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‘Leon? Who’s Leon?’
‘My bodyguard.’
‘Well, tell Leon I don’t know yet. I’m still waiting in emergency. I’ve been here since seven am. Something your lot never deals with,’ Stanfield muttered. It was the plight of Labor politicians. Liberal MPs could take out private health insurance and nobody would bat an eyelid. Let a Labor leader be spotted in a private hospital and the media would go berserk.
‘I know you’ve stepped down as leader,’ Stanfield started, ‘but what if instead …’
Fitzwilliams closed his eyes, wishing she wouldn’t make the offer.
‘… we formed a coalition. A Labor–Liberal–National coalition would have a solid workable majority.’ As if sensing his lack of enthusiasm, she pointed out, ‘It’s been done before. Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee—the Conservative and Labour Coalition during the Second World War.’
Fitzwilliams couldn’t help laughing. ‘That was a coalition against the Nazis, not some people wearing celery sticks. Roslyn, if the Labor and Liberal parties joined together, what would be the point of us?’ he asked.
‘You’re right, I suppose.’ Stanfield sighed. ‘We’re going to have to let the Luddites have a go, aren’t we?’ she observed quietly after a pause. ‘Hang on!’ she called out before Fitzwilliams could answer. ‘Sorry, Prime … sorry, Adrian,’ she corrected herself. ‘Got to go. The doctor just called my name.’
...
Fiona Brennan had Geraldine from the Sydney office on the screen. It was the morning of the day after the election, but the counter-terrorism work of ASIO never stopped.
‘This is a remarkable story, Geraldine,’ Fiona commented. ‘They just happened to recruit one of our own undercover agents?’
An ASIO informant embedded within the ranks of an anarchist group had uncovered the bizarre plot. The anarchist group being monitored had proven to be a tepid, mostly boring lot. They did little other than hold meetings and assign mandatory readings to its members, homework about which their agent frequently complained to his ASIO handlers.
This agent, however, had recently been approached by Radio 2RT with a suspicious job offer that he accepted out of professional curiosity. On his first day at 2RT, he did a cursory hack of the station manager’s computer, though the agent couldn’t really call it hacking; the station manager was someone who left his computer on all day and was prone to long lunches.
He discovered that the station manager had been trawling the dark side of the internet to purchase bomb-making equipment. Over the following days, the ASIO agent easily gleaned further details of the plot. The station manager and the producer of the Jim Jarvis Show planned to explode a bomb in their own computer server and pin the crime on the anarchist they’d recently hired. Their intention was to destroy the server housing Virtual Jim Jarvis. They were plotting to murder a dead man!
‘It is tempting to let them blow up Jim Jarvis,’ Fiona mused; she never could abide the man. ‘But someone might get hurt. It is the nature of bombs.’ ASIO had security-of-the-nation problems enough without radio stations setting off bombs and blaming non-existent terrorists. ‘I suppose we must make an example of them, if only as a deterrent. Let’s leave terrorism to the actual terrorists.’
‘Deterrent?’ Geraldine queried. ‘Who would we be deterring? How many people plot to blow up their own computer servers? This lot is completely mad.’
Geraldine had a point. ‘This needn’t be an ASIO matter,’ Fiona decided. ‘Build the dossier about the case, then hand it over to local police.’ She shook her head. ‘What could have possessed them over at 2RT?’
‘In radio, Director, I think you’ll find it’s always about the ratings.’
...
The period of indecision after the election had been mercifully brief. Labor had agreed to vote supply to the Luddites. Russ Langdon, the new Liberal leader, hadn’t gone as far as that, but he had rammed through the Coalition party room meeting that Donna Hargreaves and Alan Chandos could join the Conglomerate Cabinet. That had not gone down well with some MPs, but it had gone down. Fitzwilliams had been mostly a spectator to these events. Prime Minister Ned Ludd would be sworn in by the Governor-General on Thursday. The Honourable Ned Ludd. It would take some getting used to.
