Pandora's Noah's Ark Box
Hot Cars, Cold Women

So anyway, the day arrives, the night, really, because that is when all the action is planned to go down.

My limousine driver, a German gentleman called Walter, he goes down to the South-of-Perth Yacht Club, and he takes with him my US credentials that Vera provided, and he goes into the huge roped-off function centre and tells the staff to pass a message onto the Chinese woman, Xue. And he waits outside for her, and presently, she comes out, with her short cape on and her Prada handbag and she’s going with Walter, see. LOL There’s certain codes and you don’t need to know what they are here.

Anyway he drives her around for a few minutes, letting her know that it’s likely the Australian-designated AFP close follow security team is right there behind them and so they will just drive around a bit, and then just drive back to a few hundred yards back from where they started in the first place. ...Until the clandestine SAS hit team that was also coming was in position out there somewhere in the dark near wherever they were - , from where they would eventually replace out that they had been misled too, of course. But in the meantime Walter would transfer themselves – Walter and Xue - into a really quick vehicle and then they would the both of them go to another, different yacht club jetty but still quite nearby to the function centre where she had been at earlier. It was Walter’s job to pacify her if she got anxious, but then at the same time, she likely wouldn’t get too anxious because this cloak and dagger stuff was what she was all about anyway, and in any case she would have had her personal tracker on her and functioning.

Here’s a thing that people like the Australian Federal Police will never ever quite get their heads around: people who are inside this world have deep deep roots in places they cannot ever understand. I’m not going to tell you who actually named this tall new high rise residential development right along the same side of the river there, not three hundred yards from the Yacht Club. Sure, originally it was owned by this truly big league ‘prominent Sidney businessman’ and hotelier, Abe Saffron. There was still a beautiful, art deco-style hotel out front of the main residential development. ...But it was wasn’t anyone to do with the bikkie gang boss or the kids of the Slovenian entrepreneur from the Fifties and Sixties. So I cannot say whose grandfather actually named it.

Let’s say it was Walter though, someone to do with him... LOL, wasn’t but you’ll get the point presently.

Walter drives the lady through the underground car-park of the hotel, and even when the Federal Police clandestine chase team finally argue and shove their way past the gate-people, they don’t have a single idea that there is a secret way to get to the underground car-park of the private residential apartments tower next door from the hotel’s car-park, and so they just drive around, and drive back out, bewildered. Who knew, right? LOL Only someone connected with the original builders and owners would have known, if the thing were truly secret by design from the start; which it was. And it wasn't on any 'building plans' on account of which. So there you go.

When Walter takes Xue out of the Raffles Waterfront Tower, in a McLaren 570GT, the only reason he takes that vehicle is... ...just in case. So he’s really just driving around quite sedately next and no one sees anything, and yeah, he changed his hair colour first and Xue is literally wearing a Covid mask!

*

For what is about to happen I have to release a few details to more than just the Chinese (and to Vera too, of course), in this instance it’s to a French lady associated with very big private industry in Europe; nothing really to do with government. Unless you accept that sometimes there are extremely thin lines between government and massive industries.

So it’s Charlotte who is walking up the gangway onto the boat. Charlotte is the person wearing the robe de style. Red hair. Svelte. Absolutely piercing grey-blue eyes.

She is met by one of the boat stewards, Harold, or Harry or something, I don’t remember which one of them now... He escorts her to the large rear open deck lounge, and asks her what she would like to drink. There’s so much food here too, from Basil’s Catering, which is this gourmet food operation out at Anchorage Drive, Mindarie; another upscale yacht club affair of course. I provided the boat staff, but it was Alon’s recommendation about the food.

I had told Alon to bring a good dozen of his friends for the first part of the evening on the express understanding they would be taken elsewhere for the second half, probably down to the Raffles later on because what was going to happen then on the boat was not for their innocent eyes and ears.

