Underground Read online

  I was there when all that happened—as I’m sure I’ve told you. An eyewitness, by chance, to the greatest disaster of the age. It was also the last time I saw my brother. And you know who he is, of course. None of this nightmare would have happened at all, if I wasn’t his less famous sibling. I would never have been kidnapped, yet alone ended up in this curious dungeon of yours. So I guess I have to start with him too.

  The Honourable Bernard James, Prime Minister of Australia.

  My twin brother, fraternal, I should say.

  THREE

  In fact, Bernard was the only reason I ever went to Canberra. I didn’t much like the place, but for a developer and real estate entrepreneur of dubious repute, like myself, to have the Prime Minister as a brother. . . Well, you can imagine the opportunities. Because of him, I was known the country over, and got to stalk the corridors of power with the best of them. Of course, I had absolutely no power of my own, and everyone else in those corridors loathed the sight of me. Indeed, I was usually being escorted out of those same corridors by overly polite security guards. But access is access—or the illusion of access anyway.

  For instance, the day before it all went haywire, I was in town on business, trying to tie down some investments for the resort. The potential investors were a consortium of Fijian politicians who were visiting the capital to negotiate an aid package—their country is sinking—from the Australian government. Much of that package was never going to go anywhere near Fiji, obviously. The delegation fully expected to reinvest the cash portions of it into various money-making ventures of their own—my resort amongst them. God only knows what happened to the poor bastards. They never did get their money. Now probably half of their islands are underwater at high tide, and there sure as hell isn’t any foreign aid around anymore.

  But on that day at least, they were junketing in Canberra, and I, the PM’s cherished brother and confidant (according to my own PR), was showing them a good time. We spent the afternoon boozing and schmoozing around the city’s finest restaurants and bars, with me assuring everyone constantly that I was on the best of terms with a whole raft of government ministers and planning agencies, state and federal. My resort was thus a mortal lock of an investment. None of which was exactly true, but it was all part of my trade—to be a recognisable face, a player who looked connected and sounded influential. And the Fijians obediently lapped it up.

  None of us had a clue that we were drinking through Canberra’s last day of normality. Still, by about nine that night (and lunch had started at midday) everyone was well and truly lubricated and I’d been promised wads of cash. Satisfied with my efforts, I packed the Fijians off to one of the better brothels, and swayed drunkenly back to my hotel room.

  But even before I took off my shoes, the phone rang.

  It was Bernard.

  Now, admittedly, I’d just been telling the Fijians that I spoke to my twin all the time, that I had his ear, that he trusted me and listened to me. The truth was that in those days a phone call from my brother was a rare event indeed.

  Okay, the fact is, we hated each other, and hadn’t spoken in months. I’ll go into all the history of it later, if I can bear to, but to put it briefly, I thought he was a pompous worm, and he thought I was a walking, talking embarrassment to his position. And we were both right. Still, publicly, it was in our interests to pretend to be civil. So I’d always supported him, the faithful familial booster, on those occasions when reporters sought me out during election campaigns and the like. He was my meal ticket, after all. And in return, Bernard turned a blind eye to the more questionable activities of mine that traded on our relationship. It was, in the best political tradition, a win–win thing. Or so I thought. But I was never glad to hear from him.

  I said, ‘How’d you know I was around?’

  ‘How could I not know?’ he replied, coldly. ‘You and the Fijians have been thrown out of half the bars in town today.’

  ‘But how’d you know I’m here at Rydges?’

  ‘You always stay at Rydges.’

  Well, Canberra was a small city, so he might’ve been telling the truth. My own suspicion was that he had ASIO keeping tabs on me, but I was too drunk to argue.

  I said, ‘You gonna give those guys their aid package?’

  He ignored the question. ‘I want you to come to The Lodge for dinner.’

  ‘No thanks. I’ve eaten.’

  ‘Not since lunch, I’m told.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I insisted, watching the room spin before my eyes.

  ‘There’s a car waiting for you, outside the lobby.’

  ‘Why? What’s so important?’

