The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  Moments later there appeared in the doorway a tall, solidly built man with silver hair and a remarkably large head. His eyes were framed by black eyebrows and bisected by a long, beak-like nose. Anna had the impression of an ageing bird of prey. She would have known it was him just from his bearing, but she had also seen photos of Prime Minister Dzemal Bijedic in the newspapers, and they captured him well, including the grim turned-down mouth, which seemed an appropriate expression for greeting a country full of existential threats.

  As Prime Minister Bijedic came down the stairs with surprising nimbleness, his team of bodyguards enveloped him from behind. He shook the governor-general’s hand briskly, then those of the military men and his own ambassador, who then stepped in behind Bijedic and the general as they moved on to an inspection of the guard of honour.

  Anna was close enough to see the expression on the prime minister’s face during the nineteen-gun salute, and while Bijedic didn’t flinch he did scowl throughout the volley of shots, as if each one were a reminder of his own mortality.

  Al Sharp tapped her arm. ‘We have to move,’ he said, ushering her to the last car in the waiting motorcade.

  She heard the roaring turbines of a heavy chopper and turned to see it rise into the air in a whirlwind of dust. It moved nose-down over a stretch of tarmac and she saw the SAS men with their long rifles in the doorway, scanning the ground through telescopic sights. The clattering machine circled low over the stationary convoy as Bijedic was led with his two bodyguards and the Yugoslavian ambassador to the armoured Rolls-Royce, which had already survived one attempt to blow it up.

  Marin lifted his binoculars when he heard the helicopter. Then he saw it hovering low over Kings Avenue Bridge, sharpshooters in the open doorway. The convoy came into view, moving at pace on the bridge’s tarmac, engines roaring. Four police motorbikes; then two high-powered black limos, packed with armed police; then the armoured Rolls-Royce carrying Bijedic. Behind that was a black van with other members of the prime minister’s security detail, then another black limo and four more police motorbikes.

  A small group of demonstrators had left the parliamentary forecourt and the convoy swept in to deposit its charge at the front steps. Inside the bell chamber Marin heard the faint whirring of a mechanical device as it came to life. He focused his aim on the uniformed official, whose head was now leaning through the glass doors.

  It was midday and the preamble to the Westminster chimes echoed through the tower. Bom bom bom bom … The falling cadence and then the rising … Bom bom bom bom.

  Marin blocked out the bells, aware that Bijedic and his party were on their way up the stairs. Through the scope he saw the silhouette of a large man behind the glass door. It opened. The figure emerged and the startlingly familiar face of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was in the reticule as a target.

  Anna burst out of the limo the moment it jerked to a stop. She had seen the front steps of the parliament up ahead and some sixth sense told her she had to get close to Bijedic. If Marin was out there somewhere, she wanted him to see her. She was certain he would come to his senses.

  ‘Get me near Bijedic!’ she had cried out to Sharp before throwing the door open. He was momentarily confused, then he leapt out of the other side of the car. Anna was sprinting ahead of him by the time he got around the boot and ran in pursuit of her.

  The hour hammer struck the bourdon bell. The first of twelve blows reverberated in the bell chamber and rang across the lake. Marin saw a shock of white hair appear low in the frame of the scope. The top of Bijedic’s head climbed into the foreground.

  As the door closed behind Whitlam, Marin saw multiple confused reflections in the glass, but he had been expecting that. With each strike of the bell, Bijedic’s head rose to fill the scope.

  When Anna reached the bottom of the stairs, the Yugoslavian prime minister was halfway up them. She had made it up just three steps before she was hit by a black-suited wall of flesh and bone. A man took her in a bear hug, screaming unrecognisable obscenities in her face. She felt his spittle on her cheeks. She saw his mouth opening and closing, his teeth, his wet tongue, while another man next to him pulled out a pistol from under his jacket.

  The breath left her body as powerful arms crushed her chest. Over the man’s shoulder she saw Bijedic reach the top and beyond him, in the doorway, the Australian prime minister. She heard a shout and turned to see Sharp, yelling, holding up his police credentials like a shield as he barrelled towards her. Then she passed out.

