Killer traitor spy, p.1
Killer Traitor Spy, page 1
Praise For Killer Traitor Spy
‘Tim Ayliffe writes on a grand scale – stories of international intrigue, extreme ideologies, life and death stakes – all told with a journalist’s insight into humanity at its worst and its best. With Killer Traitor Spy, Ayliffe proves he is a master of the genre.’
Sulari Gentill
‘Ayliffe knows his stuff… Killer Traitor Spy is a carefully crafted, propulsive thriller that sails uncomfortably close to the truth.’
Michael Brissenden
‘Ayliffe has carved out a distinct place on the map of Australian thriller writers. His stripped, punchy writing style reminds me of John Sandford fused with the geopolitics of classic Robert Ludlum.’
Simon McDonald
‘A propulsive, sharply plotted spy thriller. Torn from the headlines and relentlessly paced.’
Matthew Spencer
Praise for Tim Ayliffe
‘A breathlessly written book, ripped from today’s headlines, this is a cracking read that blurs the line between fact and fiction. More please.’
Michael Robotham
‘A cracking yarn told at breakneck speed. I couldn’t put it down.’
Chris Hammer
‘Sharp, gritty, sophisticated. Ayliffe’s criminal world is terrifyingly real.’
Candice Fox
‘Another brilliantly crafted thriller from Ayliffe that fits perfectly in today’s worrying world… Verdict: Get this guy on TV.’
Herald Sun
‘Utterly compelling and terrifyingly timely. I could not put it down.’
Pip Drysdale
‘An absolute cracker of a thriller.’
Chris Uhlmann
‘A crime thriller with the lot: murder, deceit, corruption and a hint of romance… Ayliffe takes you deep inside the worlds of politics and the media, with a heavy dose of international intrigue thrown in.’
Michael Rowland
‘As a correspondent, I lived this world. Tim Ayliffe has written it.’
Stan Grant
‘Sharp, incisive and scarily prescient, I was hooked from the first chapter to the final page.’
Sara Foster
‘Terrifying and thought-provoking, this polished page-turner will keep you glued to the edge of your seat, to the very last, heart-wrenching pages. Ayliffe is masterful… he has delivered one of the best thrillers of the year.’
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For David ‘Mac’ McInerney
‘More Australians are being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than at any time in Australia’s history… I want to dispel any sense that espionage is some romantic Cold War notion. It’s not; it is a real and present danger.’
Mike Burgess, Director-General of Security
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
21 February 2023
PROLOGUE
John Bailey often had a roundabout way of getting to the truth.
Even when it almost killed him.
But this time he’d crossed a line.
What the hell was he doing sitting behind the wheel of a car with a man bound and gagged in the back?
He was supposed to be a journalist. Someone who knew how to extract that grain of truth from a sandbag of lies.
He wasn’t a kidnapper. He wasn’t a killer, either.
By the end of the day, though, he would be tied to both these crimes.
And it was all because of one man.
Ronnie fucking Johnson.
CHAPTER 1
SUNDAY
She could feel his eyes watching her.
Standing naked by the open door, she flicked the ash of her cigarette onto the balcony, puffing a lungful of smoke into the cool night air.
‘You know you’re not supposed to do that.’
She ignored him, watching a cruise liner slowly edge its way across the face of the Opera House, adding an entire city block to the quay.
‘There’s a lot I’m not supposed to do.’
Sliding the door further open, she leaned her head out into the breeze, listening to the sounds climbing the old brick façade of their hotel. Traffic. Conversations. Laughter. A group of late-night party people stumbling along the cobblestones. There was always something going on around here. Somewhere to go.
‘Can you close that?’ he said. ‘It’s cold out.’
She did as he asked, losing interest in her cigarette, leaving it to sizzle in a glass of water on the small table by the door.
‘Got anything to drink?’
‘Over there.’ Dmitry sat up in bed, pointing at a gift bag on the coffee table by the television. ‘Or try the minibar.’
Dmitry was always generous with Scarlett. Nice hotels. Fancy restaurants. Fine wine. Always paying her in cash.
She pulled the bottle from the red cardboard bag, examining the label, a Russian-sounding name she’d never heard of before and had no chance of pronouncing.
‘What’s this?’ Scarlett said, holding up the bottle.
His chest wobbled as he laughed to himself.
‘It’s no good?’
‘No good?’ Dmitry laughed again. ‘That vodka sells for nine hundred dollars a bottle, if you can even find it here. It’s better than good.’
Scarlett cracked the seal, unscrewing the lid, pouring the liquid into the glass.
‘Want one?’
She held up the glass of vodka before taking a tiny sip, unsure about the taste but welcoming the sting in her throat. The rush of warmth.
‘Sure.’
She poured one for Dmitry, walking back towards the bed.
‘Put it there.’ He pointed at the bedside table. ‘Bathroom.’
‘I need to get going soon.’
‘No you don’t.’ Dmitry left the bathroom door open while he urinated in the bowl. ‘Stay the night.’
