Dicey slice

I came to with someone dabbing at my face. In my semi-conscious haze I heard the soothing whisper of a Florence-Nightingale-like nymph caressing my face and suggesting we do something very non-sterile in the supply cupboard. I drifted on that fantasy for a while, then opened my eyes to a law enforcement nightmare.

It was a scene out of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, without the little guy on top of the big guy - everyone in black battle outfits, standing rigid in a circle and sneering at me. My naughty nurse turned out to be a stubbly bloke chewing gum and pulling medical supplies out of a pocket in the arm of his jacket. When he saw I was awake, he pulled away a gauze pad covered in streaks of red and yellow and zipped up his stuff.

Another one with a Bond-bad-guy scar across his cheek stepped forward. “Sit up, Mr Gibson.”

I wobbled up to a sitting position and looked around, waiting for the room to stop seesawing. A small infirmary the size of a lounge room, me sitting on a raised examination bench, a desk, a hospital bed and buckets of paramilitary testosterone. I rubbed my jaw, and my hand came away yellow, the remnants of our cunning disguises. There was crowd noise outside, so I was still at the ground, minus a good patch of facial skin, by the feel. “You know who I am then. What are you - extras from GI Joe: The Musical? And where’s my mate John? Big bloke. Sweats a lot?” Jeez, it hurt to talk, jaw-wise.

“That’s a lot of questions.” Scarface said.

“Requiring a lot of answers. How long have you guys been on these guys?” I said.

“Mate, you’re in no position to ask for anything.” It was Medico. “I’d cancel my dinner plans.”

A chuckle went around the room. Shit, I counted seven of them. Then Scarface said, “We’re holding you on suspicion of terrorist activity, aiding a terrorist enterprise…

“Aiding?! I was trying to crash-tackle the guy. Shouldn’t you be out doing the same to the other three?”

“… associating with known terrorists…”

“Known! No one knew diddly, besides us. Got some ID, by the way?”

“You want to know who we are?”

“No - I have an interrogation fetish.”

Scarface didn’t move. “You’ve heard of the Yanks’ SWAT squads?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well we’re not them.”

“Right. Counter-Terrorism Branch, are you?”
He came over and eyeballed me. “Oh, you know aaaall about that do you? Not the kind of information Mr Joe Public has a need for.”

“Spare me, Captain Fantastic. You and your action figure mates have already talked to Cricket Australia about me, someone’s already been through the security footage - or they’re doing it now - so you know I didn’t come in with our friend Mr Allah Akbar, and that I was trying to stop the little freak from pushing the button.” I gave my jaw a rest. By their silence I knew I’d guessed right. “So I assume nothing blew up?”

“As far as anyone out there knows, our man was just a drunk fan,” Scarface said. “He yelled something, approached the players and was dealt with by security. No panic situation. No terrorist incident.”

“So the Test carries on as normal. Jesus - and about 300 members are switching to lemonade as we speak.” That finally got smiles out of them. “What are these guys about? What did he yell?”

“ASIO’s checking into it. It was Indonesian; they think ‘God is great. In God’s name we avenge our glorious brothers.”

“Charming. So why aren’t you out after the other three.”

“Two,” he said. “And we’ve got ‘em seven minutes ago. Liquid explosives, guns, the lot.”

I processed a bit more. “Brothers?… Oh, Christ on a bike - the Bali bombers’ executions.”

A knock and two large men in suits appeared in the doorway. Scarface smiled at me. “Give the man a banana. Now the AFP want you. Something about you cowboys dicking up their investigation.”

Investigation. That was rich. They’d had no clue - then been one loose wire away from mass carnage. Now they were masters of the universe.

The suits dragged me to an adjacent meeting room, and Gacy’s eyes went round when he saw my face. I discovered he’d only been a few steps behind me in our dash through the Members’ Stand, and he’d had his own set of anti-terror fellas to deal with.

The AFP suits made us run through everything we’d done since I got that call from Parnell three weeks ago. Again. And again. Every suspicion we’d had, everything we saw, every bowel movement we’d dropped. They threatened us with everything from control orders to tax audits to not qualifying for the dole. Come to think of it, that was the greatest threat of all.

A tick under four hours later, when we were climbing the walls quicker than Cirque Du Soleil on meth, they got bored and four regular cops took us away.

This time there was no chance of being a big screen hero - they marched us to some sort of tradesman’s entrance near a loading dock. At least there were no handcuffs this time. No need - the cops had guns.

I turned to Gacy. “So, you glad I got you into this?”
“Yeah - come on a case, see Australia, get kicked out of the best grounds in the country.”

Nearly at the loading dock, we chuckled and paused to let a group of tradies finish showing the security guy their passes and inside their toolboxes.

Looking on the positive si… Holy shit. The guy with the beer guy and the blue overalls. It was one of the Bobs - I was positive. But there was something weird…

No time. The utility belt on the cop next to me. I grabbed at it, managed to unclip the folding knife and flick it open as I lunged at Bob the builder and slashed him hard across the stomach.

Green is good

At least I got to see myself up on the SCG big screen one last time. I know the TV folk aren’t supposed to show streakers or Mexican waves or riffraff getting dragged to the exit by small armies of security personnel - all the things that make going to the cricket great - but I glanced up and there we were. The vision switcher must have been asleep at the controls. I turned to wave at the camera until I remembered I was handcuffed to the large, fragrant man next to me.

