The Beijing conspiracy

by Adrian D'hage

  Curtis reached into his leather briefcase and took out a copy of the intercepted email.

  ‘This is too much of a coincidence,’ Davis said. ‘Stolen windmills might sound a bit far-fetched but when you couple it with Eternity and this email, Sydney might be the curtain-raiser to whatever Kadeer’s planning for his final solution. No offence, mate, but our government’s decision to get involved in this clusterfuck in Iraq has made Australia a much more likely target and, as targets go, they don’t come any bigger than Sydney Harbour. I’m not sure how much time we have but if you’re right, we need to sharpen our readiness. TAG East is on its normal notice to move but we can bring that down as a precaution,’ Brigadier Davis said. He picked up the secure phone and pushed the speed dial button for the Vice Chief of the Defence Force in Canberra.

  ‘TAG East?’ Kate whispered to Curtis.

  ‘Tactical Assault Group. These guys have got two of them. One in their Special Air Services Regiment on the west coast and one here on the east coast in their commando battalion.’

  ‘His minders are here now in the middle of a shit fight with the Police Minister,’ the brigadier explained, winking at Curtis. ‘Always polite… Sir.’ Davis grinned as he put down the receiver. ‘The Vice Chief is Navy and oversees operations. Member of the Commonwealth Club, wears leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket and reminded me I wasn’t flavour of the month in Canberra.’

  ‘Off the PM’s Christmas card list again?’ Curtis asked.

  ‘I doubt I’ll ever get over it but life must go on,’ Davis said with a wicked grin. ‘The Vice Chief will brief the Chief of the Defence Force and he’ll speak with Little Lord Fauntleroy.’

  ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy?’ Kate asked, bemused.

  ‘Defence Minister. Likes to be kept informed if we so much as change our underpants, let alone readiness states. These days you need his permission to fart,’ Davis said. ‘At least we can brief his minder on our plans to get the TAG ready to move, which might save us some time down the track.’

  ‘Out of the question,’ Cecil Jensen, the Defence Minister’s chinless, pasty-faced advisor insisted pompously. ‘If it ever gets out that we’ve brought forward readiness states because the earlier low life in this country stole the canvas sails from a windmill,’ he said, glaring at Curtis and Kate, ‘we’re going to look as if we’ve panicked over a “maybe” based on history.’

  ‘It’s not about how you or the Minister “look” Cecil,’ Brigadier Davis responded coldly. The longstanding animosity between the military man and the jumped-up advisor was obvious. ‘It’s about taking a sensible precaution until we can investigate this more thoroughly. Right now we’re in a very fortunate position. Normally a lot of our Blackhawk helicopters are based in the north,’ he explained to Curtis and Kate, ‘but they arrived down here yesterday for APEC.’

  ‘We’ve already taken a decision to base some of them in Sydney,’ the Minister’s advisor sniffed.

  The Brigadier looked to the right and then to the left. ‘Nope. No media around to catch that one, Cecil. And it’s irrelevant. The point is they’re here and so are the Tigers.’

  ‘Tigers?’ Kate said to Curtis.

  ‘Armed reconnaissance helicopters,’ Curtis replied. ‘They pack a powerful punch.’

  ‘Even on the present notice to move,’ Brigadier Davis argued, ‘there’s no guarantee we can get either the Tigers or the TAG in the air quickly enough if something happens. See that, Cecil,’ Davis said, pointing to the screen on the right. ‘That’s the Ocean Venturer.’ The massive bow of the tanker had come into view with no fewer than four tugs shepherding the great ship around Bradley’s Head and lining her up for the passage where she would pass under the bridge and move on to her berth at Gore Cove.

  ‘That’s the largest crude oil tanker ever to berth in Sydney and you’ll notice it’s almost high tide. At low tide she would hit the bottom of the harbour. That’s a huge target, and if these guys are right,’ he said, glancing at Curtis and Kate, ‘I’d be a damn sight more comfortable if the TAG was sitting in those choppers with their rotors spinning.’

  ‘Fortunately those decisions are not up to you, Brigadier,’ Jensen said haughtily, picking up one of the secure phones that would connect him with the Defence Minister in Canberra.

