The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  ‘Leave Moriarty to me, Jack. Shall we go down?’

  From the phone box on St Kilda Road, Anna Rosen had rung the Herald’s bureau chief at home. To his credit, Paul Barton took her sudden relocation to Melbourne in his stride and she felt a small surge of gratitude. He really did trust her judgement.

  Once she had explained the circumstances, he even congratulated her. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘had you woken me up to explain, I’d have organised a cameraman to be waiting with you at Melbourne Airport.’

  ‘That did cross my mind, Paul, but until Murphy and his entourage arrived at Canberra Airport I didn’t know if this was for real.’

  ‘I get that,’ he agreed. ‘Really, I’m just thankful to have you there. This will be huge. Commonwealth coppers all over the place, you say? That’s a police raid, there’s no getting around it. What is Murphy thinking?’

  ‘I still don’t know the answer to that. All my best contacts are locked away inside ASIO. As soon as we’re done, I’m going to call Arthur Geitzelt. He’s one of Murphy’s closest confederates and he’s an old mate of my dad’s. Maybe he’ll tell me something.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Barton. ‘I’ll get Peter Tennant onto it as well. And … Bloody hell!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve just remembered: Gough’s heading in your direction to do the Melbourne Press Club lunch.’

  ‘What?’ cried Anna. ‘So Murphy didn’t tell the prime minister? They wouldn’t deliberately fly Whitlam into a press ambush.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think so. He’s in the air now. They took the small VIP, the Mystere. Bruce McKillop’s on board. I wrangled a seat for him just to get him off my back. He’s supposed to call me when they land. I’ll brief him when he does. Blimey, what a shower—Gough’ll hit the roof when he finds out about this.’

  When Murphy’s party entered the foyer, Harper pulled Kerry Milte to one side, explaining in short, terse sentences what he had just learned about the fear and loathing in the lecture theatre.

  ‘Right. Wait on,’ said Milte. ‘Murphy needs to hear this now.’

  As Milte rushed over to brief the attorney, Harper looked around the modest foyer. It was the first time he’d been in ASIO Headquarters and it hardly resembled the seat of the nation’s covert power. Before the spies acquired it, the building had housed the offices of the old Gas and Fuel Company; even now, the only indication that anything more interesting happened here was the security desk with its banks of TV monitors.

  He watched as late-arriving ASIO employees were buzzed in through the secure zone behind the glass doors. They were already flustered, having run the gauntlet of the press.

  One of the foyer lifts pinged open to reveal a man in a dark suit. It was the director-general of ASIO, robbed by circumstances of the mystique that normally came with his office.

  Peter Barbour took a few steps and stopped some distance from Murphy and his entourage. He stood very still for a moment before adjusting the spectacles on the bridge of his long, straight nose. His hair was swept back neatly from an owlish face. He was meticulously dressed in a starched white shirt and handmade suit. His shoes gleamed.

  Harper tagged him straightaway as a patrician type—Adelaide gentry. The hoi polloi may have invaded his inner sanctum, but he wasn’t about to let anyone see that it bothered him in the slightest. Looming over Barbour’s shoulder, his deputy, Jack Behm was, by contrast, the very picture of smouldering resentment.

  Lionel Murphy didn’t wait. He walked briskly over to the pair of ASIO men. ‘Good morning, Director.’

  ‘Senator,’ said Peter Barbour without the offer of a handshake. ‘The last time we met was by appointment, as I recall.’

  It was a mild provocation, but Murphy paused before answering. ‘I intend to explain to you why that was not possible on this occasion,’ he said.

  ‘That will be fascinating.’

  ‘It was necessary, Peter. There are difficult times ahead with the Bijedic visit.’

  ‘I do hope,’ said Barbour, ‘we’re not doomed to have an unorthodox relationship. That would be most unproductive.’

  Murphy refused to go down that path. ‘Before we do anything else,’ he said, ‘I’d like to speak to your staff, to reassure them.’

  ‘It would certainly be wise not to keep them confined any longer. Shall we go?’

  Two lifts ferried the ASIO men and Murphy’s party to the third floor, where it was possible to access the top storey of the annex built on to the front of the building. Murphy followed Peter Barbour out of the lifts and up a few stairs, entering a large anteroom.

