Hard Landing

CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next morning, Gary drove back to the headquarters of the Sunrise Mission in Pyrmont and arrived just before eight o'clock. He skirted behind the building and saw all six slots in the car park were empty, including the one with "Pastor McKenzie" stencilled on it.

  He parked his car around the corner and stationed himself in a near-deserted coffee shop with a view of the car park, waiting for McKenzie to arrive. Hopefully, the guy worked normal business hours.

  He did. Just before nine o'clock, as Gary started his second coffee, a big black SUV drove up and parked on top of the Pastor's name. The Pastor got out wearing dark glasses and a denim jacket over a black skivvy, looking more like a hitman than a man of the cloth, and ducked into the Mission building. Gary quickly finished his cup of coffee and paid at the counter.

  Ray said the magnetic tracker could be attached to any flat metal surface. When Gary asked if it might fall off, Ray said: "Only if someone uses a crowbar".

  As he strolled towards the SUV, he scanned the area for CCTV cameras and saw none. Upon reaching the vehicle, he casually glanced around, saw no-one looking and rolled under the back wheel. He attached the tracker to a metal traverse, got to his feet and strolled off. The whole operation took about ten seconds.

  He climbed back into his car and turned on the laptop. As expected, a little red dot appeared on Google Maps. The hunt was on.

  Gary had attached the tracker in case the Pastor drove somewhere to meet Patrick Arnott. However, Arnott might visit the Pastor at the headquarters building. That was unlikely, because Arnott seemed to be in hiding. But, in case he did, Gary drove around to the front of the building and parked across the street. Now he could watch both the front entrance and the red dot on his laptop. With only a smattering of people wandering in and out of the building, Arnott should be easy to spot.

  Gary also considered breaking into the Pastor's office and planting a few bugs. Ray Bolton could supply the bugs and might, if Gary was extra-persuasive, help Gary plant them. But breaking into the office would be risky and time-consuming. He'd only do that as a last resort.

  Gary expected the Pastor to spend the whole day in the building and was surprised when, after an hour, the red dot on Google Maps blinked and moved. Shit. After confirming which way the Pastor's SUV was heading, he pulled away from the curb and moved to intercept. He caught up with the SUV on Harris Street, travelling west. The tracker let him hang back, keeping the SUV just in view as it crossed Anzac Bridge and climbed up towards the disused White Bay Power Station. Just before reaching the station, it turned left into the suburb of Rozelle.

  Gary had lagged so far behind that a red traffic light halted his pursuit before he reached the left turn. He sat impatiently for a minute, watching the Pastor move away on Google Maps, until the light turned green. He stomped on the accelerator and took the same left turn, keeping an eye on the laptop to see where the Pastor was going.

  Rozelle was an inner-city suburb where yuppies recently bought out the last working-class residents and made it fully gentrified. Tiny cottages now cost a couple of million dollars and the poorest residents were the au pairs.

  Gary quickly re-establish visual contact with the Pastor's SUV as it followed the road down into a small hollow. It turned right and travelled along the side of a large open park for 50 metres before stopping under a line of fig-trees.

  To avoid detection, Gary ignored the right-hand turn and kept driving for another block before turning right. He drove along the crown of a ridge, between long rows of terraces, for about half a kilometre until he reached a small playground overlooking where the SUV halted. He stopped against the curb and pulled a pair of Zeiss binoculars out of the glove-box. Through them he saw the Pastor now sat on a park bench, under a huge fig tree, obviously waiting for someone. Who? The park itself was almost deserted, except for a man playing fetch with his dog and a couple of kids trying to fly a kite.

  After ten minutes, a black BMW followed the same route the SUV took and pulled up next to the SUV. A tall thin man, wearing a pinstripe suit for God's sake, emerged and strolled across to the Pastor. They shook hands, sat on the bench and talked animatedly for about ten minutes. At first, the Pastor did all the talking. Then the thin guy gobbled up more time. Finally, they stood, shook hands and strolled back to their vehicles.

  Gary had a camera with a big telephoto lens on the floor next to him. He heaved it up and took some snaps of the thin guy in the pinstripe suit as he got into the BMW.

