The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  Harper walked outside and found Wally Price sitting on a garden bench, hunched into an overcoat and smoking his umpteenth cigarette. Harper sat next to him. ‘We ready?’

  ‘We need two cars,’ said Price. ‘Sharp can drive yours. Sullie’s organising another one to come ’round to the front door.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You trust these blokes, boss?’

  ‘It’s not a question of trust. We’re under orders.’

  ‘Make sure you put it all in writing, will you? Cover all our arses. They feel a bit bare right now.’

  Harper looked at Price for a moment, then at his watch.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said.

  *

  Two cars sped to the airport. Sharp drove fast, reversing the route he’d taken four hours earlier. Harper sat in the front of the official car; Milte and Lionel Murphy were in the back.

  ‘You say you spoke to an Englishman at St Kilda Road,’ said Murphy.

  ‘The night officer,’ said Milte. ‘Harold Magnay … A decent enough bloke, by the sound of him. An MI5 officer on secondment to ASIO—just his hapless luck to be the duty officer. I explained to him the orders in the telex. Told him to cooperate with the Commonwealth Police. A complete lockdown. No files to be touched. If he was shocked, he covered it well.’

  Lionel Murphy smiled for the first time since he’d climbed, grim-faced, into the car. ‘He’ll have a good yarn to tell them when he gets back to London.’

  ‘I’d have given anything to be a fly on the wall when he rang Peter Barbour. “My dear chap, sorry to wake you. I’ve just had the oddest call from those Labor fellows …”’ Milte had a talent for mimicry.

  Murphy snorted. ‘A wake-up call is exactly what Barbour needs! He’s no Charles Spry, that’s obvious. So, what is he exactly?’

  ‘It’s a classic Weberian second-generation crisis,’ said Milte. ‘Colonel Spry dominated ASIO as a military leader with charismatic authority. I feel sorry for Barbour having to take over from someone like that.’

  Murphy arched his eyebrows, impressed. ‘They really drummed this into you at Melbourne Uni,’ he said.

  ‘Max Weber never goes out of fashion.’

  Harper was following their conversation closely. He was hyper-vigilant, absorbing any intelligence that built on his emerging picture of what was really going on. One thing he knew for sure: if you were setting out to make enemies, the director-general of ASIO would be a formidable choice. It was clear the attorney-general was planning to confront Peter Barbour. There was no doubt that Barbour would be seriously humiliated, and that was something no one in a position of power ever forgot—or forgave.

  Harper turned and leaned over the seat to address Murphy. ‘Senator, I heard you visited the West Portal last night. What were you looking for?’

  ‘The memo, Harry. As I said earlier, it’s the evidence that ASIO is still covering up the Croat threat.’

  ‘And they denied the existence of this memo, did they?’

  ‘They said they didn’t have a copy of it. Claimed it was at headquarters in Melbourne. Colin Brown, the regional director, said that. But that’s arrant nonsense. They keep copies of everything.’

  Milte broke in. ‘Brown’s deputy, Ron Hunt, was there too. The attorney grilled both of them about the memo and about Bijedic’s security. He even asked if they’d vetted the Parliament House cooks, who might poison his soup. They hadn’t. Had they vetted the security staff? No answer. It was seriously embarrassing.’

  ‘There’ll be a Royal Commission into this one day,’ said Murphy. ‘The incompetence is breathtaking.’

  ‘You may be right, Senator,’ said Harper, contemplating his own potential evidence.

  He turned to face the front and saw that they were close to the airport. He recalled Wal Price’s advice and started composing his own memo. He would make sure there were plenty of copies.

  Anna Rosen had received a phone call in her room at The Wellington at around 5 am. She brushed off all sleepiness when she heard the caller’s unmistakable voice.

  ‘I got your m-m-message.’

  ‘What’s happening, Tom? Murphy cancelled a big debate in the Senate last night. He said it was because of national security issues. Then he and Milte went completely off the radar.’

  ‘When they come b-back on the radar, they’ll be landing in M-M-Melbourne.’

  ‘That’s a bit cryptic. Why Melbourne?’

  ‘What f-famous organisation has its headquarters in St K-Kilda Road?’