  ‘We hold receptions here from time to time,’ said Barbour, as if conducting a guided tour. ‘It has a kitchen, as you can see, for that purpose. The lecture theatre is through there.’ He pointed to a pair of large doors, closed and guarded by several uniformed policemen. ‘That’s where my people are being held. We can go in. With your permission, of course.’

  ‘There’s no need for irony, Peter,’ said Murphy. The attorney-general strode ahead and pushed through the doorway, the ASIO director and Kerry Milte hastening in his wake. Harper signalled for his team to wait outside before himself walking past the police guards and through the heavy entrance doors.

  There was a loud hubbub in the auditorium and he sensed a hysterical edge to the tension. Several women were weeping; some of the men had pale, drawn faces, while others were angry and animated.

  Murphy appeared surprised and leaned over to whisper to Milte, ‘Some of them are crying. What do I say?’

  ‘Make them feel good,’ said Milte. ‘Give them a morale booster. Cheer them up.’

  There was a surge of noise as people at the front recognised the man in the electric-blue suit. Like a single nervous system registering a shock, the realisation spread rapidly through the crowd that the enemy was among them. Shouts came from different parts of the room and some jeered, as if a pantomime villain had just leapt on stage.

  Harper saw doubt in Murphy’s eyes for the first time. The senator was well used to addressing crowded rooms. In recent times, he had mostly fronted packed halls full of passionate supporters, there to catch a glimpse of the great man. But this was different; this was a room full of doubt, fear and anger. When Murphy hesitated, Peter Barbour stepped to the front and the noise began to subside.

  ‘Quiet now. Quiet please,’ said the director-general. ‘You’re all aware that Senator Murphy has chosen to pay us a visit today. He has asked to address you while he is here. Please give him your full attention.’ Barbour paused to scan the room, as if to snuff out any remaining dissent. Then he turned to Murphy. ‘Senator …’

  Murphy walked to the front of the stage. ‘Thank you, Director. Ladies and gentlemen.’ His voice boomed in the room’s fine acoustics. ‘My name is Lionel Murphy and I am the attorney-general of Australia.’

  ‘We know who you are!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Just let us out of here!’ cried another interjector.

  ‘Please be patient,’ Murphy responded. ‘There is no need for any of you to be concerned. No reason at all. I am here to meet Director-General Barbour. When I’ve finished speaking to you, you’ll all be able to go back to your offices.’

  More yelling was punctuated by another question, ‘Why the storm troopers?’, which prompted a howl of assent.

  Murphy paused until the room was quiet again. ‘The Commonwealth Police are here at my request to secure file rooms and information relating to a threat to the life of a foreign head of government. I don’t intend to go into any more detail about that now.’

  Murphy ignored scattered cries of disbelief.

  ‘I’ve come in here to speak to you this morning because some of you have questioned whether my visit is lawful, and because there have been misapprehensions and wild rumours about my intentions. I am not blind; I can see the anxiety on your faces. Let me lay that anxiety to rest.’

  The angriest voices were stilled, waiting.

  ‘Many of yo
u will know that, at its last federal conference, the Australian Labor Party had a serious debate about the future of ASIO. That’s no secret. It was a public debate, as such debates should be. Some in the party wanted us to get rid of ASIO altogether if we won government. I argued strongly against that. I told my colleagues—including those who had been subjected to intrusive surveillance because of their political beliefs—I told them that the Organisation would be subject to the lawful authority of an elected government, but that Australia still needs ASIO. All of you here are vital for protecting our national interest.’

  Murphy paused and ran his eyes over the crowd for a moment before he picked up the thread again.

  ‘My argument won the day. Yet you should understand this: I also agreed with your critics that abuses of state power would no longer be tolerated and that reforms were necessary to ensure that. But you don’t need to burn down the house to roast a chicken. ASIO is a vital part of our government’s apparatus and, like any part of the government, must be subject to the law. Whatever you may think, the very fact that I am able to visit you here today, without notice, is proof of that.

