Greater Good

by Tim Ayliffe

  Acid was burning in the back of Bailey’s throat, a physical response to the burden of blame.

  ‘I did this.’

  The empty warehouse was an echo chamber.

  ‘What’d you say?’ Dexter was standing more than three metres away.

  Bailey turned around. ‘I should have been more careful, should have got him to turn himself in.’

  He shook his head, angry and helpless.

  They didn’t have much time.

  ‘What’d he tell you?’ Bailey could tell Dexter was relieved he was walking back towards her so she wouldn’t have to look at Anderson’s tortured corpse up close again.

  ‘He gave me documents, incriminating stuff about Gary Page and the Chinese ambassador setting up dodgy offshore companies for defence contracts.’

  ‘How’s that work?’

  ‘Not now.’ Bailey looked around to see if the killer, or killers, had left anything else behind.

  ‘Bailey?’

  ‘We’ve been through the documents back at the paper. They look legit. Lawyers are looking at them with Gerald now. Page and Li are nothing but two-bit crooks.’

  Dexter nodded her chin at Anderson’s body strapped to the chair. ‘Now they know what you have on them.’

  ‘Must have been tailing me.’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Dexter was always honest. ‘But maybe they were going to find him anyway. This was professional. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.’

  ‘Either way, I was the link, the one talking to –’

  ‘There’s more – and you’re not going to like it.’

  She handed Bailey a blood-splattered folder.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Open it,’ she said. ‘Someone’s trying to frame you.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Shut you up, discredit you. How the hell should I know?’

  Bailey took the file. Inside were photographs of him walking down a hallway. He flipped the page and there were others of him out the front of an apartment building. All the pictures had a time and date at the top. They looked like stills taken from a security camera.

  Bailey’s shock turned to anger. ‘Is this where I think it is?’

  ‘Yeah. Catherine Chamberlain’s apartment building. The date and time puts you at the scene during the missing minutes on the tapes, round the time we think she was murdered.’

  ‘Clever, maybe too clever.’ He tapped the photograph. ‘They’re the clothes I was wearing that first day when I saw you inside the apartment.’

  ‘Clothes? A jury wouldn’t buy that,’ Dexter said. ‘And let’s be honest here – you’re still wearing your suit from last night.’

  ‘Yeah, fashion has always been my undoing. Where’d you find them?’

  ‘Where d’you think? Sitting on that poor bastard’s lap.’

  Planted evidence was never going to be difficult to find.

  ‘What do we do with it?’ Bailey knew exactly what he wanted to do with the photographs, but it was Dexter’s call.

  ‘Destroy them.’

  ‘The bloke outside?’

  ‘I’ll take the chance. He’s all over the place. An elephant could have walked in here and he wouldn’t remember.’

  They both knew that the photographs wouldn’t matter as long as they found the missing minutes on the security footage at Catherine Chamberlain’s apartment building. The photographs were just a warning. At least, Bailey hoped they were.

  ‘Bloody Mario whatever-his-name-is. Where the bloody hell is he?’ Bailey said.

  ‘Don’t worry. He has to turn up sooner or later.’

  ‘If this all turns to shit, can you be the one to put the cuffs on me?’ He lifted his arms, wrists together.

  ‘Don’t.’ Dexter wasn’t smiling. ‘Anyhow, it won’t come to that.’

  She was interrupted by the screeching of car tyres in the street. Car doors clicked open and closed, the sound of voices carried through the door.

  ‘You need to go – now!’

  The voices were getting louder. Bailey looked around the room for another way out.

  ‘Over there!’ She pointed at a hole in the wall, the back door for the squatters who had once called this warehouse home.

  ‘Thanks.’ Bailey started walking. ‘Call Gerald if you need me. I’ve ditched my phone – too much of a risk.’

  He bent down, grimacing at the pain in his ribs, and climbed through the wall. He poked his head back through the hole and saw David Davis emerge through the door.

  ‘That who I think it is?’ Bailey heard him ask her.

  Dexter nodded and escorted him towards the chair in the corner. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘What else did you find?’ Davis said.

