The Son

by Marc Santailler

  ‘You’re right. It fits. Most of it anyway. They did have a code.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Based on time slots and days of the week. If he rang her they were going to talk about the next time they could get together. Today was out of the question. Tomorrow – Thursday – meant this afternoon, before six. Friday meant between six and eight. Saturday meant eight to ten. Sunday meant after ten.’

  ‘Sounds as if it’s planned for tonight then, probably late-ish.’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘What about the rest? The luggage bit?’

  ‘Probably means a handgun. They had a second code, using heavy for a rifle, light for a handgun. He said he would be travelling light?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what he said.’

  ‘Sounds as if that’s what he meant.’

  ‘What about the chill bit? I’ve caught a bit of a chill?’

  ‘Not sure. Not part of the code. Maybe it’s for real. Or maybe it was meant as a warning. I’m being watched, or something like that. You’re sure that’s all he said?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve got it, word for word.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s great. At least now we know he’s back in town and we have some idea of what’s likely to happen. Thanks Paul, you’ve done a great job.’

  I thought.

  ‘You know what, Brian? I think I know what they’re going to do.’

  ‘Good for you. Wish I did!’

  ‘Can I come and see you? I need to talk to you about it.’

  ‘Can’t you tell me now?’

  ‘No. It’s too complicated to discuss over the phone. Can we meet somewhere? Just you and me. I’d like to discuss this just with you first.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. This is only a guess, but if I’m right this is something you need to know, and I need to tell you, without anybody else there.’

  ‘Alright. How soon can you get here?’

  ‘Forty minutes?’

  We made an appointment for ten o’clock, in Hyde Park, near the Anzac memorial, a stone’s throw from Police Headquarters across the road on College Street.

  He was there, in a dark suit, the better to blend in with the crowd. We found an empty bench and sat down.

  ‘This is what I think,’ I said. I outlined what I’d surmised. He listened in silence.

  ‘I can’t prove any of it,’ I said. ‘But it fits. And I think Roger knows it too. That’s why I wanted to talk to you alone, Brian. I know you both don’t want Loc to get killed, Bentinck possibly even less than you. But he’s working to a different agenda from yours, and I think he’s prepared to sacrifice Jason if need be. I’m not, and I don’t think you are either.’

  ‘No. I don’t want anyone to get killed.’

  ‘I don’t care how noble the cause is. And frankly I don’t think it’s all that noble.’

  He nodded.

  ‘We talked it over after you rang,’ he said. ‘It makes sense. I’ve had a funny feeling about this. That cop’s instinct I was telling you about. There’s something smelly about it.’

  ‘What are you going to do to stop it?’

  ‘Well, what I was going to do all along. Only better now you’ve told me all this. The Vietnamese don’t want any police presence on their floor, but we’ve booked rooms on the floor below, without telling them. There’s a quick way up by way of the stairs. And we’ll have two uniformed police in the lobby and some in the street outside, in case the demonstrators try to get close to the building. Though they probably won’t try that at night.’

  ‘How do you think he’s going to try to get in?’

  ‘No idea. What do you think?’

  ‘Remember what I said? That I thought I knew why they wanted to use him? Because he didn’t look Asian? I think he’s going to come in the front door, under some pretext, looking very innocent and non-threatening. Maybe to visit one of the residents.’

  ‘We’ve checked all the residents, there’s no one there who fits the bill.’

  Thank you Maisie, I thought.

  ‘Will your guys be able to spot him?’

  ‘Yes. They’ve all got a photo of him.’

  ‘Presumably you’ll search everyone who comes in.’

  ‘Of course. All hand luggage. Anything they bring in with them. And we’ll run a metal detector over them too.’

  ‘You’ll be doing that in the lobby, I take it.’

  ‘Yes. As soon as they get in. Just inside the door.’

  ‘Can I make a suggestion? Go one further. Take a room on the ground floor, near the lobby, and take everyone there. Especially if they’re carrying something. That allows you to do more thorough searches if you want. Then when Jason gets in, take him there too. Search him too of course. Go through all the motions. But put body armour on him.’