  ‘Through the Office of the Attorney-General, ASIO is accountable to the government and thus to the people. Make no mistake, the Labor government has very different priorities to our predecessors. We intend to enact new laws to protect the privacy of individuals, and laws to create the openness necessary for a free society to function well. I will not exclude you from this process. On the contrary, we must work together. That is for the future. As for this morning, I thank you for your patience. Good day.’

  In the brief silence that followed, Lionel Murphy turned and left the auditorium.

  When Peter Barbour joined him a few moments later in the anteroom, Murphy addressed him coolly.

  ‘Director, it’s time for us to talk. You’ve suggested the seventh floor. I presume the meeting room is large enough for my team?’

  ‘It is, Senator.’

  ‘I would like Mr Moriarty to join us too.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Along with his briefcase.’

  Seated at the conference table, Harry Harper had the sense of two opposing football teams facing each other across a veneered mahogany pitch. A line of ashtrays marked halfway. Murphy and Milte were on his right; his own police team was arrayed to the left of him, all of them waiting for the kick-off. Jugs of water and glasses were set up for half-time.

  The attorney-general glanced at his watch every few moments, staring across the desk at the empty chair with an intercom sitting in front of it. That place was reserved for the director-general of ASIO. They were assured that Peter Barbour would be there soon. He had a matter to attend to first.

  While they were waiting, Wally Price lit up a smoke. Jack Behm followed suit, as did Tom Moriarty. Then Sharp got Moriarty’s attention, touching two fingers to his mouth, and the spy slid his pack over the table, at which point Harper thought, what the hell, and took one too. When the director-general entered the room, a smokescreen had been laid between lines, the very fog of war.

  Peter Barbour slid into the empty chair and met Murphy’s gaze. ‘I would say welcome to ASIO, Senator, but that seems rather redundant.’

  Murphy was in no mood for flippancy. ‘Mr Behm did greet us in the car park, but I don’t recall the word “welcome”.’

  Harper saw Behm stab his cigarette hard into an ashtray as Murphy continued. ‘There’s no point beating around the bush. We are running out of time. Prime Minister Bijedic is due here in three days and there is a credible threat to assassinate him on Australian soil. The threat comes from Croatian extremists. As I made clear at our last meeting, Director, I want you to provide the files you have on those terrorists and, as I indicated to Mr Elliott’—Murphy nodded across the table to the ‘B’ Branch head—‘I want to see for myself exactly what relationship ASIO has had with them.’

  ‘We are preparing the final document for you and you will have it by 4 pm today,’ said John Elliott. ‘We have information in draft form—’

  Murphy put up a hand and interrupted him. ‘We will come to that, Mr Elliott,’ he said. ‘But before we go any further, a document was brought here this morning from Canberra. Mr Moriarty has it in his briefcase. Can I have it, please?’

  Tom Moriarty lifted the briefcase from under the table, took out a manila folder and passed it over to Sharp, who handed it on to Murphy. The attorney scrutinised the contents briefly before sliding the folder across the table to the director-general.

  ‘Director, as you see, this is a memo summarising decisions taken at an interdepartmental meeting, just over two weeks ago on 2 March,’ said Murphy. ‘At his headquarters in Canberra last night, your regional director Colin Brown assured me that the only copy of this memo was here at St Kilda Road. As we can see, he then placed copies of the non-existent memo in his briefcase and dispatched it to Melbourne in the care of Mr Moriarty. That is deception, plain and simple.’

  At that moment Jack Behm leaned forward to stare at Tom Moriarty, who was busily lighting another cigarette.

  ‘We’ll find out who’s deceiving who soon enough,’ said Behm.

  But the director cut in quickly. ‘There’s been no deception here, only confusion,’ said Barbour, holding up the manila folder. ‘Mr Brown sent this to Melbourne on my orders. You see, Senator, Brown stayed in the office when you left last night and, after a thorough search, he found the memo. Before joining you here just now, I telephoned Mr Brown to go back over exactly what happened.’

  Barbour consulted the handwritten notes in front of him before continuing his narrative. ‘Mr Milte called Colin Brown at home and woke him at 5.15 am with instructions that he formally notify me of your intention to visit ASIO Headquarters this morning. When Brown called me soon after that, he told me about the memo and your interest in it, so I instructed him to send two copies of it on the first flight. One for me and one for you, Senator. It’s as simple as that.’

