The rain was lashing the balcony where they’d stood the night before, and Kate moulded herself against Curtis’ body. It was one of those mornings where they both would have preferred to stay in bed.
‘Come inside me,’ she said softly, caressing his hair.
Back in her own bathroom, Kate set the shower nozzle to ‘pulse’ and let the warm water massage her back. Her thoughts were in turmoil. The sex the night before had been urgent and passionate but this morning they had taken their time. The roguish Irish-American she’d decided to have a fling with had also turned out to be a wonderfully caring lover. As she stood in the shower she reflected on the early morning. She had felt very comfortable and safe with this man but she tried repeating her mantra with more conviction. ‘This is a one night stand and I can’t get involved with him.’ But Kate knew Curtis was different and realised her mantra had come a little too late.
The rain lifted momentarily as Kate and Curtis arrived at the State Crisis Centre on the southern side of the city. Kate spotted a postbox as she waited for Curtis to pay the taxi fare.
‘Won’t be a second. I’ll just post this off to Richard,’ she said, waving a postcard. In an instant Curtis recognised the photograph. He remembered he’d seen it years ago at the time of the Sydney Olympics. Taken when the smoke of the fireworks heralding the start of the 2000 Olympic Games had cleared, the word ‘Eternity’ was illuminated in the middle of the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
‘Wait. Can I see that?’
‘Want to read my mail now that we’ve slept together?’ Kate saw that Curtis was serious. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Do you remember Kadeer’s first warning attack – “beneath Eternity”?’
‘You think this is what he was referring to?’ Kate frowned as she suddenly recalled something else Kadeer had mentioned in his broadcast.
‘It’s possible,’ Curtis replied. ‘Is there a significance to the relationship between Sydney and the sign of Eternity?’
‘It has its origin in the 1930s,’ Kate explained, remembering a long-forgotten history lesson. ‘Arthur Stace was a homeless alcoholic who lived on the streets of the city. One night he went in to the Baptist Tabernacle in Darlinghurst where he listened to a sermon from a minister called Ridley. Ridley was urging his congregation to think about their mortality and the promise of eternity with God and he concluded his sermon with something like “Eternity! Eternity! Oh that this word could be emblazoned across the streets of Sydney!” For the next forty years, while the city slept, Arthur Stace wrote ‘Eternity’ using yellow chalk in an immaculate copperplate hand in every doorway, and on every footpath, train station and ferry wharf where he thought people would see it.’
Curtis shook his head.
‘You don’t think this has anything to do with the warning?’
‘On the contrary, I think it might have everything to do with it. It’s just that you seem to have swallowed the Britannica.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment but if you’re right, Kadeer is going to attack the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and now that you mention it, there was something else in Kadeer’s video. Didn’t he say that his first warning would take place where we least expect it, beneath Eternity where the windmill has been stolen?’
‘The stolen windmill has always confused me,’ Curtis admitted.
Kate looked thoughtful. ‘Can we get access to a computer at the State Crisis Centre? I vaguely remember that the area known as Dawes Point was once called Windmill Hill.’
‘Let’s go,’ Curtis said.
By the time they reached the foyer, Brigadier Anthony Davis, the Australian Defence Force’s senior liaison officer in the State Crisis Centre was waiting for them.
‘Curtis! Welcome back. Great to see you again.’ The Brigadier shook his old friend’s hand warmly. ‘Still travelling in the company of beautiful women?’ he said, turning to Kate.
‘Brigadier General Anthony Davis,’ Curtis said, introducing him to Kate.
‘I prefer Anthony,’ Davis said, shaking Kate’s hand firmly and smiling. ‘Welcome to Fort Fumble. We’re preparing for a major anti-terrorist exercise so you’ve come at the right time. The Prime Minister’s hosting APEC next week and the politicians are in a flap,’ Davis said as he pressed the lift button for the sixth floor. ‘The State Police Minister’s here at the moment,’ the Brigadier said, ‘and right now he’s arguing with Cecil Jensen, the Defence Minister’s minder over who has responsibility for announcing the exercise. Since responsibility is something that the politicians here only take when the news is good it’s really an argument about who gets their mug in front of the cameras.’
Curtis grinned. ‘Who’s winning?’
‘Last time I looked, the Police Minister. Right royal little turd he is too. Pardon my French,’ Davis added, holding his arm against the lift door for Kate.
‘I’ve heard it all before,’ Kate replied easily.
‘But I wouldn’t think he’ll be winning for too long,’ Davis continued as he swiped his card at the door to the State Crisis Centre. ‘I’m putting my money on the Defence Minister. He’s an even bigger turd with an ego the size of the Great Wall of China and when he finds out, he’ll be in front of a camera in a flash.’ The Brigadier closed the door and led them into a large room. Two big plasma screens were operating on the far wall.
‘Paul! Great to see you again, buddy!’ Curtis and the senior policeman shook hands.
‘Assistant Commissioner Paul Mackey,’ Brigadier Davis said, introducing Kate to the Commander of the NSW Police Counter Terrorism Group. Mackey’s handshake was firm. He had a strong jaw and a craggy face, etched with the lines of nearly forty years’ experience as a tough, no-nonsense policeman. He was one of the most respected men in the force.
‘Paul kept me sane when we worked on the Olympics together and if he wasn’t so fond of politicians, I could learn to quite like him,’ Davis explained to Kate.
‘I have a file on the brigadier and one day I’m going to make it public,’ Mackey replied. ‘This is the nerve centre for the city. There are several hundred cameras in Sydney, and sometimes we pick up things going on at bus stops that the participants would rather we didn’t.’ He glanced at the left-hand screen and gave Curtis a wink. The images on the screens were constantly changing, and the one on the left had rotated to a bus stop in North Sydney. Oblivious to the hidden camera, a well-dressed man in his early fifties and a much younger woman in an elegant black suit were in a steamy embrace in a bus shelter. As the man’s hand disappeared down the front of the woman’s pants the cameras rotated and an image of traffic gridlock in Market Street appeared. The other screen showed an image from a camera focused on the waters around Bradley’s Head.
‘These people in front of us,’ Mackey continued, pointing to the occupants of two long rows of desks with computers that were linked to various other headquarters around the city, ‘are from the police, ambulance, fire brigade, the military, health department and any other experts we need to call in; and behind us is the conference table for the main participants. When it’s up and running, as it will be for APEC in the next few days, the State Crisis Centre is chaired by the Premier and it includes the Ministers for Police, Transport, Roads, Emergency Services – all the usual suspects.’ Commissioner Mackey glanced at the group near the main conference table where a heated discussion was still going on between the Police Minister and the senior advisor to the Defence Minister.
‘Have you got an office where we can get online?’ Curtis asked.
‘Sure. Follow me. Anything I can help you with?’
‘More the other way around, although I hope we’re wrong.’
Kate googled ‘Sydney Observatory’ and ‘Dawes Point’. ‘Bingo,’ she said as she pulled up a web page that referred to Windmill Hill. Next to a photograph of the Sydney Observatory taken in 1874 was an explanation of the early history.
‘Here it is,’ Kate said. ‘In 1796 a windmill was built on the hill overlooking the first settlement in Sydney Cove and it became known as Windmill Hill, and later Observatory Hill when a fort built by Governor Hunter was turned into the Sydney Observatory.’