Inspector Bourke in Sydney, Bangkok and Moscow: Crime, Politics, Sex

What is cheaper and more effective: guns or heroin?    

How does Detective Inspector Frank 'Ironman' Bourke find out who set up the international robbery and heroin smuggling operation? And what is the role and motivation of the officers of the Russian and American consulates?

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There is a series of unsolved jewellery robberies in Sydney. It ends when a well-known cat-burglar Rudy Valentik falls off a second storey balcony during a robbery. Before he dies, he confesses he's the burglar the police are looking for. His last words are, 'he gives the tips, he pays', but he doesn't name any names.

Media attacks on the police stop for a while until newspaper magnate Crawford Forest's house is burgled and jewels are taken away in circumstances similar to the previous robberies.

Forest's newspapers start a daily campaign against the 'inefficient police' and personally against the minister and the commissioner. Commissioner Jack Warren orders the head of the Break and Enter squad, Patrick O'Malley, his brother-in-law, to organise a task force.

The commissioner orders O'Malley to make Sydney's best detective, Inspector Frank 'Ironman' Bourke head of the day-to-day work of the task force. O'Malley tries to stop giving Bourke a leading role because there has been long standing animosity between Bourke and his boss, O'Malley, Bourke having fought for years against the corrupt methods of O'Malley and his cronies (stealing money, drugs and pornographic films found during house searches, etc.)

The results of a widespread investigation are fed into a central computer and it points to a Double Bay jeweller, Maurice Rainier, whose secretary Joy Kearney travels to overseas fashion shows to model jewellery approximately two weeks after every robbery. All stolen jewels contain large gemstones and none of them are offered for sale in Australia. Bourke suspects that Rainier gets the goldsmith working for him to remove the precious stones and smuggle them out of the country.

Commissioner Warren uses a ruse to blackmail Joy Kearney's occasional lover, Stewart Kendall, to follow Joy on her next overseas trip and orders Bourke to covertly follow the couple and act as a bodyguard for Kendall.

Two weeks after the latest jewel robbery the three people fly to Bangkok separately where Kendall is to have a holiday with Joy. She is supposed to model 'imitation jewellery' for customers who can order the chosen items to be made up for them in real gold and gemstones by the Rainier firm.

In Bangkok everything happens in a flash: Thai gangsters attack Joy and steal her case with the gemstones set in gold coloured base metal. Joy visits the gang boss to ask for his help and while she is there Kendall and Huey - a cooperative Thai detective - steal back the case and get Joy out of the house.

Next day Joy takes the case to Ralph Rainier, a jeweller cousin and partner in crime of the Sydney jeweller. She is paid in heroin which she takes to the Russian Embassy to exchange it for alexandrites, rare semi-precious stones, as she has been trusted to do on previous occasions.

In front of the embassy, Lok Lie, a Thai gang boss' man tries to grab the heroin-filled case from Joy in a motorcycle attack but the Russian guards prevent this and take Joy, the gangster and the heroin-filled case into the embassy.

Kendall, Bourke and Huey fight the guards in vain to save Joy and the case but have to retreat when threatened with guns.  

On the basis of Bourke's report, the Sydney and Bangkok police make coordinated raids on the premises of the Rainier cousins in Sydney and Bangkok where they find dismantled stolen jewellery, large amounts of alexandrites and heroin. Maurice Rainier's goldsmith confesses to melting down stolen jewellery.

During the search of Rainier's Sydney office, O'Malley misunderstands Rainier's hand movement towards his pocket and kills him with one shot. They find on him a card with the phone number of the second secretary of the United States General Consulate in Sydney.

Yury Bykov, Russian consular secretary in Bangkok, a former KGB agent, is the partner of the Rainiers in the heroin smuggling organisation. Joy Kearney has acted as a courier between him and the Rainiers in the past. Bykov tells Joy, who is held captive in the cellar, that the Thai police are watching the embassy to arrest her when she tries to leave and reminds her that there is a death sentence for drug dealers in Thailand. He offers to smuggle her out in an embassy car and take her to Moscow if she agrees to work for him in his organisation there. Joy agrees.

In Moscow, Bykov sets up Joy with false papers in a flat and one of his cohorts gives her Russian language lessons. The fast-learning Joy first parades as an English fashion expert contracted to help organise fashion shows. In the company of another agent she is used as bait to trap drug dealers who are trying to take over territory supplied with drugs by Bykov's organisation. There is however another group, the Boss's Boys, made up of former Afghan war veterans who want to muscle in on the same territory. They stab to death the first drug dealer who contacts Joy.

After Joy reports this, Bykov tries to catch the Boss's Boys but they avoid the trap, follow Joy and kidnap her. They take her to their camp where after some rough handling Joy tells everything to Sasha Golkov, the leader of the group. He likes her and she prefers staying with the manly Golkov to returning to Bykov. She adjusts to the new group, their women and children, and accompanies Golkov on his visits to the Arbat District in Moscow when they collect protection money from the shopkeepers.

One night there is a gun fight with Chechen gangsters who want to destroy the Boss's Boys organisation and take over their protection racket and drug supply business. After hours of gunfighting the Chechens are beaten off. Golkov decides to move their camp.

In the new camp, just outside Moscow, Joy learns that General Rutskoi is the man her new allies call the Boss. He was the commandant of their units in Afghanistan and they are still loyal to him. After leaving that war zone, the veterans supported Yeltsin - against Gorbachev and Krychkov - but dumped him after he had Rutskoi arrested. Now they are backing Rutskoi's run in the next presidential election. There is contact between the gangs and they divide the territories.

Interpol issues a world-wide warrant for Joy Kearney's arrest. Moscow CID identifies Joy and offers to arrest and extradite her to Australia but only if an Australian policeman personally identifies her first in Moscow. Frank Bourke goes to Moscow to bring her back to Sydney.

While in Moscow, Bourke learns that from heroin to atomic warheads everything is for sale, gang bosses have public meetings in cafes in the middle of the city, the police and the militia know about the activities of the largest gangs but are afraid to act against them because they have more sophisticated guns.

Lok Lie's Thai connections have Joy Kearney poisoned during the flight en route to Sydney, at the Bangkok refuelling stopover.

The Police Internal Affairs Tribunal in Sydney finds O'Malley responsible for Rainier's death. Bourke becomes a candidate for O'Malley's position.  

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