by Peter Corris
‘She’s insurance,’ Habib said. ‘She seems to matter to you, Hardy. I’ll kill her if I have to, to save myself. You have to understand that. The only person in this whole fucking world I care about is me. Got it?’
He seemed to handle the gun with a new assurance. He looked strong and Sun Ling looked frail.
‘I believe you,’ I said.
‘Right. Let’s get up where we can parley. Little Gretchen here shot up while we were talking before and she’s in dreamland now, near enough.’
The contempt in his voice underlined what he’d said about his lack of concern for everyone but himself. Trouble was, that included me.
Still carrying his weapon, Habib hauled Sun Ling up the steps and dumped her on a recliner. He looked tired as he sat in one of the aluminium-frame chairs and gestured for me to do the same. I shook my head and leaned back against the rail. I let my eyes drift around, looking for the pistol, but I couldn’t see it.
‘Not going to do anything silly, are you?’ Habib said.
‘No. Are you?’
‘You know this is an ocean-going vessel and I’ve taken on enough fuel to get me well out into international waters.’
‘Just you and Sun Ling? Is that enough . . . crew?’
He looked down at the woman lying on the recliner. Her eyes were closed; her mouth hung slightly open and a thread of spittle slid down to her perfectly moulded chin. He looked away with an expression of disgust.
‘No, just me. Gretchen came intending to kill me with a spear-gun. I persuaded her not to the old-fashioned way. But I don’t need the encumbrance. This vessel’s state of the art—storm-proof, sink-proof.’
‘That’s what they said about the Titanic.’
He laughed. ‘No icebergs in the wide blue Pacific.’
I edged towards him but he touched the gun and I stopped. ‘Plenty of sharks, though, and you know the sharks that’re really waiting aren’t in the water.’
He frowned. ‘That’s your hole-card, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t play cards. All that stuff bores me, but you and I know there are people in the Middle East and Hong Kong and the tax havens that’re very interested in you. Not to mention our locals. They follow the money and if they lose track of the money . . .’
‘OK, OK. You think I stand a chance with Chang—immunity, witness protection and all that?’
I studied him. Tired, stressed, he should have been more agitated than he appeared.
‘I’m guessing you’ve got a plan B,’ I said. ‘You’ve put money and documents away in various places and reckon you can play another game from behind the official smokescreen.’
He nodded. ‘You’re speculating. The thing to do now is to drive the best bargain I can. You stay here. There are sensors and cameras all over this boat. That’s how I knew you were aboard. Just give me a minute and we’ll get this show on the road.’
Sun Ling coughed and appeared to be choking. I bent down to help and heard two thumps which didn’t mean anything to me, and another noise that did. A heavy engine thundered into life and the High Five churned up the water as it swung away from the jetty and headed out into the river.
I ignored Habib’s instruction and moved forward to the wheelhouse enclosed in a transparent cocoon. There were dials, screens and switches and flashing lights. Habib stood, with the machine pistol hanging by a shoulder strap, steering the yacht. The engine was purring quietly now, no need to shout. What he’d said about sensors and cameras must have been true because he saw me coming and swung towards me with the gun lifted.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I said.
‘I feel safer out here. Call up Chang. We’ll put him on the speaker and hear what he has to say. We’ll deal or no deal.’
‘And what if it’s no deal?’
‘Then you and Gretchen can swim for the shore and I’m gone.’
‘She’s in no condition to swim.’
‘Too bad. You must have your bronze medallion or whatever they called it back in your day. You can save her. She’d be grateful, Hardy. Believe me, she can show her gratitude. Call Chang!’
The gun was pointed at me and Habib looked poised and confident, in charge of the yacht, the situation. I reached into my pocket for the mobile but it chirped just as I took it out. I answered.
‘Hardy, this is Chang. May Ling called me. I’m on a police boat and we’ve got you in sight. What’s going on?’
‘Hang on,’ I said.
I stepped out of the wheelhouse and looked around the wide, fast-running river. We were in midstream and the lights on either shore looked distant in a rising mist—further than I’d want to swim with someone in tow these days. A blue light cut through the haze and, squinting against it, I saw a water police boat moving quickly towards us.
‘Better stay back, Inspector,’ I said, loudly enough for Habib to hear. ‘Habib’s armed and dangerous, but he wants to . . . negotiate.’
Habib did something to the controls and the boat slowed. He came out to the rail and rammed the gun into my kidneys. ‘Tell him I have hostages.’
‘He has hostages,’ I said, ‘me and Gretchen Nordlung.’
Chang said, ‘We can’t communicate like this. I’m coming aboard.’
I told Habib what Chang had said. He shook his head. ‘He can come close but not on board. I can get clear of that tub in a few seconds.’
I communicated this to Chang and the police boat drew nearer. Habib reached into the wheelhouse, flicked a switch, and the engine noise became a whisper. The yacht wallowed a little and I gripped the rail.
Habib laughed. ‘What’s the matter, Hardy? Getting seasick? This is a mill pond.’
‘There’ll be weapons on that police boat,’ I said. ‘If I were you I’d put that gun of yours down or you might give the wrong impression.’
‘You’ve got a point. Now you just back off a few steps. That’s right.’
As I moved away he unslung the gun and hung it on a hook within easy reach.
‘I’m not sure this is going to work,’ Habib said. ‘Too many eyes and ears. I think . . .’
A sound inside the wheelhouse distracted him. He turned to look and I took two long strides and grabbed the gun. He grappled for it but lost balance as I swung away. I dropped the gun into the river. Sun Ling stepped from the wheelhouse holding my .22. She seemed steady, eye and hand, and trained the pistol on Habib.
‘Stand up, Richard,’ she said.
Habib struggled to his feet. He leaned back against the rail.
