Murray steadied himself against the roll of the tower, which was designed to flex in high winds, and then made a move towards the coffee that was quietly percolating near a whiteboard that held the current information on arrivals and departures. The whiteboard was there as a backup in case any of the four big computer screens on each duty officer’s desk ever crashed. Each officer had a split screen with a detailed display map of both Sydney Harbour and Port Botany. Another screen held arrivals and departures, and at the flick of a cursor either Murray or Bob could haul up the information on any ship. A third screen was controlled by a joystick linked to dozens of cameras that covered every part of both ports from the tops of buildings and other critical points. The image on the screen on Murray’s desk was beamed in from a camera near Sydney Airport; it was shaking even though the camera was anchored in an armoured box to protect it on days like today. Despite the weather, Murray had no difficulty in seeing the details of a tanker that was preparing to depart from Port Botany.
He scanned the digital meters above the whiteboard. No wonder the camera was shaking. The wind was touching 53 knots from the west. The tide had turned and at 0.8 metres, it was on the flood. Two more digital displays showed local time and Greenwich Mean Time. It looked like it was going to be a pretty light day. Only one large car ship was departing in the morning. He looked towards the west where the car ship was berthed a kilometre or so from the control tower. The Shanghai, a huge grey box towering over the loading dock at White Bay, was straining at her moorings and the wind was whipping grey smoke from the stubby smokestack at her stern. She had been emptied of the last of nearly 3000 cars from her eighteen decks and the engineers were firing up the huge diesels in preparation for departure. A break in the driving rain allowed Murray to scan the horizon. As the night sky gave way to the grey of the dawn he could just pick out the long jagged peaks of the Blue Mountains, and he noticed that another bank of thick black clouds was rolling in from across the Western Plains. To the east he could see Shark Island and beyond that South and North Head; between them, a Manly ferry was smashing its way past Bradley’s Head, one of the tree covered promontories that marked the turn towards the inner harbour.
He looked back to the whiteboard. The arrivals board was a little busier with the 80,000-ton tanker, the Ocean Venturer scheduled to berth just across from the tower at the big oil terminal at Gore Cove. She would be closely followed by the Jerusalem Bay, a regular visitor to the port.
‘Who are the Montgomery and the Wavell?’ Murray asked.
‘A couple of ocean-going tugs on their way to Vanuatu. They’re coming in to refuel,’ Bob replied.
‘They must be having quite a time of it out there,’ Murray observed. The waves were rolling powerfully and relentlessly across hundreds of miles of the Pacific, venting their fury against the jagged but unbowed face of North Head in thunderous explosions of boiling green water and foam.
‘Who’d be a tug boat driver,’ Bob said, echoing the words of Captain Svenson. It seemed to be a universal view.
‘Or a pilot,’ Murray replied, as he focused his binoculars on the small but powerful boat that was heading out to sea from its base at Watson’s Bay. The bright yellow pilot boat rose momentarily on the crest of a big wave before ploughing defiantly into the base of the next one. The passage to the rendezvous point with the Ocean Venturer, 4 nautical miles off the Heads, would be rough and arduous. ‘It’s bad enough up here,’ Murray added, lowering his binoculars and glancing at the photograph of Anthea, with Louise and the twins, that he kept on his desk.
In a few short hours it was going to get unimaginably worse.
CHAPTER 67
J amal had been at the warehouse since before dawn calculating the extra time he would need to allow for the stormy weather and reflecting on the first part of the attack that was to be launched with the trucks. One by one, his drivers arrived, all of them suicide bombers, all of them sombre and determined. The videos with their last messages to family and friends had all been completed. They had woken to their last day on earth. Soon they would all be reunited with Muhammad, peace be upon him, and they would receive the rewards of heaven that were promised to all those who martyred themselves for the Faith.
Jamal disappeared into the warehouse’s small bathroom to conduct the ablutions that were mandatory before a Muslim could get in touch with his creator. First he washed his face, then his arms to the elbows, then he wiped his head with his wet hands and finally, he washed his feet. When the other cell members had completed washing, they laid out their prayer mats on the floor of the workshop where they’d loaded the trucks with ammonium nitrate. Jamal began the dawn prayer. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! God is Great! God is Great! Bismillah ir-rahman ir-rahim In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful… Ash-Hadu Allaa Elaaha Ellaa Allah, Wahdahu Laa Shareeka Lah – I bear witness that there is no other god beside God. He alone is God; He has no partner. Assalaamu Alaikum Peace be upon you.
Jamal stored his prayer mat beside a battered filing cabinet in the office at the back of the workshop. He spread the big map of the city streets over his grimy wooden desk and switched on the scanner that was tuned in to the channel the tow-truck operators used to monitor police responses to traffic accidents. As a back up, he switched on a local radio station that encouraged people to call in with information on the traffic. Unbelievers, he thought bitterly. Soon the information on the traffic would jam the airwaves but so far the roads seemed remarkably clear. One truck had been allocated to the first target and the other six would attack in pairs with the routes to each of the four targets being worked out to the last second. Nothing had been left to chance.
Just before 8 a.m., Jamal kissed each one of his seven drivers three times on the cheek.
‘Your place in heaven with the Prophet, peace be upon him, is assured,’ Jamal said, and he pointed toward the seven trucks lined up at the front of the warehouse. ‘It’s time for you to start your engines. May Allah, the Most Kind, the Most Merciful go with you.’
Less than an hour later, Jamal parked his car at the boatshed to which the Destiny had returned after picking up the divers from Clarke Island. After final prayers, he and two other crewmen opened the old boatshed doors and one of them started the winch motor. Jamal took his position at the wheel as the Destiny slid down the greased rails into the water. He pressed the starter button and the big re-conditioned diesel throbbed into life, and he waited until his two crew members had rolled the doors on the boatshed shut. As he pushed the heavy chrome throttle levers forward, Jamal switched on the radios that operated on the Police and Harbour Control channel. Almost immediately, there was a transmission on Channel 13.
‘Harbour Control, this is the pilot aboard the Ocean Venturer; we are now rounding the sea buoy and inbound on the Western Channel with four tugs in attendance.’
‘Romeo Ocean Venturer, you are cleared to proceed to Gore Cove.’
Jamal nodded to himself in satisfaction. The trap was closing. The first truck was due to be detonated at 10.05 a.m., followed by the others in quick succession.
CHAPTER 68
K ate stirred, her head still on Curtis’ chest. Curtis brushed her blond locks away from her forehead and kissed her gently. There was a faint aroma of whiskey on her breath.
‘We smell of sex,’ Curtis whispered, as he ran his hand slowly over her back, moving down to Kate’s small, firm bottom.
‘Mmm,’ Kate responded dreamily.