  He had hung up, the little prick.

  (By the way, I reserve the right to insert ‘little’ before any term of abuse that I throw at him in the following pages. I don’t mean ‘little’ in terms of ‘short’, because he isn’t. I mean it because he’s my ‘little’ brother. I was born fifteen minutes earlier. And resent it though he does, there’s nothing the little shit can do about it.)

  But I made my way to the lobby, all the same. You don’t refuse a call from the country’s leader simply on a drunken whim, family or not. And besides, it would only impress my backers all the more if I could say (honestly, for once) that I’d dined with the PM just the night before.

  The car was waiting as promised, a government limousine. The driver was expecting me, and we whiffed off into the Canberra night. It wasn’t far, just over the lake and then around the parliamentary circle and up Adelaide Avenue to the front gates of The Lodge. Security men peered hard through the windows, and demanded my wallet for identification—as if they didn’t know who I was. Then they looked underneath the car for bombs, and in the boot too, and finally waved us on. More security waited for me at the front door, with a pat-down for weapons, and scans by metal detectors, and anthrax detectors, and lord knows what else, and at last, cleared of everything, I was ushered through to the inner sanctum.

  Of course, Bernard would not have been in Canberra, yet alone in residence at The Lodge, if it wasn’t the middle of a parliamentary session. He hated the house, just as, everyone knew, he hated the whole city. He preferred (like many a PM before him) the much grander vistas of Kirribilli House, on the harbour in Sydney. But there he was, waiting for me in the study, very much the Prime Minister after hours, his coat and tie removed, and his sleeves rolled up. Not that this made him look relaxed at all, or casual. He was a man born to wear suits. So bland and nondescript a figure that he might have been a low-grade bookkeeper, not the most powerful man in Australia. He isn’t exactly ugly, I suppose. But to me he’s always had one of those gloomy, stubborn faces. An aggrieved face. A bully’s face. A reflection, in other words, of all that lies in his heart.

  I’ve always been thankful, therefore, that we aren’t identical twins. And in our younger days, I was the better looking, no question. Taller, sharper, more hair, more friends, more girls, and far, far more sex. I wouldn’t claim any of that to be true in later years—except maybe the sex, for Bernard was never a womaniser. But I haven’t aged well, what with my indulgent lifestyle. My brother has always been more careful about his health, in that deadly dull way of his, and has no vices that I know of. Plus, by the time he ascended to the leadership of the Liberal Party, he had a personal trainer and was being groomed immaculately by experts. So he passes. And the raw stench of power, of course, is better than any plastic surgery.

  ‘I’ve ordered you some coffee,’ he said.

  ‘A drink would be better.’

  ‘You’ve had enough already.’

  I fell into a chair, disgusted. A more self-righteous man I have never met. And he had no reason to be self-righteous—not considering the opinion polls around that time. Bernard was a Prime Minister in trouble. True, the Liberal Party had been in power for so long it seemed the country had forgotten how to vote for anyone else—but most of that had been with John Howard, the man of steel himself, at the helm. Bernard was the seco
nd leader since Howard’s departure, and the gloss was wearing thin. The various wars overseas were a mess, Australian troops were dying in droves, car bombs were exploding on home soil, and the economy was in free fall. My brother’s personal approval rating was the lowest ever of any sitting PM, and on a two-party preferred basis, Labor was leading by nearly twenty points. But if Bernard was worried, he didn’t show it. He seemed a little tired, perhaps, and a little stressed, but emotions of any kind were not his strong suit.

  ‘The family in town?’ I asked him.

  ‘No.’

  I hadn’t seen his wife, or his two adult children, in years. For that matter, I hadn’t seen much lately of my three ex-wives, or my own three children, either.

  We made small talk for a while. Awkwardly, because we had nothing whatever in common. But eventually I said, ‘So what did you want me for?’

  ‘You have to sign these.’ He slid some papers across the desk to me. ‘It’s the final settlement of Mum’s will,’ he told me, as I read.