  Murphy was silent and Harper turned to see how he’d respond. It seemed to him that ASIO had slid out from under the first charge: that of deliberate deception.

  ‘Very well,’ said Murphy. ‘I will leave to one side what I was told by both Mr Brown and Mr Hunt last night, and their miraculous discovery of the memo subsequently. Now I would like to see the original, which I’m informed is held in your files here.’

  ‘That may take some time.’

  ‘I direct you to find it.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Barbour. He pressed a button on the intercom. ‘Can you please send in Mr Fraser.’

  Harper watched the confrontation with growing unease. Murphy was playing with fire. He recalled a senior spy once confiding to him that ASIO’s chiefs considered themselves to be a reserve power, ready to step in and take control of the country in certain circumstances. He suspected such men as Jack Behm might consider today’s events as falling into the category of ‘certain circumstances’.

  A mousey-looking fellow came into the conference room—Mr Fraser, evidently. He was a clerical type, unused to being called into the presence of power and painfully aware of the tension in the room. It was his job to escort the attorney-general into the seventh-floor file room.

  Murphy and Milte stood up.

  ‘Come with us, will you, Harry?’ said Murphy.

  Harper told his team to wait while he followed the small group down the corridor. A policeman stood aside, allowing them to enter a large room full of sealed filing cabinets, the yellow police tape still crisscrossing the locks. Fraser led them to a large, four-drawer steel cabinet.

  ‘With your permission I’ll remove the tape, Senator,’ said Fraser.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Murphy.

  As he stripped it away, Fraser gave a running commentary.

  ‘This is safe No. 16. It’s a Class B container.’ He held up a large key. ‘It’s a very secure cabinet. It would take eight hours to drill through this lock, even with a diamond tip.’

  The do
cument was not in it.

  Fraser consulted the file numbers again and took them to safe No. 85. As he attempted to open the cabinet, the attorney-general loomed over his shoulder. Harper became aware of Milte’s annoyance as the man fumbled with the locks and began an agitated search through the drawers.

  ‘Are you deliberately stalling?’ said Milte.

  Then Murphy leaned over and pulled a green manila folder part way out of the top drawer.

  ‘I think this is it,’ he said.

  Fraser pulled out the folder, scrutinised it, and handed it to Murphy, who took out the memo and signalled for Milte to look at it. ‘This is it? The original?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Milte. ‘It’s initialled by everyone who’s read it. Including, guess who?’

  ‘Jack Behm.’

  Murphy turned to Fraser. ‘Right, let’s go back.’

  When they reconvened in the conference room, the two teams resumed their places on either side of the table. Murphy sat down, placed the recovered memo in front of him and began a cross-examination of Peter Barbour.

  ‘How was ASIO represented at the interdepartmental meeting which took place in Canberra on 2 March 1973?’

  ‘By the assistant regional director in the ACT, Mr Ron Hunt.’

  ‘What instructions were given to Mr Hunt concerning this meeting and how did it come about?’

  ‘None at all. I understand it is a standing group which meets ad hoc. Hunt is the ASIO representative in that group.’

  ‘Mr Hunt’s memo was logged here on 5 March 1973. You saw me in person after that date. Why was I not told of such a meeting taking place and of any decision taken at that meeting?’

  ‘Well, the meeting was of a group that meets on an ad hoc basis for the purpose of coordinating intelligence reports on matters involving terrorism and political violence.’

  ‘That is not an answer.’

  ‘It is usual for each representative of such committees to consult his minister. If this is not understood, I will make it so.’

  ‘I will deal with the representatives from my own department. I am questioning your judgement now and I am very disturbed, Mr Barbour, that you didn’t make me aware of this memo. It states here that the attorney-general should not be at variance with the previous attorney-general. That is to say that there is no evidence of Croat terrorist activity in Australia. That was Ivor Greenwood’s position. Now I find that a document was being prepared for me that was completely different to every statement made by me on this subject. It also troubles me that it is at variance with the opinions you have stated and with what the police have reported.’