  When the silver-haired man paused at the entrance to greet Whitlam, he became a clear target. Marin let the breath slowly leave his body and the measured strikes on the great bell seemed to align with his heartbeat. Bijedic turned to face Whitlam, smiling even as the bell marked time with mathematical precision on the final moments of his life.

  Marin squeezed the trigger to the first position, readying himself to apply the final pressure as the bell was struck. In the sniper’s hyper-perception, the periods between the strikes slowed, as if time itself were stretched. Marin felt his heartbeat slow to match the rhythm of the tolling bell.

  He saw now with remarkable clarity the man’s long face, his liquid brown eyes, his thick black brows, the vertical line between them and the white hair framing the face, shading to darker grey above it. This moment of terrible intimacy with the target was familiar. He saw warmth in the man’s smile as Whitlam talked to him.

  Then Marin became aware of a disturbance among his ghosts in the bell tower. Petar was with him. They were lying on the beach under a blue sky. Petar climbed to his knees, pointed out at the ocean, then leaned in close.

  Marin felt his brother’s breath, warm on the side of his face, the salty smell of his skinny brown body, the beads of sweat, the blazing disc of the sun. So hot. So hot. The water in front of them, blue and cool.

  What do you want?

  He heard Petar’s voice in his ear, urgent and clear: ‘Don’t do it, Marin!’

  Petar!

  ‘Don’t do it.’

  Bijedic moved fractionally in the reticule, chatting to Whitlam like an old friend. Marin made a final adjustment and pulled the trigger.

  Tom Moriarty was the only one who saw the muzzle flash. It came from the other side of the lake. A moment later the crack of a rifle shot arrived. It was muffled by the tolling bell, yet he was sure he heard it.

  Moriarty was in a lookout on the second-floor landing of Parliament House. From his position he oversaw the forecourt, with the lake beyond it. When the Bijedic motorcade had roared in, he had scanned down to the lake and the buildings in the Parliamentary Triangle.

  The flash came from a distant tower. He raised the binoculars fast and focused on the tower on the other shore. It shimmered white in the haze. He grabbed his walkie-talkie. It was on the open channel. There was chatter and he pressed the button on the receiver and cried into it.

  ‘Sniper! Sniper! Sniper!’

  The chatter stopped.

  ‘Sniper in the carillon!’ Moriarty shouted. There was no sign of a stutter. ‘The carillon!’

  ‘Who is that?’ Harry Harper’s voice.

  ‘Tom Moriarty, Parliament House roof. I saw a muzzle flash, other side of the lake. Get a team to the carillon now! Is Bijedic okay?’

  There was a pause, then Harper’s voice crackling over the airwaves. ‘Bijedic is safe. He’s inside the parliament.’

  ‘Thank the f-f-fucking Lord.’

  ‘There’s a team moving on the carillon. I’m on my way.’

  ‘I’m c-c-coming.’

  Anna Rosen’s legs were rubbery when Al Sharp wrestled her away from the implacable Yugoslavian bodyguards. He had waved his credentials in front of them, pointing at Anna and shouting, ‘She’s police! Policija!’

  Sharp caught her under her arms when the huge man who had her in a bear hug shrugged and let go before running up the stairs to join the rest of his team, now hurrying into the building after their prime minister.

  ‘You
okay?’ Sharp asked with concern. When she nodded, his expression hardened. ‘What the hell were you playing at?’

  She was about to answer when a voice crackled urgently on Sharp’s walkie-talkie.

  ‘Sniper, sniper, sniper.’

  The words revived Anna Rosen as surely as a jolt of electricity. She and the policeman leaned into the speaker to hear the full exchange.

  ‘The carillon!’ Sharp exclaimed, staring across to the tower on the other side of the lake. Then he was in motion, running down the stairs to the black limo. Anna stumbled in his wake, willing her legs to work. The driver was standing at the open door and Sharp yelled at him as he threw himself into the front. ‘Back over the bridge, fast as you can! It’s an emergency.’

  Anna had the back door open and was climbing in.

  ‘You’re not coming,’ Sharp cried. ‘Get out!’