  ‘For once I agree with Cecil,’ the NSW State Minister for Police said, reinforcing his claim while Jensen was distracted. ‘It’s way too early to involve the Commonwealth. This is a State responsibility and I’ll be holding a media conference to make that point very shortly.’

  Tony Davis, Paul Mackey and Curtis O’Connor exchanged glances. The Ocean Venturer was in full view making a slow but inexorable run down to the bridge.

  The small, dark-skinned man picked up his mobile phone. The foremast of the cruiser HMAS Sydney had been positioned as a memorial to the men who had taken part in Australia’s first naval engagement of World War I. As the colossal bow of the Ocean Venturer went past, the man pushed the send button on a text message: ‘Passing the war memorial now’. Modern technology meant that Jamal would be able to read the exact moment the message was transmitted and calculate the precise time the tanker would pass over the tunnels. The man’s mobile phone beeped and he read Jamal’s reply: ‘May Allah, the Most Kind, the Most Merciful, be with us’.

  Further down the harbour, another of al-Falid’s men standing near the Jeffrey Street Wharf at Kirribilli read the message as well. The text on the location of the tanker and Jamal’s response had also been copied to seven other mobile phones.

  Every driver had calculated his start based on the exact time that the tanker’s bow passed the memorial, all designed to get each of them to their targets at the right moment, all linked to the tanker passing over the tunnels on the harbour bed.

  The operation had begun.

  Further to the south, the weather had thrown the flight schedules at Sydney Airport into chaos and the controllers were battling to clear the backlog.

  CHAPTER 69

  THE CONTROL TOWER, SIR CHARLES KINGSFORD SMITH AIRPORT, MASCOT

  m ick Hammond was on the third-last shift of his career. He was a big man with a moustache to match and he had a relaxed view of the world; a temperament that made him ideally suited to the extraordinary stresses associated with being an air traffic controller. With forty-two years up next month, he was the longest serving controller among Sydney’s team of highly trained professionals.

  The tower had been built at the edge of the main runways, alongside General Holmes Drive, less than 300 metres from where the freeway passed into a tunnel under the taxiways and the main north-south runway. In three days, the little holiday shack at Sussex Inlet on the south coast would become home for him and his wife of thirty-seven years, but at the moment, Mick had no time to reflect on fishing or pottering about in his tool shed.

  All of the control tower’s nine operator consoles were at full capacity. Although the weather of the morning was lifting a little and controllers could now see the ends of the runways jutting into Botany Bay, the backlog was fierce. Across the road in the Terminal Control Building, another team of controllers was battling to get aircraft out of their holding patterns and onto final approaches where they could be handed over to the tower. The director for ‘Runway 34 Left’ focused on one of a dozen radar blips on the screen in front of her. The blip that was slowly moving to the point where she’d vectored it for final approach into Sydney was Qantas Flight 12 from Los Angeles with 458 passengers and crew onboard.

  ‘Qantas 12 you have 6 miles to touchdown. Wind is 15 knots from the west, gusting to 20 knots. Contact the tower on 120 decimal fife when established.’

  ‘Qantas 12.’ The Captain reached up to change frequencies as his co-pilot prepared to land. On the ground the queue for take-off was getting longer.

  ‘Qantas 438, heavy, ready.’

  ‘Sydney Tower, G’day. Expect a delay, there are twelve aircraft in front of you.’ Even when the pressure was intense Mic
k Hammond was unfailingly polite and good humoured. Qantas 438 lined up behind a Singapore Airlines 747 bound for London. There were now thirteen aircraft waiting to take off and Mick glanced at the ‘Maestro Ladder’, a computerised schedule which showed the landing sequence on the radar screen in front of him. Every rung was occupied.

  As the controllers battled to get aircraft on the ground, seven nondescript trucks rolled along with the morning traffic. The first truck turned into Missenden Road near Sydney University, heading for Dunblane Street. Two more trucks headed west towards the M5, destined to pair up with two others heading east on the same expressway. The last two trucks had reached their positions; one at Woolloomooloo and one on the north side of the harbour at Neutral Bay.