Gacy and I spent all day Sunday trying to nut out what to do and waiting for a column of smoke on the horizon. Half the battle was figuring out how the Bobs were going to get whatever illicit gear they’d need into the ground. No matter how well Coke dissolves copper coins, to my knowledge it isn’t an explosive agent, and you’d never get inside wearing bombs disguised as cans in your beerholder hat. Maybe detonating that in the entry line would be carnage enough.
But we were treading water and I could tell my faithful offsider was having second thoughts about the whole thing. He kept playing devil’s advocate as we argued over the suspicious shenanigans we’d seen in Perth and at the MCG. The CA credit card was nothing more than a shiny bookmark now, and I suspected the only reason Gacy was still around was that his hotel room was twice the size of his fetid flat.

That night in the hotel bar, he really started making sense. “What have we really seen? Coke? Watermelons?” he said. “They’re oddballs, but maybe these guys just prefer to watch cricket alone, or they’re doing PhDs in stadium management or something.”

Crap. He had a point there. “But what about all the chemicals? And you never got a gun shoved in your face.”

“It could have been a water pistol for all you know.”
Double crap. “Forget this. Time to be alert, not alarmed.” I grabbed my mobile and finally called the Terrorism Hotline. It got me a nice long chat with a woman with a calm, sexy voice, but no real satisfaction. I told her everything we’d seen, but she just trotted out the usual lines - “I’ll have the authorities review the information”, “No detail is too small” and “No sir, I’ve never done any 0055 work”.

Gacy had been drinking steadily, listening and smirking at me, which did nothing for my mood. “OK, smartarse.” I jabbed a finger at him. “We’re having one more crack tomorrow.”

I talked John into giving me one more day and we fronted the SCG the next morning ready and raring for Day 3. We’d approach these morons and, cop threats or not, put the heavies on them to see if they were straighty-one-eighties or sons of Al-Qaida. If only our lime green golliwog wigs and full-coverage yellow facepaint didn’t itch so much. The price you pay for being persona-non-grata.

We fed our Day 3 tickets into the turnstile and I thanked my lucky bank balance I’d bought them before the CA credit dried up.
Then a red light flashed and they boomeranged back at us. An attendant came over and checked something on a portable screen. “Mate, these have been cancelled.”

Friggin’ Parnell. We could hardly argue the point, so we slunk off and I spent my last $300 buying crap seats from a scalper. Dressed like a couple of six-foot lime Paddle Pops, it wasn’t hard to get his attention.
We went in, hunted around as best we could while ducking and diving from security, the cops, CCTV - the list went on - but turned up a distinct lack of bad guys. Approaching the lunch interval, we began to feel a bit dopey superheroing in costume with no villains to chase.
Then I borrowed a guy’s binoculars and thought I saw one of the Bobs high in the Members’ Stand. “Oh crap sandwiches.” I turned to Gacy.

“Come on, this could get nasty.”

Dressed as the green golliwog twins we weren’t exactly genteel Members’ Stand material, but we had no choice. Lunch had just been called and a ripple of applause went through the crowd just as I approached the guy checking credentials at the entrance to the Members’. Behind him, I could see the players tracking off the field far below and, yes, there was one of the Bobs lurking up in the shadows. He was wearing what looked like a bulky cream cricket jumper and sweating freely.

The applause swelled again as the players jogged through the gate in the fence and off the field. I yelled above the noise to the security guy, “My Dad’s got quite the member!”

He leaned in. “Sorry, what?” Over his shoulder Bob was on the move, making a beeline through the seating to the players’ walkway.
“Tuck and roll, mate.” I gave the security bloke a shove and sprinted down the terraces after Bob. He was 10 metres ahead of me, and about the same distance from the players, closing fast.

The rest still makes my stomach churn as I remember it, the action bright, quiet and dense like honey.

The skinny man in the white knit jumper screeches to a halt next to the players, who start pulling up sensing something wrong. Tragically that only makes the line bunch up.

Bob has something in his hand attached to a black wire coming out of his sleeve.

He sets his jaw, shoves a fist in the air and screams words no-one understands.

Then he’s puzzled, looking back at his hand as someone big and black rockets out of nowhere and puts on the best shoulder charge since Andrew Symonds vs the streaker.

A few metres away, the last thing I remember is someone doing the same to me.

The terminated

“OK, beer me,” I said, “but I want a sane scenario when you get back.”

When you’re in a two-person shout with an alcoholic, you’re up and down like a fiddler’s elbow. We were in the stands on Day 1 of the third Test trying to make sense of what few clues we had, if you could call them that. I was struggling to come up with any reason for the Bobs’ new group dynamic and the large quantities of Coca-Cola. I ruminated on it while I watched the two rows of young blokes in identical green golliwog wigs and yellow facepaint yahooing below me and trying to construct the longest beer cup snake in history.

Gacy eventually appeared with the beers. “OK, here are the assumptions we can safely make,” he said. “One: the Bobs are into a different phase. The Feds aren’t likely to have told them about us - then they’d be more accountable if something did happen - and I don’t think we blew our cover when we doorknocked ‘em, so this was their plan all along. Two: cops of some sort are probably still watching us.”

Gacy lowered his voice. “Three: it’s the last home Test for a while, so if it’s going to be a bomb, it’ll be now.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t stick your neck out this far and then hold off. They’re getting ready to pull something.”

“Or maybe they are just weedy uni students who like their cricket.”
I snorted. “If I was planning something like this I wouldn’t bank on play on Day 5. Too many short Tests these days. I’d plan for Day 2 or 3. A day or two looking around, then…”
“Blammo!”

I gulped my beer. “So what about the esky, all the Coke, the watermelons at the house, the beer-holder hat…”
“The only thing I can think of is maybe it’s a poisoning and they’re looking to plant the bottles in the snack bars. Let’s find them and see if they’re drinking the Coke.”

On our slow lap of the SCG, it felt like every security guy was watching us and every lone man with neat hair talked up his sleeve as we passed. What do they say: you’re only paranoid if you’re not being watched?