  It looked like the two men rendezvoused in a secluded park because they had something private to discuss. What? Did they talk about Patrick Arnott? Gary doubted that and was tempted to ignore the thin guy. But he was curious to know who the guy was and why he met with the Pastor in such a clandestine manner. Further, if Gary followed him around, he could still monitor where the Pastor went on Google Maps.

  Gary did a three-point turn and zoomed back the way he came. After turning left, he stepped on the gas and peered ahead, desperately hoping to see the BMW. He soon spied it and sighed with relief. A minute later, it reached Victoria Road and stopped at a set of traffic lights. He pulled up behind it and wrote down the number on its Australian Capital Territory licence plate.

  When the light went green, the BMW turned right and headed along Victoria Road towards the distant skyscrapers of the CDB. Because there were no traffic lights or turnoffs for some distance, Gary dropped back. He glanced at the laptop and saw the Pastor was a couple of hundred metres behind him, presumably returning to the Sunrise Mission headquarters in Pyrmont.

  He ignored the Pastor and focused on the BMW. After crossing Anzac Bridge, it followed the expressway towards the city centre. As it did, Gary glanced at his laptop and saw the Pastor was already back at the headquarters building.

  Gary tucked in behind the BMW to make sure he didn't lose it on the busy streets of the CDB. Near the Town Hall, the BMW turned left and headed towards the harbour. A couple of hundred metres from the water, it turned right into the underground car park of a familiar-looking building. Gary drove past the building and saw 'Commonwealth Parliamentary Office Building' stencilled above the entrance. The building had seemed familiar to him because Federal politicians used its offices when they visited Sydney and often gave TV interviews outside it. Gary wondered if the guy in the BMW was a Federal politician. There were plenty he didn't recognise.

  He phoned Vincent Drew. "Amigo, it's Gary here. Got any more leads on Patrick Arnott's whereabouts?"

  "Nope, but I'm still poking about."

  "Good. I've got a Canberra licence plate number; I want to know who owns the vehicle. This is urgent."

  "Sure, spit it out."

  Gary recited the number.

  "OK, I won't take long."

  "Good." Gary hung up and drove back to the Sunrise Mission headquarters. Once there, he cruised past the rear car park and saw the Pastor's black SUV was back in its slot. He drove around to the front and again parked across the road from the front entrance. The pedestrian traffic in and out had increased significantly.

  After half-an-hour, he got a call from Vincent Drew, sounding a touch excited for once. "Gary, I've got the registered owner of the vehicle. You won't believe it."

  "Who?"

  "Oliver Bristow."

  The name rang a faint bell. "Who's he?"

  Vincent sounded a little disappointed. "Don't you follow politics?"

  "Only when I'm filling out a ballot paper with a pencil."

  "Oliver Bristow is … wait for it … the Opposition Leader's Chief of Staff."

  The Opposition Leader, Angus Trewaley, would have an office in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Office Building. That explained why Bristow drove into its underground car park. "Jesus H. Christ."

  "That was my reaction. He's a big cheese. I thought you were chasing after a missing accountant. What's Bristow got to do with him?"

  "I don't know. Probably nothing. We had a chance encounter. Thanks for that information."
r />   "No problem."

  Gary sat outside the Sunrise Mission headquarters until five o'clock, when his laptop told him the Pastor's SUV was moving again. He quickly caught up with the Pastor, who drove through the city centre and then south for 15 kilometres until he reached Sutherland Shire.

  'The Shire' was a collection of beach suburbs where most of the population were white reactionary bible-bashers. Multiculturalism had forayed into it, but was yet to win hearts and minds. Sydney was not noted for race riots. But, several years ago, there was a big one at Cronulla Beach when surf-billies from the Shire tried to stop swarthy intruders from the western suburbs venturing onto its sand. The show-down made headlines around the world.

  That riot was a distant memory as Gary followed the Pastor along the road behind Cronulla Beach. The only human activity he saw was surfers flitting across waves in the dwindling light. Then the beach disappeared and Gary followed the Pastor through a clump of high-rise apartment blocks into a residential suburb beyond.

  The signature abode in the Shire was a mansion home with a dream kitchen, spanking new "antique" furniture, and massive flat-screen TVs and mirrors on the walls. Books and paintings were rarely displayed. Australian flags fluttered on poles in front yards and jet-skis clogged driveways.

