COVER PAGE

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

Also by Roland Perry

Fiction

The Assassin on the Bangkok Express

The Honourable Assassin

Faces in the Rain

Blood is a Stranger

Programme for a Puppet

Non-fiction

Red Lead

Tea and Scotch with Bradman

Anzac Sniper

Monash and Chauvel Céleste

The Queen, Her Lover and the

Most Notorious Spy in History

Horrie the War Dog

Bill the Bastard

The Fight for Australia

(originally published as Pacific 360°)

The Changi Brownlow

The Australian Light Horse

Sailing to the Moon

Bradman’s Invincibles

The Ashes

Miller’s Luck

Last of the Cold War Spies

Monash

Bradman’s Best Ashes Teams

Bradman’s Best

Captain Australia

Waugh’s Way

Bold Warnie

Mel Gibson

Don Bradman (originally

published as The Don)

The Fifth Man

Lethal Hero

Shane Warne, Master Spinner

The Exile

Hidden Power

Elections Sur Ordinateur

Documentary films

Hidden Power:

The Programming of the

President

The Raising of a Galleon’s Ghost

Strike Swiftly

Ted Kennedy and the Pollsters

The Force

DEDICATION

To:

Al Haut,

the memory of Tim Fischer,

the memory of William Sam Conley

AL HAUT

AL HAUT

Piscis Australis is a star constellation in the southern sky.

Al Haut, meaning the ‘mouth of the great fish’, is the brightest star in this constellation.

The ancient Greeks depicted Al Haut as swallowing the water (of all knowledge) poured by another star constellation, Aquarius, the water bearer.

One interpretation is that the Age of Aquarius, which began in 2018, will deliver comprehension of all things to the one known as Al Haut.

PART ONE: TASMANIAN DEVILS

PART ONE

TASMANIAN DEVILS

1 THE INTERVENTION

1

THE INTERVENTION

Pon Cavalier rode the motorbike from a dirt track up to a main road. She stopped, looked left and right and then began the ride up a small gradient that would take her over the road. She didn’t see the fast-moving motorbike coming from her left, which was obscured by an advertisement hoarding. They collided with a thud that sounded like a gunshot. Pon was thrown five metres in the air before landing against a fence. The middle-aged driver of the speeding bike was knocked out on impact.

The accident happened near the local Buddhist temple in the village of Wang Takhian, near Mae Sot on the Thai–Burma border. Six young, yellow-robed trainee monks, followed by as many dogs, rushed to the scene. The monks held up traffic. The speeding driver had head injuries. Pon was also out to it, with blood coming from her mouth and nose attracting two of the dogs, who sniffed around her head as fluid trickled to the road. A third dog, his back leg damaged from a previous accident, balanced and lifted his crippled limb to urinate on one of the bikes.

A chubby adult monk arrived, looked at Pon’s eyes, put his ear to her chest, and ran fingers down her neck. He could hardly detect a pulse as police cars and ambulances arrived, sirens blaring.

‘I think she’s alive,’ he said, ‘but just.’

*

‘I’m afraid, Mr Cavalier, your daughter has less than a fifty per cent chance of survival,’ the Thai doctor in Mae Sot said over the phone, ‘she is haemorrhaging from the head.’

Cavalier had gone to desperate lengths just six months earlier to save his 33-year-old daughter from a Mexican drug lord, who had captured and brutalised her for several years. Now she was in big trouble of a different kind. In shock, Cavalier got on the phone at his Chiang Mai apartment and tried to book an immediate flight. There were none.

He decided to ride his Harley motorbike the six-hour trip south to Mae Sot. Just as he was throwing together a travelling bag, his phone rang. It was his good friend Tommy ‘Wombat’ Gregory in Australia.

‘Have someone I’d like you to talk—’

‘Not now, mate,’ Cavalier said. ‘Pon’s been in a terrible crash. May not make it.’ He told Wombat about the Mae Sot accident.

‘You’re on speaker,’ Wombat said. ‘There’s someone here who thinks he can help. His name is Al Haut.’

Cavalier wanted to get off the phone.

‘Not now, Wombat.’