  ‘Nothing.’ She was forthright – strong – giving nothing away. If Davis was somehow involved, she needed to be. ‘But we’re still looking.’

  ‘Look harder.’

  Bailey stepped away from the building and stuffed the photographs into his trousers. He wasn’t worried about damaging them. Within minutes they’d be smouldering in a rubbish bin by the side of the road.

  CHAPTER 28

  ‘Still here, mate?’

  Mick was standing outside Gerald’s office when Bailey got back.

  ‘I’ll stay as long as I’m needed.’

  Bailey gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder and walked through the door. Ronnie Johnson was perched on the edge of Gerald’s desk, sucking on the end of his cigar, thumbing through the documents that had cost Michael Anderson his life.

  ‘We’re sharing already?’ Bailey directed his question at Gerald without acknowledging the CIA agent sitting in front of him.

  ‘Not even a hello, bubba?’

  ‘Seriously.’ Bailey’s steely gaze was locked on Gerald. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I called Ronnie and told him to come in. We’re in over our heads with this, Bailey. I needed a second opinion.’

  ‘Isn’t that what she’s for?’ Bailey pointed at the woman sitting on the sofa he’d woken up on that morning.

  ‘And hello to you, Bailey. Nice to see you, as always.’ Marjorie Atkins had been a legal associate at The Journal for thirty-five years. ‘You’ve got something big here. Wouldn’t say you’re in over your head, but it’s going to take a massive pair of balls to publish it.’

  ‘It’s lucky that our Gerald is so very well endowed, Marj.’ Bailey had a deadpan look on his face. He wasn’t joking.

  Marjorie had worked closely with Bailey on his police corruption stories many years ago. She was tough and he liked her. But after what he’d just witnessed in that warehouse in Alexandria, he wasn’t up for compromises.

  ‘So, your advice is to print it?’

  ‘The evidence in your possession is certainly compelling,’ she said.

  ‘But?’ There was always a but with Marjorie.

  ‘However, these are documents that’ve been provided to us on the word of one man. A man who, I might add, is now dead.’

  ‘What’s the call?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Bailey, let her finish,’ Gerald said.

  Marjorie was used to Bailey’s impatience with due process. ‘I’ve already got my team looking at Sands Enterprises in the Virgin Islands. If that company checks out, then I would say your risk is only moderate.’

  ‘Moderate?’

  ‘You know me, Bailey. I won’t ever tell you to print something. That’s the decision of the editor. There’s still a considerable risk involved, I’d say. You’re dealing with the defence minister, for starters, and you’ll be alleging serious leaks from inside both the Treasury and the DOD so, even if you’re right, you could be wrong.’

  Legal speak for we’re screwed either way, thought Bailey. But he wasn’t about to say it out loud. He wanted to roll the dice.

  ‘It’s a risk we should take.’

  ‘What Marjorie is saying is that they’ll fight us to the end,’ Gerald said.

  Bailey’s temper was flaring. Everyone
could see, but he didn’t care. ‘So what?’

  ‘Which means it’ll cost.’ Gerald ignored him. ‘The difference is that these guys can do it with taxpayer dollars, something that hasn’t bothered them in the past.’

  ‘So, what the fuck do we do?’ Bailey said. ‘Ronnie? Got anything you’d like to contribute? Or are you just along for the ride?’

  ‘Settle down, Bailey.’ Gerald tried again to ease the tension that had enveloped the room. ‘No one is saying we can’t print anything, not yet.’

  ‘Actually, bubba,’ Ronnie said, ‘I’ve got a lot.’

  ‘And?’

  Ronnie got up, closed the door and returned his cigar to the corner of his mouth.

  ‘The information I’m about to tell you remains in this room.’ He took a moment to meet the eyes of all of those listening.

  ‘Enough with the bullshit, Ronnie. We know the drill. Secret squirrels. Just get it out.’

  Ronnie waited until there was quiet.

  ‘Anderson had been working for us.’

  ‘What the fuck!’ Bailey erupted. ‘After all the promises of playing it straight and sharing information, you drop this on us. You’re unbelievable!’

