The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  ‘I’m just saying that it’s weird.’

  ‘It also looks like a dead end,’ said Harper. ‘We’ve put out an alert for the green Toyota. I agree that Katich the younger is now a serious suspect, but the last picture we have of him was when he was fifteen years old. Of the thousands of Croat demonstrators outside Parliament House right now, maybe half of them match the neighbour’s description. Meanwhile he’s not our only worry. During the night, someone broke into a sporting goods store in Queanbeyan and stole three rifles and five hundred rounds of ammunition. This morning the NSW Police picked up another bloke in Goulburn. In his car, they found a rifle they say was set up to take a silencer, along with 150 rounds of ammo. He was on his way to the demo which, thank Christ, sounds like it’s peaceful and well organised.’

  ‘I still think Marin is the one we’re after,’ said Sharp. ‘McCafferty says old man Katich was telling him to get the hell out of here. Told him God would guide his hand.’

  ‘We’re pulling Ivo Katich in, for what it’s worth,’ said Harper. ‘He’ll say nothing.’

  ‘I told you Anna Rosen’s story,’ said Sharp. ‘It all points to Marin Katich.’

  Harper frowned. ‘Anna Rosen is a journalist, Al,’ he said. ‘I’ve also got Malcolm Brown from the Sydney Morning Herald passing on info about plans to kill the attorney-general. Some fellow told him Murphy is as good as dead, that he’ll be killed before the next sitting of parliament. Channel 9 has passed on info that someone’s planning to hijack a light aircraft in Melbourne and use it to make a kamikaze attack on Bijedic.’

  ‘I know Rosen,’ said Sharp. ‘She’s been investigating the Katich family for a long time.’

  ‘Look, I’m not saying she’s leading us on a wild goose chase. There’s something very odd about the set-up here. Bring her in for questioning, if you really think she’s got more to tell us.’

  Sharp nodded. He intended to keep Anna close. At least she would be able to recognise Marin Katich in a crowd. There was another wild card, of course—Tom Moriarty—but so far he’d been unable to locate the elusive spy.

  Marin Katich’s back-up vehicle was a well-maintained, hardy-looking Holden sedan. He was pleased with its ruggedness since he intended to go bush until the eve of Bijedic’s arrival. There was a remote place he knew well, forty miles away, in the Brindabella Ranges. He had planned to go there anyway to test fire the rifle.

  An hour’s drive took him past the Cotter Dam before he wound up on the narrow road into an alpine region. Tall stands of ghost gums hugging tight to the roadside gave way to wide vistas of low, folded ranges one after the other in humped lines of drab green and khaki. Nothing, he thought, could be more different to the alpine mountains around Radusa where so many had died.

  He left the sealed road, turning on to a rough dirt track ironically known as Gentle Annie’s Trail. It led deep into the mountains and then down to the valley floor where he nursed the car across the shallows of the Goodradigbee River at several crossing points before following Flea Creek, one of its thin tributaries, to the flat place on its banks that he remembered. There he found two other cars and the families who had driven there to picnic by the creek. He wasn’t concerned: it was Sunday afternoon and they would head off with plenty of time before dark. They paid no heed to him as he set up his small tent and crawled inside to rest.

  Despite the noise of the children playing, Marin was exhausted and soon fell asleep. He had erected the tent under a tree in the shade, but as the sun moved beyond its apex it beat down on the western side, and it became hotter and hotter inside. In its stifling confines he sweated like a man who had fallen asleep in a sauna. The relentless sun cast his dreams in a red glow and he entered a kind of delirium in which he heard the sound of a boy playing alone by the creek, muttering to himself as children do, and then crying out with delight as he threw rocks into the water.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy, where are you?’

  The tent flap flew open and there was the boy staring in at him. A face he knew in his soul. Marin woke and sat up gasping for air. His clothes were drenched, his heart beat savagely, and he was overcome by a profound sadness.

  *

  Marin hauled himself out of the tent and found the families had gone. He knelt at the edge of the creek and splashed water on to his face and the back of his neck. Faint echoes of the boy’s voice were still inside his head. The child’s face was imprinted on his memory.

  He rose and fetched the rifle, hoisting it over his shoulder, and headed off deeper into the bush. Soon he found an open space, wide enough for him to pace out nine hundred yards and place a target and a red flag on a ridgeline.

