Flight Risk Read online

  Michael McGuire is a senior writer at The Advertiser in Adelaide. He has also worked for The Australian and the Sunday Mail in Adelaide. He has won awards for his journalism and Flight Risk is his second novel. He lives in Adelaide and is married to Rachel. They have two children, Tom and Ruby.

  First published in 2019

  Copyright © Michael McGuire 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76063 288 5

  eISBN 978 1 76087 029 4

  Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

  For Rachel, Tom and Ruby

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  The pilot walks down the airbridge. He is relaxed, happy. In one hand he is balancing a briefcase and an iPad. In the other he is holding a clear plastic container. The flight crew are waiting for him. He is a popular figure on board; many have flown with him before and he is often a contender in their ‘who’s your favourite pilot to fly with’ conversations.

  As a tall man with black hair and sharp, strong nose, he carries himself with pride that stops just short of arrogance. You can tell he loves wearing that dark blue uniform with its golden epaulettes and peaked cap. But he is also a considerate man. Unlike other pilots, he takes the time to have a chat to the rest of the crew and he knows something of their life stories.

  Inside the plane, he signals with a nod towards the container in his right hand and immediately one of the crew leaps forward to relieve him of the burden.

  ‘Just a little treat for you all. A bit of chocolate cake,’ the pilot says. ‘We’re going home today, so let’s have a nice flight.’

  The top is ripped off the container and there are many oohs and ahhs and noises of appreciation as hands reach inside to grab a slice of cake.

  ‘Make sure you save a slice,’ the pilot says as he walks on towards the cockpit. ‘I don’t want a grumpy first officer if he finds out he missed out on cake. He won’t speak to me for eight hours.’

  1

  The building is one of those concrete and glass monstrosities you can find anywhere in the world. Like a McDonald’s or a Starbucks, and with just as much style. Designed by architects who think they are cutting edge, paid for by businessmen with more money than imagination.

  Standing on the very top floor of this cathedral to money makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Still, I stop for a look at the view of outside through the requisite floor-to-ceiling reinforced plate glass windows. The windows bow, so if you are feeling particularly brave you can lean with your forehead against the glass, place your trust in the wonders of high tensile and look down 49 storeys to the unforgiving pavement below. The real joy up here, though, is looking out over the vast expanses of Sydney Harbour. The Opera House, the Bridge. For a moment, you have the feeling you are a living in a postcard.

  But I drag my eyes from the splendour below to gaze up. As ever, when I am this high, I scan the sky for planes. There are some habits that are just too hard to break. They are so ingrained, so hard-wired deep in your brain, that there comes a point where thought gives way to reflex. Like driving your car home. Ever found yourself at your front door with no memory of the journey?

  Anyway, I find what I was looking for. This time it’s a fat, lazy-looking Qantas A380, drifting high above the harbour as it makes its way to the airport. I am so elevated, it feels like I am almost at the same point in the sky as the plane.

  But no time to dawdle. The boss is waiting. I’m not sure why this is his office. It’s a little extravagant. A monument to the excesses of some now defunct merchant bank. We inherited it sometime after the last financial crash. The bank had fleeced customers, didn’t pay taxes and the government ended up sending a couple of its suits to prison and taking over these offices in part recompense.

  The outfit I work for is part of what people like to call the nation’s ‘security architecture’, but in reality we sit somewhat uncomfortably in the cracks between the official and unofficial worlds. Our existence is acknowledged by government, but they don’t talk about us unless it’s necessary. I don’t think I have heard the prime minister ever utter our name, which is mostly the way we like it. There are no speeches about our ‘brave and necessary work’ by ministers. No questions asked about us in parliament. We are like some unwanted stepchild. Everyone knows we are here, but it’s a bit rude to talk about us in public. It’s also safer this way. We have operatives in countries all over the world. Some friendly, some not, so it’s better for everyone if we all stay well under the proverbial radar.

  One of the reasons we moved into this capitalist monument was to keep us away from the official government buildings that dot Sydney and Canberra. Just another level of mystery, I presume.

  And there were no markers of the office’s true function. We’re not listed on the tenants’ directory on the ground floor. There is only one elevator that can carry you to this level, and that is hidden far from the other public lifts. There’s even a touchpad where you whack in a secret code to access our elevator, which will then let you in for a ride to the top floor where the boss resides.

  If you ever reach the top, the first thing you will notice is how quiet the joint is. Hushed, really. Befitting a top-secret organisation, there aren’t many people working up here, either. Scattered around the vast space are a few IT types, poring over some seriously impressive-looking computers, and a few other staff whose names I don’t know and whose jobs are a mystery to me. I don’t pop up here often, and when I do I don’t tend to stop for a chat with the boffins sitting in front of their computer screens. All the workstations are isolated from each other. None of this modern, open-planned stuff where desks are jammed in and the worker bees are piled on top of each other. There’s no whispered conversations between colleagues here: if you wanted to attract the attention of your closest neighbour, in fact, you would have to shout. The upside is that view. Wraparound 360-degree views of Sydney Harbour from 49 floors up makes it one of the more spectacular offices you’ll come across.

