Cut to the Chase (10 page)

‘G'day,' he said which would have proved to anyone that he was an Australian. He indicated the cases. ‘Shall I take this one?'

They carried the cases to the car which was outside the main entrance; it was an ordinary vehicle, not an embassy limousine. After Wallace had settled outstanding accounts for some odd phone calls and drinks with reception the car set off for the airport. It occurred to Wallace as he paid the bill that his telephone had been reconnected without any fuss, maybe that was the way to go, just feign complete indifference and they'll try it on with somebody else.

The sun was high in the sky as they set off in the crowded city streets. As they turned right at the second intersection he glanced through the window and gave a double take that would have done credit to a Hollywood comedy. He saw Kalim who was standing on the pavement talking to two other men. As the embassy car approached them the other two entered a car standing by the kerb. The car drew away after the embassy car had passed them and as it entered the traffic stream it followed them briefly. Kalim then entered the building behind him. It was one with an impressive facade and was probably built during the days of Dutch colonisation. As he entered the building several men came out all wearing police uniforms.

Wallace sat back in puzzlement, he was sure Kalim had told him he was leaving the hotel to catch a flight, what was he doing there? Then he dismissed it, he knew more than anyone else that plans could change, maybe Kalim had to register with the police before taking a flight to another island. Wallace watched the car containing the two men but it was left behind when they passed through traffic lights and a car coming from the right jumped the gun and prevented anyone else in the nearside lane coming through.

The embassy vehicle reached the airport without mishap. Wallace enjoyed the journey, from what he had seen of Alex Miller he quite liked him, Miller was a pleasant fellow and they had much in common. They exchanged farewells at the Qantas desk and then Wallace sat in the departure lounge. He could not dismiss feelings of unease and was immensely relieved when the call came to board.

The sweetest sight that he had seen, for what seemed like an eternity, was the coastline of Australia when it appeared below. For some time the landscape below was unhospitable, being brownish desert style terrain, but what the hell, it was home. On arrival at the airport in Sydney Wallace was ecstatic, he entered the first bar he could find and promptly ordered himself a beer. He was home!

'A
lan, I understand you are to be part of the Foreign Minister's entourage next months when he attends that conference in London.'

‘That's correct,' Alan Kelsey replied. ‘I'm part of the security detail. Apparently there is a security scare in London at the present time, what with terror threats and fears of another London bombing.'

‘Yes, that is so,' Francis Burton nodded in agreement. ‘In addition there are to be discussions with the British Government on the question of naval frigates or destroyers, some of our vessels are near to their use by date and will eventually have to be replaced.'

‘Yes, I had heard that was on the agenda.'

‘This is one of the reasons why I suggested you be included, with your experience in the R.A.N. we shall be killing two birds, security and naval knowledge.'

‘Thank you for your confidence in my abilities,' replied Kelsey with a trace of sarcasm and Burton chuckled and spread out his hands. Prior to his joining ASIO Alan Kelsey had been a lieutenant-commander in Naval Intelligence in the Australian Navy. When the navy began to run out of ships, and money, many of its personnel had been declared redundant. Kelsey had sensed that advancement would be problematical so he had taken redundancy and had promptly been snapped up by ASIO.

‘David McKay is already there, as you know, he has been there for about three months. He is ostensibly the home correspondent on one of our dailies in London. We have another security detachment on call for the negotiations we shall shortly be holding with Indonesia and Taranga on the question of deep sea oil exploration in the Arafura Sea. So we have much on our plate at present.'

‘Yes, we're pretty thin on the ground at present.'

‘Do you remember Murray Craddock?'

‘Will I ever forget him,' snorted Kelsey.

‘We never did find him did we?' said Burton. ‘How long ago was it the bastard defected and disappeared?'

‘Oh…what would it be, nearly twelve months ago now? He doesn't seem to have surfaced in Moscow, so heaven knows where he is now.'

‘Well I think there's a possibility we may have found him,' rejoined Francis Burton dryly, referring to a note on his desk. ‘Or at least, we do have a clue as to his whereabouts.'

