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General Lee was adamant. No one must learn that the US had abducted an Australian citizen. He went on to say that getting the target to go with me willingly was crucial to the operation. Under no circumstance should I involve the federal police. My hackles rose at what I perceived to be a criticism of my country’s police force. But the general set me straight. “I know Aussie security is second to none, Mo ... but no organization is without its whistleblowers.”
I didn’t swallow his explanation. Around the globe potential terrorist plots are regularly uncovered as a result of increased surveillance. The threatened country’s courts deal with the perpetrators and the public are informed. In fact, exposing a national terrorist threat is perceived as a feather in the cap by the government of the day. Usually it’s front page news. The secrecy attached to this operation was over the top. I guess General Lee feared the ISS cover-up might come to light if Beth was questioned by the federal police. It took some doing but I steeled my heart.
“How do I get Beth to come with me, Sir?”
Otis will provide you with a pistol.”
“Beth would laugh in my face. She’d know I never use it.”
He opened a drawer and took out a pouch wrapped up in clear plastic. He handed it to me. “Then use this.”
“What is it?”
“Scopolamine, more commonly known as a rape drug. If you blow a little of the powder in Beth’s face, she’ll comply with any request.” I must have looked appalled for he quickly said, “It’s harmless. She won’t suffer any ill effects.”
I wasn’t so sure. I spent the flight to Oz, trying to figure out alternative methods of abducting her. Subterfuge seemed the most promising. Like me, Beth was fond of Doug McLeod. I was certain she’d jump at the chance of a complimentary flight to Wooroloo, particularly if I told her we could be up and back in the same day. Of course, she’d wonder what the hell was going on when the HC-130P/N used by the US for special ops headed east, but it would be too late. She’d kick up a stink once she cottoned on. So would the general if I blew the operation.
I hadn’t had to field any awkward questions on board from the pilot. It was common practice for service personnel to hitch a lift on a military command flight or a MAC, as it was more familiarly known. Shortly before landing, I changed into civvies. I concealed the air force issue pistol under my hoody in a heavy-duty elastic holder. Secretly I was thrilled ... I felt like James Bond.
A transport vehicle was waiting on the tarmac at Pearce, the RAAF’s aerodrome. I asked the driver to stop on the outskirts of the city. Once the jeep turned the corner, I flagged a taxi. “I’m a bit short of the readies, buddy. Do you know any cheap hotels?” I asked the driver in my best American accent.
“There’s the Exchange in Murray Street, but it’s just a dosser for derros[20]. You’d be better off at a Backpackers, mate.”
“No thanks. I’m too old to share a six-bed dorm.”
“Well don’t say you weren’t warned.”
* * *
The Exchange’s foyer was dark and dingy and the reception desk was unattended. No one showed up when I rang the bell. Five minutes later, I opened a side door and found myself in a regular bar filled with a cheerfully noisy crowd. In response to my complaint, the barman said, “It’s lunch time, mate.”
“No worries.” I glanced at the array of taps. It had been a long time since I’d tasted Aussie Lager. I ordered a pint of VB[21], found an empty table by a window and settled down to wait.
Two pints and burger later, the barman came across. “You’re sure yer wanna stay ’ere?”
The icy beer had gone down a treat and the burger wasn’t half bad either. Either Aussie expectations had escalated or mine had dropped. “Yeah, Bud, just for a couple of nights.”
He called out to a waitress clearing the tables. “Keep an eye on the bar. I’ll be back in a mo.”
I grinned. The bartender had used the phrase unwittingly. He didn’t know that joke had followed me from kindergarten, along with moron, mojo and my teachers’ favourite unmotivated. Nor would he ... I had no intention of registering as Geronimo Jones.
“Who sent you to this dump?” he asked over his shoulder, as I followed him into the lobby.
“A cabbie.”
“Well, maybe you should take a look at the room first?”
He was trying to be helpful, but I didn’t think his boss would see it that way. I shrugged. “I’m broke ... how much is it?”
