After The Texans

Prologue

They’d been in his hotel room, in Port Moresby.

Oh, I’ll be alright, she’d said. I have my security detail. As usual.

As usual. That was ironic. Typical of her nonchalance to respond like that, considering how useless the security detail was in the past, but nothing was usual. It hadn’t been for a long time. Not since Gordon Davies’ murder. No, before that: not since Davies had been arrested – when that arsehole Bradlee Nelson had tried to stitch him up at the conference in Köln. Nothing had been ‘usual’ since then.

Then he’d left her in Moresby and headed up to Debepare. Just him and Dominik. How could anything ever be usual again after that? After killing Wiebe. And killing one of his ‘boys’ – that had been an accident – but the man was dead and he was responsible. Leaving Johanna in Moresby, on her own. Worse than just leaving her on her own, actually directing her into their hands.

Here take this number, as well, he’d told her. It’s Gerry Johnstone’s.

Talk about gullible.

If there’s an emergency, you can call him.

Emil, you naïve fool.

Listen to me, Mr Pfeffer, listen very carefully and don’t interrupt. If you value Dr Dorn’s life, if you want to see her again, you will do as I say. You will collect the data that you stole – the hard drives, CDs, DVDs – any and every copy that has been made from every location to which it’s been copied. You will have it all in your personal possession within seven days. Once it has been recovered from you, you will forget about BKZ and anything or any person related to BKZ or the PNG projects. Dr Dorn will be kept as insurance that you comply.

The line had gone dead before he could say a word.

*****

Emil, are you listening? Can you hear me? Emil, wake up!

Betty G’s rasping twang cut into his thoughts. He looked up. Betty and behind her his assistant, Sabrina, were standing there, their foreheads creased with concern.

Finally, there’s signs of life. Thank the Lord!

Oh, ah, Betty. Emil looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was sitting at his desk, in his office, in the Global Carbon Markets Organisation building in Bad Eschbach. The two women were looking down at him from the other side of the desk. Betty G fidgeting, hands in constant motion, as ever. Sabrina head and shoulders over her senior. What’s happening?

Apart from the fact that we’ve been trying to rouse you out of a catatonic state for the past ten minutes, said Betty G, we’re waiting for you to enlighten us on that score.

What do you mean?

Well, about half an hour ago you resigned from this organisation and walked out the front door.

Yes, I did, didn’t I?

You took a call on your mobile, stood outside for a while, then came back in and sat down here at your desk. When Sabrina couldn’t get a response out of you she came and got me. We’ve been trying to rouse you from your trance-like state ever since.

I remember quitting and walking out. I remember the call, but not coming back.

Well, you did. More to the point, does this mean now you’re not quitting?

Emil stared at the two women for a few moments. They could be mother and daughter, he thought, with their brown eyes and dark brown hair; except he knew for a fact that Betty G was a childless spinster.

I guess it does.

Good. I hoped you’d see sense, said Betty G. I’ll go tear up your resignation.

Both women left the office, leaving Emil still sitting at his desk. He lapsed back into his thoughts.

*****

Robert, from the Papua New Guinea Department of Justice, opening his eyes to the bullshit story Gerry had spun him about having a partner called Diana. The news of Johnstone’s hurried departure:

He left on a flight to Singapore, Robert had said.

The grey haired gent at the European Union diplomatic residence in Port Moresby:

Well, I’m afraid you’ve missed Dr Dorn, Mr Pfeffer. She had to leave her work here and return to Brussels several days ago.

Then, back in Frankfurt, the call from Robert.

I was able to get hold of the passenger manifest for the flight to Singapore the day you said. It shows she boarded that flight. But get this, mate, that was the same flight Gerry took.

In the hotel room, before they’d headed up to Debepare, Johanna had been crying. Angry and worried for them at the same time.

Do you love me? he’d asked her. Maybe she should’ve been asking him.

"Bestimmt," she’d mumbled between sobs: a German word he was always misusing. Her little joke.

Then trust me to get back safely. She’d only taken the first leg of the ticket, as far as Singapore. That had been Gerry Johnstone’s destination, too.

1

He eased himself into the sofa and, tilting his head back, slurped the dregs of frothed milk out of the bottom of the cup. He looked into it expecting there should have been more, but not finding any, ran his finger around the inside rim for the coffee coloured remnants drying there, then licked it.

Cyril Barrington Griffith. Known as ‘Bull’. Sometimes called ‘CB’, or ‘Barry’, but never Cyril. At least not to his face. The epitome of the self-made mining magnate – the poor boy made good story personified. His appearance bore out the characterisation in Australian sporting circles of Queenslanders as cane toads – that state’s least popular export. Yellowy, olive-brown complexion, a lumpy face and slits for eyes under puffy lids, the product of years dealing with intense sunlight and coal dust. Greying, wavy brown hair combed back across his head, plastered to his scalp by hair cream. A flabby, bulbous neck that seemed to inflate and redden, like his face, when he was angry. Which was pretty often.