  Our mother had died six months before—our father having preceded her by several years. There was nothing all that special to deal with, regarding the estate. Just the old family house and some investments. Bernard and I had both been named as executors, but I’d left it up to Bernard to arrange. When it came to dreary legal stuff, he was the expert.

  ‘There’s a cheque there, too,’ he said.

  I took up a pen and scribbled my signature. ‘You could have mailed this to me,’ I said, when I was done.

  ‘I thought we should finish this in person.’

  There was something about the way he said ‘finish’ that caught my attention. ‘Finish what?’

  ‘Us. This deal you seem to think you and I have.’

  I was smiling. Bernard tried this on every few years. ‘C’mon. It’s just been two brothers helping each other out, hasn’t it?’

  ‘When have you ever helped me out?’

  And he had me there. ‘Doing you damage, am I?’

  ‘You always have.’

  ‘So why the fuss now? What, you’re gonna lose the next election and suddenly you think it’s due to me?’

  ‘I’m not worried about the next election.’

  ‘You bloody well should be.’

  But even that bounced off him. ‘You’re on your own from here on in, that’s all I’m saying. No more cashing in on my position. If I hear that you’re telling people you have my special confidence, then I’m going to contact them myself and tell them that I give you no backing whatsoever.’ He tapped the documents. ‘Mum and Dad—they always asked me not to stand in your way. So as a favour to them, I didn’t. But they’re both gone, finally, so enough.’

  ‘Sounds like you couldn’t wait for them to die.’

  ‘That’s a disgraceful accusation.’

  ‘Christ, everything is a disgraceful accusation to you, Bernard.’

  ‘It is when it’s not true.’

  ‘Nothing is ever true, either, when it comes to you. You even tried to deny it that time I caught you wanking in the back shed. Dick in your fucking hand.’

  A dead smile broke out on his face, and from there I probably would have received the usual lecture about responsibility and hard work and so on, and that would have been that. We were family, we’d argued like this for decades. But whatever he might have replied, he never got the chance, because right then the doors burst open and security personnel flooded the room. Bernard stared in angry surprise, and then a man was whispering in his ear. I hadn’t moved, and was amazed to see my brother’s eyes go wide with shock.

  ‘It can’t be for real,’ he said.

  The man shrugged. ‘That’s what we have to find out.’

  Bernard struggled to regather himself. ‘Leo, you’ll have to go.’

  I rose, our argument forgotten. Was he actually scared? ‘A problem?’

  He only shook his head, distracted.

  The security men had me outside before I could say anything else. The Lodge seemed to be exploding into life. Phones were ringing everywhere, and personnel were dashing back and forth. My limousine and driver were waiting, and I was bundled inside. As we roared up the drive I was astonished to see an army truck pulling up at the front gate—loaded with soldiers.

  Then we were back on Adelaide Avenue and racing towards the circle again. Away from the residence, the rest of Canberra seemed as quiet as ever. The giant Australian flag flapped high above Parliament House, and orange lights glittered in the still waters of the lake.

  Minutes later, I was back in my hotel room, sobered and bewildered.

  Must be something serious, I decided.

  But it wouldn’t be until next morning that I found out just how serious. That’s when my brother went on TV to address the nation.

  FOUR

  I don’t remember much about how Cyclone Yusuf ended. My abductors didn’t exactly beat me unconscious, but by the time they threw me into the postal van I was bruised and bloodied and dazed, with my hands tied. Two of the men climbed into the back with me, while the third got behind the wheel. From there we drove for a time, the rain and wind buffeting the vehicle while the driver swore ceaselessly. They were all swearing—unnerved and furious about the decapitation. But I don’t recall anything particular they said. Only their desperation, and their eyes watching me hatefully from under dripping wet hair, as the van rocked and swayed.

  It might have been about an hour that we drove, and I don’t know in what direction, or where we finished up. My resort was north of Bundaberg, so if you want to know (you hear me, interrogators?) look at the map and work out the possible locations yourselves. A bunch of shitty little towns is all you’ll find, somewhere between Gladstone and Gympie.

