He recently signed a three-year contract to work for and recruit mercenaries for the sheik who heads the oil-rich country.

Mr. Monte describes his security work for the sheik as "a continuing surveillance job."

He believes his employer to be the richest man in the world. By the terms of the contract neither the sheik nor his country can be publicly identified.

"I'll be flying in an out, keeping on my business here and returning regularly to look after the Gulf operation, which is electronic surveillance against suspected insurance agents," he said.

In plain language, Mr. Monte with his own staff of two men, will be "debugging" - searching for secret recording devices hidden by the sheik's enemies in various parts of his two palaces - and "bugging" - setting up his own hidden recording devices in some rooms.

Mr. Monte and his family will be living in a five-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a luxury hotel. The sheik has also arranged for the Monte household to have it's own cook, two domestic servants, a young English-speaking Arab women teacher for the boys, and two cars.

The cars are Mercedes 600-Pullmans, "the only cars that are big enough to be bullet-proofed successfully," Mr. Monte said.

"We prefer not to have the children photographed or their names published," he added firmly. "I've had threats from extremist groups who are anti the Gulf oil sheiks."

Erin Monte, a blue-eyed redhead has been intrigued and startled by revelations of women's life in the oil sheikdoms in Anne Leslie's recent Look! articles.

"I'm not narrow-minded, but some of it might be a bit mind-boggling," she smiled. "I've only been out of Australia twice before to Fiji and Noumea for holidays."

She summed up her attitude to the prospect of living in the Arabian Nights world of the Gulf Sheikdoms.

"It will be broadening for the mind, but I'm a little bit apprehensive - not being the type for racing into things, And I'll certainly be glad of the domestic help."

Mrs. Monte, a Sydney girl, met her husband when they were students. She worked as a receptionist for a time before they were married.

Exotic food will not be strange to her. "I've cooked European as well as Australian for the eight years we've been married," she said. "My mother-in-law, being originally an Italian from Egypt, has given me Greek, Italian and Arabic recipes."

Mr. Monte is a pleasant-faced calm young man with a casual manner that masks his versatile talents. Born in Suez and brought up there by his Italian parents, he remembers the bombs raining down in 1956 when the British and French tried to stop the Egyptians taking over the Canal.

He came to Australia with his family when he was 19. The languages he had learnt growing up in Egypt - classical Arabic, Italian, Spanish and French - he has found extremely useful in the career he has forged for himself as a private investigator with his own company. Assignments have included security work for several big oil and insurance companies in Australia.

He recalls with a certain melancholy satisfaction his experience of working as personal bodyguard to the late Aristotle Onassis for two years in 1971 in Rome.

"He was a very direct sort of person, and liked talking to people who didn't put on an act."

Mr. Monte sat at his comfortable office desk in Australia Square Tower and fingered the wrought-gold money clip the sheik has sent him as a cordial token of his trust. (For Mrs. Monte there was an anklet and bracelet also of pure gold).

"I have a dream to fulfill, and part of it is to be trusted by this kind of man," Mr. Monte said reflectively. He will not be in the least surprised by unpleasant incidents during his three years in the oil kingdom.

"Two American private investigators went there last year to do a job like mine and were blown up three weeks after arriving there."

He believes Chinese communist agents could have been responsible.

Mr. Monte added that when a pipeline blew up spilling oil into the harbour, it cost the sheikdom's annual revenue a loss of about $US 21 million.

"The country's annual revenue is about $5,000 million dollars. Everyone's trying to get a bit of this money. And there's a lot of intriguing and spying going on."