‘I can’t.’
He flushed the toilet and climbed back into bed, patting the sheets. ‘Come on. You know I’ll –’
‘Dmitry, I’ve got another client.’
He frowned, not liking the reminder.
‘I’m sorry.’ Scarlett smiled, trying to ignore his changed mood. ‘When will I see you again?’
‘Soon. Very soon. And next time you’ll stay the night.’
‘That would be expensive.’
‘Not a problem.’
‘One of these days you’re going to tell me exactly what you do, Dmitry,’ she said, playfully. ‘I really would like to know.’
‘I have lots of money.’ He shrugged, dismissively. ‘What else is there to know?’
Scarlett looked at her watch: 11.55 pm. She’d had only the smallest taste of vodka, but its potency was already kicking in.
Her clothes were neatly folded on the armchair by the window and she stumbled as she walked towards them, pausing to regain her balance.
‘You okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘The vodka. You know it doesn’t take much.’
Dmitry kept his eyes on her, watching more intently than before.
She stumbled again as she reached the chair, resting her hand on the arm, steadying herself.
‘Dmitry?’
The warmth in her head was now a fuzzy haze tugging on her eyelids, distorting her vision.
‘What’s wrong?’
He lunged out of bed, arriving just in time to grab her by the elbow as she wavered.
‘Dmitry?’ Scarlett was slurring. Swaying. Confused. ‘What did I… what did you give me?’
Dmitry couldn’t hold her up anymore and Scarlett dropped to her knees, her cheek resting on the cushioned chair. He let go of her arm, muttering something to himself in Russian.
‘The vodka, Dmitry?’ she said, slowly. ‘What was…’
Her mouth stopped working, leaving her question stranded inside her head.
Dmitry raced to the other side of the room, staring at the bottle on the table, moving to pick it up and then stopping himself. Muttering more words she couldn’t understand.
Scarlett slumped to the floor. Unable to move. Unable to speak.
She watched Dmitry hurriedly throw on his clothes.
Then darkness. Her eyelids surrendering to the weight of whatever drug was shutting her down. Disabling her muscles. Turning her limbs to jelly.
She could hear footsteps pounding carpet. Keys jangling. Things being stuffed into a bag. A zipper.
Then a whispering voice. Final words.
‘I’m sorry.’
CHAPTER 2
RONNIE
MONDAY
There were two ways to enter the Crystal Palace Hotel. The side door on Quay Street next to a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant, and the pair of glass doors on George Street. It was why Ronnie Johnson had chosen the dingy pub in Haymarket. More than one way to leave.
Ronnie had ordered a beer and was sitting with his back to the wall opposite the bar where he could keep an eye on both points of entry without having to twist his neck. He looked at his watch: 12.12 pm. His guy was twelve minutes late.
He flipped the page on the newspaper in front of him, taking a small sip of his beer, enjoying the tast e but regretting not having ordered a light. He didn’t like drinking on the job, preferring to stay sharp, observe details normal people didn’t see. Little things. Like the man two tables away with the patchy beard and high-vis jacket betting on two horses in every race. The woman who switched the price tag on a bottle of wine in the takeaway fridge to scam a cheaper price before the barcode caught her out. And the guy at the bar with the twitchy neck who’d stuck his hand in the tip jar, helping himself to some coins while the barman mixed him a bourbon and coke.
The Crystal Palace Hotel was the perfect setting for the meeting. A place for lost souls and travellers. Smelly yellow carpet. Old wooden chairs. Somewhere people could drink, thieve and punt alone.
The hard edge of the cigar in Ronnie’s pocket was digging into his chest, reminding him it was there. He desperately wanted to spark it. Suck on a stogie to pass the time. Not here. Not inside. This country was a stickler for rules. One puff of smoke and some nosy prick would probably attempt a citizen’s arrest. They could try.
He checked his watch again: 12.17 pm.
Ronnie Johnson was used to waiting. But this was different. Almost four decades working as an intelligence operative with the CIA had taught him patience and a whole lot of other things. Punctuality, for starters. He’d been trained to know that when certain people were late, something was usually wrong.
The door to George Street flung open and two young women strolled in, pausing when they realised it was mostly men inside and probably not the kind that might buy them a drink. The blonde made a face and shrugged, pulling her friend towards the bar, making a joke about the décor loud enough that Ronnie could hear her accent. Irish.
His mind started running through a checklist of what might have gone wrong. Had he been followed? He doubted it. Ronnie had caught three buses from his hotel in Kings Cross – the first one travelling a few stops in the wrong direction – and walked two laps of the pub before stepping inside. If someone had been tailing him, he would have known.
Only two people in the world knew the location of the meeting. One of them was sitting in the pub trying not to drink his beer and the other was Dmitry Lebedev.
The Russian had let Ronnie down before, but that was a long time ago. This wasn’t anything like that day in Saint-Malo almost thirty years earlier. Different man. Different time.
Something must have happened.