  For nearly two hours, until the light began to dwindle, he made his calculations, calibrated the fine instruments on the rifle and shot at the target until he had satisfied himself that he was as well prepared as he could be.

  34.

  When four men in blue overalls arrived at 8 on the Monday morning, 19 March, Daphne Newman was there to let them into Lionel Murphy’s office. She detained the foreman as his men began hauling in the heavy panes of bulletproof glass from the corridor.

  ‘How long do you expect this to take?’

  ‘Should only take a few hours, love,’ he said. ‘We’ll do his office first, then your windows in here.’

  Daphne was surprised; she had never considered herself a possible target. ‘Really? Is that necessary?’

  The man laughed. ‘We can’t just be protecting the bigwigs now,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you wouldn’t want a sniper picking him off while he was having a chat in here with the girls, would you?’

  ‘Heavens no!’ said Daphne.

  She had a momentary vision of Lionel Murphy pitching forward on her desk in a spreading pool of blood. Daphne remembered how Jackie Kennedy had picked pieces of her husband’s skull off the boot of the black limo. She was so distracted that her usually infallible radar failed to pick up advance signals from the attorney-general.

  Murphy arrived with George Negus, both of them fresh off the early flight from Sydney. They appeared behind two men carrying one of the heavy glass panes.

  ‘Oh,’ cried Murphy. ‘I’d forgotten all about this.’

  ‘What have I missed?’ said Negus.

  ‘They’re building us a bullet-proof bunker, George,’ said Murphy. ‘Same thing for the PM’s office. He feels we’re at war with the terrorists. Gough’ll think he’s Winston Churchill. Morning, Daphne, Maureen … Enough tea for two more?’

  ‘Of course, Senator,’ said Maureen.

  Daphne took a call as Murphy sipped his tea.

  ‘They’re in my home today, George,’ he said. ‘Fortifying it against an attack. They’re putting a panic button in each room. It’s all a bit scary. I’m worried how Ingrid will take it when she comes back with the baby.’

  ‘She’s a toughie, isn’t she?’

  ‘It’s the maternal instinct, George. Imagine putting a baby to sleep in a bullet-proof nursery with its own panic button.’

  ‘Maybe it’ll quiet down after tomorrow,’ said Negus. ‘When Bijedic has gone.’

  Daphne put down the phone and interrupted them. ‘Senator,’ she said. ‘That was the PM’s office. Mr Whitlam wants to know if you can come around for a meeting.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Right now, if you can.’

  Murphy put down his teacup, pushed the wayward hair behind his ears and buttoned his coat. ‘Tell them I’m on my way, please, Daphne. Do me a favour, George, will you? It’s Tom Moriarty’s first day and I won’t be here. Will you do the welcomes?’

  *

  When the attorney had gone, Negus took his tea into the adjacent office, where Murphy’s other advisors had desks. Kerry Milte was on the phone, evidently getting a police briefing. He looked up, saw Negus and nodded.

  Negus sat nearby and flicked through newspapers he’d already read. One thing he hadn’t resolved yet was whether Murphy would agree to an interview on TDT. If only it wasn’t that difficult bu
gger, Richard Carleton, he’d be a bit more sanguine about it. Murphy had fobbed him off when he put it to him this morning, but he hadn’t done an interview since the raid and Carleton wasn’t going away.

  ‘Well, here’s a s-s-sight for sore eyes!’

  Negus heard the familiar voice and looked up to see Tom Moriarty wearing a pair of dark sunglasses that didn’t quite manage to hide his swollen nose.

  ‘The nation’s t-tax dollars at work,’ said Moriarty. ‘The p-pointy tip of the spear.’

  ‘Fuck off, Tom,’ said Negus.

  ‘And t-top of the morning to you, George.’

  ‘Have you really left ASIO? I thought you were part of the furniture.’

  ‘It’s called a secondment, George. The Organisation’s still paying my salary. I’m now a c-c-clerk Class 8 attached to the attorney-general for the d-duration.’

  ‘They cancel your licence to kill, then?’

  ‘It’s m-merely suspended,’ said Moriarty. ‘I could still k-kill you in ten different ways just using the items on your d-desk.’

