The Mandarin Code (22 page)

‘Wendy . . .' Cox leapt into the conversation. ‘I've just had an alert from credit card transactions. They're in trouble, too.'

It was compounding. Chang was now seriously worried. The ANZ was under attack.

‘Okay, give me a minute.'

She walked into her adjacent office and picked up her phone. She dialled ‘1' and waited a brief moment.

‘John, we've got a big problem. You know we've been hit with a ‘denial of service' attack. It's getting worse.'

John Griffith had been ANZ's chief executive for the past eight years. He'd kicked off his career more than thirty years earlier as a teller in the Queensland rural centre of Roma, rising through the ranks to become one of the highest paid CEOs in Australia.

‘How bad, Wendy?'

‘Internet banking has slowed and some portals are down. Credit card transactions are also reporting massive increase in traffic volumes and they're not coping. We're adding extra capacity where we can . . . but John, I'm not sure the systems are going to cope. I've got a high-priority incident team in place; they're next door now, and we're trying to identify and isolate where it's coming from. Hold on, just one sec, John . . .'

Chang turned towards an ashen-faced Cox who was holding up her iPad. She put the phone down and moved closer to see the information on the screen.

To her surprise it displayed a map of the Asia-Pacific region and a small blinking light was pulsing on a city to Australia's north.

Shanghai.

Canberra

George Papadakis's afternoon was shaken by an urgent call from the ANZ chairman.

‘George, I'll be brief.' Ken Donaldson was agitated.

‘In fifteen minutes we'll be issuing a formal statement to the ASX. It will announce that all of our systems have been shut down due to a technical issue with our servers. None of our customers will have access to their accounts or credit cards for the next twenty-four hours. We'll assure people that their money is safe and that normal service will resume as soon as possible.

‘Now, George, I'm about to tell you something in the utmost confidence. Our systems have been attacked. We've been forced to shut them down. And we're genuinely concerned that if this news gets out it will shake customer confidence. I don't need to tell you what a run on the ANZ would mean for the entire financial system.

‘We're trying to trace the origin of the attack but that's very hard as whoever is behind this has recruited zombie computers from around the world. But we know this much. It's very sophisticated and our guys believe that only a state would have the resources. Everyone here in Melbourne is pretty sure it's coming from China.'

Papadakis raced into the Prime Minister's office.

‘PM . . .' Papadakis was breathless. ‘PM . . . the ANZ is shutting down internet banking . . . a massive cyber-attack . . . they think it's coming from China.'

Toohey looked exhausted.

‘And I just got off the phone to the head of the stock exchange. It's suspending trading twenty minutes early and blaming it on some vague computer malfunction. It's not true. Their computers were overloaded by a denial of service attack. They think it's China too.'

The two men grappled with the bombshell.

‘First air-traffic control, now this.' Toohey broke the silence. ‘What could we have done to piss off the Chinese so much that they would do this? It just doesn't make sense.'

Papadakis responded cautiously. ‘Well, I'm guessing. But we trumpet the US alliance, and then allow American troops on our soil. This while relations between the US and China are about as bad as they have ever been. Maybe it's a warning.'

‘And we're supposed to do what? Just roll over and cop it? Christ, I do that every day in this place. I'm jack of it. We need to send a message of our own.'

Toohey thumped his desk.

‘Martin, what can we possibly do to cause them any kind of grief? And this is the important bit, mate – what can we do that's deniable?'

The Prime Minister turned to his trusted lieutenant and smiled.

‘George, get me the CFMEU.'

Canberra

The steel handcuffs dug into the soft flesh of wrists shackled to a medieval wooden truss. Leather straps bound his ankles, stretching his pale body into a naked ‘X' framed in a rectangle. Livid red marks striped his back.

Jonathan Robbie was used to being flogged by parliamentarians but this was very different.

A riding crop lashed the journalist's buttocks, delivering a small dose of pleasure and plenty of pain.

‘Arrrhhh!'

‘Scream, bitch!' yelled his tormentor, whose ardour was growing with each whack.

Emily Brooks was a study in dominatrix chic. Thigh-high black boots tapered to six-inch, silver-encased stiletto heels. Rockhard muscles met a taut arse, bare save for the sliver of a lipstick-red leather thong. Her toned and tanned torso was also bare and a black studded bra scarcely contained breasts that seemed too pert for her forty-eight years. Her hands and arms were encased in over-the-elbow gloves that neatly matched the none-too-subtle shade of the thong. A studded dog collar circled the Opposition leader's neck.

Brooks paused to admire the criss-cross pattern she'd imprinted on her lover's flesh and searched for a patch of unmarked skin. She found her spot and delivered a diagonal welt from right hip to left thigh with, perhaps, an excess of enthusiasm.

‘Shit! That really hurt,' yelped her increasingly unwilling accomplice. The pair had agreed on a safe word before the sex play began and now Robbie decided to tap the mat.

‘Kittens!' he squealed.

‘Oh, has the little petal had enough?' sneered Brooks. ‘I was just getting warmed up.'

‘I know, my love, but we did discuss this.' Robbie was struggling to get his hands free. ‘You know I'm uncomfortable with the handcuffs. I prefer rope or stockings, so I can get loose if I have to. Right now I feel . . . well, trapped.'

