Private Sydney (Private 12)

Chapter 17

I CALLED JACK Morgan and left a message for him to ring me, then I went to check on the rest of the team. Darlene was extracting DNA from a series of forensic rape kits for the police. It was a service I wanted Private to supply for free as the police laboratories were often backlogged for more than six months at a time.

Johnny was involved with the case of a trade union official accused of using work funds for brothel visits. A few of the credit card receipts resembled the official’s. Others were nothing like it. He was scanning the signatures of all the union executives and superimposing handwriting to identify potential suspects.

I stopped in on Mary who had the Contigo brochures open across her desk.

‘Sir Lang Gillies made my flesh crawl,’ she said. ‘No wonder he’s so close to the powerbrokers in both political parties.’

I turned around a chair and straddled it. ‘What have you got?’

‘I’ve been looking into his family-owned companies. He and his wife are silent partners in a series of shops in Circular Quay with Alby Slade.’

That made Gillies a lot more powerful than I’d imagined. Slade was one of the ‘silent puppeteers’ behind a number of politicians. Rumour had it he was responsible for deposing two state premiers who dared question the legality of his business dealings.

‘Slade’s been up before the Integrity Commission, the Independent Commission against Corruption, he’s alleged to have threatened investigative journalists among others.’ Mary added, ‘And Gillies is in business with him.’

‘Maybe Moss thought the Slade business would tarnish Contigo.’

Mary sat back, hands clasped behind her head. ‘The work Moss did was topnotch.’ She swung a notepad around. ‘These are some of the things his team has produced.’

One was a device that injected fluids directly into bone.

‘This lifesaving device can be used by soldiers in the field. It goes into the shoulder or shin, and can deliver litres of fluids, like plasma, in minutes. They’ve been snapped up by armies from just about every nation. Victorian paramedics and hospitals are trialling them next month.’

Sales like that were lucrative. ‘Does Contigo own the patent?’

‘Yep. Its returns have already paid off bank loans used to develop it.’

Moss’s work wasn’t limited to small items. His team modified the capacity of aerial-firefighting helicopters, credited with saving thousands of houses in bushfires over the last decade.

‘Flame-retardant clothing, emergency retrieval training. They even came up with a new foam formula for the helicopters to dump on chemical fires.’

Mary was justifiably impressed.

‘Any idea what those secret contracts were about?’

She took back her notes. ‘Contigo was contracted to work with the government on something highly secret. A buddy in Defence said it was so secret, rumours were circulating about everything from digestible drones to transformer tanks. He seemed to think it involved counterterrorism.’

‘How much was the contract worth?’

‘My contact thinks it had to be over eighty million.’

I ble

w out a whistle. ‘That’s a lot of money to keep track of in a paper ledger.’

‘Another source, at the fraud squad, says they’ve been asked to investigate a number of not-for-profit organisations.’

‘Contigo Valley’s on their list?’

‘Yep, but they’re being pressured to hold off on that one. Someone in the government doesn’t want them investigated. They’re tendering for a number of federal defence contracts. Any hint of scandal will affect Contigo’s chances.’

‘And boost any rival’s.’ I stood up and stretched my back. ‘Do you know how they got on the fraud squad’s radar?’

‘You’ll love this. An anonymous caller phoned their office.’

We needed to find out who had reason to want Moss out of the picture. With government subterfuge, this case just got a lot more complicated.