telephone is ringing,’ said Peabody. ‘You’d better answer it.’
Craddock nodded and made his way over to his desk and picked up the phone.
‘Hello! This is Craddock,’ he said.
‘Is that Mr Craddock from Redfern or Punchbowl?’
Craddock tensed and looked around him. Anyone within possible earshot was either on the phone or talking to someone else. He turned away so that he faced the window.
‘Redfern,’ he replied.
‘A good choice. There is a situation that affects you,’ said the voice at the other end. ‘One of ours has transferred out. You don’t know him but he knows of you. Action immediate. You understand.’
‘I understand.’
Craddock put down the telephone and looked around. He looked at the clock which indicated that the time was about half past three. He picked up his brief case, checked the contents of an envelope that was inside a zipped compartment inside it, and then extracted the flash drive from his computer. He looked around his office, gave a sigh as he realised he would never see it or the view from the window again and opened his office door.
‘You off, Murray?’ asked a man sitting at his computer monitor at a nearby desk.
‘Yes, I have a call to make, see you on Monday.’
‘Yes, see you later.’
Craddock made his way to the lift shaft, he took a circuitous route around the office to prevent Alfred Peabody catching sight of him as he made his way out, Peabody was an officious bastard who was always checking what anyone was doing or where they were going. The lift arrived and Craddock stepped into it. As the doors eased shut, it seemed to Craddock to be an act of finality.
Francis Burton’s telephone rang. It was Esme Lewis in Ottawa.
‘Are we on a secure line, Francis?’
Burton raised his hand to the telephone set and pressed a red button. There was momentary interference on the line.
‘We are now,’ he replied. ‘Good to hear from you, Esme. What is it?’
‘Our friend has begun to talk, there is much information involved but you’ll need to know of this quickly. I have the name of your leak in Canberra.’
Burton listened as Esme Lewis continued, and jotted down something on his pad.
‘Bloody hell! OK, thanks Esme,’ he said. ‘Yes and to you.’
He put the phone down and picked up the internal phone on his desk.
‘Is that you, Alan? Get over here quickly.’
Heads turned as Burton, Kelsey and Denis Shackleton, another ASIO operative, entered the office floor of the Defence Ministry and headed for the office of Alfred Peabody. They were accompanied by two security men who were wearing uniforms. Peabody looked up irritably as the phalanx entered his office, and he gritted his teeth when he saw that one of the newcomers was Francis Burton. They had a mutual dislike of each other, one that had persisted from the days when they had first met as pupils at a primary school in Canberra.
‘To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure,’ he began, adopting an aggressive and sarcastic tone. ‘Have you forgotten how to knock?’
Burton didn’t waste any time in pleasantries.
‘Where’s Murray Craddock?’
‘I beg your pardon. What right have you to come in here and…?’
‘Look, we haven’t got time to waste in exchanging pleasantries and pointless questions,’ Alan Kelsey intervened, deeming that the antipathy between Peabody and Burton could become a difficult and time wasting hurdle. ‘You have a man named Murray Craddock on this floor under your jurisdiction. We need to know where he is.’
‘Oh dear, what has he done? Has he forgotten to clock in or has he…?’
‘Just stow your sarcastic bloody comments for the present, this is a matter of national security,’ snapped Kelsey. ‘We have reason to believe Craddock has been selling state secrets to a foreign power.’
‘Don’t be utterly…what?’
Kelsey repeated it, and added coldly. ‘Where is he?’
Peabody rose to his feet and peered through the glass partition of his office pen.
‘He normally sits over there, the office by the window,’ he said and pointed his finger. ‘He’s not in today; in fact he wasn’t in yesterday either.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, I don’t know. We hadn’t heard anything from him so I assume he’s off sick. He left the office on Friday at about 3.30. He said he had a call to make.’
‘I’ll bet he had. And you’ve heard nothing since?’
‘No, what exactly is all this about?’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Kelsey turned to Burton. ‘I think we’re too late. I reckon the bird has flown.’
‘Let’s have a look at his desk,’ snapped Burton.
‘You have no right to…!’
‘Yes we have and you’d best come as well,’ snapped Burton.
‘This is a matter of national security now.’
Chapter 1
Robert Bramble leaned back in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers together.
‘So there it is, Harry,’ he said, ‘Easy isn’t it? You can stop off at Jakarta; all expenses paid, and have a short holiday there. All you have to do is collect a small package and deliver it to our embassy. You don’t even have to bring it back here. On top of that you will receive a fee from us of $3,000 for services rendered – how does that sound?’
On the face of it, Harry Wallace had to admit that it did sound attractive. He needed an extra $3,000 as much as the next man. It sounded almost too easy, yet what could possibly go wrong?
‘Well,’ he began slowly and Bramble nodded.
‘Good man,’ he said enthusiastically, using what the salesman would term “the assumed close”. ‘I knew you’d help us. Once a government servant, always a government servant…eh?’ Bramble deliberately avoided the use of the name of the Australian intelligence organisation; maybe he thought it may have raised doubts in Wallace’s mind. He would probably have been right.
‘All right!’ Wallace said grudgingly. ‘I could do
