Tehran Decree (26 page)

The minutes went by and the silence started to nag at
Jansen’s nerves. Had they silently captured him? He turned over the
choices in his head -- there were only two. Go down and find
out...or throw a splinter grenade down the shaft, then go in.

A metallic clatter made its way up the steel ladder
and Jansen shone his torch down into the void. Worsely was standing
at the bottom of the shaft banging his pistol on the sides of the
ladder, his large round, unshaven face grinning from ear to
ear.

‘Come on down sir...its okay.’

The team descended the shaft and found themselves in
a small ante-room which opened into a larger store room. Air vents
were built into each corner of the room which continued up into the
ceiling.

Jansen stopped short as he saw the two bodies at the
far end of the room. The BIB hierarchy were in the cellar all right
-- but they were all very dead.

One was propped up against the cellar wall, a distant
gaze frozen on his glazed eyes. He recognised the corpse as that of
Farid Kazeni. The second body was laying on an old couch, eyes
closed, as if in a peaceful sleep. It was Habib Sharazi -- there
were no obvious marks on the bodies and no blood shed.

Jansen looked at the air vents in each corner of the
room. They obviously went up to the surface; probably terminating
as grated openings in, or outside the main building.

Worsely picked at the bodies with the barrel of his
Mac 10 machine gun.

‘What do you think sir, asphyxia?'

‘Could be...or the opposite.’

‘The opposite?’

‘Yes sergeant, the insurgence of highly compressed
hot air into the confines of the room, via the air ventilation
shafts when the MOAB detonated.’ He had seen this effect when
people were confined to a building that had been repeatedly bombed
with high explosives.

It reminded him of a conference he attended at the
Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in his early SAS days,
during which, they screened an old film showing the effects of an
induced firestorm using high explosives. People killed by this
method showed no sign of external injury. The simple act of
breathing had killed them all; the superheated air molecules from
the heat blast had roasted the alveoli in their lungs and prevented
gas exchange with the blood. The damage was all internal and had
caused instant death.

‘Well sir, it seems we’ve got all the evidence we
need,’ Jansen slowly nodded in agreement.

‘Good we’d better contact Hayes,’ he suddenly
realised he had left his satellite phone in the SVU.

‘No problem sir,’ an SAS corporal prompted, ‘ I’ll
get it for you,’he dashed off, scaled the metal ladder in a flash,
and headed in the direction of the vehicle.

Breathing hard, he wrenched the front door open, and
stuck his head in the vehicle, reaching over the seat to retrieve
the phone.

Jansen and the crew surfaced from the cellar just as
the corporal stuck his head in the vehicle. Jansen’s peripheral
vision suddenly brightened and a blast of hot air spun him to the
ground as the lead SVU exploded in a fireball. The vehicle leapt
ten metres into the air and dropped back to earth with a monumental
crunch. Chunks of charred human flesh peppered the area around the
SUV. Silence returned to the dessert as the team took in the
unexpected horror, gazing at the wrecked vehicle and at each
other.

Worsely muttered a few words.

‘I think you may have been right about that mystery
vehicle sir,’

‘That’s for sure sergeant...somebody dosen’t like
us...the sooner we leave here the better,’ Jansen peered forlornly
at the remains of the brave corporal -- smoking remnants, that more
than likely, should have been him.

The event itself was a brutal shock, but the
implications could well be much greater, it put Jansen into covert
thinking mode.

The only way this could have happened was by the
careful planting of a bomb in the lead SUV. Whoever carried it out
wanted the top leadership wiped out. It implied that someone with
prior knowledge of the operation was involved. Corruption had
reared its ugly head again, it was a disease which afflicted large,
and small organisations alike. It was a human malady which always
lurked in the background however careful internal security was.

Chapter Fifty

Two days remained before the state funeral of former
police commissioner Clement Chester and Rosey Chester had finally
come to terms with the disposal of Clement’s numerous personal
effects. Most of his clothing had been anonymously given to St.
Vincent de Paul, and she cried bitterly, as she watched the van
disappear down the road.