The Bobs were sitting like stunned mullets in the non-alcohol section at the bottom level of the Brewongle Stand, spying on the dressing rooms with binoculars.

“They’re drinking the Coke,” Gacy said.

“Wild and crazy guys. I thought eskies were banned anyway.”
Then a pair of security people sauntered towards us and we made ourselves scarce. I went off to befriend a couple with an esky, learning that coolers were allowed, but had to be small enough to fit under a seat. Apparently most plastic drink bottles were opened and inspected, whether the seal looked broken or not.

I was about to ask about food, when a voice behind me said, “Hey Curly, how about we have that meeting now.”

Of course it was little Adam Parnell, with his blockheaded security chief and burly friends in tow.

God I was sick of cops. There was a posse of the suited variety already waiting in a meeting room in the Members’ Stand, and with the security, and Parnell, we barely fit around the long meeting table. One stood by the door while Parnell introduced some local detectives from the regular police. No McMurray though. The CA shit actually shook our hands. “Guys, welcome. Missed you yesterday.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I said. “Flight trouble.”

We looked at each other. A clock ticked. “Things not going so well for your boys at the moment,” I said. “Maybe I’ll polish up the Curly chrome dome and help out.”

Parnell was tapping his teeth with a pen. “No, the Tests have been a bit disappointing. And that brings us to your investigation, actually.”
“Well, if uncovering a terrorist cell about to blow up your players is disappointing… I s’pose it is.” When I said it I knew it sounded like the ravings of the neighbour who “always kept to himself” before going mad with an electric knife, but it was no crazier than the events of September 11 would have sounded on September 10.

The suit next to Parnell said, “Adam, I can assure you that there’s no evidence whatsoever of this. Frankly, when these two start targeting a group of Asian students with such baseless claims - especially in the employ of CA - frankly it looks like…”

“Racism?!” I yelled. I was half out of my chair, with three hands holding me in it. “No-one ever complains about racism against Saudis with Bin Laden!”

Parnell and head detective had a whisper conference, then Parnell looked to me. “Look, Cricket Australia hired you to do a job; we’ve spent 14 thousand so far, and two weeks in I’m getting calls from all manner of police. It was supposed to be kept quiet and I can’t keep throwing good money after bad. We’re terminating your employment. I’m sorry.” He shoved some sort of waiver forms in front of Gacy and waited till he signed them. “I think Detective Nelson has something to discuss with you.”

I couldn’t leave it. “How are you guys going to look and feel, when the cricket-fearing public is blown up and it comes out that you knew about the threat beforehand?”

Nelson piped up. “How can I put this simply to you pair…” he said. “If it’s the Federal Police’s word against yours, I’ll leeeean toward their version every time. So here’s the thing - if you try to enter or approach the SCG of those students in the immediate future, we will see you and arrest you for wasting police resources, public nuisance… shall I go on?”

Pigs in (small) space

I remember when I was still moderately beloved. My occasional appearances for New South Wales had given me a taste of it back in my Pura Cup days; that is, people smiling at me rather than threatening, directing rather than detaining, informing me rather than informing on me.

Stuck in an anonymous room in an anonymous building somewhere in the Melbourne CBD, I pined for the old days. I guess the point of Federal Police custody is that you don’t enjoy it. Gacy was dozing, but he was snoring apprehensively.

The suits kept telling us they weren’t going to get heavy, that we were there voluntarily, but my requests for a double-shot soy macchiato were pointedly refused, so clearly the head games had begun.

“This is just a friendly meeting,” one suit a bit older and balder than the rest had said. “You haven’t been arrested, so you’re free to leave anytime.” As I snorted and stood up he added, “But I’m sure we could think of something - harassment, stalking, unlawful entry, fraud. We saw your little door-knock stunt.”

“We’re training to be the new Napisan Challenge men.”
Older suit wasn’t laughing. “I’d suggest you stay for a chat.”
His version of “chat” was two-and-a-half hours of veiled, then shiveringly naked threats.

“We know what you fools have been up to - why Cricket Australia would let you two… anyway, it all stops right now,” he said.
“I would have thought a possible terrorist plot to bomb a sporting arena might interest you,” I fired back.

“It would, but you know what you’ve got? A bunch of Indonesian uni students who save their money to travel to Test matches.”
Gacy woke up. “But they’re on your radar, right?”

“After the Mohammed Haneef debacle - which I stress was initiated by the separate Counter-Terrorism Branch, only supported by the general AFP - we don’t have a radar. What I mean is, those CTB clowns cocked up so badly, now we need to have a very, very credible threat before we can move on anyone. Shit, friggin’ David Hicks is everyone’s mate now.”

“But you moved on us. How are we a credible anything?”
Now he was smirking. “When we get a call from a colleague that a crime or crimes may be being committed, of course we are legally obliged to act. After last time, we know you’ve got form.”
Paula McMurray was definitely off my Christmas card list, and as for that dinner invite, unless she guaranteed me a trip to second base, all bets were off.

Gacy wiped drool off his chin and straightened up. “So our mates the Indonesian students are cleanskins, are they?”
A younger suit came into the room to replace the older guy and took over the conversation without a pause. “We have nothing to suggest otherwise.”

“Apart from them buying a ton of pool chlorine, hair bleach and acetone,” I said.

“All legal. It’s certainly not unusual for young students to be experimenting with grooming products.”
“And suspicious phone calls to players and stalking behaviour of their own?”

“There’s no proof of any of that.”

And so it went, to and fro. The upshot was, we keep harassing the Indonesians, we end up on some type of charges.
When they got bored, we were marched out an exit into an alley. I turned and banged on the locked door. “The next series of Underbelly, I’m cheering for the Mafia, prick!”

