Blood Is a Stranger

by Roland Perry

  ‘Denies it to you, Chief, but he seems to be telling a lot of prospective uranium buyers that he intends to mine the sacred land.’

  ‘Richardson has agreed not to open any new mines.’

  Burra smiled cynically. ‘He’s planning to break those agreements.’

  ‘I need proof of that, Burra.’

  ‘Some of our people have seen him on sacred sites.’

  ‘He has had an Indonesian delegation on his property in recent days. Are you sure some of them didn’t wander on sacred land by mistake?’

  ‘Jimmy Goyong saw him with somebody on the Green Ant site yesterday morning around six.’

  O’Laughlin frowned. ‘Jimmy’s word wouldn’t stand up anywhere,’ he said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘He may be a drunk, but he’s not a liar. He says Richardson threw his telescope down a cliff. Jimmy wants it replaced, and he wants some sketches back that Richardson stole from the spot on the ridge where he works.’

  ‘I want more proof than Jimmy’s word,’ O’Laughlin said.

  Burra’s expression tightened. ‘Our people have heard them working at night. There has been lots of activity. We believe they’ve been taking core samples.’

  ‘I’ll have a word to Richardson,’ O’Laughlin said, ‘and see what he has to say to the charges.’

  ‘You’ll tell him he cannot open any more new mines?’

  ‘I’ll remind him of his obligations.’

  Burra had a brief discussion with the other elders.

  Cardinal was shaken after the ransacking of his hotel room and wanted to get out of Sydney, but nothing was going to stop him from investigating three leads. All concerned women. First there was Kim Lim. She was not answering her phone at home and hadn’t been seen at work. Then there was Mills whom the Sydney Morning Herald suggested was Rhonda Mills, a Melbourne-based TV reporter seen across Australia. He left a message at her TV station. And there was the mystery woman in the photos, Hartina Van der Holland. She was in the phone book at a Neutral Bay, North Sydney number. It had been disconnected, so he decided to go to the address listed.

  Cardinal abandoned the MG for fear it would be tailed again, and instead took the Circular Quay ferry.

  The fine weather had encouraged a thousand sails on the Harbour, and there wasn’t a jacket in sight on the ferry as it pulled out of the Quay. Cardinal lit a Havana cigar in his seat at the rear of the top deck.

  In front of him the city – a property developer’s glass and steel dream – slipped gradually away. Apart from this, Cardinal felt that Sydney’s rugged and hilly disposition allowed it to challenge San Francisco for the title of World’s Most Beautiful City – geographically speaking. On his right, crawling traffic clogged the massive Harbour Bridge; to his left, tourists swarmed over the Opera House.

  Only a few people alighted with Cardinal at Neutral Bay. He found Hartina’s apartment a short walk from the ferry stop hidden behind a big Cork Oak tree. Beside the building, and running down to the Harbour front, were several Blue Fan palms. Their grey-blue foliage obscured the front entrance. Cardinal found the front bell, but there was no answer.

  He cupped his hands over his eyes to see in the windows at the rear. A Siamese cat brushed against Cardinal’s legs and made a loud rasping noise in friendly communication. He bent down and stroked its blue-grey coat, which had camouflaged it among the Fan palms.

  ‘Can I help?’ a voice said, and Cardinal looked up at the chubby blonde on the balcony above.

  ‘I’m looking for Hartina Van der Holland.’

  The woman hesitated. ‘May I ask why you wish to see her?’

  ‘My son is a friend of hers,’ Cardinal said, not wishing to explain the truth to a stranger. ‘I’m supposed to look her up for him.’

  ‘She hasn’t been seen for a few days,’ the woman said with a measure of indignation. ‘She left that cat.’

  Cardinal caressed the cat. ‘What will happen to it?’

  ‘I’ll look after it. I’ve been feeding it. I do when she goes on holidays.’

  ‘Have you contacted the police?’

  ‘They were here before I realised that she had gone. All over the place the last few days.’

  ‘Did they say anything?’

  ‘Very hush hush. Wouldn’t commit themselves, except to say that they didn’t know where she was.’

  ‘You have no idea where she might be?’

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘Did she have a favourite vacation spot?’