  Nobody looks up from their terminal as I walk across an Italian marble floor. One of the few up here I do know is Penny. She is the gatekeeper to the boss’s office, which sits in the far left corner and was constructed with a dark, heavy wood, possibly mahogany. Spies don’t like to be spied upon themselves. It is a huge space, presumably the one reserved for the spiv-in-ch
ief at the old merchant bank.

  Adjacent to his office is a smaller anteroom. This one is all glass. This is where I find Penny. Late forties, dark hair that just makes it to her shoulders, attractive in a severe-librarian sort of way, but her most impressive attribute is her eyes. They are an intense green and Penny has a way of looking at you as if she knows all your secrets. If our lie detector machine (I don’t know that we have one, I’m just speculating) ever broke down, Penny would be the answer. She would know you were lying just by looking at you. I would hate to be one of her kids.

  ‘How are you this fine morning, Penny?’ I ask.

  ‘Fine,’ she replies. ‘Where have you been? You took your time.’

  ‘Sorry, traffic was terrible.’

  ‘From Glebe? What’s that, ten minutes away?’

  ‘The cab was late.’

  ‘We sent a car for you.’

  It should be pointed out, I am a terrible liar when talking to people I like, so it’s possible I am over-estimating Penny’s skills in this department.

  ‘He’s waiting for you.’

  Bob Sorensen is indeed waiting for me. He is sitting in a comfortable-looking leather chair behind a desk so big it could have been designed for six people. He’s not a big chap, and he’s in his early sixties so getting on a bit, and I always have this image of him curling up in the enormous seat like a cat in front of a fire and having a little sleep. Maybe I should have brought him a saucer of milk.

  ‘How are you, Ted?’ he asks.

  ‘Okay, Bob, you know.’ We like our one-syllable first names around here. ‘Happy as ever to be seeing you at the crack of dawn on a Saturday.’

  Not for the first time, I wonder what Bob sees when he looks at me, beyond a tall, 39-year-old secret service agent with a few too many miles on the clock. I give myself a quick once-over. I’m in my usual uniform. Blundstones, somewhat worn, new blue jeans, a long-sleeved green cotton shirt from Kmart and my faithful brown leather jacket. Not a bad ensemble for this time of the day, possibly giving me unearned pass marks in a stylistic sense.

  It’s true we have known each other for about five years, but I don’t think that makes us friends. I am good at certain things that make me useful to Bob. I’m his stay-at-home agent. The one based in Sydney but expected to fly anywhere in the world at any time that he deems it necessary. Sometimes it’s straightforward. To deliver a parcel that he wouldn’t trust to anyone else. Sometimes more serious. Like when I found my way into Burma over the Thai border trying to locate a missing Australian journalist.

  If I ever stopped being useful, I can’t imagine I’d ever see him again. There would be no Sunday arvo barbecues at his place, no catch-ups for a quick beer after work. No cheery reminisces about the old days: Hey, Bob, remember that time I was shot at in Burma and the bullet took away a chunk of my upper thigh? Jeez, I don’t know how I survived that one. Those were the days.

  Which isn’t to say I don’t like or respect him. After all, he took me in when others had given up on me. From a point in my life when I’d been knocked a bit off course (always a bad thing for a pilot) and had been well and truly lost.

  Bob rescued me from that spiral. Saw a quality in me that I’m not sure I saw in myself anymore, and gave me another chance. By then I had already fled the military after a spell of flying in Iraq, happy with the idea of piloting very fast planes but bored with command decisions. My wife, Melody, had died. It was a car crash and I blamed myself. After she was gone, I needed to look after my daughter and thought leaving the military was my best chance of doing that.

  From the military, it was the well-trodden path to flying big commercial planes. But my problem with structure and command didn’t go away, I was never home for my daughter and the planes were much slower. By the time I met Bob, I had left the commercial world. If I had still been in the air force, they would have called it a ‘dishonourable discharge’. There were going to be no more flying jobs for Ted Anderson.

  It was a phone call on a Tuesday morning that brought me to Bob. From Penny, asking for a meeting in this very office.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. I found it all a bit peculiar, but having nothing better to do at the time I thought there was nothing to lose by meeting him. And I was intrigued.

  ‘He will tell you what it’s about when you get here,’ Penny said.

  And he did. I liked him straight away. Something comforting in his manner. He was formal and old-school, but he clearly cared about the work and his people. He explained the job. Said it would start small. He was high up in the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the nation’s foreign intelligence agency. We would start with little jobs, using me essentially as a delivery boy, taking messages and deliveries to other agents in the field around the world. There were times, Bob said, when face-to-face contact was preferable to the electronic version.