‘We do? Where?'

‘We believe he's run to ground in England, and that he's been there since he did a runner from here.'

‘England! Good God!'

‘Well he does have English antecedents, as I suppose many of us do if we go back far enough,' Burton ruminated. ‘But his final destination must have been planned long before he finally made a run for it, with everything geared for a hasty departure.'

‘What led us to England?'

‘We've been lucky,' commented Burton. ‘A member of the Russian embassy staff in London committed an indiscretion and was ordered home in disgrace. He had no wish to return to Mother Russia, especially with a cloud over his head which would have obviated further foreign postings, so he opted to defect.'

‘Bill Wainwright and the rest of MI 5 must be cock-a-hoop.'

‘He is and they are,' Burton gave a snort of amusement. ‘Bill and his team are sorting out what this Russki brought with him, obviously the bloke thought he'd better bring something of value to stop them throwing him back! Bill was on the blower yesterday, apparently one of the files this bloke brought out with him indicates that Murray Craddock is somewhere in the Midlands working in a bookshop owned by a member of the British Communist Party, where he's been since he buggered off from here.'

‘Do we know where?'

‘Not yet, Dave McKay is working on it; a process of elimination,' grunted Burton, running the palm of his hand over his bald head. ‘He's working with Colin Grimshaw of Five to try to isolate which Communist Party member runs a bookshop in that area. I think we may strike gold here.'

‘That's good news.'

‘Also, according to the file that Five are checking now, Craddock is still in contact with some members of an espionage ring he was working with before he upped and left. We have no names but we know that somebody is still leaking information from here, this may put a stopper on it.'

‘Let's hope so.'

‘When were you due to leave for London?'

‘Couple of weeks.'

‘How is your wife taking it?'

‘Badly,' responded Kelsey ruefully. ‘She's used to the enforced absences, but all our children are reaching teenage, they are becoming independent and bloody minded, especially the girls.'

‘Makes you wonder why we have children at all,' sighed Burton. ‘I wish you, and especially Petra, joy.'

‘Thanks…for nothing!'

‘They are called The Society of Asian Commerce,' said Christine Norton as she riffled through the file. ‘I've never heard of them before so I did a check on them. They were formed three years ago but they don't seem to do very much apart from hold meetings.'

‘What are they offering?'

‘$2,000 for a four hour seminar and a rah rah speech,' said Christine. ‘Together with a supper segment back at the hotel afterwards that shouldn't present too many problems.'

‘Does Saul know them?'

‘No, that is to say, he had heard of them but doesn't really know very much about them. They seem harmless enough, no politics or religion, not on the face of it anyway, though you can never tell these days. They seem to be mainly interested in trade.'

‘All right, suits me,' Wallace replied. ‘OK, see what you can find out about them and then if it seems satisfactory, cable acceptance. The date slots in with my trip.'

‘Not entirely, you'd have to stay for another two weeks, but Saul says he has another couple of nibbles from some other organisations that want to know something of trade and insurance practices in the Southern Hemisphere, he says it could make it worth your while and contribute something to your vacation expenses.'

She made one or two notations on the file. Christine Norton was a tall woman, about 5'10” tall and though a little lacking in the upper works was quite striking elsewhere. Her hair was fair and short around the back and sides but with a mass of curls on top. Wallace found her quite attractive to look upon, though he had heard that in the sexual sphere she played for the other team. He could believe it, there was a masculine look about her despite her use of clothes that emphasised her femininity. They had a strong rapport; she was an efficient lady and a good agent, with a sense of humour that closely tallied with Wallace's.

Wallace tended to land many of his own speaking engagements locally through his own contacts, but as she obtained many more overseas they both did well out of each other. Her clients included many actors, most of them small time who were involved in the advertising, movie and television fields, which was her main bread and butter. In the main the faces of many of her clientele would be familiar to television viewers, who would recognise many of them when they appeared on the screen but would find it difficult to remember their names.