With the second Test capitulation complete, we spent the next three days laying low and avoiding CA. I quickly paid upfront to change hotels, bought flights to Sydney and Test tickets. The Men In Black were odds-on to have a quiet word with CA, so I had to get in before the credit got cancelled.

Parnell called a few times a day and I even answered some of them. He was more pissed off every time, even though I tried promising we were mere days away from wrapping up the case in a big pretty bow. Finally, he said he wanted a meeting in Sydney the day before the third Test. We’d come full circle.

We flew to Sydney on the Friday, but clearly the meeting would be a “Sit down, you’re sacked” deal, so I turned my phone off and we holed up in a pub for the evening.

The next day, we shook off the sore heads to try to ensure a dead Test didn’t get deadly. Given our persons-of-interest status, I banned Gacy’s Hawaiian shirt and we fronted up at the SCG in CA merchandise, caps and dark glasses. Just two nameless fans there to pay their respects to the wreckage of the Australian cricket team.

I hadn’t even started searching for Bobs in the crowd when I saw three of them ahead of us at the gate. “Well, well, well. They’ve kissed and made up,” I muttered to John. They were in the line together way ahead of us at the bag-search table. They were wearing sportier clothes this time and staff were opening a small esky, pulling out large bottles of Coke, cracking the seals and sniffing their contents.

I turned to John. “Does Coke still add life?”

Episode 9 - Ding-dong: moron calling

Day 5 of the second Test and nothing had exploded, apart from our chances of salvaging the series. Gacy and I were both amazed nothing had literally blown up in our faces, Bob-wise, but were telling all and sundry at Cricket Australia that it was due to our supreme investigative abilities. I think Parnell and Co. were too busy biting their nails to think too hard about that one.

We’d spent four days scuttling around trying to keep tabs on the Bobs, but it was next to impossible in the MCG - the place was busier than a seconds sale at the Mint. After Gacy’s heads-up about our police escort, we kept our eyes open and I had to admit that, paralytic or not, he was right. They were good, but from what we could tell there was a revolving tail of maybe four guys and at least one woman on us 24/7. Glimpses at the hotel, and the occasional face in the street. The heaving crowd made the MCG a tough gig, but John reckoned he even saw one lurking in the stands. There were just too many flashes of the same folk for it to be a coincidence.

It was a merry little game. Us following the (possible) mad bombers, who were shadowing the players and officials, and the cops following us.

With one eye on the distressing events on the field (and a cold one for sustenance) we confirmed that what they used to call the players’ race - the path from the dressing rooms to the ground - was where the Bobs were concentrating, but never in a group. Sometimes one would be back a way, watching the comings and goings around the dressing rooms with binoculars, sometimes with another, just an anonymous face in the crowd.

Almost two Tests in, we were getting nowhere fast, and CA was riding me for a resolution. We knew we needed a new plan.
Either these guys were the Asian Cricket Appreciators’ Door-to-door Pool Chemical and Beauty Treatment League, or they were very bad boys indeed.

We needed proof of the latter, and on Day 5, with the game as good as gone, Gacy had a good idea. From under a froth moustache he said, “If we know at least three or four of these guys are here, what - an hour from the house - now’s the best time to take a poke around at their place. Maximum of one at home, I’d say.” He saw my look. “Come on ya baby - I don’t reckon they’ll shoot you on the front step and draw attention.”

“Whaddaya mean me, paleface?” The very notion made my sphincter spasm, but I also knew we couldn’t just sit back and wait for their move. If we were right about these guys, the only use we’d be after the fact was in helping catch the falling chunks of gristle.

I couldn’t believe we were doing it, but an hour later we were knocking on that Sunshine front door. I’d kitted us out in dark blue overalls, a couple of hats from Bunnings with the logo on them and a couple of clipboards. I hoped we looked presentable; if you scrub up well they can give you an open casket.

Gacy knocked and I tried not to hyperventilate. Then a minute passed - no noises, no sirens, no little red laser dots on us. I was praising the patron saint of lily-livered namby-pambies when the door opened suddenly.

“Yes?” The first Bob we’d seen in Perth stood there. He’d only cracked the door a foot, his body still hidden behind the frame. We were trying our best to look like good tradesmen - mildly annoyed and 90 minutes late.

What was that accent? “Hello sir, we’re the Bunnings Warehouse… Plumbing Bunnies you called.”

Bob was on full alert. “What? What plumbing… I didn’t call.”

I checked the fake printout on my fake clipboard and drew on some very fake confidence. “Says here that a B. Menzies at this address booked a plumbing check for today.”

Gacy kept pushing. “Oh, Jeez,” he turned to me, “Kyle’s gonna kick our arses if we file another Incomplete-03,” and back to Bob, “that’s the form for a job we don’t finish as requested. Our boss is a real…” then he stopped and cocked his head. “Jesus - what’s that - inverse water hammer? That shit’ll kill your pipework chop chop…”

Then the fat bastard just shouldered past Bob and into the front room. I was in awe. The guy tried to block him, but John had the element of surprise and the other element of an extra 50 kilos. I stumbled after him and tried to keep up. “Yeah, it’s a humming, grinding…”

“Hey, you can’t…” Now Gacy was feeling a wall, crapping on at a thousand miles a minute about vibrations and costly damage while Bob was trying to get his attention and edge him out. The room was spartan, a couple of shabby couches… and a table in the corner covered in big bottles of Coke, a couple of watermelons, a novelty beer holder hat…

“Get out now! You have the wrong house! Please check, please check!” Now he had his full weight against Gacy, and we knew we couldn’t push things any harder. Soon we were back on the front step making a song and dance of rechecking our clipboards and thumping our foreheads.