  ‘Why me?’ I finally asked after he had given me the run-down.

  ‘Remember Wing Commander Angus Sorensen?’

  I did. He had trained me at Williamstown before I graduated to flying F/A-18s. He had been a hotshot pilot in Vietnam and had charisma and an enthusiasm for flying that I hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Of course. Taught me more about flying than anyone else in the air force.’

  ‘He’s my brother. Despite everything else on your personnel record, he recommended you. Said you had great potential. So don’t let him down. Or me.’

  Since that day I have morphed from an agent whose enthusiasm exceeded his capabilities into something a little more sophisticated, although Bob may well disagree with this glowing self-appraisal. I’m grateful to him, I remind myself as I take a seat across from his vast desk. But I’d like to think I’ve repaid that faith a few times since.

  ‘Ted, a plane went missing a few hours ago,’ Bob says gravely. ‘A passenger plane. Flying from Sydney to Jakarta. It’s early days, obviously, and probably nothing. A mechanical fault, freak weather, but I want you to keep an eye on it.’

  This is not a surprise. When large passenger planes go missing, the first instinct is to crank the alert levels up to red. Since 9/11, aircraft in the minds of the public had become more than just an uncomfortable way to fly halfway across the world. They became large, fuel-heavy weapons that in the wrong hands could wreak horrible vengeance. Since that terrible day in 2001, the joy of flying left a lot of people. You can see it at any modern airport. The shuffling lines of worried people, the air of anxiety. The idea, buried deep in their psyche, that this could be the last flight they ever take.

  Terrorists though have always been fond of using planes to get a point across. Think of Air France Flight 139, which when flying between Paris and Tel Aviv in 1980 was forced to land at Entebbe in Uganda by Palestinian terrorists. That was the one where the Israelis, who don’t do things by half, came in with four C-130 planes, landed a bunch of special forces and knocked seven shades of shit out of the bad guys.

  Hijackings in those days weren’t uncommon. But 9/11 was different. It was so visceral. Half the world, maybe more, watched it happen live on television. Once you see those images, you can’t forget them. It was the ultimate ‘do you remember where you were’ moment for the post Kennedy assassination generations.

  Of course, people tell themselves they are silly to worry. That just because it happened once doesn’t mean it will happen again. That security has been tightened since then, that the authorities know better these days, that you couldn’t just barge into a cockpit anymore, that it would take more than just a box cutter to force a plane down … They take comfort from the metal detectors, the X-ray machines, the screenings for explosive materials. The taking off of belts and shoes. Surely this makes us all safe, they think. Surely this would stop the nutters.

  The truth? Maybe some of the half-arsed plotters with half a brain. But for your committed, serious, intelligent nutter? Well, there’s always a way, isn’t there?

  The plane is a Garuda Airlines A330. Flight GIA005, to be exact. There are 245 pass
engers and crew on board. Among that lot are 154 Australians. It had taken off from Sydney at 10.37 p.m. last night, bound for Jakarta. For five hours, everything seemed normal. All communication between pilots and air traffic control was exactly as the book said it should be. Then silence. It disappeared off the radar in both Australia and Indonesia.

  All modern aircraft carry highly sophisticated equipment that tells you to the millimetre where the plane is anywhere in the world. How fast it’s flying. Altitude. Fuel on board. What the passenger in seat 47B had for lunch. In addition, pilots are in regular contact with air-traffic control in whichever country they are flying through. You would expect them to communicate en route.

  In short, planes are very hard to lose.

  But Bob is telling me this one has gone. One second it was there, blipping away on radar, the next it had vanished. And for the last four hours, no one had a clue where it has gone. It has disappeared into the wild blue yonder.

  ‘How can we not know where it is?’ I ask. ‘It’s a big thing, a A330. They aren’t easy to lose.’

  ‘We don’t fucking know, smartarse, okay?’

  Now I start to worry. Bob isn’t one of life’s natural swearers. He’s too proper for that. It’s not that he’s refined, or much of a snob, he was just born with a deep-rooted sense of decency. He wears that sense of decency like a shroud. Or a well-pressed suit. Take today. Saturday morning, early. You would think he would have stumbled into work in jeans and a jumper. Like me. But no. Full grey suit, white shirt, royal-blue tie and the shiniest black shoes you’ll see this side of the military academy.

  Funnily enough, though, he’s not military like his brother. He’s much more a man of the shadows for that. He’s secret service, all the way. He always strikes me as someone a little out of step with the times; he would have been happier in a le Carré novel or running around Cambridge looking for Russian spies.

  ‘Sorry, Bob, but seriously, where is it? How do you lose a plane like that? It’s got electric gadgets hanging off each rivet, every move is tracked by satellite. If not ours, then the Indonesians, and if not theirs, the Yanks … The Chinese are probably having a sneaky peek as well.’