  He looked at me, his dark eyes steady.

  ‘You really think they’re going to try to kill him, don’t you.’

  ‘I would, if I were them.’

  There was little else to discuss. For form’s sake I asked if I could be included in his operation, but he refused, as I expected, politely but firmly.

  ‘I can’t, Paul. This is a police job. I can’t have any civilians. Too risky. Besides, Bentinck’s right, you know. You’re too close to this, you’re too emotionally involved. Sorry. I know you mean well, but this has to be totally professional. That’s the only way I can be sure we’ll do everything right.’

  I nodded, and looked resigned.

  ‘Go home, Paul. Get some sleep. You look exhausted. Don’t worry. We won’t let anything happen to him.’

  ‘I know. Thanks, Brian.’

  I walked back to the city, caught a train at Town Hall station, heading for North Sydney. If anyone was following that’s where I wanted them to think I was going. I got off at Wynyard instead, the next stop along. I bought some take-away food, checked again I wasn’t followed – my street skills were rusty, but I was fairly sure I wasn’t – then walked up to Clarence Street and the apartment building. No one paid attention as I went in. I went up to the apartment, and settled down to wait.

  CHAPTER THIRTY - ONE

  Waiting. I did a lot of waiting that day. It’s not something I enjoy, but I was used to it from my old profession, and there was a reason. Security would only get tighter as the day progressed; if I left it too late to get into position I might be stopped or even recognised as I entered the building. That wasn’t a risk I could take. So I made the best of it, read the papers, used the time to catch up on badly-needed sleep.

  Around two I got up, ate my cold take-away food, then watched the news on TV, looking for coverage of the demonstrations in Canberra. They had been particularly vocal the evening before, flags and banners waving, people shouting and surging against the barriers, occasionally throwing objects, police moving in to make a few arrests. I was more interested in Loc, and there was coverage of him too, being greeted at the airport, shaking hands with the Deputy Prime Minister, arriving at Parliament House, meeting the PM. A thin, spare man, taller than the average Vietnamese, with iron-grey hair and a large bony head, almost simian with its protruding bony shelf above the eyes. When he turned to the camera to make a brief speech in slow but serviceable English there was a flash of intelligence deep in his eyes and a self-deprecating curl of the lips in a small smile. We are a small country but we have some large problems and we have come to ask for your help. When asked for his comments on the demonstrations he smiled politely. He didn’t look the kind to be upset by a few flags and some noise. When he turned to go into the building he walked with a pronounced limp.

  At five thirty I took a shower, turning it to cold to sharpen my wits. I pulled out the suitcase which Maisie had brought in for me on the first day, and put on the kit it contained: old jeans loose enough not to cramp my movements, a sturdy canvas jacket over an old windcheater, a scarf to protect my neck. Rubber-soled boots, old leather gloves with the tips cut off, a balaclava to go over my head. I even had a p
air of industrial goggles on a strap, in case I had to smash my way through a window. In one of the loops of my belt I hooked a small jemmy, tied with a piece of string. The rest of the gear I put on the floor near the door. Then at six I pulled my chair nearer the window and started to watch.

  It was a long vigil. I sat in the gathering dark, with the lights off, looking down at the street. A few people moved about, sometimes a car drove past, but mostly it was quiet. Considine’s instructions to his men, as he’d explained them to me, were to let people go by, only stepping in if someone did something visibly wrong. Only people entering the building would be searched. Within reach on a small table I had put more provisions, coffee and a drink and some snacks, even a plastic bottle to pee in if need be. No radio. I wanted nothing to distract my attention. It was still some hours before I expected much action, but I needed to be ready well in advance, in case Eric arrived earlier, for whatever reason, perhaps to lie in wait until the time came. I just hoped I hadn’t made a monstrous cock-up and it wasn’t all going to happen somewhere else.

