The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  ‘Yeah, that’s right and there were bureaucrats from the attorney-general’s, Foreign Affairs, and so on, and they were led to the conclusion that Lionel Murphy should say nothing about Croatian extremism which would contradict statements by the previous government.’

  ‘I wasn’t there. I wasn’t invited along, but that’s a p-pretty accurate summary.’

  ‘Tom, you’re obviously aware that Murphy’s position is diametrically opposed to what the previous government said. Ivor Greenwood was in such a state of denial about Croat terrorists that Murphy called him a liar.’

  ‘Everyone knows that.’

  ‘So, what the fuck is going on?’

  ‘Certain people are trying to protect their r-r-reputations here, Kerry. They’re d-d-delusional, of course.’

  ‘You mean the ASIO geniuses who advised Greenwood that Croatian terrorists were a figment?’

  ‘That’s a r-reasonable conclusion.’

  ‘What do you know about this secret meeting that I don’t?’

  ‘The committee was ostensibly called together to consider a C-Commonwealth Police report that another Croatian incursion into Yugoslavia was being p-planned for later this year. A group of seven were set to go from M-Melbourne. Still, Ron Hunt convinced the c-committee to advise M-Murphy not to deviate from the previous government’s position. Then he wrote up the notes and his own c-c-conclusions into a m-memo for the Organisation. That’s the document you’re looking for.’

  ‘The smoking gun memo.’

  ‘It depends what you’re sm-sm-sm-smoking.’

  Milte smiled as Moriarty downed his whisky. He enjoyed the man’s wit and the accommodation he’d come to with his stutter, using it to make you wait for a punchline. It was all about timing.

  Milte waited impatiently in the attorney-general’s suite for the Senate to rise for the dinner break. He had sent a note into the chamber, advising Murphy he needed to speak to him urgently.

  Murphy came rushing in before 6 pm.

  ‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t get away earlier,’ he said. ‘Reg Withers is demanding a debate tonight on the Matrimonial Causes Rules.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The regulations I enacted to make divorce quicker and cheaper. The conservatives are trying to overturn them.’

  ‘A busy night, then.’

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ cried Murphy.

  Daphne Newman cracked the door open and leaned into the room. ‘Would you like some dinner sent in?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Murphy. ‘Something simple. Two roast dinners?’

  Murphy gestured to Milte to take the couch, then he pulled a bottle of red wine from a cupboard and uncorked it expertly.

  ‘So, what have you got for me?’ he said, pouring two generous glasses. He passed one to Milte and settled himself into a leather armchair.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Milte.

  ‘We’ve got ten minutes.’

  As Milte briefed him on the mysterious interdepartmental meeting and ASIO’s role in it, Murphy became agitated, frequently interrupting with angry ejaculations. Milte concluded by explaining that he’d so far been unable to get a copy of Ron Hunt’s memo. Locked away in a safe in the Organisation’s Canberra Headquarters, the memo was, he argued, confirmation in writing that ASIO was seeking to undermine his position on Croat terrorism.

  ‘That’s treachery,’ said Murphy. He spat it out.

  ‘That’s a strong word, Senator.’

  ‘There’s no other word for it. It’s treachery, pure and simple. The security service is bound to the will of the elected government and the evidence is, a fortiori, they are attempting to subvert it.’

  ‘My source tells me that Hunt was trying to gather support in writing for the advice ASIO gave to the previous government.’

  ‘It’s simply unconscionable! They are maintaining their own fiction exactly as we’re facing a plot to assassinate a visiting prime minister, an associated threat to the Australian prime minister and threats to two cabinet ministers.’

  ‘What’s that about cabinet ministers?’

  ‘I learned today that death threats have been received in the mail at the offices of Al Grassby and Jim Cairns.’

  Both ministers, Milte knew, had made strong public statements against the Croatian extremists. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get the Hunt memo,’ he said. ‘Given the heat around this issue, I suspect they’ve deliberately hidden it away.’

  Murphy abruptly put his wine glass down and jumped to his feet, prompted by a sudden thought. ‘Kerry, I don’t want to appear paranoid. I’m just not sure what we’re dealing with here. Is it possible they’ve bugged my office?’