Satisfied he’d extracted all there was to be had from it, he put the cup down and picked up the morning’s paper. The front page was devoted to the latest shift in climate change policy by the federal government.

Geezuz, these bastards gimme the shits, he muttered for the benefit of the otherwise empty hotel suite.

He dropped the paper onto the coffee table and, heaving his considerable bulk upright, went to the window and looked out on the waking city. The sun was almost up and in the distance he could see ferries and other craft plying up and down the harbour. He could make out the lights on a large cargo ship, gliding past the creamy sheen of Bennelong Point and the greenery of Mrs Macquarie’s chair.

Not bad for these old eyes considerin’ the hotel’s all the way up in William Street, he thought, as they tracked the ship’s departure. Garden Island navy base was lit up like a homing beacon for the annual Bogong moth migration. Must be some navy boys in. Way beyond it, silhouetted against a backdrop of glinting ocean swell, he could make out the shape of a cruise ship, just in through the Heads, processing up the outer harbour, probably to a berth at the Quay.

An unwelcome thought interjected, spoiling the serenity of the moment: maybe it was heading for Darling Harbour – full of Asian high-bloody-rollers, being ferried down to the casinos now coverin’ the place like wallpaper. God, what’re the bloody politicians doing to this place? It’s one thing to sell coal and minerals to the Asians, but why’d they have to bring ’em here by the boatload?

Thirty years ago they were tryin’ to stop boatloads of the bastards arriving here, turnin’ them back for the Indonesians to sort out. Now they were practically paying ’em to come! And once they’re here, you damned well can’t get rid of ’em. They buy up all the real estate they can find and offload the extended family down here for schoolin’. The country has well and truly gone to the dogs, and those fuckwitted bastards sitting on their arses down in Canberra, along with their corrupt, state-based cronies, they were the culprits.

He sat down in an armchair adjacent to the window, exasperated by his own vitriol, and picked up the paper again. Why’d he bother with a rag like this, with its chardonnay socialist slant on everything? The Melbourne rag wasn’t any better. Same publisher, same load a’ bullshit. He was glad he’d finished his business here and was headin’ home. He hated coming south. At least the paper in Brizzie didn’t have as much of this leftie rubbish. One of these days he might even start his own paper, redress all the left-wing crap, put some balance back into the media. Might talk to his mates over in the US about that – they had some good stuff on their cable channels. Here, if it wasn’t this climate change crap, it was gay-bloody-rights, or bloody refugees, or paedophile-bloody-priests, or some other rubbish in your face at every turn.

What about the people who actually worked for a livin’, spent their days sloggin’ their guts out to keep the country tickin’ over? Where did they fit into all of this? No, they were only good for one thing: coughin’ up more tax so the bastards in Canberra could keep their snouts in the trough. Well, he’d had enough of it, and unlike the lethargic, complacent bastards down here, he was gonna do something about it.

He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Just thinkin’ about it was making him hot.

*****

The trip had been an utter waste of time. But he’d had to try. His partners expected it. Those two bastards, Mendicane and Hounganis, didn’t want to hear what he had to say. But he’d told them anyway. And he’d tell ‘em again, if he had to. As for that smarmy little monkey, Mendicane, who had him to thank for being resident in the Lodge: well, just as he gave, so he could take away.

They’d met a couple of days earlier, in Canberra, the Prime Minister’s suite at Parliament House. Mendicane’s chief of staff had shown him in.

"Bull, good to see you, mate," Mendicane had said, looking at Bull over the top of his reading glasses, a mannerism he had picked up since becoming Prime Minister. His minders had coached him into it as a way of giving him more gravitas, something in which he was sorely lacking. With his hunched, rolling gait and big ears, the satirical cartoonists were showing no mercy.

Shaking the offered hand, Griffith wondered what had possessed him to throw his substantial wealth and political clout behind such a nincompoop. It had guaranteed Mendicane success in the party-room coup that Griffith himself had orchestrated, after one too many anti-mining policy decisions by the previous incumbent. But why, why, had he supported Michael Mendicane MP, the gaff-prone member from a snooty part of Melbourne? He shook his head in a private acknowledgement of his own stupidity.

I invited Tony to pack down with us.

Uh, the other half of the dynamic duo, grunted Griffith as Tony Hounganis, Mendicane’s Deputy and Treasurer, waddled in through the door from his adjoining office suite.

Griffith looked around the office: behind him, a wall of redwood-panelled doors concealed cupboards and who knew what else, although he guessed they would be pretty much empty; in front, a cluster of armchairs and sofa that looked like giant, spongy, cup mushrooms, inverted; cream-coloured on the outside and brown in the middle. At the far end of the room a large, simple redwood desk on which some papers were scattered, and behind which more redwood shelves were sparingly arranged with family photos and a couple of mementos of official visits.

