by Ian Edward
Kate would travel there later. It was important the players kept a reasonable distance from one another, so that the unity behind the real investigation was kept hidden.
Outside the sun might have risen further in the morning sky but it was unseen by Adam and Markham. It was covered by thick, ominous cloud. The unnatural twilight continued with the random claps of distant thunder becoming increasingly louder.
Erickson and his men tramped the river’s banks. The boy had been swimming but he must’ve come ashore at some point. Erickson’s intention was to retrace the route, hoping it would yield some clue. His team, after all, were skilled hunters, unlike Vender’s weirdos.
Mid morning. Cloudy, gusty. They came upon an elderly man who had cast a fishing line. A typically old-fashioned hardy country soul, thought Erickson. He liked the type. It reminded him of his father.
‘Are they biting today, friend?’ Erickson asked.
‘No. Lazy today,’ the old man replied. ‘They probably don’t like the weather any more than I do.’
‘Or maybe that swimmer yesterday scared them all off, eh?’
‘What swimmer?’
‘I heard some kid swam right through here. It would have been, oh, around this time, maybe a little earlier.’
‘Never heard that.’
‘Probably no one else down here that early anyway,’ Erickson said, shrugging it off.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. ‘Ol Costas Yannous is often down here as the sun’s coming up. When it comes up, that is. Boy does that man love to fish. You know Costas, our local deli man?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe he was down here with young Joey.’
Erickson replied quickly, manipulating the conversation. ‘Don’t believe I know young Joey either. Costas’ son?’
‘No. Young Joey Cail. Barbara Cail’s boy.’
‘Well, good luck. Don’t go giving up on those lazy little fellows.’
‘Never do.’ The old man grinned. ‘And it’s the big fellows I’m wanting.’
So it was a popular spot for the local fishing addicts, thought Erickson. Now he needed some luck. He needed for one of the fishermen to have seen Daniel, he needed for someone to have helped the boy. And if such a person did exist, the trail would lead to Daniel.
He used his cell to call Jackson Donnelly. ‘I don’t care how you do it,’ Erickson said, ‘but I need you to get hold of the local fishing suppliers’ current customer list. I need names and addresses. And for starters, get the addresses of Yannous and Cail from the local phone book.’
‘What’s this all about?’ Donnelly hated being given instructions by Erickson.
‘I don’t have time for twenty questions, Donnelly. There’s a fishing spot along the river where the boy swam to his freedom. It’s possible someone saw him and helped him. I need those addresses.’
Throughout England, Europe and the U.S, covert intelligence agencies such as MI5, the CIA and the FBI have surveillance people who listen to tapes, and view emails around the clock, endless relay teams of “listeners” and “watchers”. They work with communication software that scans the digital pathways, the airwaves and the telecommunications cables. Key words and combinations of words have been programmed into these systems. When these words occur within a particular verbal or written communication, an alarm signal is activated and the communication is routed to central mainframes, recorded, listened to over and over, the “chatter” evaluated for its security implications.
Known collectively as Echelon, it is the method by which the secret services have in the past detected terrorist plans to kidnap or assassinate politicians, members of the Royal Family or high-ranking law enforcement officers.
Nexus had its own such communications surveillance centre. Within the last week, given the problems surrounding the Institute, they had set up special scans in the Northern Rocks region. Forty eight hours ago they’d first zeroed in on half a dozen phone calls and emails, containing one or more word/phrase combinations of ‘Westmeyer’, ‘Institute’, ‘drownings’, ‘Greg’, and/or ‘Kovacs’, ‘Adam’, and/or ‘Bennett’, ‘crocodiles’, and ‘poachers/hunters’. The recorded conversations were replayed again and again, the information cross -referenced between one tape and another.
The Head of Nexus Surveillance was then in contact with Asquith as he travelled to Australia. It was confirmed that Bennett’s investigation of the Jane Doe led to his involvement with a Task Force codenamed Origin. It was ascertained the Task Force had connected the Institute with both the croc hunters and the drowning victims off the Australian and North American coasts.
By the time Asquith arrived in Northern Rocks that morning he’d been advised the Task Force was in town, readying itself to move in on the Institute.
Asquith felt the old rush of battle, of being in the front lines. There was a calm confidence, a steely resolve.
He remembered that day, as a boy, in his father’s storm shelter on the old farm.
You can only be in control in a place like this, a place of calm.
The eye of the storm.
He and his team would be taking control. No need now for the usual, preliminary on-site observations and considerations. The crisis was more advanced than expected, the need for action clear.
The “relocation” would be brutal and immediate.
Dianne Jarvis and Bob Pritchard arrived at the domestic terminal, Brisbane Airport, late that morning. Both possessed comforting, easy-going personas, that led them to the top of their field when it came to communicating, counselling and negotiating with young people – teens and pre-teens who were victims of crime and/or of use to police in assisting with information.
O’Malley had called them in as counsellors for Daniel and to act as go- betweens to the boy and the Task Force. The only information they’d been given so far was that the boy was possibly a runaway from a religious sect.