  ‘As far as I know she always went back to Bandung. She’s Dutch-Indonesian.’ The woman moved into her apartment and re-appeared down the path of Hartina’s place.

  ‘Perhaps you should see the police,’ she said, picking up the cat.

  Cardinal nodded.

  ‘How long had she lived here?’ he asked.

  ‘I arrived after she had moved in. But she did tell me she had been educated in Melbourne – at school and university. She must be about thirty, so I suppose she has lived in this country approaching twenty years.’

  ‘Was she naturalised Australian?’

  The woman nodded. ‘She was very proud of that. Though I suspect she kept dual nationality.’

  Cardinal shook his head absentmindedly.

  ‘When did she disappear?’

  ‘Monday.’

  ‘Has she family in Indonesia?’

  ‘Yes, and they are rich. Oil, I think, and aluminium. Her father died recently.’

  ‘You don’t know what she does for a living?’ he said. ‘I could ring her work.’

  ‘She was a scientist,’ the woman said. ‘I believe she had something to do with the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights.’

  He could see Rhonda Mills as the ferry took its time docking on the return trip to Circular Quay. After checking the apartment, he had rung his hotel where there was a message to ring her. They planned to meet at the Quay.

  ‘I’ll be wearing TV star’s dark glasses,’ Rhonda had said, ‘and a crimson dress filled by an “ample” figure, euphemistically speaking.’

  Cardinal had laughed for the first time in days.

  ‘I’m around six feet two.’

  ‘That doesn’t help. We’ve been metric here for yonks.’

  ‘Then I don’t know how tall I am. A distinguishing feature is my euphemistically speaking “silver” hair. I too have an ample figure.’

  He had easily spotted her in the milling crowd.

  ‘How about, lunch?’ he asked as they shook hands.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got about an hour. I’m really up from Melbourne for this story. My investigation was held up because I had to attend a last-minute press conference.’

  ‘Do you know any restaurants around here?’

  They walked along Circular Quay west, and under the Harbour Bridge near its pylons to a footbridge over Hickson Road. This led to Pier One, a restaurant in Walsh Bay.

  They chose to sit in the sun and ordered three dozen oysters accompanied by a dry Riesling, which Rhonda selected.

  ‘Oysters give me an hourglass figure,’ Rhonda said, patting her hip. ‘After two dozen it takes an hour to figure out what it is.’

  Cardinal smiled.

  Sensing she had a good audience Rhonda added, ‘If I’m not careful, I get a High Court figure . . . no appeal.’

  Cardinal laughed.

  ‘Seriously, I’m concerned with my TV look,’ she said ruefully. ‘Ample becomes chubby on the box. When you’re the wrong side of thirty-five, it doesn’t help.’

  Cardinal nodded understandingly and offered her another oyster.

  ‘Forget your figure, remember your libido,’ he said.

  ‘I wish I could,’ she replied, poker-faced.

  Rhonda had questioned him closely on the phone about Harry’s murder, and was excited. She had been a journalist for seventeen years since she left Melbourne’s La Trobe University, and she was quick to recognise a big story.

  ‘I want to know about you,’ sh
e said. ‘Your motivation is the key to any investigation.’

  ‘You ask the questions.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, pulling a tape recorder from her briefcase. ‘You’re a Madison Avenue art dealer. What kind of art?’

  ‘Mainly European classical. Everything from Rembrandt to Picasso. I’d been working in London as a corporate lawyer . . .’

  ‘For whom?’ Rhonda interrupted.

  ‘IBM. I got to know a big Dutch art dealer based in London. He asked me to open a Manhattan office. I did. After two years it flopped. I borrowed heavily and took over the New York operation.’

  ‘Bit of a jump, lawyer to art dealer.’

  ‘It was easy for me. Art was always my first love. I’ve been a collector of European art for thirty years.’

  ‘You haven’t spoken to anyone else about your son’s death?’ she asked.

  Cardinal frowned.

  ‘In the media, I mean,’ she added.

  He shook his head. ‘It crossed my mind that I might go to a paper,’ he said, ‘if this Embassy charade had gone on.’

  ‘Which paper?’