‘It’s Al Haut,’ a voice said. ‘I’m a pastor. I’ll pray into it.’

‘What does that mean?’ Cavalier asked impatiently.

‘I’ll pray for her.’

‘Thank you.’ Cavalier hung up.

He finished packing the bag and was just locking up the apartment when the phone rang again.

It was Al Haut.

‘I’ve prayed into it,’ he said. ‘God is merciful.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That’s the message I received. Your daughter will be fine. The bleeding will stop. Her brain will be fine.’

Shaken, Cavalier asked, ‘What about her body, her limbs?’

‘There will be no damage. She’ll be okay.’

‘Thank you, Mr Haut,’ a bewildered Cavalier said as he rushed to the condo’s lift. The phone rang a third time. It was the Mae Sot doctor.

‘Mr Cavalier? There has been a miracle! Your daughter has stopped haemorrhaging. We can’t believe it. All her vital signs are good. She’ll be in a coma for some time. That’s the usual outcome after such an injury. But it is amazing!’

Cavalier was stunned. He thanked the doctor uncertainly and jumped on his Harley. He pushed the powerful machine harder than ever on the long ride. He easily outgunned the Thai ‘cowboys’ thrashing their motorbikes with threatening roars as they tried to overtake, even during a one-hour downpour that made the trip dangerous.

Two hours into the trip, his former wife, Pin, called. Cavalier juggled the phone to answer it in the treacherous conditions. She was distressed, despite the doctor also informing her of their daughter’s amazing recovery.

‘What happens if she’s paralysed, or has some severe limb damage?’ Pin asked.

‘She won’t have any problems.’

‘How do you know?’

Cavalier spoke of the strange call from Al Haut. Like most Thais, Pin was spiritual.

‘Serena and I think you’re right. Pon will be fine.’

Cavalier smiled. He had always disliked Pin’s obsession with her scruffy, weird, lifelike doll. But this time, he would settle for the comfort Serena seemed to bring her.

‘Tell me about this pastor,’ she said.

‘All I know is that he was with Wombat in Melbourne when he called me.’

‘Must be some sort of faith healer.’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You know I lost my firstborn?’

‘You told me very little. It was too painful to discuss.’

‘I try to forget. She was the reason I married my first ex. Serena had a few complications at birth.’

‘Serena?’

‘Yes,’ Pin said quietly. Cavalier didn’t have to ask why her beloved doll had the same name as her lost child.

*

Cavalier sped the bike even through the tortuous mountain barrier that had to be negotiated after the city of Tak to reach the town of Mae Sot. He manoeuvred his way past trucks and other vehicles. Few drivers seemed to be paying respect to the woeful conditions that caused him to make sliding skids as he ducked in and out of the traffic.

He arrived at the town’s main hospital at 1.30 a.m. and hurried through a maze of corridors reeking with antiseptic to a ward populated with road accident victims. Most of the patients were young; many had been in motorbike crashes. It was the first day of the school holidays and teenagers had been celebrating, some with more gusto than they should have.

Pon was lying on her back, tubes attached to saline drips, her bed surrounded by relatives, including her grandmother, with whom she had been staying.

Cavalier kissed his daughter on the cheek. His eyes were moist, his emotions mixed. For a few moments he recalled seeing her for the first time in seven years in a terrible state on the Bangkok Express, where she had been drugged and beaten by her captor. Again, Cavalier was grateful that she was alive, but distressed to see her in this state. He had visited her at the Chiang Rai hospital where she had recovered slowly from a long ordeal. Pon had begged her parents to let her travel to Mae Sot to see her grandmother, whom she had not seen for so long. Pin had relented, much against Cavalier’s wishes. Eager to resume a normal life, Pon had borrowed the bike that had led to the accident. Now she was motionless and helpless again. He squeezed her long-fingered hand. There was no response, just the steady beep of the machine monitoring her pulse.

Pin was there, fussing around her daughter, quizzing the doctor as if he were on her staff at her Chiang Rai hospital. They learnt that the rider of the other bike had recovered and was in another ward. He was expected to be released later that morning. Cavalier relieved the doctor from Pin’s intense questioning by asking about the crash.