  ‘He’s right, Ronnie.’ Gerald was back in Bailey’s corner. ‘This is hard to take, even from you.’

  ‘Well, if Bailey hadn’t started getting taxis everywhere maybe we wouldn’t have missed the rendezvous with Anderson last night and the poor bastard would still be alive!’

  ‘Don’t you dare pin that on me!’ Bailey stepped towards Ronnie, fist clenched, his rage compounded by the fact that Ronnie had still been using surveillance on him.

  ‘Boys, boys, boys!’ Marjorie could yell louder than any of them. ‘We’re adults, aren’t we?’

  The door to Gerald’s office creaked open.

  ‘Everything okay in here, Mr Summers?’ It was Mick.

  ‘Yes, mate. An animated conversation, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Just checking.’ Mick closed the door.

  ‘Let’s hear what Mr Johnson would like to share with us,’ Marjorie said.

  Bailey stepped back from Ronnie’s towering frame – which was sensible, when he thought about it – and walked over to the window.

  ‘Okay,’ Bailey said. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  Ronnie wasn’t in a hurry. He strolled to the coffee machine in the corner of Gerald’s office, slipped a capsule inside and let it do its work.

  ‘When you’re ready, mate,’ Bailey said.

  Ronnie took a sip of his long black and nodded at Gerald, acknowledging the taste.

  ‘The lawyer needs to go.’

  ‘Marjorie stays.’ Gerald looked like he was about to explode. ‘Now, tell us what you know or get the fuck out of my office.’

  ‘Okay, bubba, your way then. I’m too old for the game anyway.’

  ‘We all are.’

  At least they could agree on something.

  ‘Let me start by saying my people brought me into this charade late in the piece. Anderson was never our priority. Ambassador Li Chen was our focus – who he was meeting, what information he was passing back to Beijing. The twenty-first century is all about China. The booming economy that’s helping us all. But, really, we’re in the dark about their real intentions. All we know is they don’t like anyone getting involved in their domestic affairs.’

  ‘Thanks for the lesson in geopolitics.’ Bailey was glaring at him. ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘We’ve got a country of 1.3 billion people and we know next to nothing about them. They’re building military bases out of sand in the South China Sea, putting missile batteries on beaches, landing fighter planes on runways – all in disputed waters, on islands that didn’t even exist two years ago.’

  For Ronnie, the context was important and he was becoming more animated as he went.

  ‘Some might dismiss these concerns as squabbles about rocks in the ocean. We don’t. Beijing has identified more than two hundred reefs and rocky outcrops that can be converted into islands – and why do we care?’

  Ronnie let the question hang in the air like a school teacher.

  ‘The answer? Simple economics. This is the busiest shipping route in the world. More than seven trillion dollars in cargo passes through this passage every year – and we think Beijing is making a play to control it.’

  Bailey was getting a little tired of the lecture. ‘How’s this relevant? And, if it is, what the fuck are you guys doing about it?’

  ‘You mean what are we doing about it.’ Ronnie looked like he was enjoying himself.

  ‘We, you, us, them – seriously?’ Bailey said. ‘I hope this riddle has an ending.’

  ‘The Pentagon starts waving military strategies across the president’s desk about bolstering our presence in Asia. Someone raises the idea about a permanent military base in Australia to complement our bases in places like Japan and Korea. Australia’s one of our closest allies in the region, we do training exercises together already – it makes sense.

  ‘But the president wants to go further. It’s like the military’s this new toy he gets to play with, so our two countries start discussing the idea of naval patrols in the South China Sea – sending warships weaving in and out of a twelve nautical mile area that China claims as sovereign territory. Flyovers too. Even war games eventually. We can finally put those Joint Strike Fighters we’ve been building for you in the air and see how the Chinese react.

  ‘The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei – they’re all up for it because they’ve got claims in the disputed waters too. And China’s Nine Dash Line cuts straight across all of them. It’s the size of bloody Mexico so it’s little wonder everyone’s so pissed. Plans are drawn up and the Pentagon starts shifting assets and we’re getting ready to move. And then something strange happens.’