  ‘That’ll be ASIO,’ she said. ‘Should I take the money or the box?’

  ‘You should t-t-take the fucking aeroplane, at 8 am.’

  ‘What are they planning to do down there?’

  ‘This will be the b-biggest security story since the P-P-Petrov Affair, you better not miss it.’

  ‘Look, I do appreciate your call,’ Anna said. ‘But can you just tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve t-told you enough already. I’m giving you this because I want you to t-t-trust me. By the way, if you s-see me at the airport, you don’t n-n-know me and I don’t know you.’

  Anna raced to Canberra Airport and got there at 6.45 am. She had bought the last seat on the 8 am Ansett flight to Melbourne. She had no way of knowing which airline the attorney-general was travelling on, but TAA’s 8 am flight was fully booked.

  Now, as she paced up and down the airport forecourt, watching each car pull up to disgorge its passengers, she suddenly felt foolish. She imagined calling up Paul Barton at the bureau later in the morning to explain that she was in Melbourne. He would, of course, demand to know what the hell she was doing there. Truth being her only defence, Anna would have to explain that she’d had a pre-dawn tip-off from a man with a drinking problem, whose job it was to lie for a living … A trusted source.

  But don’t worry, Paul, he did say it would be the biggest story since the Petrov Affair. You ask me what the story is? That’s a reasonable question, but I can’t tell you that yet. Sometimes you just have to go with your instincts. Just trust me, okay?

  She stared at her watch, pacing up and down like a manic bellhop. People gave her curious looks as they climbed from taxis or pulled their luggage from the boots of cars.

  At 7.10, a black Ford pulled into the kerb and out climbed a tall man in a dark suit, carrying a brown briefcase. Tom Moriarty walked straight past her, hurrying into the airport without even a glance in her direction. At least that part of his strange narrative stacked up; it calmed her nerves. She stopped pacing, found a discreet position with good sightlines and rolled a cigarette.

  At 7.20, two late-model sedans came fast into the forecourt. Both stopped with a squeal of brakes and out spilled six men in suits. Anna ditched the smoke, immediately recognising one of them: Al Sharp. His dishevelled suit and tired, puffy face suggested a sleepless night. The two men with him—plain-clothes police, she deduced—looked no better.

  Kerry Milte climbed from the back of the second car, while a lean, stern-faced fellow with military bearing got out of the front. The last man out, from the back door on the far side, was the attorney-general.

  While the others all looked careworn, as if they’d slept in their uniform dark suits, Murphy was dressed in a well-pressed suit of dazzling iridescent blue, with a clean white shirt and a wide-patterned tie. He paused to run his fingers through his longish grey hair, pushing it back behind his ears, then he reached into the car for his briefcase and handed it to Milte.

  Murphy led the phalanx into the departure area of Canberra Airport. It reminded Anna of a scene from The Untouchables, or possibly Get Smart, if she was to be brutally honest about it. Something told her to hang back, so she followed them in from a distance and watched as the attorney’s party of six made its way to the TAA side of the terminal. If they really were on their way to ASIO Headquarters, something big was up.

  She looked for an opportunity to discreetly talk to either Milte or Sharp, but the men were clustered together, intense
and unapproachable. Her own flight would be boarding soon. At least she’d get to Melbourne ahead of them. She looked for Tom Moriarty and spotted him standing off to one side near the TAA gate. The brown briefcase was under his arm.

  Milte touched the attorney’s elbow and drew his attention to a man standing on his own. Harper felt a current of surprise when he recognised the man as one of ASIO’s Canberra officers.

  ‘There he is,’ said Milte.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Murphy, heading towards the ASIO man.

  Perturbed by this odd occurrence, Harper followed them over.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ said Milte. ‘The attorney would like a word.’

  Tom.

  Harper’s ears pricked up as Murphy introduced himself to the fellow.

  ‘Of course I n-n-know who you are, S-Senator. Tom Moriarty. Good to finally m-meet you.’

  So this was the stutterer. Harper’s suspicion was confirmed.

  Murphy pointed to the briefcase. ‘I know what you have in there, Tom. What are you proposing to do with it?’

  ‘My orders are to take it to M-M-Melbourne.’

