The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  Marin had lain in the bell chamber, stiff and shivering throughout the long hours of the autumn night. He had come prepared, with thermals beneath his clothes, but as the night grew colder the metal seemed to absorb a deeper chill that reached his bones. Eventually it had become too much for him and he’d climbed to his feet. Risking a fall from the heights, he stretched his arms skyward and paced, back and forth on the steel gantry, guided only by the pale gleam of moonlight, sure-footed as a rigger on his father’s beloved Bridge.

  Marin would not have slept even if he had been warm and comfortable. He thought obsessively about the details of what he had to do, turning them over and over in his head, but his grim meditation on how best to deliver death to his enemy had inevitably faltered. His mind played tricks on him. He began to see, or rather sense, moving shadows in the moonlight, and when drifting clouds covered the moon and darkness pressed in on him he thought he could hear barely audible whispers.

  He imagined the hidden whisperers to be the men he had killed, each of whom he had carried with him, the manifest burdens of his conscience, from the moment of their deaths. Among them were the ghosts of Radusa and the two in Khandalah who had most recently joined their company.

  What do you want from me?

  He dared them to stop their incessant whispering and reveal themselves, to make themselves known by hitting the clapper of a single bell.

  You want to save Bijedic? Ring the fucking bell!

  They remained invisible, murmuring in the dark, purposely tormenting him until his surroundings eventually began to clarify in the first light.

  With the coming of dawn, a fog had risen from the surface of the lake. If it were to hang in the air, his mission would be over, fatally compromised. But he was not concerned; he had expected a lake fog after such a clear, cold night. It would be a cloudless day and the sun would quickly burn it away.

  He watched the lifting fog through the high, vertical vent in front of him. This would be his firing position. It was like an arrow loop in an ancient castle.

  Then Marin saw movement on the lake. A lone sculler propelled his blade-like craft through the banks of fog. It must be an eerie, solitary experience for the man—something he himself understood, because he knew he had separated himself from the world by being here; by his intention to do murder.

  He was truly alone. He would always be alone from this day on. Even if he managed to escape, the deed would follow him as surely as his ghosts.

  Early in the morning on the day of Prime Minister Bijedic’s visit, Anna Rosen arrived at the Commonwealth Police Headquarters to meet Al Sharp. It was the first time she had been inside the police building, and the entrance hall, with its high ceilings, polished terrazzo floors and institutional authoritarianism made her feel like a wartime informer, though neither which war nor whose side she was on was quite spelled out by her imagination.

  Entering the place, she felt a deep sense of being a traitor. As one of the few people who could recognise Marin Katich, she had reluctantly agreed to spend the day with the police team whose job it was to provide close protection for Bijedic. She reconciled her doubts by telling herself that if Marin saw her in the proximity of his target he might abandon whatever mad plan he had.

  At 7 am Anna crossed the hall and presented herself to the uniformed desk sergeant.

  ‘I’m here to see Al Sharp at the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence.’

  The sergeant scrutinised her with suspicion. ‘Oh, you are, are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I am, as I said.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘Anna Rosen.’

  The sergeant kept his eyes on the young woman as he placed a call to Sharp. She bore the hallmarks of the new breed of women’s libbers that threatened his equilibrium—his own equilibrium and that of all other men. The tight, faded jeans; the denim jacket over a black T-shirt; her direct challenging gaze, heedless of authority—all of it bothered him. Unless she was undercover on a drugs operation, she just didn’t fit. He wondered what business Al Sharp had with such a woman.

  His speculation was cut short by Sharp’s arrival and confounded by the warm welcome he offered her.

  ‘Anna, thank you for coming,’ he said, shaking her hand and then turning to give the sergeant the appropriate form. ‘Sergeant, Miss Rosen will need a temporary pass for the day. It’s been authorised by Inspector Harper, as you’ll see.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant. He read the form and took note of the signature, then produced an appointment book in which he carefully inscribed her name, the date and the time of her arrival before producing the precious pass. ‘Here you are, miss—please sign here and make sure you return this to me at the end of the day.’