  Finally, Ronnie looked like he was getting to the point.

  ‘The same ideas being exchanged between Washington and Canberra are turning up in wire taps in Beijing, information fed via Ambassador Li Chen – and he wasn’t getting it from our side. It was clear you had a leak. So we tool up on Li – I’m talking 24-hour surveillance. We’re following him everywhere, to every meeting. When someone shakes his hand we have someone watching. We’ve got ears on his office, his car, the front gate at his residence. If this guy farts, we hear it. If he –’

  ‘We get the picture,’ Gerald said.

  ‘It was while we were paying close attention to the people around Li that we stumbled across young Victor Ho.’

  ‘The dead student?’ Bailey said.

  ‘Some kind of gofer. Li passed stuff to him, he passed stuff to Li. Other than that, young Victor spent most of his time at Sydney University.’

  Ronnie stopped talking and walked over to the sofa where Marjorie Atkins was sitting, feverishly scribbling on a notepad. ‘Don’t do that.’ He took the pencil out of her hand.

  ‘Please, tell me this monologue’s going to give us more than what we already know,’ Bailey said.

  ‘Almost there, bubba.’ Ronnie winked at Bailey. ‘We start noticing some late night and early morning meetings – unscheduled, random, like walking along rivers or in the type of parks people avoid when the sun goes down. Li’s careful – we never get close enough to listen in. But we did catch on to who he was meeting –’

  ‘Gary Page.’ Bailey said it for him.

  ‘That’s right. Then we put a watch on your defence minister to see if we could get anything from his end.’

  ‘And?’ Marjorie was so absorbed in the story she’d slid to the edge of her seat.

  ‘Nothing. The guy’s careful. He knows what he’s doing, knows the risks. Which leads us to Michael Anderson.’

  ‘Why’d you choose him?’ Bailey asked.

  ‘Two reasons, neither of them compelling. The first was that even though he always travelled with Page, he didn’t attend every event on the minister’s calendar. That gave us windows. Secondly, we’d observed a couple of big ar
guments between them. Tension is always something to exploit.

  ‘Getting him on board took time. At first, he told us to go away, he got scared and mentioned words like treason. He’s right – even spying for an ally is still spying. You can get in a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Hence why we’ve been telling you to piss off for so many years.’ Bailey was calming down.

  ‘Yes, bubba. I got that message from you loud and clear,’ Ronnie said. ‘Then one day one of our guys gets a random call from a public phone – Anderson wants to meet. We set it up and he spills his theories about Page’s views on China, as good as confirming for us that Page was the leak.’

  ‘And just what does the CIA do with this kind of information?’ Marjorie said.

  ‘Nice try. What I will tell you is that it usually gets fed back through channels and then misguided people like Page suddenly have a good reason to retire, absolving them of all influence. Civilised, mostly – this isn’t the Cold War in the seventies.’

  Ronnie slipped his unlit cigar inside the pocket in his jacket and took another sip of his coffee.

  ‘What’d you do?’ Gerald said. ‘We can all see that Page still has a job.’

  ‘Nothing.’ Ronnie looked like he knew he’d disappointed them. ‘We want the Chinese to know we’re muscling up on this side of the world. It didn’t matter that they knew about the possibility of war games in the South China Sea. Sure, it’s provocative, but that stuff’s always a showcase.’

  ‘That’s a funny game you’ve been playing all these years,’ Bailey said.

  ‘I don’t think any of us really understand the method, as long as we’re winning.’

  ‘And are you?’ Gerald asked.

  Ronnie shrugged his big shoulders. ‘Not so easy to measure, any more. Anyway, it all changed at that very first meeting with Anderson because he was already on to the scheme about defence contracts that Page had been concocting with Li Chen but he never gave us any paperwork. Not like this.’ Ronnie tapped his finger on the pile of documents on Gerald’s desk.

  ‘Why not?’ Gerald said. ‘He was your guy, and he obviously wanted to expose Page.’

  ‘He got spooked. One of our agents put too much pressure on him. He stopped trusting us, said we couldn’t protect him, so he walked.’