“Fifty dollars a night ... in advance.”
I took out my wallet, hesitating over the notes as I thought a tourist would. “Book me in for three nights.”
He pushed the register towards me. My sole reason for booking into this grungy dump was to avoid providing ID. I signed Pete Mitchell after my boyhood hero, the maverick pilot in Top Gun. I hesitated at the address line. The guy directly above had written no fixed abode. I followed suit and held my breath.
The bartender raised his eyebrows. I thought I was sunk but just then the waitress poked her head through the door. “How long will you be, Tony? I’m needed in the kitchen?”
“Keep your shirt on I’m dealing with a guest.”
He waited until she left before turning his attention to me. “You’re in three, the second door on the right at the top of the stairs.” He handed me the key, a real one not a card, and a rough towel, grayish white and worn thin. “The showers and toilets are on the floor above ... at the end of the corridor.”
He bent down and hunted through a cupboard under the desk. “You better have this.” He handed me a toilet roll. “I’d keep it in yer room if I were you.”
I was hit with the dank musty smell of unwashed blankets when I opened the door. The small square room that was to be my home was bare apart from a bed, and a straight-backed wooden chair. Bedbug territory, I thought eyeing the lumpy double bed pushed up against a damp and mouldy wall; its threadbare cover stained with the lives of its past occupants. The unhygienic conditions didn’t faze me. My shots were up-to-date. I walked over to the small grimy window and tried to raise it by pushing the handles along the bottom sash but it was jammed. No point in complaining. I pushed my kitbag under the bed and set off for my old stamping ground.
* * *
Stirling Highway in Claremont where Beth now resided was around the corner from my old school. I was on tenterhooks. I pulled up my hood and kept my head down. It’d just be my luck to run into a former school mate. Equally concerning, I’d grown up in Cottesloe, an adjacent suburb. My family still lived there. I always stayed with them when I was home on leave. God knows what I’d say should I run into my mother who frequented Claremont’s exclusive boutiques. She’d never forgive me.
I reached Beth’s apartment block without being recognised. School got out at three-thirty. Some teachers beat their pupils to the school gates others stay back preparing for the next day. I reckoned Beth fell into the latter category. As expected, when I rang the bell there was no answer. I settled down to wait. Beth arrived ninety minutes later clutching a tub of student files, with a bulging bag and laptop over her shoulder.
Her face was a picture. “Mo! Is it really you? I can’t believe it.”
“Thought I’d surprise you.”
“Well, you certainly did that!” She dumped the tub and laptop on the garden chair I’d just vacated and began rummaging through her shoulder bag. “Where have you sprung from?”
“Andrews in Maryland. I’ve just concluded a training course on the US’s latest fighter jet.”
She looked up from her search. “And the US air force trusts you with it?”
“They have to take who they can get,” I said, just as straight-faced. “Besides Doug’s ultra-lite is the only plane I’ve crashed.”
“So far...”
The sparkle in her eyes took the sting out of her reply. I grinned and said, “Yikes, you haven’t changed.”
She raised a pair of well-shaped eyebrows. “Humph,” she mumbled and buried her head once more in her bag.
I understood the reason for the aggrieved humph for she had completely overhauled her appearance. While she was preoccupied, I took stock. Beth had gone from a frizzy-haired carrot top to a smooth haired blonde. Her makeup was flawless without a single freckle in sight. The bane of her girlhood, mismatched eyes were now bright blue. The overall effect was stunning, but it was like looking at a stranger — which in a way made what I was here to do easier.
“Eureka,” she said, a few minutes later, jangling an overloaded key-ring, and looking the picture of elegant sophistication in a well-tailored suit and skyscraper heels. In my experience, teachers were on their feet all day — she’d have been better off in flatties. But without them I guessed students would tower over her.
“You’re looking good,” I said as an ice-breaker. “Er ... very stylish.”