It seemed so cruel and inhuman, like disposing of a
cherished part of one’s life, after all, it was only one step up
from the garbage dump.

His extensive library of books had faired a lot
better having been donated to a dozen different writers groups and
libraries for dispersion around the literary community. Now it was
time to get to the bottom of the barrel and clear out Clement’s
shed completely. Rosey had purposely left this unsavoury task till
last, knowing that his beloved citadel, as he called it, was one
ghastly rubbish dump of second hand bric-a-brac.

She stared out of the kitchen window at the metal
edifice residing in the back yard, wishing she could just put it
out with the wheely bin. It was the scene of Clement’s demise and
represented all he stood for in his private life. She no longer
considered their personal life together -- that had long since
vanished, with familiarity turning into the inevitable contempt for
each other. Rosey knew that this was the end product of many
marriages, but still there was that tiny ember of passion, which
had held the marriage together over the years. This was what would
sustain her as she opened the kitchen door which lead to Clement’s
shed.

Unwittingly, she took several deep breaths, as if to
fortify herself for a difficult and dangerous task ahead. She moved
cautiously around the large, custom-built, galvinised construction,
pulling a wheely bin behind her and almost blindly dropping items
directly into it. She had considered hiring disposal companies to
rid herself of Clement’s rubbish, but soon realised the folly of
exposing a former police commissioners private effects to a
gullible open armed public. The media would have a field day.

Involuntary tears flowed down her cheeks as she went
about the grueling task. Strangely, she now felt little emotion for
Clement -- the bodily grieving process had gone into overdrive
automatically, without asking her permission, and had almost run
its course.

The relief was enormous and seemed to give her
renewed impetus to complete the job; in spite of having to
continually dip into a box of tissues.

She gave the wheely bin an extra tug as it stuck fast
on a large object beneath the workbench. Pushing the bin backwards
revealed a large metal tool box with a hefty brass padlock keeping
the lid securely locked.

Digging deep into her weighted apron pocket she
pulled out a large bunch of keys that Chester kept on a hook in the
kitchen. Fumbling and trying to insert a likely key frayed her
emotions even more and created a nervous tick in her right eye.

She sat back on a small stool closed her eyes and
rested them for several minutes. Tiredness combined with emotional
outburst was the most decimating of human foibles. Finally she
looked at the large box with renewed determination and studied the
bunch of keys once more.

Six attempts later she opened the unwieldy padlock
with the correct key. She struggled to lift the lid, only to find a
pair of smelly leather boots, on top of a pile of type written
paper sheets tied together with string. Under the papers was a hand
bound, plain covered book. She took aim at the wheely bin with the
intention of instant disposal. Anything Clement read in private was
bound to be extremely decadent in every sense of the word. She
lifted the book and papers with boots on top, leveled the smelly
package over the wheely, and let go.

It hit the bottom of the bin with a satisfying thud,
which metaphorically said --
good riddance to bad rubbish.
She couldn’t resist one last look at the objects and she peered
intently into the bin. Black typed headings and obscure diagrams
met her gaze. Whatever it was Clement had written he had certainly
spent a lot of his spare time on it. If it were hearsay rubbish or
pornographic material it certainly didn’t look like it.

Her basic instincts abruptly intervened and told her
to retrieve the object -- at least discreetly assertain what it
actually contained. She bent nearly double, groveling in the bottom
of the bin, her waist acting as a leverage and her legs propelling
her downwards. She managed to painfully straightened up with the
book in her right hand. Opening the cover, she read the large
printed title at the front...

‘MY LIFE AS A FAKE COPPER’

By

Police Commissioner Clement Chester

‘Fake copper,’she mouthed to herself, ‘what was he on
about?’she made her way back to the kitchen, made herself a coffee
and browsed the pages, reading little bits here and there, then
thumbed through the complete volume. It was a total expose of his
life from his first day at the police academy to within weeks of
his death. She could now see that the accompanying manuscript pages
were a continuation of the book -- a sort of part two, or
sequel.