  ‘Nothing’s impossible,’ said Milte. ‘I could request a sweep of your rooms.’

  There was a knock on the door and Daphne Newman stuck her head in again. ‘It’s Senator Withers calling.’

  ‘Thanks, Daphne, put him through,’ said Murphy. ‘Wait for me outside, Kerry. I’m going to tell Withers I’m cancelling the Senate debate. Then you and I should go for a walk.’

  Anna Rosen was bent over the typewriter in her corner of the cramped Herald bureau, completing a boring follow-up to her exclusive on the manhunt for the assassin, codename ‘Cicada’. The Commonwealth Police had called a press conference late in the day and used it to douse the flames of her story. While not actually denying it, they had refused to confirm any of the details.

  She’d tried ringing Al Sharp and been told that he was out at a buck’s night, which seemed to her a depressing indication that the manhunt wasn’t quite as urgent as she’d been led to believe.

  Writing the follow-up to her still unconfirmed story felt like a penance. She was about to pass it on to the telex operators, just after 8 pm, when Dave Olney stomped back into the bureau and threw his notepad on the desk.

  ‘There goes my fucken story.’

  ‘What happened?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Murphy’s divorce rules were up for debate tonight,’ he explained. ‘Looked like the Senate was about to reject them, which would’ve thrown the cat among the pigeons. Then Reg Withers gets up, looking like a deflated balloon, and says the attorney-general’s postponed the debate. Murphy gave them some weird excuse you really need to check out.’

  ‘You’ve got my attention now.’

  Olney picked up his notepad and read from his shorthand notes: ‘The attorney-general, Senator Murphy, the author of the rules, has informed us that he is preoccupied today with two national security questions requiring his decision.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Anna. ‘Any explanation from the government?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I better get down there.’

  Anna stopped at the telex room and dropped off her completed story, before running down the stairs. When she found Negus’s office empty, she headed to the attorney-general’s suite. Behind the frosted glass door was the elegant but equally frosty Daphne Newman.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ Anna ventured politely, offering her hand. ‘Anna Rosen from the Herald. I’m trying to find George.’

  ‘He’s on leave, Miss Rosen,’ said Daphne. ‘He’ll be back next Monday.’

  ‘Is Kerry Milte around, by any chance?’

  ‘He’s not here, either. He’s out with the attorney.’

  Anna noticed a tray with two covered dinner plates sitting outside Murphy’s office.

  ‘Are they coming back for dinner?’ she said, nodding at the tray.

  ‘I really couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Could I wait here for him?’

  ‘No, Miss Rosen,’ said Daphne firmly. ‘That would not be appropriate. They could be gone for some time. As I said, George Negus deals with the press.’

  ‘Could I leave a note for you to pass on to Kerry Milte?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t say when he’ll get a chance to respond. He’s very busy.’

  ‘Do you know what’s up? The attorney cancelled ton
ight’s debate because of big national security issues, apparently.’

  ‘Miss Rosen, if I did know, I’d hardly be likely to discuss it with a journalist. If that’s all, you can leave your note.’

  Anna went back to the office. There was nothing else for it. She rang Tom Moriarty.

  Lionel Murphy switched on the in-house monitor in his office and turned up the volume. The voice speaking from the Senate floor was as anachronistic as a twenty-year-old Cinesound newsreel: ‘You have abolished National Service and left the Australian Army in chaos.’

  ‘It’s dear old Frank McManus,’ said Murphy, beckoning Milte to come closer. ‘It seems I’ve given the DLP a platform tonight by cancelling the divorce debate. Do you know what this debate’s about, Kerry?’

  ‘No, I haven’t followed it.’

  ‘We’re pulling eight hundred troops out of Singapore … Eight hundred, that’s it. The Americans are pulling half a million out of Vietnam, but if you listen to the DLP the withdrawal of our little Commonwealth contingent will lead to the second fall of Singapore. To the commies this time. It’s the domino theory.’

  ‘If you put that to McManus,’ said Milte, ‘he’d tell you that the last domino fell when Whitlam came to power.’

  Murphy smiled and nodded. ‘They think it’s the end of days. But forget about McManus. I’m worried that the hardliners in ASIO have the same view.’

