‘Room service,’ she said.
Kalas hadn’t ordered anything, but he shrugged that off. Perhaps breakfast came with the room and he hadn’t been told. ‘Okay, hang on,’ he said. He tied the robe to cover his nakedness. If the waitress was pretty — and he suspected she was but the lens in the peephole distorted the view — perhaps he’d ask her to have breakfast with him? In the jacuzzi. He smiled at his own bravado. It was amazing what five mill’ and counting could do for a man’s confidence, he told himself.
He turned the handle slightly, clicking off the lock, and suddenly the door rushed at him like a runaway refrigerator. The impact smashed his nose and catapulted him back into the room, where he landed with a thud on the floor. The air was punched out of his lungs and he clutched at his throat, choking for breath. Kalas opened his eyes and blinked at the collection of black-masked bug-eyes hovering over him. Muzzles and underslung torches of Heckler & Koch MP-5 machine pistols waved small circles above the bleeding mass of his nose. Knees firmly planted on his chest were making it impossible for him to recover his breath. Another three black-clad soldiers jumped over him and quickly checked the suite.
‘Clear!’ The call was repeated as each room was found to be empty.
‘Area secured,’ said the leader of the squad, the black muzzles remaining trained on Kalas’s frightened, bloody face.
Gia Ferallo stepped through the door. She removed the French maid’s bonnet from her hair and loosened the belt cinched tight around her narrow waist. While the antiterrorist squad was AFP, Federal Agent Tadzic’s men, the official arrest was made by a couple of ASIO agents gladly provided by the D-G himself, Peter Meyer. ASIO, the agency charged with handling terror threats inside Australia, had been given the power to hold people thought to have links to terrorists or terrorist organisations for up to seven days without charging them. They’d need that time to sort out exactly what Kalas was up to, and take him out of circulation. The ASIO men came through the door and slapped the cuffs on the financier. ‘Jeff Kalas, you are held on suspicion of having terrorist links. You will be detained for a period of no greater than seven days pending the laying of charges. You may have a lawyer present and so…’
Yadda, yadda, thought Ferallo. What counted was that they had the bastard. He was the best lead, perhaps their only lead, to Duat and the weapon.
Federal Agent Tadzic, the officer in charge, stepped through the door behind Ferallo. ‘So this is what a financier of terrorism looks like?’ she said. Kalas lay at their feet, the robe up around his waist, white buttocks sitting in a puddle of yellow urine.
Annabelle was alone in her apartment, having a night at home. She had a shower and sat on her couch with a glass of wine and turned on the TV. The prime minister’s department had rung the network in the morning and requested time for an urgent broadcast. The time they requested was six o’clock. Prime time. News time. No one knew what it was about, although the network head of news had been ferreting about all day checking sources in Canberra, trying to find out. The best he could manage was that the news was going to be bad. But that was a given. A PM never made an all-station broadcast out of the blue unless an unbelievable sporting milestone had been achieved, or something dire was in the wind.
It was unseasonably cold and rainy outside. Annabelle sat on the couch in her dressing gown with her drink and waited for a mindless quiz show to come to an end. The unspoken fear within her was that the PM was about to announce a military catastrophe, and that somehow Tom would be amongst the victims. Her imagination had been playing with that thought all day. She went home early, sick. How had she allowed her relationship with Tom to implode? The engagement was off, she’d terminated it, handed back the ring. She’d told him that it was his job she couldn’t cope with. She’d also told him she didn’t want to go to Sydney. And that was a lie. In fact, she did want to go. Was that the real reason for the end of their relationship? Her selfishness? How quickly the emptiness of that choice had hit her. Was the career — her career — so important it transcended everything else? Was reading the news in Sydney such a pinnacle that she was prepared to sacrifice everything — even the man she loved — to gain it? Or did she just miss Tom so much she was blaming herself for the break-up?
And then there was Saunders. They had been on their way to a charity benefit when Saunders stopped at his apartment, claiming he wanted to dash up and get his chequebook. He asked her to come up rather than remain in the car. A thunderstorm was about to break and Annabelle hadn’t wanted to sit alone in the car in an innercity neighbourhood she knew nothing about. Big mistake. She should have taken her chances with the weather and the muggers. She’d used the bathroom and when she came out, Saunders was sitting on the couch, naked, with his erection in hand. She’d laughed at him and asked simply, ‘What are you doing?’ To which he’d said, ‘What does it look like, sweetie? Time to pay your dues.’ Sweetie?! Annabelle had laughed at him again, picked up her coat and walked out. Things had been strained at the station ever since. She’d even heard Saunders refer to her as a ‘hick’. Rumours about their evening together had swept the station and it was only then that Annabelle realised how truly unpopular Saunders was. He’d tried the same stunt with most of the women at the network at one time or another.
‘Don’t worry, honey,’ said one of the other women Saunders had failed to score with. ‘There’ll be a new female employee along next week and he’ll forget about you the moment she walks through the front door. And besides, his ego’s so big that in a month he’ll remember the incident differently — that you’d come across and that he was awesome.’ They’d both laughed about that. Apparently, being cornered by Saunders was something of an initiation rite. The women in the office had been waiting to see how she’d handle it before warming to her, and she’d come through with flying colours. Sydney was one tough town.
On the television set in front of her, the game show host flashed an impossibly white set of teeth at the camera as the plump contestant, who looked like she was smuggling pillows under her tight sweater, bounced up on stage and squeezed into the new car she’d just won. The credits rolled, the theme music played, and then a cut was made to the network’s logo. A voice said, ‘The six o’clock news will be presented after the prime minister’s address to the nation.’ The logo remained on screen for several pregnant seconds before being replaced by the head and shoulders of Prime Minister William Blight.
Annabelle Gilbert wasn’t sure what she thought about Blight. He was a larrikin, a former heavy drinker who had, at one time, been a union boss on the waterfront. She hadn’t heard any off-putting rumours about him, which was unusual for a politician, but she didn’t trust him — not wholly, anyway. Was it possible for a truly good man to become the prime minister in modern politics when so much of their personality was manufactured and moulded by spin doctors? Answer: no. Blight seemed to buck that belief to some extent, but when it came down to it, Annabelle guessed she just didn’t trust politicians.
She examined his face. It was deeply lined. He was a harried man and looked like he’d aged ten years since coming to power at the last election, only a year ago. It was an honest face, though — craggy and avuncular at the same time. Annabelle turned the volume up and prepared herself for the worst.
‘People of Australia,’ he began. ‘Recent intelligence has come to light indicating a threat to our country and our way of life. This intelligence is not by any means certain but my government — in all good conscience — could not take the risk of keeping it quiet for reasons that will quickly become apparent.