Boganmeldelse: 'The New Zealand File'

Issued: He needed to find out “Who was in the car that followed him? Who were they working for? And how had they found him so soon?”

Summary: British spy Ian Munro is on holiday in Fiji when he gets a phone-call from his boss, Naylor, telling him to go to Christchurch in New Zealand to meet another spy, Cochrane, at the airport. Cochrane tells Munro he has to go to Haast Beach and meet a third spy called Longstaffe, who is bringing some important information from Antarctica. Munro has to take Longstaffe to a safe house in Queenstown. As

Munro drives out of the airport, he notices a blue car following him. Munro stops in the centre of the city and tries to lose the people following him by going into Christchurch Cathedral. Inside, he sees the man from the blue car who has followed him on foot and kills him. Then he rents a new car to drive to Haast Beach to wait for Longstaffe. When Longstaffe arrives by boat, people start shooting at them and kill Longstaffe. Before he

dies, Longstaffe gives Munro a picture card, and the code ‘One-eyed penguin’. Munro escapes and drives to the safe house in Queenstown, which is a flat on the top floor of a small block. However, when he looks out of the window he sees some men already arriving at the block. He doesn’t understand how they always know where to find him. Munro escapes by climbing up through a ‘door’ in the kitchen ceiling into the roof, crossing the roof, and getting down into the flat next door. There he changes into some running clothes that he finds, and manages to get out of the flat and past the men, who don’t recognize him in the different clothes. He runs until he finds a taxi and goes to another town called Wanaka. In Wanaka, Munro buys some new clothes, a laptop and a camera, and goes into a café to try and open the picture card, but he can’t. Because the café is full, a nurse called Lisa Jardine asks if she can sit at Munro’s table. They talk, and Munro tells her he needs somewhere to stay. Lisa invites him to her flat, where they make love and then sleep. In the afternoon, Munro works out the ‘One-eyed penguin’ code as the ‘pengu1n’ user ID and is able to look at the pictures on the picture card: they are maps of Antarctica. He then goes out and phones Naylor on the mobile phone he got from Cochrane. Naylor tells him to go to the Moray Hotel in Dunedin and to ask for Mr Broadhurst. Back in Lisa’s flat Munro finds out that Lisa was a karate champion. He also notices two men in the street of the town looking for him. He asks Lisa to drive him to Dunedin in her car. As they are driving out of Wanaka, Munro sees a bus that is about to leave. He thinks the men who are following him know where he is because of his mobile phone, and so he puts it onto a bus that is going to Christchurch. Then he and Lisa leave. As they drive, Munro and Lisa talk, and he tells her a little about what he is doing. When they get to Dunedin, they drive past the hotel twice to check that no-one suspicious is outside it, and then they go in. Lisa sits by the fire downstairs reading a newspaper, while Munro goes up to room 326. He is very surprised when his boss, Naylor, opens the door. Naylor explains that there are some spies from New Zealand and different parts of Asia who are working with Cochrane to sell secret information to other countries. Naylor and the New Zealand police want to catch them all and so are using the picture card that Longstaffe brought to trap them. At that moment, the door opens and Cochrane comes in with a gun. A few minutes later, one of the spies – Mr Safarian – comes in with Lisa Jardine. Cochrane asks Munro for the picture card. Munro wants to try and escape, but Cochrane keeps the gun on him, and Safarian holds a gun against Lisa. Munro asks Lisa to remember what sport she is good at, then he takes out the picture card and throws it up in the air to distract Cochrane; as soon as Cochrane’s eyes move to follow the card, Munro attacks and beats him; at the same moment Lisa beats Safarian using her karate. The story ends with Munro and Lisa driving back to Wanaka for him to continue his holiday.