‘Did the police do a blood test on the other rider?’

‘You’d have to ask them about it. But from all accounts he was drunk.’

The doctor examined the vital signs monitor next to the bed.

‘She was saved even though she was not wearing a helmet,’ he said.

‘You said her recovery was a miracle,’ Cavalier prompted in Thai.

The doctor, a well-groomed, bespectacled man in his mid-forties, shook his head.

‘I’ve seen a lot of inexplicable things in more than twenty years of medicine. This was mysterious.’

‘The bleeding just stopped?’

‘She was haemorrhaging from the mouth mainly, but also the nose and ears. It seemed like serious brain damage. Then it stopped. I am speaking about less than ten seconds. Never seen anything like that. Ever. It was as if …’

‘What?’

‘It was … I really don’t know. It went against all my medical knowledge, and that of any other medico in this hospital, for that matter.’

‘Had you given her any medication?’

‘No. We were still assessing her when she recovered.’

‘Could there still be brain damage?’

‘She will be incoherent in speech, to start with, and may need therapy. But going on her current signs, I expect her to be back to normal in a few weeks.’

*

The doctor’s analysis was accurate. Pon came out of a coma on day three. Her sentences were tangled yet she recovered well enough to be taken home five days after the accident. After ten days her speech and thoughts were coherent.

‘Mummy,’ Pon said from her bed early one morning, ‘I saw Serena and Grandpa.’

‘What?’ Pin replied.

‘What did you see, darling,’ Cavalier asked, ‘in your dreams, yes?’

‘No, this was real,’ Pon said, eyes wide. ‘I was walking towards a house. Grandpa was at the big wooden doors to a beautiful home. So was Serena. They waved me away. They wouldn’t let me come in.’

Pin and Cavalier glanced at each other.

‘How old was Serena?’ Pin asked, her voice shaky.

‘She looked … I don’t know; older than me. Mummy, she was really beautiful; long hair …’

Pin went white. She looked at her forearms, where she felt a sensation.

‘That’s wonderful, darling,’ Pin said, holding back tears. She left the room with Cavalier.

‘Oh my God!’ Pin said. ‘She saw Serena! She would be mid-thirties, if she had lived.’

‘And her grandpa; he died three years ago.’

*

Pin began asking questions about Al Haut again. Cavalier promised to discover more. The next day, they were surprised when Haut rang to find out how Pon was faring.

‘I’m pleased that my radar is working,’ Haut said. ‘Not had a case like that for more than twenty years, during the Port Arthur massacre. I was the “go to” pastor.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I ministered to the dead in and outside the cafe where Martin Bryant murdered thirty-five people. One of the victims was in a coma for five days. The state governor wanted me to have a look at her. I sat with the woman in hospital for five hours. I persuaded her not to go to the light.’

‘You mean, die?’

‘She had terrible gunshot injuries. Her son had gone over. She wished to be with him. I talked her out of it.’

Cavalier was silent for a moment.

Haut added, ‘I did that with your daughter. She was making her way to the spirits of relatives when I talked her back.’

Cavalier felt a chill up his spine. This was more or less the story Pon had told him about what had happened when she was in the coma. He didn’t tell Haut about this, but asked further questions, learning that Haut was a Tasmanian geologist, and once the leading pastor and director of a fundamentalist church with Pentecostal roots: Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International.

Wombat had told Cavalier that Al Haut had been anointed by the church as a key spiritual adviser to the US president. ‘Do you literally advise him?’ Cavalier asked Haut.

‘I pray for him.’ He paused and added, ‘My main role is as a prophet of nature. The Earth is a living entity. I am responsible for its well-being.’

‘Wombat told me you were a Shaman who deals in the spiritual world,’ Cavalier prompted.

‘With good and evil spirits, yes.’

*

Cavalier had scheduled a trip to Melbourne to discuss his work as a freelance correspondent in Southeast Asia with some newspaper and magazine editors. His payment for a recent project with CIA backing had made him more secure financially than ever before, yet he still wished to continue his journalism. And, as usual, he wanted to be debriefed by Wombat, who had been appointed Head of Homeland Security in Australia, making him the nation’s intelligence supremo.

