Dragons at the Party. Jon Cleary

off at the run as a whistle sounded. Seville stepped across the front lobby and out into the street.

      The demonstrators were being herded back up the street. They were going quietly, some of them looking shocked; they had evidently been told of the shooting. Seville hurried to catch up with the stragglers. A policeman appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Seville by the arm. His first reaction was to stop and struggle, but the policeman, a big burly man with cauliflower ears, was too quick for him.

      ‘Don’t try any rough stuff, son, or you’ll finish up in the wagon!’ He gave Seville a shove, then a boot up the behind. ‘Git!’

      ‘Don’t argue with him,’ a young girl warned Seville. ‘That’s the Thumper – he’s a menace to democracy.’

      ‘You’re bloody right I am!’ said Thumper. ‘Now git before I put me boot up your bum, too!’

      The girl jerked her fingers at the sergeant, but ran up the street, dragging Seville with her. A moment later he was lost in the crowd of demonstrators, losing the girl too.

      Now, twelve hours later, he sat in this small bedroom in a pub in Rozelle, two or three miles from the heart of the city. He had found Sydney booked out for its 200th birthday party; it was an obliging taxi driver, after driving around for an hour, who had found this drinking hotel which, miraculously, had a room to rent. It was not an establishment that catered much, if at all, for accomm#243;dation; it made its money out of drinkers, not guests, and it entertained the drinkers with rock bands that had no talent but thunderous volume. The noise and the surroundings had done nothing to decrease Seville’s dislike of Australia and Australians.

      He was cursing the loss of the rifle; he still had the task of killing Timori but now he had no weapon. He had coolly walked through security screens before, in Rome, Milan, even Tel Aviv; but he had never done so carrying a weapon immediately after an assassination or massacre. This job had come too quickly, Timori’s movements had been unpredictable and Seville had had no time for proper planning. He was a precise killer and this time he had been anything but that. He was not accustomed to failure and it hurt like a bullet wound.

      He was forty years old and perhaps it was time to retire. But he could not go out on a botched job, with the target still alive and walking around. He needed another gun; but where did one buy a gun in Sydney on a holiday weekend? Guns were being fired all over the city, but they were firing blanks for celebration. Then he remembered the black militants he had met on his last visit to Sydney. The Aborigines, if they were like the Indians of Argentina, would be the last people taking a holiday to celebrate the rape of their country.

      2

      ‘This house is so small,’ said Madame Timori; trying to look hemmed in and not succeeding. ‘Our palace back home has eighty-eight rooms.’

      ‘Perhaps Australians have a better sense of modesty than us.’ President Timori, homeless, was doing his best to be polite. He was training for exile, just in case the worst proved permanent.

      ‘I’m Australian,’ said his wife. ‘Or anyway half-Australian. Do you live in a modest house, Inspector?’

      ‘It’s no palace, Madame.’ Malone thought of the three-bedroomed house in Randwick that would fit almost twice into this one.

      ‘Do you have a swimming pool?’

      ‘Yes, a small one.’ That had been a gift for the children from Lisa’s parents, a gesture that at first he had resented.

      ‘This house doesn’t. Can you imagine, a Prime Minister’s house with no pool? An Australian Prime Minister’s! I’ll bet there’s a barbecue somewhere, though.’

      She’s more than half-Australian, Malone thought. She’s one of those expatriate Aussies who can’t resist knocking their home country. He wondered if she ever mentioned Malaysia, her mother’s country. He was not chock-a-block with patriotism himself, but a little of it didn’t hurt, even a traitor.

      ‘You can always go next door and bathe in the Governor’s pool,’ said the President.

      ‘The Governor-General.’ She had a passion for accuracy: she wouldn’t have missed if she had been firing at her husband. ‘But who’d want to? He hasn’t sent one word since we arrived here. He’s probably waiting on the Queen to tell him what to do. And you know what she’s like, so damned stuffy about protocol.’ Then the First Lady seemed to remember some protocol of her own. ‘I hope you’re not taking any of this down in your little book, Inspector.’

      ‘No, Madame. Now may I ask the President some questions?’

      They were sitting out on the terrace on the harbour side of the house. Out on the sun-chipped water the yachts were already gathered like bird-of-paradise gulls; once, Malone remembered, the sails had all been white but now a fleet looked like a fallen rainbow. A container ship, all blue and red and yellow, was heading downstream towards the Heads, its hooting siren demanding right-of-way from the yachts, which seemed to ignore it till the very last moment. On the far side of the water the expensive houses and apartment blocks of Darling Point and Point Piper, silvertail territory, sparkled like quartz cliffs in the morning sun. There was little breeze and the heat lay on the city like a dark-blue blanket. It was going to be a scorcher of a day.

      ‘I don’t see why it’s necessary,’ said Madame Timori, throwing cold water.

      Malone ignored her. ‘Mr President, we have a lead on the man who tried to shoot you. We think it is Miguel Seville. He’s an Argentinian, one of the world’s leading terrorists. Maybe the leading one.’

      Sun Lee had come out of the house to stand in the background just behind Timori’s chair. The rest of the Presidential encourage, the men, women and children who had spent last night in one of the immigrant hostels, had moved down from the front of the house and stood in a group in the shade of some trees, looking as if they wanted an audience of the President but were not game to ask. But Malone noticed that they were all suddenly still, as if they had heard what he had said, and behind Timori the private secretary seemed to stiffen.

      Timori raised an eyebrow, but that was all. He was dressed in white slip-ons, white cotton slacks and a blue batik-patterned shirt: he could have taken his place on any of the cruising yachts out on the harbour or at any one of the barbecue picnics out in the suburbs. Except for his face: there was no holiday spirit there. He looked sick, older even than he had yesterday. Last night’s bullet hadn’t hit him, but he had read his name on it: it was unfortunate that poor Mohammed Masutir had had involuntary power of attorney.

      ‘Why would they hire a foreigner to kill me?’ He sounded affronted as well as puzzled: for all his corruption he was a true nationalist.

      ‘Perhaps it was the Americans,’ said his wife. ‘The CIA will hire anyone. Remember those Mafia they hired to try and kill Castro?’

      ‘But they were Americans,’ said Timori. ‘No, it wouldn’t be the CIA. President Fegan is my friend,’ he told Malone.

      ‘I’m sure he is, sir.’ Malone did not voice his truthful opinion, that in top politics there were no friends, only expendable partners. He could not believe that Timori had read no history. ‘Have you had any trouble from terrorists in Palucca?’

      ‘None,’ said Madame Timori. ‘I told you there were to be no political questions!’

      Pull your head in, Delvina. But Malone’s voice was still mild: ‘It wasn’t meant to be political, Madame Timori. I’m just trying to build up a picture in my mind so that we can do something about catching this man Seville before he makes another attempt on the President’s life.’

      ‘You think he’ll do that?’ Timori had a soft silky voice; now it was just a whisper. ‘What sort of protection can you give me?’

      ‘I can give you none, sir. That’s up to the Federal Police and our Special Branch.’

      ‘What