  He folded a note, put it in an envelope and handed it to Milte. ‘Here, go ask Daphne to get this in to John Wheeldon in the chamber. I’ve asked him to round up Jim and Arthur after the division and have them meet me outside on the Parliament House steps. And tell Maureen we’re going to need her late in the evening as a note-taker. No need to go into any details.’

  The three senators gathered on the steps of Parliament House. Jim McClelland was bemused. He thought they must look like a group of Renaissance conspirators in Florence. Not that the parliament bore any similarity to the Pitti Palace, nor did the dark lake shimmering in the distance remind one of the Arno River, but his colleagues certainly struck a pose.

  John Wheeldon, brilliant and sardonic, was a natural conspirator. Come the revolution, Arthur Gietzelt would be the one pulling the rope on the guillotine. As for McClelland himself, he wondered how the others saw him.

  ‘Do you know what this is about, John?’ he asked. ‘Why the cloak-and-dagger stuff?’

  ‘I don’t have the faintest idea,’ said Wheeldon, shivering. ‘But I could use a cloak.’

  Murphy came through the glass doors and down the stairs in a rush.

  ‘Sorry to make you wait out here, comrades. I have important news and I have reason to believe my office may be bugged.’

  The musketeers were dumbstruck, but only for a moment.

  ‘ASIO,’ said Gietzelt.

  ‘Yes,’ said Murphy. ‘ASIO.’

  ‘Have you found a device?’ McClelland asked.

  ‘The office will be swept by police tomorrow. The reason we’re out here is because they can’t know what I’m planning to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Wheeldon.

  ‘Certain information has come to me about ASIO’s activities that has to be acted on immediately. Evidence of a conspiracy against the government. There’s an attempt on to assassinate the prime minister of Yugoslavia and these bastards are keeping vital intelligence from me. I want you fellows to know that I’m going to go down and get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘Go down?’ asked Wheeldon. ‘You mean to Melbourne.’

  ‘Yes, they have been working against us. There’s proof of that now, and I’m planning a surprise visit to ASIO Headquarters to root it out once and for all.’

  ‘Go for it, Lionel,’ cried Gietzelt, ever the good soldier. ‘We’ll back you all the way.’

  But McClelland still had questions. ‘What do you mean by “proof”?’

  ‘There’s a document, an ASIO memo, which proves what I’m saying.’

  ‘And you have it?’

  ‘No,’ said Murphy. ‘But I know of its existence. I know who wrote it and when, and I’m going to demand they open their files and cough it up.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘It’s important that you know I’m not going off half-cocked, so I’m going to tell you something that must remain strictly between us. I have a mole inside ASIO. A young fellow who knows exactly what’s happening inside Barbour’s citadel of secrets. He knows the extent of the anti-Labor feeling in the Organisation and who’s behind it. The life of a visiting prime minister is at stake. Bijedic is coming next week. I have to nip this in the bud now.’

  26.

  It was now 2.20 am on Friday, 16 March 1973, a cold autumn night in the capital. Inspector Harry Harper shivered and pulled his thin coat tight before stepping into a phone box. He fumbled a coin into the slot and dialled up headquarters. Outside, Al Sharp got out of the car and lit a cigarette, stretched his back and stamped his feet, rubbing his hands together.

  Harper pressed the receiver hard to his ear. There was a panic on—death threats made against the attorney-general. This on top of the Bijedic nightmare. He shook his head in disbelief.

  On the other end of the line was the duty officer Sergeant John Bennett, a competent copper. Murphy’s security advisor Kerry Milte had called in the threat against Murphy.

  ‘I logged Mr Milte’s call at 1.50 am,’ explained Bennett. ‘He asked for you first, and when I couldn’t get on to you he asked for Deputy Commissioner Jessop’s home number.’

  ‘Have you heard from Mr Jessop?’ Harper asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. He called me a short time ago. Says Milte wants a plainclothes protection detail at Senator Murphy’s house right away. I only had Senior Constable Stockwell on duty, so I dispatched him. He’s on the way.’

  Harper clenched his jaw. So Milte’s pulling our strings now, is he? He had known the man well when he was a copper, but now he was in politics.

  ‘Where is Mr Milte? Did he say?’