‘Don’t move a muscle,’ Sun Ling said. ‘I learned to shoot in the States. I was good at it.’
‘Easy, Sunny,’ I said.
‘You too. Back off.’
‘I thought you took a hit, darling,’ Habib said.
‘I didn’t.’
‘I’ve got some if you want it.’
Sun Ling laughed, but the pistol didn’t waver. ‘We used to make love in his flat up there. He said he’d take me to Venice, Hardy. Venice! But he wasn’t going to take me to Venice, was he?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘I heard him. He was going to dump me in the fucking Parramatta River.’
She fired the full magazine into Habib’s chest. He sagged against the rail. The police boat crashed heavily into the yacht and Habib went over the rail and into the water.
The rest of the important events of that night are sharp in my memory. Sun Ling dropped the pistol and tried to jump into the river but I held her until Chang and some of the water police came on board. She collapsed, and one of the cops who had the right training dealt with her—blood test (I told him she was a diabetic), fluids, blankets.
With his eyes on me, Chang picked up the pistol by the barrel from the deck and dropped it into an evidence bag. Then he went below and I heard him talking urgently on his mobile. I pulled my phone out, intending to call May Ling, but one of the cops shook his head and held out his hand for the phone. I handed it over, dodged around him and went down the steps. Chang was still
talking. He stopped and stared at me.
‘I’m looking for something to drink,’ I said.
Chang told whoever he was talking to to hang on and went through the galley kitchen. He poured a glass of water and handed it to me.
‘Touch anything in here, Hardy, and you’re in more trouble than you are already—and that’s a lot.’
Then it was lights and boats and an ambulance and cop cars with no sirens and an interview room and a statement and exhaustion. I don’t remember who drove me home or how my pockmarked car appeared outside the house a day later. Then it was as if a big, impenetrable blanket had been thrown over the whole thing. No one wanted to unscramble the eggs.
The water police searched for Habib’s body for several days, or said they did. Sharks are not unknown in that stretch of the Parramatta River.
May Ling and Standish organised a team of doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists and Gretchen was institution- alised without any charges laid or pending. May Ling told me there was a note on a file somewhere that Gretchen would be liable to undergo an official psychological assessment somewhere down the track, but she had plans to get her out of the country before that happened.
Karim Ali was allowed to resign. His record was doctored and silence was bought with a moderate payout and a reference that would permit him to get another job. He’d get a contract in the security network somewhere.
The police had me in their crosshairs. Possession of an unlicensed pistol was a serious offence, especially for someone with my record. Chang never actually made the threat, but his one hint was broad enough. I had to play along with all the arrangements.
Chang told me that a technical team went over the boat as if they were excavating an archaeological site.
‘There were layers of stuff,’ he said. ‘I don’t pretend to understand what that means but I gather they had a lot of fun with de-encrypting, breaking firewalls, sifting passwords.’
I shook my head. ‘Please don’t use words like encrypting.’
Chang smiled. ‘Anyway, they found mountains of emails and bank records detailing the businesses Habib had snared and the traps he’d set. I’m talking about here and offshore—the Middle East, the Gulf, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the UK, the EU.’
‘What about the DFAT people?’
‘Retirements and redundancies in the pipeline.’
‘A cover-up.’
‘Has to be, but that’s not the whole of it. Habib and company had been importing drugs and weapons. The IT people say the documents—manifests, receipts, whatever—are brilliant. The stuff was in a network of self-storage places around the city and suburbs; all apparently legitimate and accessible, if you had the right information. They were starting to branch out into identity theft apparently, plus buying up domain names.’
‘Cancerous,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘It looks as if it got too big for Habib and he came under some pressure when he tried to go solo. That may be why he wanted out. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. It’s hard to tell. Apparently he kept a journal in a code they haven’t deciphered yet.’
‘So Habib had a lot to bargain with.’
‘He did, but his dick did him in.’
‘Houli and Talat?’
‘Compromised.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘There’s full documentation on Houli for tax evasion, fraud and extortion. Habib probably kept that on hold as insurance. He had similar records on Freddy Wong. No wonder they were after him. Talat is subject to deportation as an illegal immigrant with a criminal record. At least two countries would like to extradite him.’
‘And a murderer.’
Chang shrugged. I looked at him. ‘But?’
‘Immunity in return for silence, but walking on eggshells and . . . let’s say, potentially useful.’
* * *
I was worried about Sabatini. After the events at Mortlake, all carefully airbrushed by the police with media compliance, I had to tell him something, but he wanted a lot more to allow him to write his story. I stalled. Luckily, he was still so involved with Rosemary that he didn’t press too hard, but eventually I had to confront the problem. I consulted Chang.
‘I promised,’ I said.
‘You had no right to.’
‘He was helpful.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
In the end it was all of a piece with the rest of it. The investigators agreed to release a certain amount of information. This was traded to Sabatini for an undertaking that his story could be vetted and sanitised. That’s how it worked out. I heard later that Sabatini and Rosemary were married. I wasn’t invited to the wedding.
None of the money Habib had spirited away came back to me and I was very low on funds. I hadn’t spent much of Standish’s original advance on the investigation, but I whittled it down quickly afterwards. Then Standish got me off the hook about the shares. It took time— months. I didn’t understand how and didn’t try to under- stand. The GFC seemed to be passing us by and Standish insisted on paying me a bonus. It cleared my debts and at least put me on an even footing with all the constant demands of modern city living—the rates, the phone, the power, the RTA and all the rest. I was solvent, but without prospects.
Except for one. Megan was due to give birth and that kind of blotted out all the other problems.
Table of Contents
Cover
AuthorBio
Title
Imprint
Dedication
Quote
Part_One
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part Two
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part Three
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