To Bull Griffith, there was little evidence of any serious activity.

I see you’ve settled in.

Mendicane gestured for them to sit in the armchairs and Griffith deposited his ample frame in one.

I’ll get straight to the point. If you go ahead with this policy review you’ve been gabbing about in the press, that’s the end of it. You’ll have lost my support, just like your predecessor did. And don’t forget, that’s how you got to where you are now.

He fixed them both with his hard, squinting stare.

Fair go, Bull, said Mendicane, you wait until the High Court dumps us on the bottom of the ruck, then you start putting the boot in!

Don’t gimme that High Court excuse bullshit, Mick. You know as well as I do that the government could legislate to get around that.

Bull, look, be reasonable, said Hounganis. The High Court’s just about threatening us. Their judgment was so critical of the government – it said if we keep funding Queensland’s activities with the coal loader and port facilities, we’d be breaking the law. Not just our own laws, international law, too!

I told you – you can legislate your way ’round it.

It’s not that simple, Bull! We’ve got the bloody tourism industry virtually camped in our offices.

Those poofters! ‘Camped’ is about right! Wait’ll you get a few miners moving in here.

And you might have noticed there were a couple of hundred thousand protesters out in the streets of the capital cities each of the last three weekends.

Lefties with nothing better to do. What about the silent majority?

Jeez, anyone would think we were facing the West Indies speed attack from the nineties, we’ve had so many bouncers bowled at us lately, said Mendicane. We’ve been ducking and weaving, rolling with the punches, as far as we can, but we’ve got to start hitting some runs soon, Bull. That’s what the polls are telling us.

You’re only interested in saving your own skins, you weak bastards. These policy changes you’ve been talkin’ about – they’ll wreck this country’s economy. They’re pure populist fairy floss. Wind and solar – them so-called ‘renewables’ – they’re never gonna replace coal in this country.

He poked a finger in Hounganis’s direction, making him pull back instinctively in fright.

And if you think you’ll ever balance a budget without exportin’ coal, just go ahead and try. You’ll never do it.

Now, Bull, you don’t need to get like that, Hounganis responded. We’ve got a very difficult political situation here, mate. Politically, the coal loader is dead in the water.

Bull, mate, we’ve got to listen to what the people are yelling at us. Think of it like a Test match. Over the five days, you’ve got to adapt your tactics to suit changes in the pitch, and the weather, you change your fields, and your bowlers, to suit the batsmen, play to their weaknesses. We’ve got to adapt our strategy, otherwise the crowd’s going to get restless and, and… Mendicane searched for the right sporting analogy to finish the point he was making, … and start a Mexican wave.

Griffith jumped to his feet – surprisingly quickly for such a big man. As far as he was concerned, the meeting was over. These two boofheads simply weren’t listening, so there was nothing left to discuss.

Well, they’ll be wavin’ good-bye to thousands of jobs, billions of investment, and to this country’s future. That’s just for starters. And they’ll be waving bye-bye to you two and this government!

Bull, what the-bloody-hell else do you think we can do faced with a front-row of liberal, left-leaning High Court judges – they’re not binding straight, but the ref’s not watching, is he? pleaded Mendicane.

"I don’t know, Mick, that’s what you and Tony are here to sort out. That’s why I helped put you here!"

We might be on the canvas, Bull, but we’re not down for the count! Mendicane tried.

I don’t care, Mick, that’s it for me. The next lot of political funding I provide is goin’ into my own party and my own candidates, not you and your lot. At least, then, I know I’ll get what I pay for.

*****

The mobile phone lying on the table buzzed.

Yeah?

We’ve got it, it’s sorted. Deal’s done, said the voice at the other end of the line.

Watch what you’re sayin’ – phone’s probably bugged. The bastards’ve been tappin’ into everything since I became rich enough to be noticed.

Bull Griffith clicked the phone off, dropping it back on the table.

He sat a while, deep in thought, looking out at the brightening harbour, the already congested roads leading up from it, ant-sized people scurrying along the pavements and crossing the streets twenty floors beneath him. The view from his office was better. Cleaner, less congested. Story Bridge, the river and Kangaroo Point, then on all the way out to Moreton Bay. Even better, he had his little offshore hideaway where he could get away from it all. At least he’d managed to get that sorted out with the two-faced bastards in Sydney and Canberra, before they became born-again greenies.

Eventually, he got up and set about packing his suitcase. When he’d finished, he called down on the room phone to the concierge, for his car to the airport. Then he stood looking out the window again, still thoughtful, before collecting his things and heading downstairs, all the while thinking about the implications of the message; the possibilities that would now be opened up to him.

How he would exploit them.