By the time we’d scarpered to the end of the block I was trying to stop Gacy giggling long enough for a debrief when three sedans slid in around us disgorging men in suits shoving official-looking IDs in our faces.

We end up back in the city in a grey room with video cameras and no windows. For some reason I hummed “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” all the way.

Episode 8 - Alert and alarming

Being caught in a spotlight sneaking through the back yard of the home of suspected terrorists near midnight on Christmas Eve has the festive effect of rekindling one’s waning athletic ability. I think that was part of the Queen’s Christmas Message once.

Milliseconds after that light snapped on I had tossed my mobile back over my head into the safe neighbouring back yard from whence I had come, fled across the face of the garage and jammed myself down the narrow gap between it and the fence next to it. The waist-high weeds in the slim space hid the milk crate I almost broke my ankle on, and what may have been the innards of a washing machine that gouged my calf and ankle. I sunk down below weed height and wrenched myself around to face the house, leaving the skin of my shoulder on the abrasive wall for good measure.

I did it all so fast I reckon my shadow took a while to catch up - and I didn’t feel the injuries till later. That’s adrenaline for you, and the fact that a light came on in the house and a man with a torch in one hand and a very real-looking pistol in the other came out of the back door and straight toward me.

It was one of the Bobs in T-shirt and pyjama bottoms. He and looked like he’d been asleep but was alert now, scanning the yard and casually walking to the garage. Then everything went dark until he got close enough to trigger the light again. I nearly choked. He appeared six feet away, then he was rattling what must have been a padlock on the barn-like wooden garage door.

The worst part was the silence. There were footsteps and the beam of his torch was playing around, then it stopped, jiggling on the weeds in the entrance to the space beside the fence. He was walking around the front of the garage toward me. I put my head down and wondered if he’d say anything or just shoot me dead.
“Hey - apapun yang terjadi di luar sana?”

What the f*#@k was that? Malaysian or some sort of code? I reached for the horizontal beam in the fence, ready to try my luck, Escape from Alcatraz-style. Then I realised the voice came from the back door of the house. The blood roaring in my ears made it hard to tell.

As fast as he came out, Bob went back inside, taking his gun and torch with him and the garage light went off. Half an hour later the house lights went out, and it was just me and my undies full of follow-through.

Half an hour of motivating self-talk after that I squeezed up and over the fence, then over another two, and wasn’t even put off by the snarling Doberman next door. I even found my phone before 3am. I had my life and a long game of phone lucky dip in a slimy compost heap in the dark. Meryy Christmas.

After all the excitement, Christmas Day started at lunch in the hotel and we didn’t leave until I dragged John away several hours later after he’d had his way with the bar’s top shelf and started asking for “the special stuff in the vault”.

As they trotted out the usual cheese-filled footage of the older members of the Test team on the 6 o’clock news - the shots where their kids try to focus on opening presents with five men with cameras in their living room - I shifted painfully on my hotel bed and wondered if Santa would bring me a new liver and colon and leg.

Then Parnell rang my mobile, which helped my bowels along no end.

“Ashley, you’re in Melbourne, I see,” he said. “Two of you at the Hilton, by the look of the credit statement.”

Eek. That really got things moving downstairs. I had to relocate to the toilet and hope it didn’t echo too much. “Yep, things are moving along as we speak.”

“I hope so. Mate, I’ve got to try to keep a lid on expenses. That card’s getting up there.”

I pushed, but tried to keep the strain out of my voice. “The problem is this thing is bigger than I expected.” I held off telling him about the chemicals and guns and the house in Sunshine. It may still all come to naught.

“Bigger how? We want this ultra-small.”

“The good news is we found the guy who’s been calling. The bad news is that there’s four of them. At least.”

That stopped him. “What are they doing?”

“Maybe nothing, but my first instinct was to call ASIO or the Federal Police. Someone with some resources.”

That set him on fast-forward. Faced with the possibility that this could get very big and very public, he promised us the world, another five grand on the card and as much time as we needed. In return I had to promise daily updates. As I was making all the right noises, preparing to let him go work on his second ulcer, my room phone rang. I wiped myself, and Parnell.

It was my partner in overindulgence. Forget Mr Cricket - meet Mr Popularity.

“John, I hope you’re sitting down, because you sound legless.”
Somehow I got the idea he wanted me to go down to the lobby. When I got there, he was holding up the wall near an elevator.
He spoke, and it sounded a bit like “I decided to go out this arvo.”

“Church, I expect.”

“Nah, a couple of pubs, but listen. I got some new mates. Seen them at three different places.”

He was either experiencing fits of narcolepsy or nodding at the sofas across the room.

“What? Those guys? So what?”

“And there’s one more in a car ‘cross the way.”

“Christ, John, what are you on ab…”

“They’re cops. Feds, by the look o-em.” He started giggling. “The stalkers’ got stalkers got stalkers too.”

Episode 7 - The chemical brothers

Toothpaste, baked beans, large quantities of chlorine-based pool conditioner - as a shopping list, it didn’t really add up. Especially since the Bobs skipped the toothpaste and beans, and didn’t seem like the pool frolicking types.

We’d watched two of the same Bobs from Perth leave the house in Sunshine, scuttle off to a pool shop and each cart home two 10-litre bottles. Then another one left, so I picked him up on the train while Gacy stayed watching the house of fun.

We, like, ended up at the mall, OK? It was sooo cool, cos Sharon pashed this hot random guy… Actually, there was no pashing, just two secretive men battling the Christmas Eve maelstrom. The closest it got to 90210 territory was when I watched my Bob call in at Hair Warehouse and hurry out with a couple of carrier bags. When the coast was clear I went in and approached the counter. A girl in a carefully ripped sleeveless T-shirt and Hair By Leafblower beamed vacuously at me.

