blazing, and a couple of nuclear warheads in tow?
Julie buzzed Lonergan in through the front door.
‘That Scottish insomniac was right,’ he said, pulling a wad of papers from an impossibly thin stainless-steel attaché case. ‘Preliminary reports from Glasgow confirm the tankerwas mothballed around seven years ago. Her engines were totally overhauled recently, so she made it out here under her own power, and those gas storage tanks were partially filled with seawater for ballast, so that she’d sit low in the water, like she was carrying a full cargo. The anti-personnel mines are dummies, and the crew’s quarters have been recently used but swept clean. No food, no clothes, no books, not even toilet paper. Looks like they may have dumped all the incriminating evidence over the side before they came through the Heads.’
‘There’s harbour-surveillance footage from the Sydney Ports cameras showing the tanker cruising up the western channel around 3 a.m. and anchoring off Fort Denison at 3.45,’ Julie said.
‘So the surveillance cameras were working?’ Lonergan asked.
‘They were recording, but nothing was received in the tower because of the blackout. Apparently the tapes also show three people leaving the tanker in a Zodiac soon after she moored. Cops found the Zodiac at the Rose Bay wharf. Forensics have been all over it but it’s the same story as the tanker, clean as a whistle.’
‘Could have been the pilot going ashore,’ I said. ‘Pete said the harbourmaster reckons you don’t run something that size up the harbour in the middle of the night without bumping into things unless you really know what you’re doing.’
Julie, as usual, was one step ahead. ‘I’ve been onto Sydney Ports and they say all their pilots can be accounted for, including the ones on holiday or sick leave.’
‘What about RAN pilots?’ I asked. The Oz Navy has warships popping in and out of the fleet base at Woolloomooloo all the time, and has its own harbour pilots. One of them would have been on the bridge of the Altoona when she docked, making sure she was neatly parked between the white lines before slipping a couple of dollars into the meter.
‘I checked with a contact in the Defence Department in Canberra and your Navy guys are all accounted for too,’ Lonergan said.
How nice that the CIA had a direct line into Defence. I wondered if his contact was Pergo, but the barney I saw them having on the tanker didn’t look like Lonergan had been asking for a list of pilots.
‘I’ve already put in a request to Sydney Ports for the surveillance tapes,’ Julie said. ‘And for the names of every harbour pilot who qualified in the last thirty years. Since it’s a public holiday, it might take a while.’
‘If the bad guys just kept banker’s hours like the rest of us,’ I said, ‘things would be a whole lot simpler.’
It was after two when Peter and Clare got back from the hospital and they had very little to report. The ship’s choir had been formed in San Diego earlier in the year and they pretty much kept to themselves. Expressions of interest from other members of the crew had been politely butfirmly rebuffed, which seemed a bit unchristian to me, and the ship’s company had become used to having a choir whose members were as thick as thieves, which is quite literally what they turned out to be.
I was just figuring out a plan for a late lunch when I saw Julie staring up at one of the security-surveillance monitors. She glanced at me. ‘Ducks on the pond,’ she said quietly. That meant trouble.
I walked across to her desk and watched on the monitors as three white Commodores rolled onto the pier, the trailing vehicle neatly blocking the main entrance to our office. Two men in dark suits climbed out of the first car and another seven, also in dark suits, emerged from the other two. Even on our surveillance monitors you could see that the Hugo Boss threads on the bloke in the lead car would have cost
Julie buzzed Lonergan in through the front door.
‘That Scottish insomniac was right,’ he said, pulling a wad of papers from an impossibly thin stainless-steel attaché case. ‘Preliminary reports from Glasgow confirm the tankerwas mothballed around seven years ago. Her engines were totally overhauled recently, so she made it out here under her own power, and those gas storage tanks were partially filled with seawater for ballast, so that she’d sit low in the water, like she was carrying a full cargo. The anti-personnel mines are dummies, and the crew’s quarters have been recently used but swept clean. No food, no clothes, no books, not even toilet paper. Looks like they may have dumped all the incriminating evidence over the side before they came through the Heads.’
‘There’s harbour-surveillance footage from the Sydney Ports cameras showing the tanker cruising up the western channel around 3 a.m. and anchoring off Fort Denison at 3.45,’ Julie said.
‘So the surveillance cameras were working?’ Lonergan asked.
‘They were recording, but nothing was received in the tower because of the blackout. Apparently the tapes also show three people leaving the tanker in a Zodiac soon after she moored. Cops found the Zodiac at the Rose Bay wharf. Forensics have been all over it but it’s the same story as the tanker, clean as a whistle.’
‘Could have been the pilot going ashore,’ I said. ‘Pete said the harbourmaster reckons you don’t run something that size up the harbour in the middle of the night without bumping into things unless you really know what you’re doing.’
Julie, as usual, was one step ahead. ‘I’ve been onto Sydney Ports and they say all their pilots can be accounted for, including the ones on holiday or sick leave.’
‘What about RAN pilots?’ I asked. The Oz Navy has warships popping in and out of the fleet base at Woolloomooloo all the time, and has its own harbour pilots. One of them would have been on the bridge of the Altoona when she docked, making sure she was neatly parked between the white lines before slipping a couple of dollars into the meter.
‘I checked with a contact in the Defence Department in Canberra and your Navy guys are all accounted for too,’ Lonergan said.
How nice that the CIA had a direct line into Defence. I wondered if his contact was Pergo, but the barney I saw them having on the tanker didn’t look like Lonergan had been asking for a list of pilots.
‘I’ve already put in a request to Sydney Ports for the surveillance tapes,’ Julie said. ‘And for the names of every harbour pilot who qualified in the last thirty years. Since it’s a public holiday, it might take a while.’
‘If the bad guys just kept banker’s hours like the rest of us,’ I said, ‘things would be a whole lot simpler.’
It was after two when Peter and Clare got back from the hospital and they had very little to report. The ship’s choir had been formed in San Diego earlier in the year and they pretty much kept to themselves. Expressions of interest from other members of the crew had been politely butfirmly rebuffed, which seemed a bit unchristian to me, and the ship’s company had become used to having a choir whose members were as thick as thieves, which is quite literally what they turned out to be.
I was just figuring out a plan for a late lunch when I saw Julie staring up at one of the security-surveillance monitors. She glanced at me. ‘Ducks on the pond,’ she said quietly. That meant trouble.
I walked across to her desk and watched on the monitors as three white Commodores rolled onto the pier, the trailing vehicle neatly blocking the main entrance to our office. Two men in dark suits climbed out of the first car and another seven, also in dark suits, emerged from the other two. Even on our surveillance monitors you could see that the Hugo Boss threads on the bloke in the lead car would have cost
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