3

“Mr. Gibb! Mr. Gibb! Are these accusations true?”

“No comment,” mumbled the Australian minister for resources and energy as he fought his way through the pack of reporters. A camera was thrust into his haggard face, its flash half blinding him. He angrily pushed it away.

“Do you intend to resign?” shouted another reporter.

“How much money did you make from the deal?”

“No comment,” spat Harry Gibb, reaching the glass doors and squeezing through to the air-conditioned safety of the Canberra governmental building. The security guards kept the press pack at bay as Harry scuttled across the polished marble floor toward the elevator. He jabbed a pudgy finger at the Call button, and a moment later a ping signaled the doors sliding open.

“Harry!” called a familiar voice from behind him.

The senator’s tone was sharp. But Harry, pretending not to have heard his colleague, entered the elevator and thumbed the Close-Doors button. The senator increased his pace but was a second too late, and the metal doors clanged shut in his face.

As the elevator rose steadily, Harry took the brief moment of peace to slick down his thinning windswept hair and adjust his tie. He was breathless and could feel patches of sweat seeping through his shirt. At the fifth floor he exited. A potbellied man whose suits always failed to fit him, Harry strode through the open-plan office with as much dignity and authority as he could muster. He knew everyone would have heard the news by now. He was a marked man. But he refused to show it.

As he approached his own office, his secretary rose to greet him. She sheepishly offered him that day’s mail, but he dismissed it with an irritated wave of his hand.

“Later,” he muttered, conscious of the uncomfortable silence that had descended over the workplace.

Shutting his office door behind him, he dropped his briefcase and slumped into his high-backed leather chair. Rubbing his bloodshot eyes, he let out a troubled sigh. For a moment, he allowed himself to believe that he’d escaped the political storm threatening to engulf him. Then, on opening his eyes, he was confronted by an edition of the Australian Daily on his desk. His hangdog face was plastered across the front page. The headline ran:

MINISTER FOR MINES LINES HIS OWN POCKETS WITH GOLD

Harry glared at the offending words, a vein throbbing in his temple.

His phone rang, demanding his attention. He ignored it.

As he stared at the accusing newspaper, Harry suddenly felt his chest tighten. He scrabbled in his desk drawer for his bottle of heart pills. He shook several of the beta-blocker tablets into his open palm and dry-swallowed them.

Leaning back in his chair, Harry waited for his chest pain to pass. As the angina slowly subsided, his anger began to rise again.

“That interfering snake!” he snarled, slamming his palm on the mahogany desk and sending the newspaper flying across the floor.

His mind swirled with furious thoughts. Just because Sterling owned the Australian Daily and virtually every other national newspaper, that didn’t give him the right to meddle in his affairs. It wasn’t as if the media magnate’s hands were squeaky clean. How many times had that slippery fish managed to escape prosecution for tax avoidance, illegal takeovers and business scandals? Sterling was at least as corrupt as he was, if not more so!

Harry was a victim of Sterling’s need for scandalous headlines. The target of an overzealous smear campaign simply to sell more newspapers. But Harry Gibb hadn’t gotten this far in politics without knowing how to protect his own interests. And he certainly wouldn’t roll over and die without a fight.

He was a survivor. He would do whatever it took to save himself.