’s a pumped-up Melbourne rich kid who fluked his way into a senior ministerial role and who now thinks he’s God’s gift to fucking democracy.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a “no” then. Okay Mr Dunkley, have it your way. Response being emailed to you now. ’

  ‘Love you too, Eleanor. See ya.’

  Dunkley hung up and waited. He liked Todd, a former senior political reporter who’d brought maturity to the Prime Minister’s office after replacing Blair, who was young, good-looking and rumoured to have bedded more women than were paid-up members of Emily’s List. But who knew diddly squat about actual journalism.

  Half a minute later, he received an email marked ‘Eleanor Todd, Senior Press Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Via Beijing,’ Dunkley joked.

  He opened the email and started reading. She had copied his questions to the top.

  Is the government aware that a Chinese national who recently drowned in Lake Burley Griffin is linked to the new Chinese embassy site? Is the government aware of what this man’s role was?

  Has the Toohey Government been made aware of potential cyber-attacks by China against key Australian facilities, including the email systems of the Prime Minister and other senior ministers?

  Ms Todd’s response was straight out of the ‘give ’em nothing’ school of political bluster.

  Harry, you can quote a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister on the following:

  As a matter of long-standing principle and practice, the government does not comment on specific cyber-related incidents, investigations or operations. However, improving cyber-defence is a top national security priority for the government which is also pro-actively engaging business and the wider community.

  The Prime Minister’s National Security Strategy released on 23 January identifies defending our digital networks through integrated cyber-policy and operations as one of our key priorities over the next five years.

  The government will also be fast-tracking plans for a new Australian Cyber Security Centre, to be built in Canberra.

  Marvellous, Dunkley thought. I’m about to go into print on a huge political yarn and the government thinks a lick of spin will demonstrate everything’s under control.

  No wonder they’re in so much strife.

  He called up his story and fed the lines in, reasonably high up to appease the lawyers.

  But then he added a quote from a ‘senior national security official’ that would trump the PM’s bland PR bull.

  ‘We are one step away from cyber-war. And yet this government seems intent on chasing China’s cash at the expense of our national sovereignty,’ the official told The Australian.

  ‘Beijing is launching daily cyber-attacks against us, and yet Mr Toohey says nothing. When will the government learn that you can’t appease a dragon?’

  Dunkley read the draft a final time before checking his watch again: 4.12pm. He lined up his editor’s email, cc-ed it to his chief of staff in Canberra, and then hit ‘send’, watching a story that he had lovingly crafted over the past two days disappear.

  He leaned back in his chair, a self-satisfied grin creasing his face. Then he wondered just how many prying eyes would read his sparkling prose before it was published online at midnight.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Canberra

  It was the Ides of March, spring but still cool.

  He lifted his finest purple robe above the dirt as he crossed the cobbled street. A rider slowed his horse as he recognised the pedestrian, and dipped his head in homage.

  The familiar shape of the Theatre of Pompey hove into view. The Senate was in session and Caesar was due to address it.

  As he strode towards the theatre,
Tillius Cimber called out to him beseechingly.

  ‘Caesar, please . . . I ask you again to consider the fate of my brother. I have gathered signatures from some of Rome’s finest citizens pleading for his return.’

  The emperor dismissed him with an imperious wave. ‘I have told you before. The matter is settled.’

  The petitioner’s face hardened to a snarl as he dropped his scroll and dragged down Caesar’s tunic, pinning his arms to his sides.

  Within seconds the emperor was engulfed as a dozen conspirators emerged from the shadows, striking at his unprotected flesh with their blades.

  The searing pain as the metal tore into his body.

  One face leered from the crowd, plunging his dagger deeper than the rest.

  ‘Et tu, Brute?’

  With his final breath the emperor whispered three defiant words not recorded by history. ‘Non occides ambitione.’

  Catriona Bailey’s eyes flashed open as the nightmare shook her awake. The face of her murderer was still vivid.

  Her heart was racing. The nightmares were becoming more frequent. Even in waking the hallucinations were sometimes so real that it was hard to separate dreams from reality.

  Bailey’s doctor had warned her that this might happen when she’d demanded a radical course of treatment to speed her recovery: a dangerous cocktail of Stilnox and Prozac.

  ‘I strongly advise against it,’ he had said. ‘Yes, it might see a rapid improvement in your physical condition but you risk destroying your mind. There are a host of possible side effects and you could do permanent damage.’

  She had dismissed his concerns.

  Now, in her waking hours Bailey could feel her body growing stronger. But sleep became a torment. And, sometimes, reality blurred.

  ‘I had to do it, you know.’

  Martin Toohey’s voice startled her. He stepped from the shadows of her hospital room.

  Why?

  ‘Because you risked everything.’

  You will pay. Soon.

  Toohey’s face vanished into the dark, and Caesar’s last words echoed in her tormented mind.