‘Don't you trust me, sweetie?' Brooks purred close to his ear.

The answer was no. He was terrified. The tingle of excitement had turned to a shiver of fear.

‘Of course I trust you,' he lied. ‘So “Kittens”, my dear. Let me down.'

‘But I can't do that just yet, Jonnie. I have something I wanted to talk about. And a special treat.'

‘You want to chat? Let's get a coffee.'

‘I needed your full attention, dear. I was very disappointed with your story on our asylum seeker policy. I thought it was a bit unfair. You made me sound like a monster.'

‘Well, threatening to use the navy to sink asylum seeker boats is a touch extreme. I was tame by comparison with the others.'

‘But you know I wouldn't do it. I just think we need to show some real steel to ensure no one makes that terribly unsafe journey. Sometimes what seems like cruelty is really the best way of saying I love you. So I'm disappointed in you, Jonnie . . . but, don't worry, you'll get your special treat anyway.'

There was a dull buzz as something battery-powered was switched on.

‘What's that?' Robbie's heart was pounding. ‘What are you doing?'

Brooks strayed into his view with her hands behind her, looking at once both fearsome and coy.

‘Just a little something I found in Fyshwick.' She slowly pulled her hands from behind her back, revealing a breathtakingly dangerous-looking sex toy.

‘No, dear, no,' Robbie pleaded. ‘You can't be serious. And this isn't funny. Kittens' . . . Kittens' playtime is over now!'

‘My dear, playtime has just begun.'

‘Nooooooooooooo!'

Canberra

Dean Hall dubbed it Operation Trojan Horse. The local head of the militant building union had been dreaming of this sweet moment for a year. Everything had been planned to the minute.

The Chinese embassy site had been off limits to the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and that chafed. Instead the Chinese had shipped in their own labour – on diplomatic visas – to build their new headquarters behind a wall of secrecy. Several aerial photos showed, though, that the Chinese had a low regard for workplace safety.

What fucking building site would wrap razor wire around its perimeter?

The Chinese had banned Australian workers from the site; not even the ACT's chief building inspector had been allowed to run the ruler over it. The gates were only ever opened to foreigners when the Chinese took delivery of building materials. This morning, the embassy had organised a delivery of blue metal. The supplier had been instructed to be at the front gate at 9.30am precisely. It was now 9.26.

The truck pulled up and the driver sounded the horn. The gate was unbolted and one of the Chinese security guards emerged. He recognised the driver but motioned in Hall's direction and shook his head.

‘He comes in while I unload, mate,' the driver shot back. ‘New union rules.'

The goon looked suspiciously at Hall but went back to the gates and pushed them both open. The diesel engine rattled into gear and the truck rolled fifty metres inside the wire.

The union chief yelled into his mobile. ‘Trojan Horse is go, go, go!'

The tarp covering the tipper was thrown back and twelve fearsome organisers leapt into action. Two ran to the gates and held them open while the rest fanned out across the compound.

Once the gates were secured a small convoy appeared from a hundred metres away, led by Channel Nine's live links van. Harry Dunkley was in the next car with a News Corp photographer.

Hall waited until the cameraman was out of the Nine van and rolling before he grabbed the loudhailer. It squealed into life.

‘This site has been declared black!' he yelled. ‘We believe there are serious breaches of occupational health and safety on this site and we're here to ensure that's rectified.'

A few Chinese workers tried to intervene but they were hopelessly outgunned.

A chant broke out from the brothers who had unfurled a giant CFMEU banner and were standing defiantly under its proud sail.

‘Aussie jobs! Aussie jobs! Aussie jobs!'

Dunkley spotted a tough-looking Chinese national on the edge of the melee. He was dressed in a suit and talking into his mobile.

‘Ray, take a few pics of him, please,' the reporter called to his snapper.

He edged closer, determined to try and ask a few questions while the union bovver boys were playing havoc with the bewildered Chinese workforce.

‘Hey, mate! You got a moment?'

The tough guy shot Dunkley a lethal look with his jet-black eyes. Then he saw the snapper and turned and walked quickly into one of the half-finished buildings.

After thirty minutes of mayhem, Hall called the union members together for one last show of strength. And a pic fac for the cameras.

‘We, the CFMEU, will never allow standards to be compromised. Too many workers have been hurt, even killed, in the ACT during the past few years due to lax occupational health and safety standards. The Chinese Government should get this message: You play in Australia under our rules.'

The dirty dozen cheered and offered some last-minute fist-shaking for the cameras. Then they climbed aboard the tipper. A sandy-haired thug tilted his head to the skies and began to sing.

The workers' flag is deepest red

It shrouded oft our martyred dead . . .

Just over a kilometre away, Martin Toohey and George Papadakis watched as the protest played out on Sky. They'd brushed off a minister's tap at the door as they sat engrossed in the Prime Minister's office.

‘Do you think he knows that China actually has a red flag and that it's already a workers' paradise?' Papadakis asked.

‘I think the irony is lost on him.' Toohey couldn't recall when he had last enjoyed Sky's political coverage so much.

‘The Chinese won't be happy about this,' Papadakis said.