  ‘You can’t stop me, Al.’

  ‘Like hell I can’t.’

  The driver paused, hands on the wheel, the limo’s engine throbbing.

  ‘I’m part of the team,’ she said. ‘That was the agreement.’

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ said Sharp, turning to the driver. ‘Get going.’

  Sharp’s limo reached Aspen Island just as the first uniformed men were arriving. He flashed his warrant card and they gathered around him like good soldiers. A handful of tourists, curious at the police action, began to drift over from the car park.

  ‘Cordon off the area,’ Sharp ordered. ‘No one’s to cross this bridge.’ He pointed to the one officer carrying a weapon. ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Marsh, sir.’

  ‘Come with me. We’re going in.’

  Sharp pulled out his revolver and ran across the bridge towards the carillon. He was out of breath when he reached an open door at the base of the largest tower. As he turned back to Marsh he realised that Anna Rosen had followed them across.

  ‘Anna, for God’s sake!’ he yelled at her. ‘You’re unbelievable. Stay right here and don’t move.’

  Then to Marsh: ‘Draw your weapon and follow me.’

  Anna stared up at the carillon. It was like being at the base of a rocket launch pad. She couldn’t quite believe that Marin had chosen a location as surreal as this for his final act. She waited a few beats for the policemen to climb higher into the tower before ducking inside and up the iron staircase. She heard them above her and paused out of sight when they opened a door and went in to check the first level.

  ‘It’s clear,’ said Marsh. ‘No one here.’

  ‘Next level,’ said Sharp. ‘Stay alert.’

  Anna glimpsed the two men creeping up to level two, guns raised in front of them. She was almost at the doorway on that level when she heard Sharp’s shout.

  ‘Jesus-fucking-Christ!’

  Anna ran up the last few steps and stopped in the doorway to a great triangular space filled with bells of different sizes. There were massive brass objects directly in front of her, serious things heavy with weight and consequence. She looked up to see the two policemen climbing the metal ladders into the heights of the bell tower. Above them she saw what they were headed for. On the top level of the maintenance gantry was the unmistakable shape of a rifle, aimed across the lake at Parliament House, its long barrel supported by a sandbag. Until that moment she had been able to put aside the thought of Marin Katich as an assassin as some kind of bizarre fantasy. Now here it was, for her eyes to see, the instrument of death. A physical jolt of revulsion went through her and she leaned against the doorframe, unable to move. Her ears rang with a terrible and familiar sound, so like a massed, throbbing chorus of cicadas.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Rosen?’ a voice from behind her boomed into the cavernous space. She turned to see Inspector Harry Harper and behind him Tom Moriarty bounding up the stairs.

  ‘This is a crime scene,’ said Harper.

  The inspector pushed past her into the bell chamber, followed quickly by the spy. Both of them stopped and looked up to where Al Sharp and Constable Marsh were crouched over the weapon. Sharp turned to look down.

  ‘Anna! For Christ’s sake!’ he cried. ‘You deserve to be locked up for this.’

  Harper shook his head and mumbled, ‘Bloody journalists.’ Then he turned to her and issued a terse order. ‘Step outside the room and stay put. I’ll deal with you in a minute.’

  Moriarty gave Anna his most annoying smile. ‘B-b-bad girl,’ he said softly as she withdrew to sit on the iron steps.

  ‘This has been fired at least once!’ Sharp called from his position, over the rifle. ‘We need to search the floor down there for cartridge shells.’

  It was Constable Marsh who located the single brass cartridge on the floor of the chamber where it had fallen, careful not to touch it so it could be dusted for prints. Harper and Moriarty climbed the three ladders to join Sharp on the gantry. It was a Steyr sniper rifle, which Moriarty explained was an Austrian-made, state-of-the-art weapon, very uncommon in Australia. They examined the hole, cut into the steel bird wire, through which the squat white wedding cake of Parliament House was clearly visible.

  Moriarty peered through it with his binoculars. ‘Must b-be n-n-nine hundred m-metres.’

  ‘Is that even possible?’ asked Harper.