  ‘He’s at Senator Murphy’s residence, sir.’

  ‘Okay. Give me that address.’

  Harper wrote it down in a small notebook. ‘Mr Sharp and I will go straight there,’ he told the sergeant. ‘Get on the radio and warn Stockwell we’re coming. Then call around and wake up the interstate blokes from the intelligence team. They’re all staying at the Kingston Hotel—Sergeant Price and the others. Call them in. I don’t care how late it is, I want all hands on deck. I’ll call you again when we find out exactly what’s going on.’

  Sharp had listened to Harper’s string of orders with concern. He was dog-tired. His suit was dishevelled, his tie loosened, his hair rumpled. Irritably, he stamped out his half-smoked cigarette. Harper’s call to headquarters had been in order to clock off; the two of them had been about to turn in. They had been going since 6 am on the Bijedic thing, so that was … what? More than twenty hours already.

  Harper burst out of the phone box and announced: ‘All hell’s broken loose.’

  ‘What fresh hell is this?’ asked Sharp.

  The inspector raised an eyebrow. ‘Dorothy Parker? Really?’

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ said Sharp. ‘A bit delirious. What’s up?’

  ‘Someone’s threatening to kill Lionel Murphy.’

  ‘Christ! They should join the queue.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s fallen into our laps.’

  ‘On top of Bijedic, Grassby and Cairns. This is becoming an epidemic. Where’s the threat come from?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. Fuck, it’s cold out here. Come on. Get the car started.’

  Harper climbed into the passenger seat, shivering. Sharp keyed the ignition, put the heater on full and turned to the inspector. ‘This has got to be connected to the whole Bijedic thing, hasn’t it?’

  Harper put his hands up to the vent as warm air started to flood in. ‘That’s a reasonable deduction,’ he said. ‘Kerry Milte called it in. His brief is to advise on the Croats. So … yes, that would make sense.’

&nbs
p; Sharp made the connections. ‘Milte, eh? He’s never far from trouble.’

  Harper nodded. Kerry Milte was a known shit stirrer. The rumours about why he’d quit had swept through the force like a wildfire. Story was that he’d been running a secret operation and got close to nailing the NSW police commissioner on bribery charges.

  ‘He’s at Murphy’s house right now.’

  Sharp was curious; something didn’t add up. ‘Middle of the night and he calls in a threat to the attorney. That’s weird. If that was picked up by the Sydney surveillance teams, we’d have heard about it before Milte did.’

  ‘I figured that too. So it’s come from somewhere else and we need to get to the bottom of it. Murphy and Milte are still up. We’re going to go see them.’

  As Harper read out the address, Sharp tightened his tie and ran a comb through his hair. ‘Forrest, eh? That’s a posh neighbourhood for a Labor man, isn’t it?’

  ‘He’s a former QC,’ said Harper. ‘Must have made a squillion doing union cases.’

  Sharp accelerated from the kerb. Alert now. Hands tight on the wheel, ten to two. He drove fast, eyes on the road. ‘He’s new to all this, Lionel Murphy. How’s he handling the pressure?’

  ‘A bit foam-flecked and wild-eyed, I imagine,’ said Harper. ‘Someone told Bennett that Murphy wants us to provide him with a pistol. Sounds like the rumour mill’s spinning fast.’

  Sharp rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus wept. What if it’s true? Imagine the headlines. Whitlam’s Wild West.’

  ‘It was always going to be a bit like that,’ Harper proffered. ‘What you’d expect after decades out of power. Maybe they’ll improve with time.’

  Along the way, they passed the squat Russell Complex, which housed the defence and intelligence establishments. In the early hours the complex was dark, except for one section. Harper peered at it through the smudged windscreen. ‘The West Portal’s lit up,’ he said. ‘We’re not the only night owls. I wonder what’s keeping the spooks awake?’

  Sharp swung left on to the Kings Avenue Bridge and over the dark lake. ‘Eternal vigilance, boss. The price of freedom.’

  Harper gave a tired nod of appreciation. Sharp was one of the few coppers he knew who could quote Thomas Jefferson with any confidence. Harper yawned and rubbed his face. He leaned back in his seat and stared out the window until his breath fogged it, blurring the government buildings rolling past.