  ‘Sydney tower, Qantas 12 established.’ Mick allowed himself a smile. Inbound aircraft were stacked up like poker chips in the dark clouds above the tower and the pilot sounded a little terse. Being forced into a long holding pattern after a 16-hour flight from Los Angeles would not have improved the mood on the flight deck.

  ‘Sydney tower, G’day.’ Mick’s voice was calm as he looked to the south. Through the gloom he could see the powerful landing lights of the big 747. Several sets of lights were lined up behind it. Mick Hammond was about to clear the big inbound 747 when his headphones crackled again.

  ‘Sydney Tower, this is Lifesaver One. Request immediate departure. We have a Medical One at the Light Horse Interchange on the M7.’

  Mick glanced over his right shoulder towards the heliport on the eastern side of the airfield. With a priority clearance from the ground controller, the brightly coloured red and yellow rescue helicopter was already moving towards the threshold of the east-west runway. The weather and impatient driving was being blamed for a horrific accident involving a semi-trailer, a bus and three cars at the intersection of a dozen twisting overpasses that connected the M4 and M7 near the foothills of the Blue Mountains. Seven people had been critically injured, and three of these were fighting for their lives. To clear Lifesaver One would mean it would have to cross the path of the incoming 747.

  Mick weighed up his options in an instant. The 747 was just inside the separation required for the chopper to cross in front of him, but was probably getting low on fuel and to send him around again would do nothing to ease the controlled chaos in the clouds above him. Mick calmly reached towards the big console in front of him and pressed the button that connected him with one of the departure directors in the terminal control unit across the highway.

  ‘I’m going to clear him direct but he’ll need to stay below 3000 feet, Shelley, if you can do that?’

  ‘No problem, I’ll whack in a quick flight plan.’ All of the controllers were under enormous stress but they took the load off one another in whatever way they could. It was one of the most professional operations in the world.

  ‘Lifesaver One, you’re cleared direct to the Light Horse Interchange below 3000 feet. Rapid departure on Runway 25, Qantas 12 inbound from the south on 34 left. Winds gusting to 20 knots from the north-east, contact departures when airborne.’

  ‘Lifesaver One, much obliged.’ As the medevac chopper tilted forward and powered down the cross runway, Mick shot the hastily made-up flight stick around the slide that connected adjacent controllers.

  ‘Qantas 12, you’re cleared to land runway 34 left. Lifesaver One crossing in front of you. Rapid exit Bravo.’ Mick Hammond glanced at the needles on the weather computer on his console. ‘Crosswinds are now gusting to 25 knots,’ he added.

  ‘Qantas 12.’

  ‘Damn it.’ The captain of the Qantas 747 peered through the fast-moving windscreen wipers and the driving rain. In the distance the white lighting that marked the edges of the main runway stretched into the gloom but on the left, the lights of the visual approach system flashed in and out of sync as the onboard computers adjusted the glide path and the weather played havoc with the instrument approach being flown by his co-pilot.

  ‘25 knots, I’ll take her, Jim.’

  ‘Handing over,’ his co-pilot said good-naturedly. The two worked well together. One day, Jim thought, he would be sitting in that left-hand seat and he’d be qualified to land this baby in a strong crosswind, but not today.

  CHAPTER 70

  SYDNEY

  O n board the Destiny Jamal was monitoring the police channel and commercial radio. The traffic on the M5 was heavy, although moving freely, but the lead item on the 10 a.m. news bulletin was a sign of things to come. ‘In breaking news there have been reports of an explosion outside the Chinese Consulate in Dunblane Street near Sydney University. As yet there is no information on casualties but police and ambulances are on the way and police are advising motorists to avoid the area around Church Street and Parramatta Road.’ Allah be praised, Jamal thought. Hopefully the casualties would be heavy.