  Despite the stutter, Harper saw that Moriarty was cool as a cucumber. That was one benefit of a career in ASIO: the power to rummage through the secrets of others gave you a high degree of self-confidence. This was the man who had phoned Milte early this morning. It seemed obvious now that Moriarty was Murphy’s mole in ASIO.

  ‘You’ve got the memo in there,’ said Murphy. It was not a question.

  ‘I c-can’t say that, Senator. My orders are to give this to my b-boss.’

  ‘Who is your boss, Mr Moriarty?’ Murphy pressed.

  ‘The director-general, Mr Barbour.’

  ‘I’m sure you know the actual chain of command.’

  ‘You mean beyond the Organisation?’

  ‘ASIO is subordinate to the elected government. So I ask again: who is your boss?’

  Moriarty considered that before answering. ‘You are … strstrictly speaking.’

  ‘So give me the briefcase, please.’

  ‘I c-c-can’t do that, sir.’

  ‘I’m not giving you a choice,’ said Murphy. ‘That’s an order.’

  Moriarty handed over the briefcase with a display of reluctance, but Harper’s impression was that the man was play-acting. He may not have expected the attorney to actually take possession of the briefcase, but it seemed he had informed him in advance of its contents. Harper wondered what else he had told Milte and Murphy. And what were his motives? His superiors would regard his handing over of the briefcase as an act of betrayal.

  He was surprised when Murphy turned directly to him. ‘Can you come with me, Harry?’

  Milte lingered back with Moriarty as Murphy led the inspector to a quiet corner of the lounge. Harper had the uncomfortable feeling of being moved around like a chess piece. Perhaps not a pawn; more like a knight who, though valued, could still be sacrificed at any time to gain an advantage. As he sat next to the attorney-general, he concluded the whole scene had been a set-up. The attorney wanted an independent witness and a Commonwealth Police inspector was as good as you could get.

  Murphy pulled a manila folder from the briefcase, flipped it open and scanned the document inside.

  ‘This is it,’ he said and passed it to the policeman.

  ‘You want me to read it?’ Harper asked cautiously.

  ‘I need you to verify what it is.’

  Harper could hardly refuse, but he was curious now in any case. The document was the casus belli, the proof that Lionel Murphy had sufficient reason to take on ASIO. Evidently the spies themselves had gone to ridiculous lengths to keep it from him. It was the reason Murphy’s posse was headed to Melbourne and the reason teams of Commonwealth Police were marshalling at this very moment to descend on ASIO’s St Kilda Road headquarters.

  Harper scrutinised the offending article. It was a carbon copy of the minutes of an interdepartmental meeting on Friday, 2 March. As recorded, the minutes had been taken by Ron Hunt, the second-in-charge of ASIO’s Canberra bureau.

  According to the memo, the meeting was attended by senior bureaucrats from the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, and the Attorney-General’s Department.

  What? He read it again. Murphy’s own people—surely not? That didn’t make sense.

  Then he saw that the representative of the Attorney-General’s Department was none other than the assistant secretary, Lindsay Curtis. He knew Curtis. He’d recently seen the man in his cups at dinner at the Swedish Embassy, complaining bitterly that Murphy was out to get him. This document was surely his death warrant.

  The memo concluded that information provided to Yugoslavia on the threat from Croatian terrorists ‘should not be at variance’ with the position of the previous conservative government. Harper immediately understood the implications. His own view was that previous governments’ responses to Yugoslavia had been nothing short of lies. The decision of this high-level meeting was clear: we should keep lying to avoid embarrassment.

  Harper paused. No doubt the memo was scandalous, but was its mere existence sufficient justification for a raid on ASIO? It raised other disturbing questions. Why had Murphy had to go to these lengths to get his hands on the memo when his own department had been present at the meeting? Who were the other senior bureaucrats from other departments and what role did they play in the decision? Why was ASIO being held to account and not the others?

  It was a can of worms. Harper handed the memo back to the attorney without a word.

  ‘Well,’ said Murphy, ‘what do you think?’

  ‘I think a lot of senior people in different departments have their fingerprints on this.’