  Anna signed the book, clipped on her pass and turned to Sharp.

  ‘Deputised to join the posse, am I?’ she asked.

  ‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to the briefing room.’

  As the sergeant watched the odd pair—the pudgy ASIO ring-in and the radical-chic sheila—head for the lifts, he shook his head. These were strange days and he wasn’t at all sure he was up for them.

  *

  Sharp was watching the lights above the lift that charted its descent when Anna tapped his arm. ‘So, did you speak to Moriarty?’

  The lift arrived and they stepped into it.

  ‘I did,’ he said. ‘He is telling us that Marin Katich is in Canberra and in his view Katich represents a serious threat—in all likelihood the most serious threat to Bijedic. He also confirmed what you told me: that Marin believes his brother was murdered by UDBA, so he has a personal motive.’

  Anna nodded, wondering what else Moriarty may have confided about her own relationship to Marin.

  ‘Did he say why he didn’t come to you sooner with this new information?’

  ‘He had a bullshit story about this mysterious “accident” that put him in hospital,’ Sharp said as the lift juddered to a stop, pinged and opened. ‘He’s back on deck now, not that any of us find that especially reassuring. That’s why you’re here. Let’s go meet the team.’

  When they stepped into the corridor, Anna stopped him.

  ‘Just so that you know, Al, I’ve told my editor that I’ve got access behind the scenes to report on the Bijedic operation.’

  ‘That’s your cover story.’

  ‘It’s not just a cover story,’ she said. ‘Whatever happens today, I’ll be reporting on it.’

  ‘That’s understood,’ said Sharp. ‘You’re about to meet Inspector Harper. He’ll want to set some ground rules.’

  An hour later Anna was sitting next to Sharp in the back seat of a big black Ford limo in a fast-moving police convoy headed to RAAF base Fairbairn, where the Yugoslavian prime minister’s Russian-built Ilyushin jet would touch down later that morning.

  The ground rules laid down by Inspector Harry Harper, who turned out to be the same straight-backed copper she’d seen accompanying Murphy on the day of the raid, were simple: no direct quotes from him or any of his team unless she ran them past him first, and she was not to report on the real reason they had asked her to join them. She had reassured Harper that she had no intention of revealing her own cooperation with the manhunt and agreed to his other terms.

  Nonetheless, as she watched the familiar Canberra landmarks flashing by on the route Prime Minister Bijedic would take between the airport and Parliament House, she felt uncomfortable with the arrangement, not only because she was ready to finger Marin if she saw him, but also because she was now inside the story, part of it, rather than the impartial observer she was meant to be.

  In the front seat Detective Sergeant Wally Price was talking on the two-way radio. She couldn’t make out what was being said, but then he leaned over the back and spoke to Sharp.

  ‘Bijedic’s gonna be late,’ he said. ‘His fucken piece of shit Russian plane had mechanical problems in Bang
kok—’ The bleary-eyed Price stopped mid-sentence and turned to Anna. ‘You quote me on that and I’ll just deny it.’

  ‘Anna won’t be quoting you on anything, Wal,’ said Sharp. ‘So what’s his ETA?’

  ‘Sometime after 11.30.’

  She saw uniformed police posted all along the route. Anna had learned at the morning briefing that Commissioner Davis had cancelled leave for the entire force. One thousand police were on duty in the capital, five hundred of them stationed at intervals between the airport and parliament. The commissioner himself had flown over the route in the RAAF helicopter, which was tasked with hovering over the Bijedic motorcade carrying Special Forces sharpshooters.

  The cars in Anna’s convoy were the only ones on the road because all private traffic had already been diverted from the route. Sharp pointed out the distant shapes of men posted on the rooftops of adjacent buildings.

  ‘This is an even bigger security operation,’ he said, ‘than when President Johnson came here in 1966.’

