Dragons at the Party. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ tell us anything about them. That’s part of our problem – they’ve landed out here with what seems like half the Paluccan Treasury. The RAAF who brought them out of Bunda also brought six packing cases. Customs went up to Richmond last night, to the RAAF base, and went through the cases.’

      ‘I thought the Timoris would have claimed diplomatic immunity.’

      ‘They would have, if they’d known what was happening. It wasn’t a ministerial order. Some smart aleck in Customs, one of the left-wingers, overstepped the mark. The cases were opened and the contents down on paper before the Minister got wind of it. You know what happens when something goes down on paper in a government department. It becomes indelible and then multiplies.’

      Malone grinned. ‘I thought that’s what happens at Headquarters?’

      ‘Do you want to finish up as the constable in charge of a one-man station in the bush?’ But Leeds allowed himself a smile; then he sobered again: ‘The Timoris brought out an estimated twenty-two million dollars’ worth of gold, gems and US currency.’

      Malone whistled silently and Leeds nodded. Though there was a considerable difference in rank, there was an empathy between the two men. Twice before they had been caught up in politics, with Malone as the ball-carrier and the Commissioner, in the end, having to call the play. Malone began to wonder how far he would be allowed to carry the ball in this game. Perhaps he should send for Thumper Murphy and his sledge-hammer.

      ‘There’s a rumour they have a couple of billion salted away in Switzerland. It’s no wonder the Americans didn’t want them.’

      ‘How did we get landed with them?’ Malone said.

      ‘I thought you knew. Madame Timori was an old girl-friend of the PM’s.’

      Malone could feel the ball getting heavier. He looked over Leeds’ shoulder and saw that Madame Timori, in white slacks and a yellow silk shirt, had come out on to the veranda of the house and was gazing steadily at him and the Commissioner.

      ‘Well, I’d better get it over with. Just routine questions?’

      ‘Unless you put your foot in it again, like you used to.’ Leeds buttoned up his blazer. The morning was already hot, the temperature already in the eighties, but he looked as if he might be in his air-conditioned office. ‘Your tie’s loose.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’ Malone tightened his tie. ‘I’m afraid Madame Timori may want to hang me with it.’

      ‘Don’t look for me to cut you down. Good luck.’

      He went out of the gates and Malone was left feeling alone and exposed. Twenty-two years ago, in his first representative game for the State, he had gone in as the last-wicket batsman to face two of the quickest bowlers in the country. One of them had hit him under the heart with his first ball and he bad gone down like a pole-axed steer. He had somehow recovered and seen out the rest of the over and on the last ball, foolishly, had scored a run to bring him to the other end. There he had been hit twice in the ribs by the second bowler and he had found himself wondering why he had taken up such a dangerous sport as cricket. The bruises had taken two weeks to fade.

      He walked towards Madame Timori wondering how long the bruises she would give him would take to fade.

TWO

      1

      Miguel Seville hated Australia and Australians. Not on political or ideological grounds; it was difficult to take seriously the parish pump policies of this backwater. No, he hated the country, or anyway Sydney, because it was so brash, materialistic and uncultured compared to his own Buenos Aires; he hated the people for the same grating faults. He had been here once before at the secret invitation of an Aboriginal radical group; he had found the blacks as objectionable as the whites. Loud, brash, with opinions on everything: nobody wanted to learn, especially from a foreigner, even an invited one. With the disappearance of Carlos, he had become the top man in his trade; but the Aboriginal radicals had wanted to argue every point with him. In the end he had walked out on them and gone back to Damascus.

      That was where he had been two weeks ago when the phone call had come from Beirut. He had gone down to that ruined city and in an apartment in the Muslim quarter met the man who had phoned him.

      ‘You will be paid one million American dollars.’

      Seville tried to show no surprise; but it was difficult. His price was high, but it had never been as high as this. All at once the recent dreaming might come true: he could retire, go back to Argentina and be amongst his own again.

      ‘Less my ten per cent.’ Rah Zaid was a thin, thin-faced, thin-eyed man who always, no matter what the weather or the time of year, wore a neatly-pressed black silk suit and an Arab head-dress. He had a husky voice that suggested over-exposure to desert sandstorms; the truth, less romantic, was overexposure to American cigarettes. He was smoking now, almost shutting his eyes against the smoke. The air in the apartment was acrid, but that could be the after-effects of the Christian shell that this morning had wiped off the balcony beyond the living-room’s french doors. ‘As usual.’

      ‘The client is also paying you commission, I suppose?’ Seville didn’t resent what Zaid made out of the contracts; he was the best contact man in the trade that employed them. Utterly amoral, he was nevertheless utterly to be trusted. If he were not, he would have been dead years ago. Seville could have been the one to kill him.

      Zaid smiled thinly behind the cigarette smoke: everything about him seemed to be squeezed tight to make the least possible impression. ‘We have an understanding.’

      ‘Who is the client?’ Seville knew better than to ask, but he always did.

      Zaid shook his head. ‘In this case you aren’t to know. Even I don’t know. You are to kill President Timori either in Bunda or, if he abdicates and leaves Palucca, you are to follow him and kill him at the first opportunity.’

      ‘I thought only kings abdicated?’

      ‘I gather he thinks of himself as one. If he does, they have no idea where he’ll go. Nobody wants him, not even the Americans.’

      Down in the street there was a burst of automatic gunfire, but neither man flinched or got up to investigate. Beirut now had different everyday sounds from those of other cities. A breeze blew in from the bay but there was no smell of salt air, just cordite.

      ‘When do they want me to leave?’

      ‘Immediately. Things will come to a head this week in Bunda.’

      ‘How will the money be paid?’

      ‘Half a million to your usual account. The rest on completion of the job.’

      ‘Did you nominate the price or did they?’

      Zaid gave another thin smile; Seville, who had been happy as a child, wondered if the Arab had ever laughed aloud, ‘I had to do some bargaining, but that’s what I enjoy.’ Seville could imagine the bargaining: it was second nature to an Arab. ‘These people, whoever they are, hardly quibbled – their go-between came back to me within ten minutes. They must be desperate to be rid of him.’

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