  ‘Mate, you could probably bore me to death just by reading that newspaper out loud,’ said Negus, throwing a copy of The Australian in the bin and climbing to his feet. ‘The attorney’s off at a meeting with the PM. I’ve got to go up and see some folks at the ABC bureau.’ He shook Moriarty’s hand. ‘Lionel said to say g’day so … g’day.’

  Kerry Milte hung up the phone and stood, waiting for Negus to leave. ‘We need to talk, Tom,’ he said. ‘That was Al Sharp. He says Ivo Katich’s son is here in Canberra on a mission for his old man. There are multiple threats, but he’s now their main target.’

  ‘His name is M-Marin. Marin Katich.’

  ‘Sharp reckons you know all about him.’

  ‘I know he’s hiding out here in the city,’ said Moriarty. ‘But it’s not a m-m-mission for his father. It’s revenge. He believes UDBA m-murdered his little brother.’

  ‘What happened to your face, Tom?’

  ‘I ran into a d-d-door.’

  ‘Looks nasty. Nothing to do with this Marin Katich, I suppose?’ asked Milte, giving Moriarty the interrogation-room stare. ‘He one of ASIO’s little helpers, is he?’

  ‘I tried and f-failed to get my hands on him. Best to leave it to the c-c-coppers now. They’re onto him and they’ve got the r-resources—the only ones who do. Now look, K-Kerry, that’s a big problem, but you and M-Murphy have a b-bigger one.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The CIA’s gone b-ballistic mate, that’s what.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I’m still t-talking to the D-G of ASIO, that’s how,’ said Moriarty.

  ‘What? I thought you said they wanted your scalp.’

  ‘Yeah, Jack B-Behm and the hardliners would put me up against the wall if they c-could. But Peter Barbour’s no f-fool. He needs a c-conduit to Murphy, and M-Murphy needs a conduit to him.’

  ‘So you’re going to play both sides against the middle?’

  Moriarty held up his hands, long enough for Milte to see the tremors.

  ‘Settle down, Kerry,’ he said. ‘I imagine you’ve heard of James J-Jesus Angleton?’

  ‘CIA’s chief of Counter-Intelligence.’

  ‘The very one!’ cried Moriarty. ‘The g-grey eminence, the ultimate C-Company man. Well, James J-Jesus himself has been on the b-blower to Barbour. He’s got one m-message. Australia’s new socialist m-masters, led by M-Murphy and Whitlam, are d-dangerous cowboys. The raid has sent him b-bonkers. He reckons that M-Murphy has tried to d-destroy the “delicate m-mechanism of internal security”—his words—the delicate mechanism that’s been p-p-patiently built up since World War Two. Are you getting this, Kerry? He says the Labor P-Party can no longer be trusted with the c-crown jewels of US intelligence and he’s threatening to c-cut off all contact with ASIO.’

  ‘But that’s insane!’ cried Milte. ‘What the fuck does he think happened down there?’

  ‘All Angleton knows is that a s-socialist attorney-general sent in the c-coppers and raided his own security agency. You can tell him it’s about C-Croats ’til you’re b-blue in the face—he doesn’t see the n-nuance.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Yeah, f-fuck,’ said Moriarty. ‘Now imagine the p-pressure that’s gonna come down on the PM. Whitlam might hold the line for a while, k-keep backing M-Murph, but eventually he’ll c-cave in. M-mark my words. My advice to you, and to M-Murph … This is going to get ugly. You need to c-cover your arse, mate.’

  While Murphy was tied up in his meeting with the prime minister, Kerry Milte went to Commonwealth Police Headquarters to get a full briefing from Harper and Sharp. Throughout the day he tried to get an appointment with the attorney-general, but Murphy, after his morning meeting with Whitlam, spent the day flitting from one political ally to another.

  Based on Tom Moriarty’s intel on the CIA’s anger and the growing backlash against the raid, which the US was undoubtedly helping to orchestrate, Milte put two and two together. It added up to shit. He figured that Murphy and Whitlam had done the rounds of the kitchen at their morning meeting; that the PM was indeed rattled by James Jesus Angleton’s rabid response and was on the verge of pulling the rug out from under his attorney-general.