Clement, apparently, had not been wasting his time in
the shed, but had secretly been writing his life story, cupboard
skeletons and all. She felt an involuntary ripple move up her
gastric tract, knowing the sort of free thinking, irascible man,
Clement was, gave her nervous paroxysms that she couldn’t easily
control. Whatever the contents were they would be forever connected
with her -- after all, she was the woman who had married this
pariah of a policeman. Her immediate instincts told her to burn it,
but her conscience rebelled, there was no fire place in the house,
it would have to be burnt outside in full view of the nabours, and
in any case, this may not be the only copy in existence. She
relented as her baser instincts forced her to read on.

The book revealed a complex life of dishonesty and
criminal activity that she was totally unaware of, but this was
only a part of Clement’s secret life.

The book was a truly unabridged autobiography of
Clement Chester during his time in the police force...now a
biography, she reminded herself, as she thumbed through the pages.
It was dynamite...the kind of stuff which destroyed peoples lives
and brought governments to their knees -- she thought for awhile --
and made lots of money as a sleazy best seller.

This was Clement’s legacy to her...his life’s work,
just waiting to be aired to the public at large. But the real hair
raising tidbits were in the manuscript pages.

It contained strange hieroglyphic maps which turned
out to be tunnels in and around Sydney. Clement had been an expert
on tunnel excavations and knew more about their condition and
location than any other person in Australia. In his privileged
position as a policeman of forty years, he had managed to build up
a vast knowledge of Sydney’s underground earthworks as well as a
few others on the surface.

There were a whole range of red ink lines depicting
unknown tunnels that had been lost to the modern world. The
diagrams resembled a collection of spider webs with interlacing
passageways of different thickness. And the most surprising thing
of all, was a detailed description of St. Peters Bank, and the two
ancient tunnels which ran directly beneath it. This was followed by
a plan describing how to carryout a robbery of the Bank linked to a
diagram of the basement areas. Only a person with inside knowledge
could have mapped out the inner sanctums of such a building. She
remembered that Clement had often carried out security inspections
of several banks during his tenure as police commissioner. Offering
advice and directions on the best way to run and handle a secure
safe deposit facility as well as subterranean bank vaults.

An apprehensive Rosy went back to the shed, and
peered into the gloom with a new perspective, her seemingly
nondescript husband, and his hidden life, had taken on a whole new
perspective.

She shivered involuntarily as a deep foreboding
gripped her -- what else would she find in Clements citadel?
Opening the toolbox she squinted at the bottom, which seemed to be
covered by a dark layer of sacking material. Retrieving a pair of
long shears from the tool display board she plucked the sacking
from the tool box.

Bundles of hundred dollar notes covered the entire
bottom of the chest. It was more money than she had ever seen in
her life -- several minutes elapsed before she got over the shock
and stopped staring at the bank notes. She took a bundle from the
bottom and slowly flicked through it, counting each note, then
counted the other bundles in the bottom of the container. After a
prolonged calculation in her head, she came up with a figure --
there was at least ten million dollars in pristine notes within the
tool box.

It wasn’t difficult to work out where the money may
have come from. She was sure the amount stated in the newspapers
about a bank robbery at the time was in the tens of millions. If
this were the case where was the rest of it?

Thinking about the recent past...there was a bank
robbery involving St. Peters bank, but it received only minor
coverage in the newspapers due to the abduction of the US president
in the cross city tunnel. Strangely, Clement never mentioned the
bank robbery, even though he often talked about the latest criminal
cases in the papers.

She was seized by an irrational impulse...remembering
that Clement had left everything in his will to her -- did this
include millions of dollars in bank notes from the robbery of St.
Peters Bank?’