  ‘I don’t know, Times, maybe.’ Seeing her expression he added, ‘New York Times.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, relieved. ‘I can help you, if you’ll give me the story exclusively.’

  ‘I need help.’

  ‘Then it’s a deal?’

  Cardinal nodded and they shook hands.

  A young man wandered over with a pencil and paper.

  ‘Would you sign this for my daughter?’ he said sheepishly.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, looking round at his table of mates. ‘What’s her name? Bruce?’

  The man grinned and returned to the table with the prized signature. His mates called a few comments.

  ‘Do you want to leave?’ Cardinal asked.

  ‘No. It would be the same at any other place, and anyway, deep down, I love it.’

  Cardinal was impressed but wondered if such a character could be a competent reporter. She sensed his scepticism.

  ‘Don’t be put off,’ she said. ‘It’s part of the job. I’m as good as any dogged newspaper journo when it comes to getting a gutsy story.’

  They tossed around what they knew and, as their confidence grew in each other, they began to piece together a possible run of events.

  ‘How’s this?’ Rhonda said, taking a notepad from her satchel, ‘Hartina leaves Lucas Heights, say in a car on her own, or in Harry’s MG. They are attacked by terrorists. He puts up some resistance and is murdered. She is whisked off to a Garuda plane and taken to Arnhem Land.’

  ‘Where Land?’

  Cardinal poured them both the last of their wine.

  ‘The Indonesians are involved. Their trade minister goes through Canberra, Sydney, and on to Arnhem Land near Darwin. They meet several businessmen in the north. The flight leaves Darwin at night for Jakarta.’

  ‘So Hartina was possibly abducted and flown on to Darwin?’

  Rhonda nodded.

  ‘This morning I was at a press conference given by a local representative of the Aboriginal Lands Council who claimed that the Bididgees in Arnhem Land were taking the biggest mine-owner up there – Bull Richardson – to court for breach of contract and agreements. He and an Asian had trespassed on sacred land.’

  ‘You’re suggesting there’s a connection?’

  ‘It’s something we’ll have to follow through. I have to learn what Harry and Hartina were doing separately or together at Lucas Heights first.’

  ‘Harry would only have been involved in laser work. That was his specialty. He was quite fanatical about it long before the Strategic Defence Initiative was explained monosyllabically by Reagan.’ Cardinal laughed. ‘I remember when he made his famous Star Wars speech in March 1983. Harry thought it was hilarious. He said it was the greatest marketing sting in history. Reagan was doing his best sales pitch ever for the laser weapons industry. I remember Harry turning to me at the end of the speech and saying that the research generated by this meant he would be rich. He was in his first year at Stanford at the time!’

  ‘Lucas Heights was doing secret Star Wars stuff when your son was there, and the contract dried up with the recent change of Australian government. At least, that’s what I’ve calculated from the clues given to me by my Intelligence contacts.’

  ‘That’s what I guessed from Harry’s letters. But why would they give you that sort of information?’

  ‘My feeling is that ASIO was very unhappy about what happened at Lucas Heights. They could have wanted me to stir it up a bit.’

  ‘Did you learn at the press conference where the Asian was from?’

  ‘No. They’re not sure.’

  Cardinal picked at the last oyster. ‘Are you going to Darwin?’

  ‘I can’t, right now,’ she said, ‘but I’m thinking about a trip to Indonesia in a few days.’

  Cardinal looked away and thought hard. He cracked his knuckles absentmindedly.

  ‘I’ll go to Arnhem Land,’ Cardinal said forcefully.

  ‘I can give you introductions there. I made a documentary on the Bididgee a few months ago.’

  ‘I’m running out of cash,’ Cardinal said, thinking aloud, ‘but damn it! I’ll sell Harry’s MG, even if it means breaking the terms of the Will.’

  ‘That model must be worth thirty thousand, maybe more.’

  Rhonda considered him for a moment. Cardinal was an interesting character, running into his own Embassy’s brick walls. She was intrigued by his unflagging will. Cardinal had said he guessed that the CIA had been involved, beginning with Harry’s appointment. This fitted the hints from Bill Hewson that harmony between the CIA and ASIO could have been better. ASIO seemed upset by Harry Cardinal’s demise and Hartina’s possible abduction.

