I was gone before the crowd dispersed.
CHAPTER 8
A couple of hours later and I stepped back into the foyer of the Four Points Hotel, dressed in one of my finest Zegna suits and shirts. A dark tie and plain, dark cufflinks, together with my black Ecco boots. Appearance, dear boy … yeah, thanks Philip. I decided over-dressing would be better than under-dressing, showing I took the meeting with Tuso seriously.
I debated long and hard whether I needed weapons, on the slim chance my targets were present and it became an evening of snatch and grab. I was confident with my hand-to-hand skills against most people, but the Hawk had shown she had a substantial number of security operators and I didn’t want to risk a confrontation, especially with uncooperative targets.
In the end, I opted to change the case on my ghosted iPhone to one with an inbuilt taser. It was a marvellous tool I’d picked up in Hong Kong. It looked like a perfectly normal case, but flick a small switch and it sent 50,000 volts into whatever the top of the phone touched. Less reliable than my contact taser, it was nevertheless a tool that had saved me any number of times from situations that could have ended poorly.
It wasn’t Tuso that met me in the lobby, but the Hawk, who looked as happy to see me as her team would have been to lose me. For a moment, she simply stood and stared at me, and I couldn’t help but notice she was an inch or two taller than me. ‘Pat down,’ she said with an accent that sounded Israeli. Her tall form reached out for a superficial review of my body. She felt my phone in my pocket and gestured at it, having me remove it to show her, followed by my wallet.
‘Phone off.’ She strode to the elevator on ridiculously strong-looking, long legs. A talker, then.
We rode the elevator in the same sullen silence as my last accompanied elevator ride, arriving at the Sazerac Bar on the 30th floor. I immediately liked it, and not just because Sazerac Rye was a fantastic whiskey. The bar was dark, with a spectacular view of the city and Brisbane River, soft jazz music playing. The bar was a series of small booths along the windows, more traditional tables in the middle and a large, rectangular bar along the wall opposite the view. The Hawk paused at one of the booths which my sharp eyes had picked out and struggled to contain the body language effect of what I saw. In the booth were Tuso and none other than Helen Newton. I gave her a blank stare and she was less able to contain her surprise at seeing me, Tuso and the Hawk both watching us closely. Tuso broke the silence, ‘We’re done here.’ A gesture of his hand dismissed Helen as if she were his subordinate.
Helen attempted to retain her composure while rising and considering whether to say something before leaving. In the end, she refused to look at me and was escorted by the Hawk to the elevator. At least both of them were out of my immediate presence.
Tuso gestured for me to sit and I obliged, looking at him quizzically. ‘ASIO,’ he murmured softly. ‘Sometimes better to keep your enemies close.’ He winked. I frowned. ‘She works for ASIO?’ Tuso nodded and shrugged. ‘They often visit me after a conference, demanding details on what we discussed and who are members are. They get nothing from me.’
Tuso was lying. I didn’t have a strong baseline on his body language, but it was apparent even from a superficial review. Whatever he was doing with Helen was certainly not answering her questions and the balance of power certainly seemed to be in Tuso’s favour. ‘Does she work with the kid that was at the conference?’ I asked.
Waving his hand dismissively, Tuso took a drink of an amber liquid on ice and pushed a drinks menu to me. ‘Double Sazerac, no ice,’ I said without looking, smiling at the bored -looking waitress who approached just in time. Tuso looked impressed, raising his own glass and swirling some of the remaining whiskey. ‘A damn fine drink,’ he commented.
I was about to reply when he cut me off. He seemed different to his presence in the auditorium, more intense, less showman. ‘Let me cut right to the point. I want you to join us. I had my guys check you out and if what I assume is right from some of your circumspect CV, we could do with someone who has your skills.’
The waitress returned and I gathered up the glass, touching the rim to Tuso’s before taking a sip. A delicious, long burn.
‘What would I be doing?’ I asked, leaning forward in earnest enthusiasm.
‘More of that later,’ he waved a hand dismissively. ‘We have a camp not too far from here. Galenka will pick you up tomorrow, 9am.’
I frowned a bit. ‘You’ve checked me out, but I don’t know much about you at all. Who are your other members? Do you have anyone I would know in your ranks?’
Tuso shrugged. ‘We have a lot of ex-army types associated with us. We keep details of our members confidential though so we can operate effectively. But we have some high-profile members that you’ll be surprised to see have joined us.’
I gestured in the direction of the elevator. ‘And your security, Galenka? She’s Israeli, right? Isn’t that quite a thing for the White Liberation Front?’
Tuso’s eyes narrowed and I immediately thought I’d made a mistake. His focus intensified and he considered how to answer. ‘Some Jews we need to deal with, not always out of choice.’ The moment passed and he shrugged dismissively.
I pushed him for details twice more over the next hour and a half, which he sidestepped smoothly and capably. Conversation was light and irrelevant, largely about his upbringing, the horrors of multiculturalism and how he longed to not have to spend time in hotels owned by Jews or Asians. Away from the hype, the crowd and the auditorium, it sounded even more fanciful, infantile even. But I played my part and joined in the anti-immigration conversation, sharing a few anecdotes of what I’d seen and done that were real enough to the truth to be convincing.
He was far more aloof after our initial conversation. A few times he paused, mid-sentence, to stare out the window as if in a trance, only to start a new conversation unlinked to the prior. He only had one more drink and dinner was a light meal of tapas that we shared. He had good manners, eating slowly and conservatively.
By the time he stood up, ready to leave, I was frustrated. I wasn’t here to make friends with him, and was no closer to any indication of Edward and Jessica’s whereabouts. I checked my impatience with a frown – it was rare for me. My only explanation was the unexpected and unwelcome involvement from ASIO in the form of both Morgan and Helen. It left an uneasiness in me that I couldn’t resolve.
Tuso was a hugger not a handshaker, and embraced me tightly with a promise to see me soon. The Hawk, who Tuso had named Galenka but still hadn’t been introduced to me, was waiting for me after Tuso left. Her name suggested my read on her accent had been correct – Galenka was a Hebrew name. Her surly demeanour remained and as we rode the elevator in silence and stepped into the lobby, I wondered how she would pick me up tomorrow if she didn’t know where I was staying.
‘Hotel?’ she said, gruffly. Ah, there was my answer.
‘Treasury,’ I said simply.
‘9am. No phone. No computer.’ If all of our exchanges were this verbose, elicitation would be difficult. I nodded and walked from the lobby going through a lengthy counter-surveillance route but detected nothing.
I returned to the hotel, opening the door and stepping awkwardly sideways through. Heading to the bedroom, I withdrew my knife and prised up the carpet once more. The talcum powder was undisturbed. The towel in the bathroom was also as I’d left it. I took off the suit and changed into a loose pair of shorts and shirt. I needed to prepare to be picked up tomorrow but that posed substantial difficulty. My suitcase was a severe problem for my cover. More specifically, the heavy, fingerprint -secured container that was my weapons vault was hardly something I could take to a neo-Nazi camp, especially given the expectation that everything would be thoroughly searched or at least I’d be made to open it. A highly customised weapons vault that included a USP pistol would seem odd, to say the least.
In the end, I pulled the briefing papers for this job out of the Tumi messenger-style