  While waiting I thought of Hao. This was the day she was flying to the States, catching an early flight out of Leeds, she’d told me, connecting at Heathrow with a British Airways flight to New York, then another flight to San Diego via Los Angeles, arriving there in mid afternoon. Over sixteen hours. She should be at London airport by now, about to board her transatlantic flight. She wouldn’t be at her brother’s house until ten the next morning, Sydney time. I wished I could be with her, and if I could have rung her I would have. But I was glad she wasn’t in Sydney just then. She would have been beside herself with anguish. I promised myself I’d ring her the next day, when if all worked out as I hoped I’d have Eric with me. I was also glad she was no longer in Leeds. I trusted her, and yet I couldn’t help feeling a tremor of Neanderthal angst at the thought of her in the same city as Robert. When all this was over, I thought, we would need time to build a normal life.

  Seven o’clock, eight o’clock passed. At nine thirty there was a brief flurry of movement, three or four cars drove up and parked near the front of the building, people emerged and walked towards the entrance, out of sight around the corner. That would be the official party returning from their last engagement. I looked up and down the street but saw no sign of Eric, or anyone else. Whatever their plan, they were being very cautious. The hubbub died down, the cars drove off. I imagined the visitors being cleared into their apartment, settling down for a discussion of the day’s events before going to bed, careful not to speak too freely. With their background they would expect their rooms to be bugged. For all I knew, they probably were.

  It was another hour before anything happened. I was leaning with my forehead against the glass, numb with boredom, hypnotically staring at the same spot in the street below, when I saw movement on the other side of the street. A short stumpy figure, foreshortened from above, wearing a baseball cap and a bright shirt and carrying some kind of box. He was walking along the footpath on the other side and I wasn’t sure at first that it was him. Then he turned to cross the street and glanced up at the building and I recognised his face, pale and expressionless in the lamplight. When he reached the near side I briefly lost sight of him, before he reappeared, walking towards the corner and the front entrance.

  I moved. This was the moment I’d been waiting for, and from now on there’d be no time for second thoughts. I checked my equipment one last time, went to the door, picked up the coils of rope which lay there, with a grappling hook at one end, and gently opened the door. No one about. Holding the hook securely to make sure I didn’t impale myself on one of its prongs I walked quickly to the window at the end of the corridor. It was a single pane window with a metal frame which swung outwards, as I knew from my earlier recce. I pushed the handle down and out. It was stiff in its frame but it opened without making a noise. A gust of cold air hit me but I ignored it. I looked out, saw no one below. I placed the hook inside the window opening, near the bottom right-hand corner, one prong either side, pushed it hard against the wall and threw the rope out, keeping it clear of the wall. I watched it snake its way down, coming to an end a few feet off the ground. I jammed the hook tighter, tugged with my left hand to test it, looked out again, then took a deep breath.

  I’ve never liked heights. I like them even less than waiting at night for something nasty to happen. Ever since I was a child I’ve been afraid of standing near the edge of cliffs or on the top of tall buildings. But there are times in life when you have to overcome your fears, and I knew what I had to do: act, not think. I put one leg over the sill, swung myself out, seized the rope with both hands. When I was clear of the window I reached up with my right hand and pushed it back towards the opening. Then I started to go down.

  It wasn’t a long climb, even by my modest standards. As a further precaution I’d tied a series of knots along the rope, one metre apart, to make it easier to hang on and help me judge the distance. We were on the seventh floor, they were on the third, sixteen to eighteen metres overall. I made my way down hand over hand, holding myself off the wall with my feet and counting the knots as I went, careful not to think of the void beneath. I passed the next floor down, then the next, then a third. One more to go. I was breathing hard, with nervous tension as much as with effort. I gripped the rope more tightly, went down another three knots, until I was level with the third-floor window. I wrapped my leg around the rope for extra purchase and rested against the wall for a moment, catching my breath. My arms were beginning to tremble with the strain.

  I knew it wouldn’t be long now. Eric would be held up in the lobby while they went through the motions of checking him through, took him into a separate room, made him take his shirt off to put his bullet-proof vest on. I pictured Considine sizing him up, quickly questioning him, giving him last-minute instructions. Would Roger be there too, and Keith or Bob Maynard? Four, five minutes at most. They wouldn’t want to risk alerting anyone by keeping him too long. I wouldn’t have been the only one watching out for him. I peered cautiously around the edge.