  ‘Maybe my network will help out with airfares and things. I would have to speak with . . .”

  ‘I only want a break from this tomorrow,’ Cardinal said, ‘It’s Harry’s cremation.’

  Rhonda took Cardinal for a meal in Chinatown and insisted that he join her for one drink at a nightclub in Kings Cross. He agreed after much cajoling to stay for an hour. They were joined by several friends of Rhonda and soon there was a convivial table of ten. The occasion looked like developing into a late night. After about an hour and a half, Cardinal stood up to leave.

  ‘You’ll excuse me?’ he said. ‘Busy day tomorrow.’

  A silence fell over the group. Rhonda walked him out into the street.

  ‘I’ll find a cab,’ he said, shaking hands, ‘You go back in and enjoy yourself. You’ve earned it.’

  There were no taxis in sight so he began to walk. A prostitute startled him by stepping out of the shadows in his path. Cardinal shook his head. She persisted and began to follow him. Cardinal swung around in time to see her turn and run. A late model Holden car cruised his way. Cardinal saw a rifle being angled out of a window. He dashed for an alley. He reached the end of the alley and tried gates leading to terrace houses. They were locked. He slapped a hand on an intercom and fell against a doorway. The Holden blocked the alley entrance. A figure had climbed from the vehicle. A shot echoed down the alley. The gunman was moving his way. Cardinal bashed the intercom. No one answered. A light went on in the upstairs of a house between him and the gunman. A window went up. The gunman hesitated, fired down the alley once more, and then retreated to the Holden. It was already moving away when the gunman jumped into the back seat.

  A high-powered rifle cracked and several docile buffalo threw up their heads in alarm as one of them was hit below the right eye. The five hundred kilogram beast buckled at the knees and fell dead. Magpie Geese took flight, and other buffalo lumbered off in different directions, their massive heads and wide horns bobbing as they built speed to a charge. Despite the sun’s blinding wash of gold in the first hour of dawn, O’Laughlin managed to pick up the hunters in an open-top jeep as it sped from its ambush position in a paperbark grove.

  O’Laughlin and tw
o of his men watched from a car as Richardson stood like a charioted Roman conqueror, one hand on the roll bar and the other pointing at his victim. He was, in a way, Northern Australia’s Caesar. His reign began two decades earlier when he discovered what was then the world’s biggest uranium deposit. Richardson had flown over the Bididgee areas in the Arnhem Land Aboriginal reserve when he was caught in an electrical storm that forced him down. When he landed, a geiger counter in the cabin of his light plane sounded like a machine gun. He had stumbled on a rich uranium ore-body close to the surface.

  Within twenty-four hours he had staked several claims. A few years later they were earning him millions in mining royalties. Buoyed by this, Richardson tried to develop more grandiose schemes, but the federal government would not back them. He wanted to use nuclear charges to blast his mines. The goverment said no. He wanted to build a railway from Darwin to Alice Springs for commercial and military reasons. Again he was rejected. Richardson fought to lift restrictions on his uranium exports. Whatever his motives, Richardson preferred to do deals with business people and governments outside Australia, some of whom tended to think like he did. He wielded power with a pragmatic brutality. O’Laughlin, as the Territory’s chief legal man, above all knew the problems of dealing with a man who considered himself beyond the law.

  O’Laughlin asked his driver to pull up a few metres from the jeep, and he approached Richardson who had been forewarned of his visit.

  ‘What can we do for you, Chief?’ Richardson asked, as he climbed down from his perch.

  ‘The Bididgee people came to see me,’ O’Laughlin began. ‘They claim that you have been on sacred land at Brockman.’

  ‘Any specific charges?’ Richardson asked.

  ‘You were seen on Brockman two mornings ago.’

  ‘I did happen to be in the area,’ Richardson acknowledged, ‘but I was nowhere near Brockman.’

  ‘What about your guest – someone from that Indonesian trade delegation? Did he go on Brockman or the Green Ant Boulders?’

  ‘There was no Indonesian with me.’

  ‘You did have the Indonesian trade minister at your property that day.’

  ‘There were about forty people in the entourage. He stayed at my home apart from a quick flight over the property. I used the chopper in the morning and my plane for him in the afternoon.’