They were due in Northern Rocks early afternoon. Aware of the urgency, their frustrations were heightened when the airport loudspeakers announced a forty-minute delay to their connecting flight.
Erickson had given Tannen the task of observing the Cail home. One of the younger members of the croc hunting crew, Collville, was across town watching the Costas Yannous address.
Tannen found a spot, between bushes, near the corner of the nearest cross street. He trained binoculars on the house, watching for movement inside the windows and the side paths of the home. The information he’d been given was that Barbara Cail and her son, Joey lived there and that the Greek, Yannous, was a regular visitor.
Tannen, like the others on the team, had been shown a photo of the boy they were hunting.
As Erickson was a moody, intense character, Tannen liked it when he was particularly ‘on side’ with his boss. He enjoyed the life he’d been living these past few years, hunting reptiles and the occasional hapless human out there in the wilds, plenty of adventure, plenty of money, nothing to worry about. Today was one of his lucky days.
There were two boys in the house, visible through a parting in the curtains to what must have been the Cail boy’s bedroom. One of them met the description of the boy they were hunting.
Pushing his bushy dark hair back from his eyes, Tannen flipped open his cell phone and called Erickson.
Having returned to The Institute, Erickson was in Donnelly’s office when he received the call. Triumphantly he sneered at Donnelly.
‘I told you I would find the boy.’
CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT
Daniel’s freedom was an exceptional worry to the First Keeper. He’d had runaways before but they’d been caught quickly. There’d been very little disruption to routine.
Daniel had been on the loose too long. Even though he’d walked into their trap at Northern Rocks he’d still managed to escape. That was why the First Keeper had called Westmeyer. This time, for the first time, he needed the help of Westmeyer’s goons.
When faced with this level of anxiety, the First Keeper
liked to walk the streets of the large regional New South Wales town nearby. Wearing casual, everyday clothes he blended in easily. It amused him, watching the passing parade of men and women, young and old, from all walks of life, going about their petty business in their temporary little lives.
One hundred years ago another, similar group had gone about their business in this same place, all gone now, none of them remembered, even the next generation that did remember them also mostly long gone. And so it was all over the world. Six billion people, selfish, greedy, all the centres of their own temporary universes, reaching out with their wants and needs and desires, all to be gone and largely forgotten in another hundred years.
All ensconced in their sin, in the evils of the world. Destination: hell.
He was the only one to see the futility of it all…that the one and only way to get close to God and be truly saved, to achieve everlasting life and become totally pure of spirit, was to remove yourself from the rest of humanity, to purge yourself of the infection.
Because sin was infectious and it spread like wildfire.
How to do that, to purge oneself? There were so many religious leaders, so many churches, so much sin…
The First Keeper had tried many of them in his younger days. He’d been raised in the traditional church, trained for it, and then later hounded out because of his unorthodox views. He’d served in Vietnam, and then wandered the world, dropping in and out of various religions and sects. He’d always gravitated toward the leadership and always duelled with the other leaders.
And then a unique financial opportunity to return to Australia and set up his own group, true to his own vision: a small but growing “family” that could strive for spiritual purity by ensuring it was segregated from the mainstream; a “perfect” society ready and in-waiting for the coming of Armageddon and the return of the true Lord of all things.
The Keepers Of The Faith were born and the first Com made possible by William Westmeyer and his links with an odd tearaway group within US Defence, calling themselves Nexus; it’s beginnings seeded in those days and nights, so long ago, in the Mekong Delta.
It came as no surprise, to the young Westmeyer, that there’d been one other survivor of the massacre in the Vietnamese Sun La Province – the Australian, Joseph Vender, his bizarre and unlikely companion these past twelve months.
Morning broke with a watery orange sunrise, rays of light like splashes of watercolour against a sky of rich azure. William had begun an aimless wander along the river, one of the tributaries of the Mekong. Not far from the scene of the mass drowning, he came across the equally distraught Vender. Tall, stringy, hyper, Vender had eyes that shone like beacons whenever he was animated, which was most of the time.
Hobbling around in circles, muttering, with his matted long hair and beard, dripping sweat, he was a surreal cross between Rasputin and the leader of rock band Jethro Tull, a lunatic figure in a landscape gone mad.
It was Vender who persuaded the villagers to accept him and William into their fold, a year earlier. It suited them both, hiding them not only from their own troops but also from the Vietcong. The villagers were hated by both the South Vietnamese people and by the communist insurgents from the North. The villagers’ strange religious beliefs made them outlaws from the forces that were overtaking their country.
They had created their camouflaged village in the marshlands and were ready to move it at a moment’s notice if threatened by exposure.
And yet, despite all that, William had felt safe here.
Later on, looking back, he realised he must have “gone troppo”, that mix of exhilaration and delirium that could affect people in the wild. Civilised people wrenched back into a world of savagery and survival, exposed to the elements, becoming at one with nature. It hadn’t been uncommon in Vietnam. To this day, William had never been sure whether Vender was similarly affected, or whether in fact, always an oddball, he’d simply found a place that suited him.