  The driver of the second eastbound Hino checked his odometer as he entered the short tunnel that dipped down and then flattened out underneath the Cooks River. He was confident that the truck in front had already passed through on the way to the airport. It was precisely 300 metres to the point where the tunnel crossed under the middle of the river and as the number ‘3’ tumbled into position on the odometer, the driver heard the muffled roar of an explosion in the westbound tunnel next to him. Slamming on the brakes and oblivious to the small car that rammed into the rear of his truck, he raised his fist in defiance, and shouted ‘ Allahu Akbar! God is Great!’. In his last act on Earth he pressed the button on the firing mechanism. Two tonnes of ANFO exploded in a deafening roar of flame and smoke. Most of the ferocious blast was directed upward towards the roof of the tunnel, breaching it and sending a plume of debris through the river above. In both of the tunnels the desperate screams of the injured and dying, many with limbs torn from their bodies, could be heard above the roar of water pouring in. Near the exits of the tunnels, drivers and their passengers were abandoning their cars and struggling to escape the rising waters. Many of the victims didn’t make it, pushing against the concrete of the tunnel roof in a desperate search for air.

  In the State Crisis Centre, Brigadier Davis, Curtis and Kate watched in dismay as the cameras switched from the shattered Chinese Consulate to the devastation in the flooded tunnels under the Cooks River, then just as quickly, the left-hand screen switched to the short tunnel under the main runway. It was engulfed in flames, flying debris and billowing clouds of black smoke.

  The explosion under the runway tunnel rocked the control tower but Mick Hammond’s years of training only took a fraction of a second to kick in.

  ‘Qantas 12, Sydney Tower, Abort! Abort!’ but his commands came too late. The 747 had settled its nose wheel onto the runway and the Captain had already applied reverse thrust.

  ‘What the-’ The Captain of Qantas 12 stared in disbelief as the main runway erupted in front of him. He increased the big engines to full emergency reverse thrust and the passengers were thrown forward as the 400-ton aircraft hurtled towards the clouds of smoke. Concrete and shards of steel-reinforcing rods were raining down on the runway.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ The Captain swore as a lump of concrete bounced off the hardened windscreen, cracking it from top to bottom.

  ‘120.’ ‘110.’ The co-pilot kept calling the speed but it was not dropping fast enough and in a moment they disappeared into the boiling black inferno that had engulfed the airstrip from below. The hole in the runway sheared off the bogies under the port wing in an instant and as the Captain felt the big aircraft slew to the left, he instinctively applied opposite rudder and eased the reverse thrust on the port engines, but to no avail. The port wing hit the ground, tearing off the port outer engine and puncturing the wing tanks. The 747, with 458 passengers and crew, careered across the grass verge of the main runway slamming into the Singapore Airlines 747 bound for Heathrow. It was fully laden with fuel.

  Kate held her hand to her mouth as she watched the two 747s explode in a ball of fire, the distinctive white kangaroo on the
red tailfin protruding from the inferno. A short while later, passengers with their clothes on fire could be seen jumping from one of the rear doors that was over 6 metres above the ground.

  Assistant Commissioner Paul Mackey was on the phone to the Police Operations Centre. ‘Close all tunnels in the Sydney metropolitan area,’ he ordered quietly.

  Brigadier Davis was on another phone talking to General Howard, the Commander of Special Forces whose command post did not have the images from the RTA cameras. The Minister’s advisor tapped the Brigadier on the shoulder.

  ‘The Minister wants those helicopters in the air – now!’

  ‘One more word, Jensen, and I’ll fucking deck you,’ Davis replied, a cold anger in his blue eyes. ‘Not you, Sir,’ he said calmly, resuming his conversation with the Special Forces Commander. ‘From what I’ve got on the monitors here, they’ve attacked the east- and west-bound M5 tunnels under the Cooks River and under the main airport runway. A 747 was landing at the time and it’s collided with another one on the ground. The police are closing all tunnels in the metropolitan area but their greatest concerns are the tunnels under the harbour. You should also be aware that an 80,000-tonne oil tanker is in the harbour en route to Gore Cove. You’ll get a message down the command chain from the Minister to scramble whatever you’ve got.’

  ‘Thanks to the fucking Minister’s office, not much, and I doubt we can get our hands on more than three or four Blackhawks,’ General Howard replied bluntly. ‘The Tigers are doing some minor maintenance but I’ll put a cracker up their arse and see what we can get airborne. I’m also scrambling two RHIBs out of Waterhen,’ the General said, ‘so between us and the NSW Police, the harbour will be as safe as we can make it, although I’d like a lot more firepower and those Tigers might have been handy.’