  ‘ASIO’s the driving force, Harry. The others have merely ticked off on their lies and we won’t forget the part they played. But at the heart of this is ASIO. They must be made to answer for this.’

  ‘But your own people were in the meeting.’

  Murphy smiled, the familiar twinkle back in his eyes.

  ‘No, not my people, Harry. That’s precisely the point. Ivor Greenwood himself recruited the fellows who were at that meeting. They’re still his people. They’re still slavishly following the same old line on the Croats, as if nothing has changed. They seem to have missed the fact we’ve had an election. Fifth columnists. But we’ve smoked ’em now. We’ve smoked ’em.’ The attorney shook his head as if saddened by the sheer bastardry of it all. ‘It’ll be time to clean house when this is done. Mark my words.’ Murphy flipped open the briefcase, pointing to a red number sewn inside the top of it. ‘By the way, Harry, did you notice this?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This briefcase is Commonwealth-issued equipment. They’re all numbered. This one was issued to the ASIO boss in Canberra. It’s Colin Brown’s personal briefcase. He lied to us, and then sent us the evidence of that with his own calling card.’

  When Murphy’s party boarded their plane, the attorney directed Wally Price to sit with him, intending to quiz him about plans for Bijedic’s protection. Price looked over at Harper and rolled his eyes towards heaven, his meaning clear: Stuck next to the attorney-general in a metal tube at twelve thousand feet without a parachute. Not good, Harry, not good.

  Harper placed the briefcase into the overhead locker, handling it as if it contained a ticking bomb. He sat next to Sharp, who bunched his jacket up as a pillow and promptly fell asleep. Kerry Milte managed to convince a businessman to swap seats and sat next to Tom Moriarty. The pair were just in front of Harper and, as he closed his own eyes, he heard them talking.

  ‘So w-what do you think’s going to happen?’

  ‘ASIO’S fucked,’ said Milte. ‘They’re overdue for a shake-up.’

  ‘What about m-me?’

  ‘You’re like that bloke in Callan.’

  ‘What do you m-mean?’

  ‘Lonely.’

  ‘I won’t be fucking lonely; I’ll be d-dead if you don’t help me,’ said Moriarty, wit
hout a trace of flippancy. ‘You need to get M-Murphy to put me on staff.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll speak to him again,’ said Milte. ‘He knows the risk you’re taking.’

  Harper woke with a start as the undercarriage thumped hard on the runway at Tullamarine. Lionel Murphy led the raiding party through the airport at a fast clip, as if it was up to him to create an unstoppable momentum.

  29.

  Anna saw them coming. She had already spotted the two uniformed Commonwealth Police drivers waiting in the forecourt next to a pair of long-bonneted black and chrome limos. She’d found a willing taxi driver and paid him to wait nearby, ready to move.

  Lionel Murphy, in his electric-blue suit, was a swatch of colour in front of the ruck of his entourage. Tom Moriarty, denuded of his briefcase, spotted her and looked away. She caught Milte’s eye; he returned her gaze with a startled look before the attorney stopped abruptly.

  ‘Christ, that’s discreet,’ said Murphy, drawing his hands back through his hair. ‘We’ll be arriving in police vehicles.’

  ‘Well, we can hardly hail a cab,’ said Milte, directing him to the first car. The driver ushered the attorney-general into the back seat.

  Milte turned to see Anna Rosen climbing into a cab. How the hell did she get here? He looked over at Tom Moriarty, but when the spy shrugged Milte shook his head and climbed into the front seat.

  Harper was standing on the footpath, still holding the ASIO briefcase. He thrust the thing into Moriarty’s arms. ‘You better take this back,’ he said.

  Relieved of his burden, Harper climbed into the rear of the car with the attorney.

  ‘Might have been wise to keep hold of that,’ said Murphy.

  ‘That’s not my judgement,’ said Harper, too tired for politeness. ‘This is your show, but I didn’t feel right lugging an ASIO briefcase around.’

  Before Murphy could respond, Milte turned from the front. ‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘Better that Moriarty arrives with it. We all know what’s in it, anyway.’

  The rogue spy, clutching the briefcase to his chest, was wedged into the back of the second vehicle between the two sergeants. Doors slammed and the small convoy took off from the kerb.