She had a few clients like Wallace who laid no claim to being thespians, who were in demand by commercial organisations and occasionally government utilities for end of year entertaining speeches at Christmas dinners or other business functions. Wallace's overseas commitments were useful in that if he was going anyway, particularly to England where he still had relatives, a presentation or seminar could pay much of, if not all, air fares and expenses.

Since they had joined forces Wallace's speaking assignments had sky rocketed within Australia, particularly interstate where there had previously been few contacts.

She lit a cigarette in a manner which tended to accentuate her masculine properties, and Wallace found himself smiling at the thought that Elsie's friend had considered her worthy of mention to Elsie as a rival for Elsie herself. Saul, who had been mentioned, was Saul Prosser her London contact and he provided similar services in England, with emphasis upon the Home Counties, to those that Christine supplied in Sydney.

Saul and Christine were in the same line of business, they had a loose arrangement whereby they checked people and organisations for each other. When dealing with enquiries from people 12,000 miles away it was useful to have a local contact to check them out. There were no sexual doubts about Saul, Wallace had met him and his wife twice and had thoroughly enjoyed the nights out.

Two months had elapsed since the scary trip to Jakarta, the first two weeks had been spent looking nervously over his shoulder. He had seen Bramble; they had met for lunch a few weeks ago at a restaurant in the city. Bramble had graciously paid the bill.

‘What was it?' Wallace had asked him, but Bramble eyed him askance.

‘Nothing much,' Bramble had answered, which must have been the understatement of the year, Wallace was so affronted that he actually dropped his soup spoon.

‘Nothing much!' he ejaculated and then dropped his voice as heads turned. ‘I lost about ten years of my life from that trip.'

‘All right…all right!' Bramble had looked carefully around and then said, sotto voce. ‘It was a piece of confirmatory information regarding an incident that occurred, and someone's intentions. It gave us advance information and enabled us to take necessary steps before something happened…I can't say any more than that…except that it was damned useful…all right?'

‘All right,' Wallace answered grudgingly.

‘Hell man, you were financially better off as a result, it was worth it wasn't it? It was for me'

‘It bloody nearly wasn't!' Wallace had said cuttingly. ‘I nearly finished up in an Indonesian gaol with all the druggies.'

‘Well you didn't, did you? If you had we'd have sorted it.' Bramble had said, but Wallace had not been so sure. He had applied himself to his soup again, using a new spoon that an observant waiter had supplied after recovering the former one from the floor. Wallace had resolved that he would ask for much more money the next time…if there was a bloody next time!

‘It's time for lunch!' Christine announced and rose to her feet. She was a stylish dresser and as she walked over to her wardrobe for her jacket Wallace could understand how Elsie's busybody friend could have jumped to the wrong conclusion. As she turned around she became aware of Wallace's gaze and she smiled. He smiled back and also rose to his feet.

‘Usual place?'

‘Sure, why not.'

Ironically it would be the same restaurant where Elsie's friend had done her snooping act. Now he came to think of it, the presence of Elsie's friend that day had been the most fortuitous event of his life, though he had been unaware of being observed at the time. It had provided the trigger action that had finally ended a most unsatisfactory marital relationship.

‘How was Indonesia?' Laurie Frazer asked. It was the first time Wallace and Frazer had met since his return from Jakarta.

‘Oh all right,' Wallace answered lamely. ‘But once was enough. I have another trip later this year, I'm off to the UK in August.'

‘Let me know if you go to Scotland,' he answered. ‘I have relatives up there.'

‘I'll bear it in mind,' Wallace said gravely.

Saul Prosser had come up with some speaking engagements, they were nothing too spectacular but they made it worthwhile staying the extra two weeks. Wallace called upon Christine again and checked off the itinerary. He would be in England for about six weeks. There were six engagements that could easily pay the fare and accommodation costs and leave a little over. He also had friends and relatives who could put him up if required, and possibly some of Laurie Frazer's in Scotland if there was time to cross the border.