I asked, ‘Who were they?’
Peterson said, ‘Two Brits and an American. All retired military.’
‘What kind?’
‘Cooperation only goes so far. We got pretty bland answers. Supply units, mostly.’
‘What did they say about me?’
‘Traffic duty, mostly.’
‘Not my fault,’ Mitchell said. ‘I’m just the messenger.’
I said, ‘Why were they in Australia?’
‘The Brits were visiting family,’ Peterson said. ‘Lots of Brits have family in Australia. The American was there on business.’
All four faces had a deep dimple in the paper, high on the forehead. From the metal butterfly clasp on the envelope. Which was made of stiff brown paper, unmarked on either side, except for a rime of perished glue under the flap.
I asked, ‘How often did the Brits go visit their families?’
‘Every couple of years,’ Peterson said. ‘Flights are cheap now. It’s a great vacation.’
‘Had the American been there before?’
‘Many times,’ Peterson said. ‘He was a mining executive. He was in and out like a fiddler’s elbow.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘OK what?’
‘Who had been living at the address in Sydney?’
‘We couldn’t tell. They were highly disciplined. It was pretty much a sterile environment. Food and clothing were generic Australian.’
‘They were from the former Yugoslavia,’ I said.
Peterson asked me to come see him first thing the next morning, at his place. The Australian consulate, on 42nd Street, across from Grand Central. I said I would, if I hadn’t already left town by then. He thought I was kidding about that. He smiled. I didn’t. I left the FBI building and stopped in at the third copy shop I saw, which had computers to rent in ten-minute blocks, and no other customers, which meant the guy behind the counter would have time to answer technical questions, which I was sure I would have.
First I got a visa for Australia. On line, virtually automatic, virtually instantaneous. My name, my passport number, my ATM card. A healthy fee. Click to accept. Then I bought an airplane ticket on the next flight out. JFK to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to Sydney. Then I paid for my computer time and caught a cab to the airport. First thing the next morning I was a long way from Grand Central Terminal.
I slept most of the way across the Pacific, in a hard upright seat. I was comfortable. Sleeping sitting up was a skill a person learned in the army, and I had never lost it. Arrival in Sydney was undramatic. Immigration was routine. I had no luggage, but even so I lingered in the baggage hall. My sense of day and time was scrambled. I felt I needed to be on the ball. I figured the clock was already ticking. I figured alerts were already going out, in all kinds of different directions.
Five minutes later I stepped out to the arrivals hall. I stopped under a sign about ground transportation. Trains and buses and taxis. This way and that way. I followed the arrow for the taxi line. I walked neither fast nor slow. I saw a guy in a suit watching me. Behind me, on my left. Trying hard, but completely obvious. A common problem, all over the world. Clearly no different in Australia. The kind of guy capable of the feats and achievements necessary to get promoted to an undercover role is not the kind of guy who looks natural, standing around doing nothing in a suit. Too much energy, and discipline, and purpose. Even standing still.
He was one of three things. Maybe just a routine post-Customs snoop, in this case interested in a passenger off a transcontinental flight, who carried no luggage at all. No suitcase on wheels, no backpack, no shoulder bag, no nothing. Not normal.
Or maybe he was one of Pete Peterson’s boys. Whatever day and time it was in Sydney, it was way after yesterday’s first thing next morning in New York. Maybe Peterson had asked around. Maybe he had checked his computers on a hunch. Or maybe there was an established protocol. Maybe all new visa applicants came across his desk. He had plenty of time to organize a reception committee. I was in the air a very long time.
The third possibility was he was a bad guy.
I walked on. I found the end of the taxi line. There were twenty people ahead of me. I leaned the base of my spine on the barrier rail, and arched my back, as if easing a pain, and twisted left, where I saw the head of the line, and the exit lanes beyond it, and then I twisted right, where I saw the guy in the suit still watching me.
And this time also talking on a cell phone.
I waited. We all shuffled up, one carful at a time. I watched the traffic behind me. Maybe the guy in the suit was calling up a chase car. To follow my taxi, when my turn came. I looked for vehicles idling at the kerb, loitering, going nowhere, just waiting. There were dozens of them. It was the arrivals lane at an airport.
My turn came. I slid in the back of a cab and asked for the opera house. I watched out the back window for the first mile. Dozens of cars were following us. Same speed, same relative position, never changing. A river of traffic. The main route between the airport and downtown. To be expected. Nothing to be learned. I faced front again. It was late morning, according to the sun. A beautiful day. Which beautiful day, I still wasn’t sure.
We got near the harbour. The opera house was built on a promontory. It was world famous and iconic and beautiful and one of the planet’s great attractions. But because of its position out over the water it needed a purposeful there-and-back detour. It needed a specific intention. You didn’t just pass it by, accidentally. Which is why I chose it. It would act as a filter. I would see which of the cars behind us really meant business.
The answer was only one. I got out of the cab and a car slowed to a stop twenty yards away. It was a large shapeless sedan painted brown. Made by the Australian version of General Motors. In it was a lone guy, wearing sunglasses and a black leather jacket. I turned to go and he shut the motor down and got out and left the car right where it was, parked not very straight in a no-parking zone. Which didn’t help me decide who he was. A Customs agent might park like that. Or any of Pete Peterson’s boys. Because they all had immunity. But equally a bad guy might park like that. Because he didn’t care. Because he had bigger things on his mind.
I walked on, towards the swooping structure. I didn’t look back. But I listened back. I heard the guy in the shades. I heard his footsteps. I picked them out. I detoured towards the water. Away from the crowds. The footsteps followed. About ten yards back. Ahead of me I saw a corner, and a barrier, and a gate, big enough for a truck. A scenery dock, maybe. The unseen guts of the building. Not famous or iconic or beautiful.
I ducked under the barrier and walked on. Then I stopped and looked out over the water. The footsteps got closer. When they were three steps away I turned around. The guy in the shades was thirty-something, medium height, dark-haired, and he needed a shave. He was muscled up to the point of looking stocky. His leather jacket was tight across his shoulders. It looked like motorcycle equipment.
I said, ‘Show me ID.’
Instead he showed me a knife.
Which answered my question about who he was. Not a Customs agent. Not one of Pete Peterson’s boys. The knife was a military-issue combat weapon. But not U.S. Not NATO. Maybe Czech. Or Yugoslavian.
I said, ‘Do you speak English?’
‘Funny man,’ he said.
‘You need to talk to your boss about tactics. This is really stupid. I’ve been in the country less than twenty minutes. You might as well draw a picture.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You’re the last. We won’t be using this method again.’
‘Did you do the first three?’