  ‘A handful of p-p-people in the world could m-make the shot.’

  ‘This one didn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, maybe he wasn’t one of that handful.’

  ‘M-maybe.’

  No prints would be found on the rifle, nor on the ejected cartridge. There were none on the wire cutters or on any of the hard surfaces that might hold a print. The sniper had taken great care. Then he had simply disappeared.

  ‘We need to talk,’ said Harry Harper.

  Anna Rosen looked up to see the inspector standing over her.

  ‘Outside,’ he said, and led her down the staircase and out into the pleasant sunshine to a bench on the edge of the lake.

  Anna sat and stared at him, as if waiting for the axe to drop. She had recovered sufficiently to realise that she was a party to the story of a lifetime. She also knew it was one that Marin Katich would never survive.

  Harper spoke to her in a quiet voice. ‘Moriarty tells me you were close to this man Katich, is that right?’

  Anna responded cautiously. ‘I knew him when I was at university.’

  ‘I don’t want to know the details.’

  ‘I don’t intend to give you any.’

  Harper sighed and looked at his hands. ‘Anna, this is not a formal interview. I have to explain to you what’s going to happen next. I’ve spoken to the commissioner and he has spoken to people in the government at the highest levels. I’m sure you think that you’ll be able to tell this story in the papers but you won’t. As far as the public is concerned, none of this ever happened. Prime Minister Bijedic is safe. No one shot him and no one will ever know that someone tried to.’

  Anna felt her face flush. Her pulse was racing. She stared at Harper as if he was crazy. ‘We still have a free press in this country,’ she said.

  ‘You may think so but that’s not true of matters that could damage our national security.’

  ‘You really think you can shut me up?’

  ‘Not me, Anna,’ Harper said with surprising gentleness. ‘Even as we’re sitting here a D-notice is being drawn up. All information about this incident, about what we found in the carillon, about our suspicions of who was involved … all of it will be suppressed. No publisher will touch this, no editor, not the Herald, not the ABC, no one. Even if you try to get it out in some other way, no one would believe you. We’ll deny it and there’ll be no evidence. People will say you’re crazy.’

  ‘What about Marin Katich?’

  ‘He’s a marked man wherever he goes.’

  Then Harper stood up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I really am but that’s the way it is. That’s the way it has to be.’

  ‘But
I saw everything today.’

  ‘I never wanted you here. That was a mistake.’

  Harper turned his back on her and walked away. Anna watched him all the way back to the carillon where a team was busy removing the evidence that anything had happened. A pair of swans passed in front of her, determined that she had no bread to offer and nosed their way through the reeds to enter the lake. It was as placid a scene as one could imagine. Nothing to see here on this pretty little island, nothing out of place.

  Tears of frustration formed in her eyes and she brushed them away angrily. They wouldn’t be able to shut her up forever. She would find Marin Katich. She would pursue the evidence of his father’s war crimes and she would find the proof of who turned a blind eye to allow Ivo Katich to come here in the first place. It all started with him.

  *

  It was Tom Moriarty who interrupted this line of thought. ‘Anna!’ he called. ‘I’ve b-b-been looking for you.’

  The spy, perceptive as he was, was insensitive to her anger. I’ll get to the bottom of you too, she thought as he ambled towards her.

  ‘Let’s go f-find out w-what really happened,’ he said.

  Anna composed her face and agreed to go with him.

  Moriarty drove them to Parliament House. Back at the front steps Anna helped him search the area around the entrance Bijedic had gone through, looking for any sign of a bullet strike. They found nothing. Then he led her back down the stairs. Anna followed his gaze when he stopped to look up at the glass doors, at the portico above them and to the flag, centred over the entrance, then down to the two coats of arms on either side.

  ‘Up there,’ he said. ‘Let’s g-g-go.’

  They went back inside and climbed the stairs to the first floor where Moriarty got a security guard to let them out on to the closed balcony above the entrance.

  There was no sign of a bullet strike on any of the walls facing the lake. Moriarty looked back across to the carillon, shaking his head once again at the sheer audacity of it.

  ‘He r-really is something else, your b-boyfriend,’ he said.