  One thing I can tell you, I sobered up a lot in that hour and, even knocked silly as I was, started to get scared. These guys were obviously terrorists of some sort, and I knew as well as anyone the unhappy fate of hostages in this day and age. I had no desire to be blindfolded, dressed up in orange and ritually beheaded. (But lord, how weird was that flying piece of tin!) And yet, right from the start, I could tell there was something strange about my captors. For one thing, they were very young. Not much more than boys really. But much stranger, they didn’t look at all Arabic or Asian, nor did they speak with any sort of accents. They looked like typical anglo-Aussies to me. Of course, if they had looked or sounded Islamic, then they wouldn’t have been there in the first place. They’d have been safely detained in the ghettos, along with all the rest.

  And they hadn’t blindfolded me. That was either a very dire sign for me, or it was a sign of incompetence on their part. And I suspected the latter. Honestly, what sort of half-arsed caper was this anyway? To grab the Prime Minister’s brother in the middle of a frigging cyclone? I’ll admit that the postal van was cute, it normally would have blended in quite anonymously, but when you’re the only vehicle on the road during the mother of all storms, you’re going to look suspicious, mail or no mail. But then again, who else would be on the roads to see them? Not only would there be no traffic, none of the usual roadblocks or checkpoints would be manned either. When better, then, to kidnap someone? Perhaps my captors were actually masterminds. But somehow it didn’t feel that way to me.

  Indeed, when we finally stopped there was more confusion. One of my guards popped open the back door, but then his companion was yelling at him and slamming it shut again.

  ‘Dickhead! You want him to see the house?’

  So they’d wised up at last. Then they whacked a bag over my head. The doors opened again, and I was manhandled across some sort of muddy yard. The rain was still pelting down, and the wind was blowing, but the deeper violence was gone from it now. Either the cyclone was in decline, or we’d driven some distance inland; I couldn’t say which. They dragged me up a short flight of stairs, and we were indoors. The floor was wooden. For a moment, anyway, then it was down a longer flight of stairs and onto dirt. They dumped me there, then I heard them clump awa
y up the stairs, still muttering and swearing, and leaving me, apparently, alone.

  I lay motionless for a while, catching my breath. The bag was a loose cotton thing, and not tight. After a few minutes of listening—footsteps and voices from above, but nothing nearby—I decided it was just me in there. My hands were still tied behind me, but by dragging my head across the ground and then shaking it wildly (and painfully) I managed to get the bag off. I was in a basement, or maybe a storage cellar, small and dim. The walls were made of concrete blocks, the floor was raw earth, and a single bulb hung down from the ceiling. There was no furniture, no decoration, only a staircase climbing to what looked like a very solid door. I assumed it was locked fast. My abductors might be rattled, but that stupid they couldn’t be.

  I lay there, breathing.

  Kidnapped.

  It’s such a sign of the times that it’s almost a cliché, and yet of course you never think it could actually happen to you. And there’s no need here to get into the terrors and doubts I felt in those moments. (We all know I didn’t end up dead, right? Not then, at least.) Either way, I could think of nothing that might help me, no clever escape plan. Getting the bag off my head was one thing, but my hands were tied hard, and no amount of wriggling made a difference.

  I waited. Staring. Listening.

  A long time seemed to pass. Above me, the footsteps and murmured voices went on. At some stage I heard doors slamming, and then a new round of arguments broke out, quite fierce. I gazed at the ceiling and could discern, to my surprise, the shrill voice of a woman rising angrily above the rest. Then everything fell quiet again.

  And after that, believe it or not, I must have fallen asleep. Maybe it was the drugs and alcohol still in my system. Maybe it was shock. Or maybe it was that deeply ingrained human thing that refuses to believe something this bad could really be happening, so let’s close our eyes and wake up when it’s all over.

  But when I woke up it wasn’t over. I was still in the basement, and things had become strange indeed. A chair had been brought down to my prison, and seated upon it was a woman dressed in a black, full-length burqa—nothing of her visible at all except a pair of eyes staring out from a narrow slit in her veil.