“Hey. Can I help?”

I channelled Carson Kressley and tried to loosen my hips. “You probably can, my lovely. You know Miguel who was just in here…”

“The guy… he had the short dark hair, olive skin.”

“Oh yes. A behind you could really bounce… well, you watched him walk out, no doubt.”

Just that vacant smile.

“Anyway, I’m his… well, they call it ‘partner’ these days, like we’re all cowboys. The thing is, he’s opening his own salon, and I wanted to get him something to help out. Maybe a few hundredweight of foils. Did he just stock up on the Vidal Sassoon products?”

She pressed something on the register. “No, just nail polish remover - all we had of the bulk bottles - and hair bleach.”

“That’s Miguel. When he spends, he spends big. Hope he didn’t max out his Diner’s Card.”

“No, they were cheap brands. He paid cash anyway.”

Shitbags. I pointed at my chrome dome. “I’m a product of cheap product. But he’s cutting costs, the lovely. Did you have trouble with his accent? For me, it just sends shivers.”

“He didn’t say much. Is he from overseas?”

“Macau.” I looked wistful. “An exotic fruit, if you know what I’m saying. Anyway, I’d better go and catch up. Ciao.”

Back in Sunshine, we found a pub on Durham Rd, not far from the house, and pulled up a couple of schooners to compare notes.
Gacy didn’t let his touch the table, and only stopped drinking when his air ran out. Then he did it again and plopped the enty glass down. “So we’ve got these guys buying pool chlorine, cheap nail polish remover and hair bleach.”

I laughed. “Blonde hair on these guys is going to look…”

“Mate, think chemicals. Chlorine, acetone, hydrogen peroxide…” He looked at me meaningfully through the patina of foam, and made a “kaboom” with his hands. That his DTs were yet to steady somehow lent the gesture more gravity. “The preferred ingredients in amateur bomb-making.”

“This is common knowledge? That’ll teach me to start the newspaper at the back.”

His big bang theory upped the ante in our little investigative hi-jinx. It was all very well arsing about the country playing Colombo and eating room service, but if these guys were cooking up bombs clearly we had to tell someone of ASIO-like proportions.

We worked our way through the T-bone lunch special trying to come up with legitimate reasons for buying that combination of products, and there were some, but nothing overly plausible. Still, we had to eliminate that possibility, then we could throw it all in the lap of our “alert, not alarmed” national security friends and walk away smelling like… er, Steve Liebmann.

At the time, the decision to jump the back fence of what could have been terrorist central to see if they had a pool and makeshift nail salon in the back porch had seemed a sane and logical one. And yet, six foot in the air straddling the wooden fence at 11 that night, it was harder to justify.

With John’s pendulous gut reducing his climbing skills to less than cat-like, I was forced to be the ninja-like brawn of the operation, while my master creeper offsider put me through Trespass 101. Apparently between 11 and midnight was the best skulking hour - late enough for most to be in bed, but with some suburban noise still in the air to mask your rustlings. The safest approach to a backyard was from the back yard that backed onto it (pray it’s the home of a dog-less pensioner), and wear normal clothing - you’ll have a slim chance of talking your way out of the poo if you’re sprung.

As I lowered myself to the weed-strewn ground, I suspected fast talking would not be an option.

On ground level the back yard was almost as blank as the front, the house completely dark. I could see a Hills Hoist, no pool, but there was a freestanding besa block garage. I made a beeline for it, creeping like a lynx.

Then, as I hit the approximate centre of the yard, the muzak version of Hip To Be Square rang out in the silence.

Jesus H. Christ! As I grappled with my mobile, trying to strangle the ringtone out of it, I caught a glimpse of the caller: “A. Parnell”.

Then the security light on the garage (equipped with motion sensor, apparently) froze the world in white light - with me playing a one-man game of statues.

Episode 6 - Hiding to nothing

“Cricket Australia and its representatives and subsidiaries would like to hereby express their deepest regrets at the tragedy of the first Test match against South Africa. To (cough, hack) fail to win from such a strong position brings us immense distress and our thoughts are with the families of Aussie cricket fans everywhere.”

That’s the message I was expecting on Adam Parnell’s voicemail when I dialed it walking out of the WACA shellshocked and floating along on beer buzz and afternoon heat. Instead I got his voice nattering on with the usual workaday guff, so I rambled something about following leads to Melbourne and having everything wrapped up early in the second Test. Hopefully South Africa wouldn’t do the same.

I knew Parnell would be knee-deep in first Test post-mortems, recriminations, and trying to stop his players letting off steam by clocking strangers at random. That freed me up to deem the investigation ongoing and two days later Gacy and I were happily ensconsed in the Hilton on the Park, just across from the MCG. The CA credit card just kept on keeping on.

Our first order of Melbourne business was to hit another nets session and try to pick up the trail. There’d been no word from Parnell about more annoying calls from the Bobs to Mike Hussey (or similar) but Gacy and I were supremely confident that we’d see their little joyless faces.

We were quickly proven right. Off Brunton Avenue three days out from Boxing Day, there didn’t appear to be any of our skulking friends in the crowd watching the batsmen in the MCG nets but on closer inspection, we found the taller one further down the street. He was waiting outside Gate E, watching the entrance to the underground carpark. Every so often he would walk around to the corporate foyer or do a lap, then come back out and stand somewhere with a clear view of that down ramp under the stadium.

While not being obvious, he was paying attention to the vehicles driving in and under the MCG and the associated security.

“They’re casing it for sure,” Gacy said through a mouthful of pie. “And they know what they’re doing.”

