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thought a political junkie like you would have known of our Chinese friend. He’s one of the bigwigs in the current Politburo, the head of China’s Ministry for State Security. Their top spy.He was at one stage considered a potential candidate to become President, but there was some falling-out a few years ago, some mini-scandal that the Chinese were desperately keen to cover up. He may have got too close to the Americans … or the Taiwanese … anyway, his career path stalled for a while but in the past few years he’s been placed in charge of ensuring the Chinese population plays within the rules – the rules that its leaders decide upon, of course.’
    Gordon stared at the photo a moment longer. Dunkley could see it was triggering a grim series of connections in his friend’s mind.
    â€˜Remember that unrest in Tibet a year or two ago? How the Chinese responded? We believe maybe forty or fifty monks were killed, rounded up like dogs and … well … even we don’t know exactly what happened after that. We also heard reports of one isolated monastery being raided by Chinese soldiers who proceeded to cut out the eyes of several monks they believed were orchestrating protests against Beijing. Your friend Mr Zhou was in charge of all that.
    â€˜Harry, you are not playing with a nice guy. Zhou Dejiang is a nasty piece of work, even by the standards of the goons who’ve made their way up to the higher ranks of the Communist Party. So, what can you tell me?’
    Dunkley fiddled with a beer that had lost its froth, tracking finger patterns in its cold glass rim, mentally preparing his notes so he could bring Ben Gordon in on this story.
    â€˜Last Tuesday, around 3 p.m., I got a phone call from someone in DFAT; they wouldn’t identify themselves but the voice sounded like that of a diplomat. He wanted to meet with me, alone, saidhe had something of interest. We met at sparrows, the morning after the Midwinter Ball … believe me, Ben, I was in no shape for it. The rendezvous point was down by the lake at Yarramundi Reach. Six forty-five and freezing, half-light, no one around, could have been a scene out of a le Carré novel.’
    Dunkley stopped briefly to take a swig of his Grolsch.
    â€˜Anyway, this car with DC plates speeds off when I approach it; I couldn’t quite get the full numberplate. On a picnic table I find an Embassy of Taiwan envelope with this photo in it. No other identifying marks. That’s it, that’s the full story. So – now we have two out of three. Bruce Paxton and Zhou Dejiang. What do you reckon?’
    Gordon adjusted his posture and took a sip of the house white. Gone was his flirtatious manner; he was now deadly serious. ‘Firstly, that phone call from DFAT could have come from anywhere. I could make that number flash on your phone with fifteen dollars worth of kit from Tandy Electronics. I wouldn’t say that it’s not our friends in Foreign Affairs, but you … we … can’t be certain that it is. It could have been ASIS, ONA, it could even be Defence intel – there are plenty of boffins in my agency who could probably masquerade as an intern at the White House if they wanted to. And, of course, it could always be a spook attached to a foreign embassy.
    â€˜I don’t know about the links between Bruce Paxton and Zhou Dejiang, I’ll have to sniff around on that. But I do know that Paxton is hated by the military top brass and he, in turn, is paranoid about being spied on.’ Gordon paused, instinctively scanned the room, and continued.
    â€˜Paxton thinks there are forces inside his Department determined to bring him down. Remember, he’s the first Defence Minister in a long time prepared to stand up to the hierarchy and call their bluff on their demands for more and more billions of dollars to waste on the latest hi-tech gear from France or the States. He’s been on a one-man