  The corridor was empty. I was looking in from the left hand side of the window and I had a good view of the opposite wall, all the way to the other end. I identified the lift door, halfway down, next to it the door to the emergency stairs. Down the left hand side I thought I saw a door open a fraction, but I couldn’t be certain and I didn’t dare stick my head out too far. The light in the panel next to the lift moved, then stopped. The lift door opened, Eric came out, still holding his box. I saw now that it was four large pizza boxes, stacked on top of each other. Was he supposed to smuggle his weapon inside a pizza? I wondered. Surely not, it would have been discovered at once. He glanced up and down the corridor, moved to his left, put the boxes down and opened a panel in the wall. There was a similar panel on our floor, marked Fire Hose and Reel. He rummaged inside, pulled out a long flat package at the end of a string. The package appeared to be wrapped in cloth. He pulled off the wrapping and took out its contents. There was no mistaking the shape, even at that distance: a long narrow pistol, with a thick cylinder at the end of the barrel. He looked at it for a moment, as if puzzled by it, then turned it over to look at the grip.

  Meanwhile other things were starting to happen. The door which I’d noticed earlier now opened fully, and two men came out, both Asian. One was tall, the other short but solidly built. I wondered which one might be Truong Dzu, Loc’s security man. The taller one seemed to have more authority. They wore suits and gloves and the tall one carried two lengths of wood. They moved quickly. By the time Eric noticed them it was too late: as he turned to face them the shorter one slipped behind him, clamped a hand over his mouth, with his other hand put a knife to his throat and pulled him back hard on his heels. The tall man smiled and put a finger to his lips.

  I watched, horrified, as the drama began to unfold. The tall man immobilised the lift with one of the pieces of wood, jamming it in the open door, then used the second to secure the door to the em
ergency stairs, tying it crossways to the handle so it couldn’t be pulled open from the stairs. Eric meanwhile stood still, unable to move, his back arched against the shorter man’s chest, his mouth hidden by his captor’s gloved hand. The tall man turned back to him, fished a flat object out of his pocket, took the pistol out of Eric’s hand and inserted the object into the butt. A magazine, obviously, the pistol must have been placed unloaded in its hiding place, that was why Eric had been puzzled by it. He held the pistol up, cocked it, looked at Eric again for a second longer. With his left hand he took another gun from his pocket, a shorter, stubbier weapon, without a silencer this time. He held it down by his side. Then he turned on his heel and began to walk towards the far end of the corridor.

  I knew at once what was about to happen. There was no time to lose. But as I watched I saw the tall man pause, look over his shoulder as if to listen. He looked back towards Eric, as if uncertain what to do next. I heard muffled thumps and shouts, coming it seemed from the other side of the stairwell door.

  The tall man now moved with greater urgency. He hurried to the end of the corridor, faced the last door on his right, and knocked. The door stayed shut. He knocked again, tried the handle, to no avail. He put his shoulder to the door and shoved, then stepped back and kicked at the lock with his heel. Still it stayed closed. I could almost sense his panic. He raised his pistol, seemed for a second about to shoot the lock out, then turned back towards Eric. He said something and gestured violently at the other man, who seemed confused at first – then, realising what was expected of him, released Eric and stepped aside. Eric stumbled, tried to regain his balance, as the tall man ran back towards him, raising his gun.

  ‘No!’ I shouted. I let go the rope with my right hand, began to hit at the window. ‘No! Don’t do that you bastard! Don’t shoot him!’ I struck again. The window didn’t budge, but he looked in my direction. Eric also looked round, then started to move, to get away from him. No time for the jemmy at my belt. I seized the rope with both hands, kicked out against the wall and swung back with my feet towards the window. The pane cracked but didn’t break. I swung back harder, kicked again. This time the pane gave way, I plunged feet first, elbows up, no time for the safety glasses. The jemmy snagged against the window frame, the string snapped, a sharp sting as my right sleeve caught on something, then I was through, stumbling on my feet, somehow managing to stay upright. There was a shot, loud as a thunderclap in that confined space. Eric cried out, clutching his right arm.