Just before booking his flight, he received a call from Wombat.

‘The Thais are beginning to introduce facial recognition at airports,’ Wombat said, ‘starting with an experiment in Bangkok.’

‘So not wise to travel through there?’

‘Not until we know that the DNA sleuth Topapan Makanathan has dropped the case of the Bangkok Express killing. If she began using the technology to compare passport photos from people on the train it could prove awkward. They could have two passport photos that may look remarkably like yours.’

‘There is no reason to link me, is there?’

‘No, but what if she snoops around your condo in Chiang Mai?’

Cavalier shrugged. ‘I have Jacinta Cin Lai monitoring it.’

‘I’ve got my Thai contacts on the job too. But remember, within a couple of years as soon as you pass through a major Thai passport control, they’ll have your photo.’

‘I’ll use another way out of Thailand.’

‘Which is?’

‘There are border crossings into Burma where I can move undetected.’

2 WOMBAT ASSIGNMENT

2

WOMBAT ASSIGNMENT

‘How’s Pon going?’ Wombat asked Cavalier as the two men strolled Melbourne’s St Kilda beach. The sun was coming up on a warm late March day. Cargo ships could be seen on Port Phillip Bay’s horizon, trailing into port. Two female joggers were chatting as they moved along the beach path. A sole bike rider paced along. A short, muscular man emerged from the water.

‘Incredible. She’s recovered. After what she went through for so long in captivity to that Mexican cartel, and now this accident, she has to take it easy, but she’s shown no serious after effects. Pin is looking after her.’

‘How’s the relationship with your ex-wife? It’s been, what, eight years since you split?’

‘We rarely converse anymore,’ Cavalier said with a rueful look. ‘As you know, I’m being cautious about spending much time in Thailand, at least until I’m clear of the Bangkok Express episode.’

‘You reconnected with her after Pon’s accident, didn’t you?’

‘Pin was grateful that I saved Pon from the Mexicans, I’ll admit. But she was suspicious when I avoided telling her how I managed to extricate Pon from the train.’

‘Does she know?’

‘She’s very smart. She knows that my journalism work explains a certain amount of my travels but she’s suspicious of my sudden absences. She’s caught me cleaning my weapons in the past. That shook her. I lied, saying I sometimes went shooting abroad. Said I didn’t wish to alarm her or the kids. She didn’t buy it.’

‘You never considered getting back with her?’

‘No, Wombat, no. Why the interest in my long-ago marriage?’

Wombat smiled enigmatically.

‘I may have an assignment for you in which it would be better if you had a partner, as a cover. But I’m not ready to discuss it just yet.’

Two more bike riders flashed by. Walkers, mainly pairs of women, were doing their morning constitutional. Melbourne was wide awake with the build-up of traffic on the nearby Beach Road. Helicopters roared overhead.

‘Tell me about Al Haut.’

‘You might recall him coming to national prominence a few years ago when he organised small Tasmanian tin miners to lobby against restrictive quotas, when they were being gobbled up by big tin miners. MRT—Mineral Resources Tasmania—tried to shut him down, but the department’s inspector examined Haut’s tin products, including a pewter mug, and he then pulled out a craft licence. He had the right to make his own products, from digging it up to working with it on his kiln.’

‘Crafty! In more ways than one.’

‘He’s the most brilliant character I’ve ever met.’

‘How do you know him?’

‘He was one of my best mates at school. Was very much the nature boy as a kid. Says going into the forest alone teaches him more than any university. He prayed and fasted in the Tasmanian wilderness for forty days on end.’

‘Forty days! That would lead to self-cannibalism. The body would turn on its own muscles for food, wouldn’t it?’

Wombat patted his ample stomach. ‘I don’t want to find out,’ he said. ‘He’s made some astounding claims about oil discoveries in Tasmania. Says he’s found one of the world’s biggest deposits, and has the evidence to prove it. Big Brother would like a report on him.’

‘Why would the CIA be interested? Are they operating for the big oil groups?’