“Joy. But what are we talking: terrorism, kidnap, extortion?”

“Go ask him. Whatever it is, someone’s financing it.”

“And not a sponsor’s logo to be seen. That’s hardly playing fair.”
It took three hours for Taller Bob to leave his stakeout and head to Flinders Street, and jump on a train out to the north-west. Gacy and I did likewise, staying in touch by mobile and tried to mix up our surveillance. We ended up in standing on a suburban street corner in the sunshine in Sunshine.

The guy went into a bog-standard brick-and-tile bungalow. No garden, barely a lawn - it was remarkable only in its blandness.
Gacy fired his serious face at me. “So - you want the bad news or the bad news.”

“If you’re about the tell me that this could be Bob HQ, I got that.”

“Good. And what about home ground advantage? Whatever they’re doing will probably be this coming Test.”

It was all a bit heavy. I took out my notebook and found a number for the cops. I needed advice.

I only knew one cop in the country, and happily she was possibly the hottest detective in Sydney, Detective Paula McMurray at Rose Bay Police Station. When I’d last had a run-in with her, she’s been a greener-than-Kermit detective partnered with an old curmudgeon on the verge of retirement. Now she’d be flying solo, which is rare for pigs, and I hope she’d forgotten that the last time she’d tried to lock me up I’d made them both look like pork-flavoured cretins. The fact that she was five-foot-three of pure brunette man-hating sex in a suit had only limited influence on my decision to call.

After a few tries I was put through to her mobile. She squashed my smalltalk like dangling genitals under her fembot jackboot.
“If this is a social call, Mr Gibson, you are about to be disappointed.”
Steamy talk like that always got me going. “Actually, I was after some advice.”

“I’d tell you to get a haircut and a real job, but we’ll just leave it at a real job, shall we?”

“Actually, I’m on a case and I’ve seen some individuals acting suspiciously.”

When she got over her incredulity that someone was paying me to investigate something, I laid out what we’d done and seen, leaving out the part about harassing phone calls. Gotta protect the Test stars in the winter of their discontent.

“It’s not my juristiction, obviously, but the Federal Police might want to know about this,” she said. “I could get through to the relevant people for you.”

“Cool and the Gang. That’d save me days of phone tag.”

“Give me your number and location and I’ll pass on the info. If they want to know more, they’ll call.”

Too easy! This investigating biz wasn’t so hard - it was about grooming contacts. I promised McMurray a flash dinner somewhere nice, which she promptly refused, and hung up.

I realised later that the next call the good detective made was indeed to the Federal Police; to certain members that were well acquainted with Gacy and I from last time. Her suggestion was to investigate us for harrasment and stalking. It was payback time.

Episode 5 - Shout, let it all out

We spent the rest of the first Test watching, waiting, trying to figure out why an ageing Asian boy band had become fixated on the Australian cricket team. Honestly, that’s what they looked like - but this four were less than fab and looked to have fallen on times so hard they’d been forced to raid Kevin Rudd’s casual wardrobe.

We alternated between sitting in our increasingly fetid hire car in front of a Flag Motel and mooching around the WACA with one eye on the game and the other on the crowd, trying to pick out our suspects. That must have been the reason we were pie-eyed by the end of each day’s play.

Hey, all work and no play makes a pair of investigative dullards even duller. Since we had access-most-areas passes thanks to CA, we were obliged to give them a hiding, and we watched and cheered on the Aussies as they attempted to silence the Yarpies’ yarping with a Johnson-inspired win. We were there when Johnson’s eight-for had us looking from the big screen to the field, trying to figure out which were new dismissals and which were action replays. We were there when Haddin went six-silly and then when the Saffers’ heroic run chase was building. But we were working, dammit, and scanning the crowd for more than nubile young women with witty slogans on their tank tops.

“So here’s why there’s no point going to the cops, or even our mate at CA at this stage.” Gacy had plonked down in the seat next to me with his shout. We both took sips of our cold ones and each enjoyed a quiet first-beer-of-the-day moment. Then he laid it out.

“We’ve been watching these chumps for almost five days and, for a start, they’ve done nothing wrong. There’s nothing illegal or even immoral in four badly dressed guys going to the cricket.”

I looked down at the Gilligan’s Island-esque hibiscus polyester shirt brimming with pie crumbs, sauce stains and static electricity from being stretched taut over his gut. “Good thing too.”

“And, if they could prove that we’ve been watching them for five days, we could be the ones with the constabulary up the Khyber.”

“But, being surveillance operatives more cunning than the proverbial fox that’s been to cunning school, there’s little chance of that.”

“True,” Gacy said. “But that still only leaves us with four guys staying in a motel, going to the cricket.”

I put on my devil’s advocate hat. “One of whom answers to Bob.”
Gacy was shaking his head. “One of whom turns around when you shout at him.”

“We’ve got four blokes that don’t go to the game together. They go at staggered times, and sit alone. Like our man over there.” One of our guys was sitting qietly, sipping water in the cheap seats down near the players’ walkway onto the ground. We’d found that at least three of the guys would end up at each day’s play, always sitting in different seats and sections.

“Yep, that’s odd, Point to you.”

“And they don’t even acknowledge each other when they’re in public.” I said. “Like they’re trying to avoid detection, not form a group or even a pattern of movement.” Being a professional follower of the guilty, sneaky and canniving, snapper of salacious skin shots John Gacy derived his livelihood from predicting the movements of Average Joe, who was usually making a beeline to where he shouldn’t be. Gacy knew better than most that routine is one of the most fundamental human instincts. That our suspects were constantly varying theirs was the most suspicious of all their actions. I kept on the offensive. “And they’ve obviously planned this a long way out. Tickets went on sale yonks ago and they made sure they bought random seating then.”
Gacy had reached the bottom of his plastic cup. “Yeah, I think we can assume they aren’t hooked up with CA passes.”