The Prime Minister to be had paid Fitzwilliams a visit. He’d shown her around his office and the cabinet rooms and then taken her to meet with some of the parliamentary staff. She had introduced herself as ‘Aggie’ but in parliament she would officially be Ned Ludd, as would all her colleagues. It was going to be difficult to make any sense reading Hansard under such confusing conditions, Fitzwilliams reflected, but then, Hansard often didn’t make much sense.
The only feathers Aggie/Ned Ludd had ruffled were those of Fitzwilliams’ chauffeur Desmond. Apparently, the new Prime Minister wanted to get about Canberra on a tandem. ‘I can’t be a chauffeur on a tandem,’ Desmond groused to Fitzwilliams. ‘It’s undignified.’
A phone call from Olga had been a pleasant surprise. Did he want a game of tennis? This invitation from Fitzwilliams’ most loyal and disloyal cabinet colleague perked him up considerably. Olga had been a part of his life for so long. Now that she had engineered this Luddite victory so spectacularly, he thought she might never spare him another thought. Instead, here she was proposing to meet on the very same tennis court where they had played that first day of the election campaign, a campaign that now seemed almost a lifetime ago.
They had a coffee first, both players being of an age where caffeine helped considerably before undertaking any activity. ‘I am pleased you have decided to stay on in parliament, Prime Minister,’ she told him. She was the only person still calling him Prime Minister. ‘I was concerned you might stray down that road of so many of your predecessors; ceasing to contribute meaningfully, content to write self-indulgent memoirs and the occasional smug know-it-all opinion pieces for Fairfax or News Corp.’
Fitzwilliams said nothing. He’d been considering writing a little something for The Australian Online. ‘You can still play a dynamic role in the governing of this country,’ Olga informed him and took a sip of her coffee. ‘You, Prime Minister, can make it your role to talk sense to the rank and file of Liberal/National MPs and Senators. How politics works is about to change radically and some of them will need your help to understand and adapt to this.’ She said this matter-of-factly. She was clearly assuming he was in full agreement with her on what his role should be in this new political order. Perhaps he was.
‘But now,’ Olga smiled, picking up her racquet, ‘to more important matters.’ They took their positions on either side of the net. The same group—or at least a very similar group—of primary school students were on the adjacent court. Not being prime minister had its benefits, Fitzwilliams reflected. It no longer mattered if one of the little brats filmed them this time.
Olga won the first game. She was using the same tactic as before, choosing placement over power, wearing him down and making him scramble after every return shot. To start the second game, after Fitzwilliams stretched to his backhand on her serve, he moved almost instinctively to where he knew her return shot would go. When it came, he was there waiting for it on his forehand and tucked it away efficiently in the far corner. So perfect was the shot, so unreturnable, that Olga had not moved a centimetre towards it. She simply watched its trajectory to the opposite corner.
Olga nodded approvingly. ‘You are positioning yourself much better than before,’ she remarked. ‘You have potential in you yet, Prime Minister.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Foremost, I must thank the incomparable Irina Dunn for the crucial role she played in bringing this novel to the bright daylight of publication. Had it not been for her encouragement, her efforts, her generosity and, above all, the wisdom of her advice, this book would still be languishing as a stack of A4 sheets with scrawled marginal notes on a shelf I really ought to tidy up some day.
My gratitude also goes to the team at Allen & Unwi
n, most particularly to Richard Walsh, Rebecca Kaiser, Ali Lavau and Aziza Kuypers. They bring to their work that admirable capacity so needed in today’s world of being both very professional and delightfully fun to work with.
And finally, thanks must go to my early readers, Laurie Miller, Susan Kennett, Jan Lingard, Cyril O’Connor, Zhi Yan, and to my international reviewers, my brother Glenn and his friend Joe. It was their laughter and encouragement that made me decide this novel should really be given a go.