“Thanks.” She looked me up and down taking in my faded jeans and the dark hoody I’d worn to hide my face. “Modish it how I’d describe you,” she said, stressing the first syllable.
Beth never could resist making sarcastic comments based on my name.
I uttered a stage groan. “Go on Macbeth, twist the knife.”
“Touché.” She gave me an appreciative grin. “Well we can’t stand out here all afternoon exchanging quips.” She inserted her key in the lock, opened the door and turned around to pick up the tub and laptop but I beat her to it.
She stood back to allow me to proceed her. I gave the open-plan room the once over. “This is nice.”
She shrugged. “I haven’t done much with it. It was my parent’s Perth pad. Now that I’m teaching at St. Agnes’s, Dad lets me live here.”
“I was sorry to hear about your mother.” I meant it. Noelene Godson had been kind to me when most people, most notably her husband, wrote me off as a bad egg. “How are you?”
“Okay ... it’s worse for Annie.”
“Yes, it would be ... how old is she?”
“She’s just turned ten. She was born right after ... well, you know what!”
Without me having to work at it, Beth had provided an opening. “Do you ever think of those days?”
“I try not to.”
“Doug told me you were an aid worker.”
“He told me you dropped bombs on innocent civilians.”
“Doug never said that ... for one thing it isn’t true.”
“Do you deny you flew missions to Syria?”
“No! I did ... but never as a bomber. I’m a fighter pilot. It was my job to protect our bombers from enemy fighters.”
“Mo, you enabled the carnage. You must see that you’re as guilty as the bombing crew.”
“For God’s sake, Beth, Assad was using chemical weapons!”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
I had no desire to continue this conversation. Like most civilians Beth had no idea what it was like out there. I said, “I’m not allowed to talk about this.” Actually, there was no regulation preventing me from discussing past missions, I was banking on her not knowing. Then, talk about putting my foot in it, I said, “I’d kill for a cup of tea.”
Fortunately, Beth didn’t notice my poor choice of words. Or else pretended not to. “Sorry I should have offered.”
I was still hugging her work stuff. I followed her through to the galley kitchen. “Where do you want these?”
“Could you dump them in my study? It’s at the top of the stairs, on the right, next to the bathroom.”
“May I use your bathroom,” I asked? A sneaky tip I’d learnt from watching cop shows.
“Of course.”
Instead I entered a small cramped room that was obviously multi-functional. A sofa bed was pushed against one wall. A large desk was crammed up against the one opposite. Above it were shelves jam-packed with books. A large netted trampoline stood in the centre of the room. Its presence surprised me. I couldn’t see bookish Beth spending her spare time on a trampoline. But what did I know? I still couldn’t bring myself to believe she was involved in a terrorist plot.
I dumped the tub on the floor and pushed some trays aside to make room for the laptop on a desk that was chockablock with archaic computer paraphernalia, piles of books and student essays.
Her PC didn’t interest me. ASP already kept track of her blog and browsing history. If there was anything new to be learnt, it had to be on her laptop. I shook my head. If she was a terrorist, she was a downright amateur. Giving me unsupervised access was plain stupid, but then nearly everyone assumes a locked computer is safe.
Before I set out I’d been provided with Spygot, a deliberate misspelling of ‘spigot’, a valve used to turn on, or off the flow of fluid in a water pipe. I don’t know who dreamt up Spygot, but to my mind it was a clever name for an internet tap. Actually, hacking into a locked computer was old hat— reach was the breakthrough. The transceivers for sale on the internet only have a range of eight miles.
It took but a moment to plug the device into the laptop’s USB port. When I removed the dongle ten seconds later, the surveillance code was already installed into the laptop’s browser cache. As I eyeballed Beth’s bookshelves packed with dull looking books of a kind one only reads in school, ASP was already eavesdropping on everything that had ever come across Beth’s laptop. Mission accomplished, I ducked into the bathroom, flushed the toilet and ran the taps.
It was that quick. That easy!