Had Lebedev been compromised? Had he been exposed? Considering the company he kept, it was possible. You don’t get your hands on the type of information Lebedev had allegedly uncovered without opening yourself to risk. Lebedev was already in deep trouble. He’d been exposed as a money launderer. The Australian authorities were onto him. He knew it and so did Ronnie. That’s why he’d offered to give Ronnie this information – a way to save his own skin. Time to put up or shut up. Handover time.
Maybe Ronnie had missed something. Was he getting sloppy? It was true that he wasn’t as closely involved in the game anymore, only getting called in when somebody with his expertise was required. He was a details guy, always had been. Someone who prided himself on the minutiae of a mission. Ronnie Johnson didn’t make mistakes.
He looked at his watch again, grinding his teeth. Another four more minutes had ticked by. Where the fuck was Lebedev?
The girls were walking back from the bar towards Ronnie and he looked away just as the blonde one smiled at him. Not that they would want to sit with a man probably twice their age. Although stranger things had happened. Ronnie still had most of his hair and most of it was dark. He was a large man. Handsome. Six and a half feet tall. Big chest. Round arms. He looked like someone who could take care of himself and wouldn’t have much trouble taking care of somebody else if it came to that. And it had. He’d done bad things. Terrible things. But they were always acts he could reason inside his head. Justify. For the greater good.
He took another sip of his beer, flipping newspaper pages, watching the girls settle at a table near the guy in the high-vis who was now less interested in the horses.
The black screen on Ronnie’s phone stared up at him from the table. No messages. No missed calls. No explanation about why Lebedev was late. That wasn’t a surprise because the Russian had never used Ronnie’s number. They didn’t communicate that way, preferring anonymous email addresses that changed almost weekly.
For the next ten minutes, Ronnie watched the room, listening to the Irish girls talking loudly about their lives. How they were hoping to chase the sun north to Queensland soon. A life of fun, no responsibility. Ronnie couldn’t remember if he’d ever experienced a time like that.
His phone vibrated on the table. A message.
How’d it go?
He pushed his chair back, leaving his half-finished beer on the table and typing a message as he walked towards the door.
We’ve got a problem.
CHAPTER 3
‘You in the building yet?’
John Bailey was walking along Sussex Street in the rain, juggling his phone in one hand and his takeaway coffee in the other.
‘Not far.’
‘Good,’ Neena said. ‘It’s going to be a short meeting. But just so you know, Greenberg’s still copping grief. He’s going to want to talk about it.’
A guy in a delivery truck was raging at a taxi driver who had jammed his brakes beside a woman holding her thumb out to the street.
‘Bailey, you still there?’
Neena Singh led the investigations team at The Journal which meant that – technically – she was Bailey’s boss.
‘Yeah. Sorry.’
‘I said Greenberg’s been getting more complaints.’
‘The subs?’
‘It’s the PMO this time.’
‘That’s a bit rich, considering nobody from the prime minister’s office would return my calls.’
‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’
Bailey stopped outside the building that housed the newspaper, using his shoulder to prop his phone against his ear so he could grab his security pass from his pocket. The rain was getting heavier, forming watery pearls on his jacket and weighing down his mop of sandy grey hair.
‘Maybe you could do the meeting without me?’
Neena laughed. ‘Don’t do that, either.’
Bailey took a long sip of his coffee, enjoying the warmth slide down his throat, knowing the caffeine hit was coming, before scanning through the glass doors and into the foyer.
‘We were always going to get blowback. The government decides to build a nuclear subs base near people’s waterfront homes… what’d Greenberg expect? A thank you card? I thought I was coming in to discuss options for the next story?’
‘You are. Just reassure him on your sources and we can all move on with our lives. He’s the editor, Bailey. He can ask the question.’
‘Hang on.’
Bailey noticed a woman standing at the reception desk beside Mick, the security guy. She wasn’t interested in Mick though. Her eyes were following Bailey as he made his way through the foyer.
‘Bailey?’
‘I’ve got to go.’
He ended the call.
‘John Bailey?’
The woman was dressed like a cop and she sounded like one too.
‘That’s me.’
‘I’m detective Kristy Liu from the New South Wales Police. Is there somewhere we can go for a quiet chat?’
The last place that Bailey wanted to talk with a cop was in one of the meeting rooms upstairs.
‘Mr Bailey? You can use the security office out back.’
Bailey was relieved that Mick appeared to have read his mind, or at least sensed his unease.
‘Yeah, Mick. Thanks.’
‘Follow me.’ Mick led them back through the security barriers and into a room behind the reception desk. ‘I’ll make sure nobody interrupts you.’
Mick closed the door, leaving Bailey and Detective Liu to sit down around a lino table littered with empty coffee cups and a plate with breadcrumbs on it. The office was more like a lunch room. It had a fridge, television, dishwasher, a large tin of biscuits alongside a sink filled with dirty dishes, and a picture of Mick’s sons in their footy gear. The only office-looking thing in the space was the computer station in the corner.
‘What’s this about?’