  Milte knew enough about the brutal politics of scandal to know that Lionel Murphy was now busy shoring up his factional support. The best way for Murphy to keep the PM on side was to threaten a civil war within the Labor Party if Whitlam tried to abandon him. Having been blessed with a logical mind, Milte now began calculating his own chances of survival, given his tenuous position as a contracted advisor with no links to the party. If he was a bookmaker, he wouldn’t put them higher than fifty-fifty.

  Late in the afternoon he got a call from George Negus.

  ‘The attorney’s agreed to do a TV interview with the ABC,’ he said. ‘It’ll be in the office. Richard Carleton from TDT is coming down with his crew.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Lionel needs to get on the front foot, Kerry,’ said Negus. ‘He wants you there with him.’

  When Milte arrived, the interview was already under way. Daphne Newman wouldn’t let him go in, so he sat outside. He felt like a naughty schoolboy waiting to see the headmaster.

  After some time, the door was flung open and there was Lionel Murphy, beaming at him like the proverbial Cheshire cat.

  ‘Kerry!’ he cried. ‘Come in, come in.’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me in to watch the interview,’ said Milte.

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’

  ‘But I don’t know what you said.’

  ‘Not a problem, Kerry,’ said Murphy. ‘Mr Carleton here just wants to get some visuals with you in them.’

  Richard Carleton’s grin was much less benign than Murphy’s—more like that of the Jungle Book tiger, Shere Khan, Milte thought, continuing the feline theme. Carleton pumped his hand and led him in front of the film camera to where Murphy had now resumed his seat behind the desk.

  ‘Now, Kerry,’ said the oleaginous TV man. ‘If you’ll just stand here behind Lionel, we can get the shot that says everything—since you’re the man behind the raid.’

  Milte pulled away from Carleton’s grip. ‘You’ve got to be nuts!’ he cried.

  ‘Come on, Kerry,’ said Murphy. ‘It’s quite painless.’

  ‘Sorry, Senator,’ said Milte. ‘I prefer an off-camera role.’ On that point he was quite insistent.

  Eventually, when the crew and their crouching tiger of a journalist had packed up and slunk off, the attorney-general and Kerry Milte were left alone.

  Murphy went to the drinks cabinet and poured two large Scotches.

  ‘Have a seat, Kerry,’ he said, handing Milte a drink. ‘I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable with the TV crew. Sometimes I forget that we’re not all politicians. You know, used to performing on camera.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Milte, sipping the Scotch, a single malt that he w
as partial to. ‘No harm done. I hope you didn’t mind me refusing.’

  ‘No,’ said Murphy. ‘But I was thinking …’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, mightn’t it be a good idea if you just came out in the press and said the raid was your idea?’

  Milte nearly spat out the whisky, good as it was. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Murphy paused, then changed tack. ‘What are you going to do after all this excitement, Kerry?’ he asked mildly. ‘Go back to the law, I imagine.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Murphy, savouring his whisky. ‘I think I loved being a barrister even more than being a politician.’

  ‘There are fewer compromises you have to make,’ Milte observed.

  ‘Right, right.’ Murphy smiled, as if in his mind he was back at the bar. ‘You know, I always wanted to be a judge.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yes. Is that something that would interest you? At some time down the track, of course?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Senator.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Murphy. ‘It’s just that, you know, your long-term interest and mine … might line up.’

  ‘Well,’ said Milte, ‘that’s certainly something to think about.’

  ‘It is, Kerry, it is.’

  Milte felt distinctly queasy. It was a subtle approach, but he thought he understood what was on offer here. He also knew that if he did take the fall for the raid, the only future job he was likely to get was as a tram conductor.

  It was time to go.

  35.

  When daylight came on Tuesday, 20 March 1973, Marin Katich was already in the heights of the carillon. He was lying flat on his belly on the highest stage of the bell chamber’s maintenance gantry. The gantry was on three levels, accessed by steel ladders. It had been built around and over the steel girders that carried the weight of the fifty-five bronze bells that were revealing themselves now in the morning light.

  In their dormant state, the bells reminded him of when he was a boy hiding behind the great organ in the Town Hall. He had waited there to be summoned forth to do his father’s bidding. Now here he was in another hiding place, this time waiting to do murder. And everyone would assume he was still acting on Ivo’s orders.