  ‘It’d bloody well want to be,’ said Price. ‘I was in Sydney when the Vietnam demonstrators threw themselves in front of Johnson’s car.’

  ‘Run the bastards over!’ said Anna.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Price.

  ‘What?’ Sharp exclaimed.

  ‘That’s what Bob Askin told his driver,’ said Anna. ‘The premier was in the same motorcade.’

  They soon arrived at the RAAF base. Anna saw that many of her colleagues in the press were waiting beside their cars just inside the main gate, while new arrivals in a queue of cars were being stopped to have their credentials scrutinised and their vehicles searched by air force security teams.

  The police cars passed into the base and reached a security marshalling area where they stopped and allowed the Bijedic team of plain-clothes detectives to spill out on to the tarmac. Most of them immediately lit up cigarettes and began chatting to the advance party.

  Sharp took Anna to one side.

  ‘I want you to go mingle in the press group, just in case he managed to get himself fake credentials,’ he said. ‘Take a good look at the military personnel in the area, too—and even the police.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ll take you to the spot where they’re corralling the press. That pass you’re wearing will get you to where I’ll be. Make sure you come back here with plenty of time. Your colleagues, I’m sorry to say, will take more than an hour getting out of here. It’s been deliberately set up like that. We don’t want them anywhere near the Bijedic motorcade. You’re the exception to the rule, of course. We’ll be in the last vehicle. So don’t get lost.’

  Sharp led her through a series of checkpoints manned by armed police with walkie-talkies, stopping to let each one know that Anna was to be let back through at any time. They ended up in an enclosed area on the tarmac. It was empty.

  She waited another thirty minutes before the press vehicles began arriving. Then she walked around among her colleagues, feeling rather foolish as she stared at anyone as tall as Marin Katich.

  ‘You all right there?’ asked one lofty fellow.

  ‘I’m looking for a friend,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s the lucky bloke?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She moved on to the next vehicle as it drove in.

  ‘Gather round, people!’ came an amplified voice. ‘Gather round.’

  They all turned to the source of the noise and saw a man in an impressive blue officer’s uniform with a loudhailer, standing on a wooden bench that two air force subordinates had carried into the enclosure.

  As the crowd of disconsolate journalists, their photographers and cameramen gathered haphazardly in front of the bench, the uniformed man—who on closer inspection bore a striking resemblance to the actor David Niven—lifted the loudhailer.

  ‘Good morning to you all,’ he said. ‘I’m Wing Commander Elton and for all intents and purposes, while you are on my base, I am your commander. I’m sorry about the delays you experienced getting through security, but that was absolutely necessary. We’re not doing it in splendour today.’

  As he talked, Anna began moving about the small crowd, looking at as many faces as she could. Most of them, she thought, stared back as if she was deranged.

  ‘The security is very strict and I remind you there are a lot of nervous people carrying guns. Those are the ones you can see. There are also fifty others up in the towers and on top of buildings. They are watching for anything suspicious. So please don’t run at any time. Always walk. And when Prime Minister Bijedic arrives, at no point is anyone to go within fifteen feet of him. There are trained sharpshooters who are under orders to shoot first and ask questions later. Remember that and, above all, please enjoy your visit to RAAF base Fairbairn.’

  With that the wing commander stepped down from the bench, his subordinates picked it up, and they marched back into the high-security area where none but Anna could follow them.

  Eventually a buzz went through the press pack. A photographer with a telephoto lens had spotted an aircraft circling high above them. She looked at her watch. 11.40 am.

  In his sniper’s nest, high up in the tower of the carillon, Marin Katich had returned to his meditative state. The rifle rested on a sandbag that he had hauled up into the tower. The barrel was aimed through a one-metre square hole he had cut in the steel bird screen on the lake side of the bell chamber. He checked the scope, which was locked off on the front steps and doorway of Parliament House.