I was mainly interested in what I was going to tell Adam Parnell at the progress report he would no doubt want at the end of the match. “So what’s to stop us just wading into the Flag Motel and beating the hell out of the accountants’ convention? At least I could tell Parnell something - that we scared them off.”

“Nothing’s stopping us, but do that and we never find out what they’re really up to. It’s not like we’re going to torture it out of them. That’s not really our go.”

“It could lead to trouble, for sure,” I said.

“Look, stalkers always work alone - these guys are up to something bigger, and it involves the Aussie team, and their movements.”
“What? Kidnapping? Extortion? What?”

“Who knows, all of the above, maybe. But you pick them off and beat them up and then they go to ground, then come back in six months time and finish whatever it is they’re doing. Then the cops come knocking because somehow they found out we knew about it before the event… Your shout, Fall Guy.”

I got up just as Graeme Smith got his hundred. As Gacy wobbled his jowls in a congratulatory manner, I said, “What are you doing Boxing Day?”

Episode 4 - Drag nets

Ah, the first day of a Test match series and the tradition continues: the crowds, the expectation, the search for a fast-acting hangover cure…

After our confab with Cricket Australia’s finest, we celebrated not being unmasked as pretenders with a tiny foray into the minibar in my room, which led to a major offensive on its cousin in Gacy’s room and a midnight stumble around the streets looking for an all-night bottle-o.

Wisely such a thing seemed to be outlawed in Perth, or if there were any, there were none in the Kings Park undergrowth I passed out in.

As the most credible, finely tuned investigative duo since Danger Mouse and Penfold, we came good quickly by zeroing in on the breakfast buffet in what turned out to be the hotel in the Burswood Resort. I hadn’t seen any players around, but then I hadn’t even realised what hotel I was in until I looked up at the sign as I stumbled in picking leaves off my shirt at first light. I saw signs to at least four bars on my way in and thanked God we’d missed them the night before.

Given that we had a hire car, Gacy whined a little on the walk over the causeway to the WACA, but I needed the fresh air, and it gave us time to study the blurry image of what could have been Ricky Ricardo’s younger brother. Man, shade would have been nice. Where was Bill Lawry’s nose when you needed it?

One of the few things we did know about Bob was he liked to hang out at the net sessions, presumably to get a fix on the object of his desire. I just prayed we wouldn’t find him touching himself.

At the long row of WACA practice wickets, a couple of Aussies were doing some last-minute fine-tuning, with some of the Saffers at the other end. The crowd made it hard to see who had the pads on, but it looked like Matt Hayden was getting a few from late call-up Peter Siddle and others, and was that Shane Watson batting in the next net? A tad intense for a 12th man, surely. As we hung back and scanned the crowd I got a bit of a pang - it wasn’t that long ago that I was on the other side of the wire, in the baby blue of New South Wales back in ye olden days of the Pura Cup.

I shelved the self-pity and watched. Actually, one guy did stand out as a possibility straight away. “Hey, John - light blue shirt, chinos, dark glasses. Bob material?”

“Mmmmm. He does look pretty close to the picture. But what about this guy - jeans, leather shoes, dark blue polo. Leather shoes in this weather?”

That was a bit odd. Both young blokes looked similar - skinny, olive-skinned, conservative - and seemed to be alone, watching rather than socialising.

I kept my eye on my Maybe Bob. Time dragged, people milled.
“Had a little accident. Nothing too serious. Take a look a this place, take a look at this mess… nothing too serious.”
“Is that frigging Icehouse? What’s with you and ’80s music?” Gacy said.
I hadn’t even realised I was humming. “You tell me what other decade could have produced Dexys Midnight Runners, Kacha Googoo and Mi Sex and…”

Gacy just shook his head and walked off to do a lap around the ground to see if there were any other prospects.

Then chinos guy started moving. At first I thought he was just going inside, but he passed a couple of gates.

I had an idea. “Hey Bob!” I ducked into the crowd as I yelled it, and watched the guy’s head snap straight around, but then so did a few others’. It was enough. Soon he was heading from the ground and into the surrounding ‘burbs with me in pursuit. We were going against the human tide, and I had to work hard hanging well back to not be too obvious. John had taught me quite a bit about surveillance, on foot, in cars, rummaging through people’s recycling - unfortunately for his ex-wife, most of the skills were honed following her and their kids.
I cracked the new phone. “John, it’s me. The pigeon is out of the coop.”

“What?”

“You know. The lion has left the building.”

“Mate, where are you? If the bars are open already…” Gacy said.

“Doofus, I’m following the guy - he’s heading… shit, he’s getting into a car.”

“Good thing we left ours behind. Wouldn’t want wheels at a time like this.”

“Thanks. I’m sticking with him. Stay on the other one.”

By sheer dumb luck, a few of the empty taxis coming back from the ground were around and I managed to hail one before the gold Cortina Bob was grinding along in was out of sight.

Not 10 minutes later the taxi dropped me half a block away from a Flag Motel on a main drag in what the cabbie said was Riverdale. My Bob had parked his shitbox in front of room 17 and I watched him disappear inside.

After an hour behind yet more of Perth’s finest shrubbery, I started to go cold on the guy. What self-respecting cricket-stalker follows the team to Perth but doesn’t go to the game?

I was about to ring another taxi, when one turned up, and out got the other Maybe Bob from the nets, along with another guy who could have been his cousin. They knocked and were let into room 17.

A minute later Gacy materialised in the bushes beside me. “This weird enough for ya, Cool and the Gang?”