  After driving past many such homes, the Pastor turned onto the driveway of one and disappeared into its garage. The home was slightly smaller than its neighbours. However, it sat on a headland with breathtaking ocean views. Gary didn't know if the Pastor was doing good, but the guy was certainly doing well.

  There were no vehicles parked on the street. If Gary sat in his Toyota sedan, watching the house, he would soon attract suspicion. To avoid that, he wanted to use the white tradie van he kept for workers' compensation surveillance. But it was now parked outside his apartment building.

  It was getting dark and it looked like the Pastor was home for the night. So Gary decided to return to his apartment, spend the night in bed and drive back in the white van the next morning.

  On the way home, he turned on the car radio and listened to a couple of ABC news bulletins. Still no mention of the death in Drummoyne. The cops obviously hadn't determined it was a murder. Gary wondered if they ever would.

  He got back to his apartment just after nine o'clock and hacked the frozen remnant of an Indian takeaway out of the freezer. He ate the microwaved food on the sofa while watching the ABC Late News. He hadn't paid much attention to the federal election campaign so far. All he knew was that, after three years of scandal and economic malaise, the Government was deeply unpopular. Indeed, most political commentators thought Angus Trewaley and his Conservative Party were assured of victory.

  However, bumping into Oliver Bristow piqued Gary's interest in politics and made him pay attention to the election stories on the late news. The first covered the Prime Minister's visit to a bottle factory in Adelaide, where he wandered around in a hi-viz vest talking to workers, trying to show a common touch with little success. Afterwards, he gave a press conference during which he described his party as the "underdog" in the election and promising the economy would soon "turn the corner". The next item showed Angus Trewaley addressing a gathering of business leaders in Perth during which he lambasted the Government's "reckless spending" and promised to "kick-start" the economy with tax cuts. The news announcer said that Trewaley would be interviewed that night on the Late Talk program.

  Gary rarely watched Late Talk because its smug host, Paul Dane, usually interviewed even smugger politicians who recited talking points. However, after watching the first half of a rugby league game, he switched over to it. The credits rolled and Paul Dane appeared on the screen, sitting in a big swivel chair, looking particularly self-satisfied. He announced that he would be interviewing Angus Trewaley, in Perth, via a video link. He swivelled around to look at Trewaley on a big screen behind him.

  Dane and Trewaley looked like twins with their matching helmets of grey hair, shiny foreheads, glow-in-the-dark teeth and hair-trigger smiles. Dane's interviewing technique involved methodically reading out a list of questions on his pad without paying much attention to the answers. For about ten minutes, he challenged Trewaley, in a perfunctory way, about his plans to rescue the economy. Trewaley kept insisting that, if the Government cut spending and lowered taxes, that would boost growth and productivity. "I know what I am talking about. I was a highly successful property developer before I entered parliament. I understand how the economy works and how business people think."

  Gary was starting to doze off when Dane asked Trewaley about his religious beliefs. "You often describe yourself as a devout Catholic with conservative social values. Will your religious beliefs influence you if you become Prime Minister?"

  "Paul, I have always made clear that I oppose abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. However, I accept that we live in a multi-cultural and relativist society, and won't try to force my beliefs on other people."

  "However, you have promised that, if elected Prime Minister, you will increase the funding of Christian education in schools."

  "Yes, I will, because I believe that Christian morality is still at the heart of our society."

  "Will you fund education about other religions?"

  A wry smile. "First things first. We'll increase funding for Christian education and then look at other religions."

  "The Prime Minister has said that, because of the budget emergency, it may be time to tax religious organisations. Do you agree with him?"

  A frown. "Certainly not. We should be encouraging religious organisations, not burdening them. We need to have more people embrace God, not fewer."

  "Thank you for your time."

  "A pleasure."

  Gary bet Pastor McKenzie was a big fan of Angus Trewaley and his pro-Christian views. But the Pastor had no reason to hide that support. He obviously didn't meet Trewaley's Chief of Staff in a secluded park just to keep it hidden. There must be another reason they met in secret, which Gary was convinced he would never find out.