Two weeks ago, after security protocols surrounding Mr Trump’s schedule were ramped up following his decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, X-rays of an unopened box of the Titleist Pro1 balls he prefers to play with revealed micro-circuitry not dissimilar to the kind which Mossad installed to such devastating effect in Hezbollah pagers. This circuitry was subsequently discovered to belong not to a bomb, but to a GPS synchronised guiding system which allows the balls to be steered in flight from a remote location.
After learning that the balls had been a gift to Mr Trump from his Florida neighbour Greg Norman, CIA officers visited Mr Norman at his magnificent oceanfront home, where, after a few minutes of gentle waterboarding, Mr Norman recalled that they’d been sent to him by ‘some bloke in Canberra’. In an astonishing departure from his legendary Great White Shark persona, Mr Norman then burst into tears and described the part these balls were to have played in an ASIO operation planned for the forthcoming weekend, when he would be visiting Mar-a-Lago to give the President some tips on his short game.
The balls’ guiding system, the CIA men learned, would ensure that Mr Trump parred, birdied, or even eagled the first 17 holes the two men played. But having in this way gotten Mr Trump into a really good mood, drone operators in a Fyshwick bunker 12,000 miles away would then steer his final drive deep into the rough.
Having previously been told where the ball would land, Mr Norman would lead an anxious Mr Trump towards it, but on arrival at the spot, the American President would find himself ambushed by none other than his Australian counterpart, Mr Albanese and his fiancé having checked into the resort the previous day (at a non-golfing room rate to minimise the cost to Australian taxpayers).
Having in this way finally secured the one-on-one meeting which he has failed so abjectly to secure through standard diplomatic channels, Mr Albanese would then promise to show Mr Trump exactly where his ball was if he agreed to a) settle for Australia only increasing defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP, b) promise not to give Aukus the same treatment he gave The Paris Accord, and c) stand beside him for a selfie. The consensus of the Canberra foreign intelligence community, a still tearful Mr Norman confided to his new CIA friends, was that the prospect of wiping so many strokes off his personal course record in front of such credible witnesses would enable Mr Trump to overcome any reservations he might have about pushing the USA trillions of dollars further into debt and ceding control of the Pacific to China.
What the CIA failed to find out about from its conversation with Mr Norman, because Mr Norman wasn’t told about it, was the Australian Government’s Plan B.
The first part of Operation Coo-ee! will require Mr Albanese to sign up for the once-a-week guided tour of the White House and its environs which is so popular with visitors to Washington. Ambassador Rudd, whose relations with the Trump Administration are even worse than his boss’s, will register separately for the same tour. On the day, the two men will slip away from the group at a prearranged time and make their way to a Rhododendron bush behind which a White House gardener has been bribed – with two premium economy Qantas returns to Brisbane and a week in a Surfers Airbnb – to leave a stepladder. After positioning this stepladder in the middle of the lawn directly below the windows of the Oval Office, Mr Albanese will climb to the top of it. Mr Rudd will then hold the ladder steady while the Prime Minister of Australia waves his arms around and shouts ‘G’day, Donald!’, ‘Down here, mate!’ and ‘I was only joking last year!’ as loud as he can in the hope of attracting Mr Trump’s attention before the men in black arrive.