The Mekong River basin was separated from the country’s other geographical basin, the Red River, by a mountain chain backing onto narrow coastal plains. Most of the traffic in the north of Vietnam was along the maze of waterways, even more so in wartime.
The Mekong Delta was a flat alluvial plain, much of its land surface covered in rice paddies. At least one third of the region was marsh and swamp, many of the swamp areas difficult to access. The road system was so bad it wasn’t even considered usable by the military forces.
William and Vender went back to the smouldering remains of the village and scavenged for the little food they could find. Then they wandered the banks of the tributary for five days. On the sixth day, they were rescued by an American Forces River Patrol.
The U.S. Navy had established the River Patrol in ’65 to patrol and take command of the rivers. The boat that picked up Westmeyer and Vender was a PBR, a 31-foot fibreglass hull cruiser especially suited to operations in shallow waters. Manned by a crew of four, the PBR boats were equipped with surface radar, radios, and armed with .50 and .30 calibre machine guns.
William was surprised by the dope smoking, gung ho captain of the crew.
The young man’s name was Donnelly. And whilst he regarded Vender as something of a freak, Donnelly seemed to enjoy spending time chatting with William.
William and Vender made sure they wouldn’t face court martial for going troppo-or going AWOL as far as any military judge was concerned. Until now they’d been listed as missing in action. They informed their rescuers they’d been captured and imprisoned in a Vietcong detention stronghold hidden within an obscure Vietnamese religious cult. The U.S forces had never heard of any such religious sect but had no reason not to believe the two men.
But Donnelly, a man who enjoyed vindictive acts simply for the hell of it, suspected their story was a lie. He knew the Vietcong would have no such tolerance of any religious cult. He voiced all this to Area Commander Logan Asquith.
Vender and Westmeyer were demobbed and sent home, but Asquith let it be known to both men that he knew their secret and could expose them. This granted him favours he knew he could call in at any time. He wasn’t sure what use, if any, the warped Vender might have. Certainly he would always be useful, with his strange background, as a patsy. Westmeyer, on the other hand, had entered into service as part of a little known sponsorship program. He would continue with the Forces in scientific research. After a period of service he would be free to go out on his own. A man like that could prove incredibly useful to the ambitious Asquith.
Westmeyer was a brilliant young mind, but with a somewhat maverick soul.
Perhaps that explained why he’d become involved with a weirdo like Vender and why he’d gone troppo out in the jungles.
Asquith often wondered what the hell had gone on out there.
Asquith prepared profiles of Vender and Westmeyer when he was creating Nexus.
Joseph Vender had been born to Dutch parents who emigrated to Australia at the end of the Second World War. The family settled in the coal mining town of Herefordvale in South Australia. Sullen and moody as a child, Joseph was raised by strict parents. His father, Carl, was an enigmatic character who belonged to a pseudo-religious/political group called White Dawn. Bitter, disenfranchised men and women, they were ultra right wing, wore ceremonial robes when they met and considered themselves a breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church.
Joseph found life in the small town depressing and often went hiking, alone, in the woods. It was on these walks, he later revealed to Westmeyer, that he first imagined an isolated community, free and unhindered in practicing their religious beliefs, in harmony with nature – and quite unlike the bitter group with which his father was so obsessed.
It was also during these formative years the young Vender developed an interest in cults around the world, their beliefs, their leaders, their communal structures, and he read book after book on the subject.
He became involved in local churches. But with his bizarre ideas none
of the churches would encourage his leadership aspirations. In ’73, although not drafted, he volunteered to the Australian Army. To Vender it represented an escape and he had no intention of returning to South Australia.
In the Sun La Province, one year later, he met Westmeyer and they formed their unlikely friendship.
During his early months at Sun La, Vender first heard stories about the obscure sect somewhere in the jungles and when he sought them out he persuaded William to join him.
Westmeyer’s brilliant, ordered and adventurous mind was affected by Vietnam in ways he would never have imagined. After recovering from several weeks of fever, his actions became erratic, his mind toying with Vender’s unusual beliefs.
Following him into the jungle to live like a native, he had fallen in love with a beautiful young Vietnamese village girl.
They experienced a totally different and mystical lifestyle as guests of the cult.
Vender used his charms to persuade the leader to accept them. There was nothing manic or oppressive about this group’s ways, as Vender thought there might be. They were simple, honest people with a faith in God that mixed Christian views with Vietnamese jungle folklore and the fanciful ideas of the leader himself. As time marched on, Vender pushed his own ideas for austere leadership, strict living regimens and heartless punishments for the children.
Many of the elders began to keep a cautious distance from him.
Westmeyer noted, with interest, that some of the younger members were seduced by Vender’s charisma. They spent increasing amounts of time with him, supporting his ideas, performing small tasks for him.