There were a lot of eyes clamped on Charlotte, naturally, as soon as she walked on board. One of the boat stewardesses, a shortish, slim, girl, neatly-uniformed, brought a small platter over to where Charlotte had been seated. When she heard Charlotte’s accent she spoke to her in French, and I could see Charlotte’s amazing eyes widen and her lips break into a wry smile.

There was quite a lot of background noise going on, from the people all chatting away, and a little bit of not too loud piped music.

As soon as Walter drove up -, right on up to the dock area in the McLaren, Alon saw my signal and began drawing his friends off the boat. They all went quickly, still chatting noisily and looking forward, most probably, to the ‘open bar’ for them down at the Raffles. Alon went with them, but he would be back in a few minutes. All the main lights on the boat were switched off leaving only some muted violet strip lighting and everything more or less in complete darkness with a few shadows with some mauve and purple hues being cast around them, and also off them where the women’s gowns had some shiny silk fabric on it, or chrome-work.

Harry also went with the group who had left, so did the other male steward, leaving only myself, Charlotte, the captain upstairs, and the slim Asian girl in the boat uniform, staying behind. And then, when Xue the Chinese spy lady came up the gangway and aboard, she was added to who was all left here.

Charlotte, interestingly, got up and extended a hand to Xue. I could see that either she knew who Xue was, or they had met somewhere before.

There was very little background noise now and it was easy to hear Charlotte’s strongly accented voice say: “Saskia de Rothschild’s Long Dai wine launch, I believe... We met.”

“Oh yes. I remember.” Xue nodded. Her face seemed to soften, seeing someone from the European ‘high society’ circles here now.

I switched the electronic jamming equipment ‘on.’

Xue was the first to peer into her handbag and see what the soft but obvious alarm was about.

Charlotte’s purse set off a cute, spacey little high tech sound next.

I told them all not to worry because it was just so that the Americans would not be able to track us just for a short while.

Xue was the first to point out the obvious: ’But I have come because the Americans invited me.”

“Yes, I know, and so they have and everything will be quite fine. But you see, even they want to take maximum steps to ensure that no one unauthorised in their groups are also trying to ‘come along for the ride,’ so to speak. I hope you will understand. And I assure you it will be only for the briefest of minutes now. Momentarily all your communications will be restored to you. Or do you wish to leave right now? You certainly may if you feel you cannot remain.”

Strangely, Xue darted a look first across to the uniformed stewardess, and then next, one into Charlotte’s face and piercing intelligent eyes. I was certain I detected a subtle tiny shake of the head by the rather diminutive, jockey-sized stewardess. Hmn, yes, diminutive, but then, there was also something athletic too about her – you could literally see the veins running across her strong forearms and along the muscles filling into the spaces of her crisp pressed uniform top’s white short sleeves.

“No. It will be fine.” She replied curtly.

“Well then, that’s decided. Now while we wait for our friend, the young man to whom this lovely boat actually belongs, let us all grab something reasonably decent to hold in our hands and I shall lay out the events of this evening, as they have been planned.”

I could see Alon walking briskly back towards our dock, from the Raffles Hotel. There were plenty of lights along the board-walk along the riverside.

But as he neared the dock there were trees and night shadows there and all the dockside lights that were usually on there, had been turned off by someone earlier in the night. Alon’s figure moved into the darkness around the dock and merged into the black shadows and it was difficult to make him out even when he came up the gangway and stepped back aboard.

As soon as he was on board though, you could hear the engines start up, and he swiftly untied the gangway contraption and cast off the tie-up ropes from all around the boat’s starboard side, and bow and stern. And then, without really even giving a glance at the brace of beautiful women now out in the rear open lounge area, Alon fairly scampered up the hard varnished open-pore step-ladder to the command bridge and gave the captain the nod to leave the dock.

I tried to peer down at my watch just to note how perfectly Alon was keeping to the pre-set schedule that I had drilled into him. ...I couldn’t really make out any numbers on my watch! LOL

Away off in the immediate distance, perhaps five hundred yards away, was the brightness of the function centre at the big Yacht Club.