  The wide staircase and glass entrance doors were shaded under a portico, which was framed by two abutments. Centred atop the left abutment was the British coat of arms—a golden lion rampant and a white unicorn with a twisted golden horn carried the shield between them. Below these beasts was the scrolled motto. The magnification on the scope was strong enough for him to read the words Dieu et mon droit—a reference, he recalled, to the divine right of kings.

  Rising above the abutment on the right side of the portico was the far more prosaic Australian coat of arms. A kangaroo and an emu, both coloured a uniform grey, held between them a shield on which were emblazoned the emblems of the six states of the Commonwealth.

  Conditions were ideal for a long shot. The autumn sky was remarkably clear, as he had predicted it would be, so humidity would not be a problem. The wind across the lake would be classified as light air in sailing terms.

  The flag above the front doors of Parliament House, whose pole was equidistant between the two coats of arms, was barely fluttering in the westerly breeze. He used it as a range target, calculating by eye the angle between the flag and its pole. It was no more than sixteen degrees. He divided that number by the constant four and calculated he would have to adjust for a four miles-per-hour breeze. To mark the distance, he lined up the kangaroo’s head, which was silhouetted against the sky, in the crosshairs of the reticule. Using that as his target, he made fine adjustments for the breeze.

  Then he subtly shifted his gaze and saw the slight movement that indicated the parallax error he knew was inevitable at this distance. Painstakingly, he moved the objective ring on the side of the scope to eliminate the parallax effect. He shifted his gaze again and there was no movement in the reticule. It was spot on.

  Marin pulled back down to the shadowed glass doorway with its confusion of reflections when people came and went through the doors or lingered there. Now the doors swung open and a parliamentary official emerged and paced around under the portico. Marin followed the man’s movements in the reticule, first targeting his chest and then carefully shifting up to the man’s face, which wore the anxious expression of someone whose responsibilities were soon to be tested.

  When the Ilyushin jet lined up for its final approach, Anna Rosen, ignoring warning cries from her colleagues, headed for the security gate to the zone marked for authorised personnel only. The armed policeman on the gate tensed, but then relaxed when she flipped out her special pass. The few journalists who were watching her and not the jet were
astonished when the policeman stepped aside and let her through.

  She reached Al Sharp and his colleagues in time to watch the Yugoslavians’ plane hit the runway hard with a crunch of stressed undercarriage and a cloud of burnt rubber. It seemed to have barely slowed when it wheeled abruptly to the left and taxied towards them.

  Sharp turned to Anna. ‘Nothing to report?’

  ‘No, just the usual suspects,’ she said. ‘A bunch of pissed-off journalists.’

  Sharp shrugged. ‘Que sera.’

  ‘How about that landing?’ exclaimed Price. ‘I thought the fucken pilot might beat the Croats to it.’

  ‘Probably a former fighter pilot,’ said Sharp. ‘They like to get up and down quickly.’

  With a belligerent roar, the jet rolled fast towards the official party, prompting several of them to take backwards steps, before it pulled up with a shudder. Stairs were pushed up to the front exit. The moment the hatch cracked open, the guard of honour snapped to attention and the military band struck up a martial tune vaguely familiar to Anna.

  At the head of the welcoming group at the base of the stairs she saw the dapper figure of the governor-general. Continuing the Hollywood theme, he reminded her of a short, balding Clark Gable. Towering above him on one side was an army general with a peaked hat and fancy epaulettes and, on the other, the splendidly attired wing commander, now without his loudhailer. In the second rank of the official party Anna recognised the Yugoslavian ambassador.

  Emerging first from the plane were two large, hard-faced men, both packed into too-small suits, peering about for potential threats. One of the men moved quickly down the stairs and stationed himself at their base, while the other stepped back inside the aircraft.

  Sharp prodded Anna’s shoulder. ‘See the bulge under his arm?’ he said, nodding at the man outside. ‘We agreed to let them carry weapons. He’s got a cannon, by the look of it.’