How he was going to deal with those bastards.

2

"Do you remember telling me that size does matter?"

It was Luxembourg. They were in bed, a room at the Sofitel Le Grand Ducal. Resting after their early morning exertions.

Yes, she’d smiled.

And?

Also, technique is important.

Are you trying to tell me something? he said, pretending to be offended.

Just that you have good technique, she’d said, smiling again. With your tongue. Then she’d rolled onto him, plunging hers into his mouth.

The tongue.

The bundle of muscles, blood vessels and nerve endings sitting in the bottom of one’s mouth. With all those nerve fibres it was sensitive. Sensual. Erogenous. He dwelt on the word. Erogenous. Yes, it was erogenous. Particularly so when it was in contact with another tongue. His mind needed little encouragement to head further down this side-track.

Abruptly, the background monologue stopped, bringing him out of his thoughts, back to the present. There was a loud ka-choo and, shortly after, the tingling of fine aerosol settling over him and those sitting alongside him in the front row. Profuse excuses were issued. The speaker at the lectern resumed his monologue.

Emil tried to refocus on his distraction, to put out of his mind the possibility that he might have just been the recipient of a virus bearing transmission from mucosae located around the very same tongue that had started him thinking about the subject in the first place. The thought of locking tongues with the speaker suddenly jumped, unbidden, into his mind. Ugh. He squirmed at the prospect. Oh, no thanks! Not with a guy. Especially not this overweight, sweaty one. He tried to steer his thoughts back to Johanna. But that fleeting visit was over, she was gone.

Tongues. He’d been thinking about tongues for a reason. He had in mind something for this speaker’s tongue. He turned his attention back to it. Sago palm – called saksak locally. It had come up in conversation the second time he’d dropped into the Centre where she’d worked in Port Moresby. The starch extracted from the trunk was an important staple for the nationals. He’d tried it many years earlier during his time in Papua New Guinea.

It’s horrible, he’d told her. Not my taste at all.

You don’t know what you’re missing out on. He smiled to himself, remembering what he’d thought when she’d said that. You can cook up its leaves and eat them, too, she’d said, but his mind had been on things other than cooking sago palm leaves with her. Then, for a reason he couldn’t now recall, they’d got on to discussing its merits as a food staple.

That wasn’t what interested him now. He wasn’t planning a new low fat diet for the speaker. He was thinking about the sago palm thorns. The short, poisonous ones.

After the deaths of Davies and the others, he’d become interested in sangguma – traditional New Guinean witchcraft – Sepik River, to be precise, usually carried out on the orders of sorcerers. He’d researched it on the internet and been reading up. Somehow it made him feel closer to what had happened there, to the people who’d been murdered, and to Johanna. But there was another reason he was thinking about it now: that was its immediate application. The particular technique he had in mind involved the insertion of the short, poisonous thorns into the base of the victim’s tongue. These would cause swelling and then loss of speech, which was precisely what he had in mind. More poisoned thorns could be inserted in the victim’s vital organs causing infection and, eventually, death.

In his mind’s eye he could see himself applying this technique to the speaker, with gusto. It was very uncharitable. And nasty. But most satisfying, all the same.

Emil stopped himself. Was he becoming more extreme? Was he a nastier person? Or had he always been like this and it was just coming out now? Maybe it was a coping mechanism. He considered it a moment or two. The image of a small, lifeless body on the edge of a jungle clearing, misty with rain, appeared in his mind’s eye. The literally smoking gun, hot in his palm. No, he didn’t want another death on his hands, he’d settle for the swollen tongue and unable to speak bits of it. That’d be enough … well, maybe just a little bit of asphyxiation …

But for the fact that Emil’s face was much more recognisable at these events now, he would have walked out on such a boring speaker. Voted with his feet. But it was a little difficult for him to make that sort of statement, with his official role, and with his higher profile on the climate change speaking circuit since the events in Papua New Guinea had become widely known. And especially now, sitting in the front row within spitting distance of the speaker. Literally, in the case of this one, he noted with some distaste.

… in this respect the government is … remains totally committed …

Yeah, yeah. Blah-de, blah-de, blah. Heard it all before. I wonder if these characters ever listen to themselves delivering these rote speeches? Should be forced to. Strapped in a chair, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Forced to listen to himself. The way he was just reading – not delivering – the speech. The dull monotone, pauses in the wrong places, emphasis where it shouldn’t be. It sounded like the minister had collected it from his speechwriter just as he stood up to read it.

The hotel conference room was on level thirty-four of the Shard in central London: for the moment, Europe’s tallest building. But, as was most often the case, the conference room itself was internal and windowless. So he couldn’t even distract himself by looking out at the view.

Emil’s mind drifted again. He’d come this morning with the best of intentions. He really had planned to pay attention and participate. He had wanted to contribute positively to the debate. He had