HIGHWAY patrol officer Paul Withers was on his motorbike at Walsh Bay when he heard the first call over the police radio at precisely 9.45:08am.
His response was immediate.
He messaged back his call sign, noted “Code Red” and that his estimated arrival at the Lindt Cafe would be five minutes.
Inside the cafe, what was happening was so totally unexpected it took more than a few minutes for everyone to even realise what was going on.
COPS’ FURY AT LINDT SIEGE INQUEST ‘WITCH HUNT’
As Withers sped towards Martin Place with his siren and lights blazing, waitress Fiona Ma casually picked up two coffees and a tea from barista Harriette Denny and walked them over to table 32 for three of the regulars — Marcia Mikhael, Puspendu Ghosh and Viswa Ankireddy.
Mikhael, a self-confessed Lindt chocoholic, had initially planned to skip her regular visit that morning because she was trying to be healthy in the run up to Christmas.
She knew who the manager was, but didn’t know his name was Tori Johnson.
She saw him on the phone, his head in his hands, calling staff over to whisper. She asked Ma what was going on. The waitress said she wasn’t sure.
Superintendent Allan Sicard was being driven to North Sydney to chair a meeting when he heard the radio call about a man with a shotgun talking about bombs who had taken hostages inside the Lindt Cafe. Sicard turned the car around.
Under call sign Sydney City 1, he said he would be there in 10 minutes to set up the Forward Command Post in a purpose-built police bus in Elizabeth St.
It was 9.50am and Sicard called his boss, Assistant Commissioner Mick Fuller, regional commander for the central metropolitan region (now NSW Police Commissioner).
Fuller had a “gut-feeling”.
He knew this was what they had been training for, but never wanted. Only an assistant commissioner can order the heavily armed elite Tactical Operations Unit out.
Without hesitation, Fuller made that call at 9.57am.
In quick succession, he alerted his immediate boss, acting Deputy Commissioner Jeff Loy, and the head of the state’s counter-terrorism command, Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch.
The Police Operations Centre was quickly established.
Working out of a room with a wall of CCTV cameras acting as eyes over the city, setting it up was significant because it was used only in times of high need.
Fuller took command at the centre, whose address must be kept secret. The TOU had joined police from across the city converging on Martin Place.
Inside the cafe, nobody had taken much notice of the guy at table 40. Sipping his English breakfast tea, he had a piece of velour chocolate cheesecake in front of him.
To his right were the swinging glass doors opening into the foyer of the lawyers’ chambers at 53 Martin Place.
Tall, with the bottom half of his face covered in a short beard and wearing a black Adidas cap, he had strolled through the main Phillip St entrance at 8.33am.
He had first taken a seat at table 36, but after ordering asked waitress Elly Chen, on only her third day in the job, to help him move to a different table which was L-shaped, had its back to the wall and gave a better view.
Barrister Michael Klooster had just paid for a takeaway coffee at the register when the bearded man called him over.
At first Klooster didn’t recognise the former client for whom he had appeared in a family law matter but he would recall how calm he appeared.
The lawyer, whose chambers were eight floors above, would have gone over to the man had he not been due in court. Instead he took his leave and his coffee.
The man was wearing a black backpack and at his feet was a blue Big W bag. He called over Ma to ask if she would keep an eye on the shopping bag as he went to the toilet.
A dentistry student paying her way through university, she had only worked at the cafe for a week.
Back in his seat, he caught her eye and asked to speak to the manager.
Johnson had been working between the cafe and a Lindt pop-up store at the Homebush DFO outlet.
That morning he was back at Martin Place, having arrived there by 6am to let the others in and open for business at 7.30am.
As he walked over to table 40 it was coming up to 9.40am. Christmas carols were playing in the background.
In the kitchen, chef Paolo Vassallo had finished his regular morning whinge to Johnson about staff on shift turning up late.
He had just completed the croissants and was standing at the island bench.
Helping with the dishes was Denny, who hadn’t yet told her family the good news she was 14 weeks pregnant.
Part-time waiter Jarrod Morton-Hoffman rushed in to get the cafe keys from Tori’s bag.
“Why do you want the keys?” Vassallo asked.
“Tori said we have to lock the cafe down,” Morton-Hoffman replied.
The 19-year-old shouldn’t have even been working that morning — he was covering for a friend.
At table 40, the usually calm manager’s face had turned red. At 9.41am, Johnson dialled triple-0 — his head in his hands.
The cafe manager told the operator he was on the corner of Martin Place and Phillip St.
“Is that in Martin Place or Sydney?” the operator asked.
“Do you know the next cross street to where you are?”
Johnson replied: “The cross street is Martin Place and Phillip St.” Operator: “But is Martin Place actually a, it’s not actually a street”.
Johnson: “Martin Place is a street, yes. It’s a pedestrian street.”
Operator: “OK, but it’s not actually a road. I need a road.”
Johnson remained remarkably calm throughout the exchange and told the operator hostages had been taken and there were bombs at Channel Seven, George St and Circular Quay.
She kept him talking until he told her he had a gun in front of him.
Selina Win Pe had been craving a hot chocolate that morning as she walked from her job as a manager with Westpac Bank to a meeting in Kent St.
She was going to get a takeaway but decided to sit down and enjoy it. She was due at the meeting at 10am and at 9.45am, she paid her $7 bill through “tap and go”.
“You can’t leave,” the girl on the till said as she handed Win Pe her card back.
Sitting close by, Louisa Hope overheard. She had arrived with her mum, Robyn Hope, at the same time as the man.
Barrister Julie Taylor, 18 weeks pregnant, had gone straight from a 9am court appearance to the cafe to meet up with friends Katrina Dawson and Stefan Balafoutis, who had ordered a chocolate milkshake.
They had paid the bill and were ready to go.
As Taylor finished off her weak coffee, she saw the man standing up in the alcove next to his table.
He had taken off his jacket, had a black vest over his white long-sleeved top and removed his cap to reveal a black bandana. They all carried Arabic script.
The headband translated as “We are your soldiers Muhammad” and “May Allah honour him and grant him peace”.
On the wristband and vest, the script read “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger”.
Taylor could see that in his hand he held a sawn-off shotgun.
both inside and outside the cafe, people were still unwittingly trying to come and go. Ma recognised one of her colleagues, Nathan Grivas, among those outside the doors.
Taking a docket out of her apron pocket, she wrote “closed” on the back in pencil and held it up to the glass.
“I work there, this is strange,” Grivas thought.
Meanwhile Johnson was still talking to the triple-0 operator in a call that lasted 12 minutes.
As he read from a note handed to him by Monis, his next words were: “Australia is under attack by the Islamic State.
“There are three bombs in three different locations, Martin Place, Circular Quay and George Street.
“I want to contact other brothers and ask them not to explode the other two bombs but I can’t contact because they don’t carry phones. They have radio with them, I can say that through radio ABC.”
While Johnson spoke to the operator, the man turned and addressed the six staff and 12 members of the public inside the cafe.
He was chillingly calm. Four minutes after his radio message, a minute ahead of his estimated time, Senior Constable Paul Withers was the first officer on the scene.
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