‘The five sisters? No. Big Brother’s activities are independent of the conglomerates. Not all are American owned. For instance, the biggest, Conquer, is based in Europe. It gobbles up leases anywhere it can like nobody’s business. Big Brother works on tying up oil leases on the US’s behalf, particularly for the navy, so it has permanent supply.’

‘They want quick access?’

‘Right. The Americans are looking at their main threat. They’ve identified it as China, both economically and militarily.’

‘Okay. The Americans want access to oil in the Pacific.’

‘Australia’s as good a source as anywhere. Remember the Americans learnt about the geography of our sizeable island in World War Two. They had one million personnel here, with bases everywhere. Even Albany in the southwest was a strategic base for subs.’

‘They’ve always seen us as a floating aircraft carrier, now we may be an oil tanker as well.’

‘They’ll pay well for a report on Haut and his claims. So would ASIO.’

‘Won’t be necessary. I’ll do a feature on him. I can do a separate report for you.’

‘We can pay expenses for this assignment to see Haut.’

Cavalier shook his head.

‘Suit yourself.’ Wombat shrugged. He glanced at Cavalier. ‘Make sure you take some hardware. Better go and see old Anthony Jones. He has a couple of items for you.’

‘Oh, why?’

‘Haut has plenty of enemies. Tasmania is like the Wild West. Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, saboteurs, thieves and the odd killer. And that’s just the nice ones.’

Cavalier smiled.

‘I’ll take the night ferry. Easier to hide a shooter in a car than a suitcase.’

‘You’re in for a real treat,’ Wombat said with a mysterious grin. ‘One other thing about Haut. He’s in a bit of bother at the moment. His business has struggled, mainly because corrupt politicians and mining bureaucrats have held him back. They’re in the pocket of Conquer, who wish to crush him.’

‘Not the best time to meet him?’

‘Just be aware. He borrowed five million for his mining exploration, seismic surveys, drilling and so on. Crooks are wanting to take his leases.’

‘Claim jumpers?’

‘You’ll see when you’re down there. Anyway, he told me last night that the banks are asking for their five million. He said he was shitting himself over a meeting he has soon with his two main creditors.’ Wombat chortled ruefully. ‘He says he has been praying overtime for a solution.’

‘What did his god say this time?’

‘Tell jokes.’

‘What?’

‘God told him to tell jokes when he meets his bankers.’

They both laughed.

3 DIVINE JOKER

3

DIVINE JOKER

Even if he had any funny stories up his sleeve, Cavalier would not have a chance to tell Haut. The oilman was already meeting his bankers that morning in Melbourne’s CBD.

Brown-haired Haut cut a business-like figure in a smart light blue suit and dark blue tie when he arrived at the Stock Exchange on classy Collins Street, a mix of heritage-protected nineteenth-century buildings and modern skyscrapers that fought for domination of Melbourne’s uncertain image.

Despite his natural smiling demeanour, Haut was nervous as he clutched his briefcase in one hand and a small notebook in the other. He didn’t even notice the four young women in the lift with him as he nudged the button for the tenth floor, keeping his eyes on the jokes in the book instead. The lift did not move. The girls chatted. Haut looked up.

‘Morning,’ he said to them, ‘I’ve got to make a speech. Any of you have any good one-liners?’

The girls giggled and shook their heads. The lift door closed.

‘C’mon,’ he pleaded, ‘you must have one!’

A chubby redhead with a cherubic face piped up, ‘I’ve got one, but it’s more than one line.’

The lift began to move.

‘Okay. Let’s have it!’

‘A burglar breaks into a house at night and hears someone say in the dark, “Jesus is watching you.” The burglar finds a parrot in a cage and asks it, “What idiot taught you to say that?” The parrot replies, “The same idiot that called our rottweiler Jesus.”’

The girls were in a paroxysm of laughter as they bundled out of the lift at the fourth floor.

Haut scribbled this new joke in his book and alighted at the tenth floor. He was confronted by a phalanx of security guards, all ex-SAS and armed with sub-machine guns. Haut was frisked and his briefcase was checked. He was asked for ID and then ushered into a huge room. There were twenty more security guards, fifty suited people from fourteen banks and about a hundred customers who owed or who were owed money.

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