by Tim Ayliffe
‘We’ll explain everything in a moment.’ He tapped Bailey on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’
Harriet Walker.
This must be about the conversation he’d had with Hat at the Lindt Café the previous afternoon. About what she did next.
‘I’d like to know what you think I’ve done.’
‘We’ll be the ones asking questions.’
When they arrived out front, Bailey counted six people. Three of them – two men and a woman – were standing around on his front porch, while two others, a man and a woman, dressed more casually, were loitering on the footpath beside the open door of a four-wheel drive.
‘Boss, this is John Bailey.’ The guy escorting Bailey waved at the older bald guy standing on Bailey’s porch. ‘Car’s parked up the street.’
The bald guy walked down the steps, holding a document out to Bailey. ‘John Bailey. We’ve got a warrant to search your premises for materials relating to a series of stories written by you and published in The Journal in 2011 about a raid on a Taliban safehouse in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan. Stories that also referenced a leaked Australian Defence Force report.’
‘You fucking what?’ Bailey snatched the document from the bald guy’s hand. ‘Articles I wrote eight years ago? You’re kidding, aren’t you?’
The guy didn’t answer, leaving Bailey to read the warrant for himself.
The warrant had a ‘Local Court of New South Wales’ stamp on it which meant that any old judge had signed off on it.
‘Michael Keslop?’ Bailey said.
‘Penrith District Court.’
‘You got a judge in Penrith to stamp this?’
‘It’s a formality, Mr Bailey. The law is the law.’
Bailey shook his head. ‘And I’m guessing you’re Dominic Harding.’ That was the person named as the ‘executing officer’ in the warrant.
‘Correct.’
Bailey kept reading the legalese rubbish that granted a gaggle of AFP officers the right to assemble outside his front door, readying to go in.
The warrant apparently gave them the right to search everything from his handwritten notes and emails, his internet search history, photographs and planning logs.
‘This is bullshit,’ Bailey said, flicking through pages so that he could take it all in. ‘The only place you haven’t listed to search is my arsehole.’
‘That can be arranged,’ the guy who had escorted Bailey from his car piped up.
‘You think this is a fucking joke?’ Bailey said.
‘Calm down, Mr Bailey,’ Harding said. ‘We’re just doing our job.’
‘What this looks like is a massive invasion of privacy and an assault on press freedoms,’ Bailey snarled. ‘This isn’t just a fucking job.’
Bailey took a breath and kept reading.
The second page of the warrant was where things got interesting, confirming to Bailey exactly what it was the police were trying to find.
The list stretched across two pages, showing web addresses to Bailey’s stories, and the names of anyone, or anything – any words – that may have been used in communications or files that related to the Uruzgan killings. This included Commander Harriet Walker, Abdul Rashid Haleem, The Journal, Gerald Summers, Rachel Symonds, Chief of Defence Force, Special Operations Command (SOCOMD) and Special Forces.
Bailey was left in no doubt that the AFP were accusing Commander Harriet Walker of being the person who had leaked information to Bailey. It was written in black and white. But why now?
He kept reading.
The warrant listed a dozen different ways that Harriet may have passed documents to Bailey, or ways in which Bailey may have stolen them, with each allegation referencing some obscure code from the Defence Act.
Bailey’s meeting with Harriet the day before must have provided the missing link that the AFP had been searching for all these years. A warrant like this one didn’t just appear out of thin air. Someone must have revived the old investigation into the security breach that led to Bailey’s original stories. Someone must have either seen Harriet and Bailey together at the Lindt Café, or somehow hacked into their messages. Someone with the right connections, or moderately good access to the AFP’s databases, could have easily placed Harriet Walker in Kabul in 2011. The meeting at the Lindt Café must have been enough to get the search warrant over the line. Enough to convince a district court judge from Penrith, anyway.
No one was ever prosecuted for the Uruzgan killings. No soldiers, or commanding officers, were even stood down. It was one of the army’s biggest alleged cover-ups. At the time, several high-ranking military figures and politicians had called for Bailey’s resignation, labelling him a traitor. But Gerald had stood firm, refusing to throw Bailey to the wolves, backing his correspondent’s story and questioning the motives of those trying to discredit it.
Afghanistan’s Minister for Justice, Abdul Rashid Haleem, was so enraged by the denials coming out of the ADF and the Australian Government that he had, indeed, followed through on his threat to take it to the International Criminal Court, where a special hearing had eventually delivered an open finding. It wasn’t the damning conclusion that he had hoped for, but it wasn’t an exoneration either. For an often toothless court like the Hague, the finding was enough for the Afghan Government to eject several senior ADF figures out of their country. Another reason that the ADF had it in for Bailey.
Bailey hadn’t flinched when he read Walker’s name on page two of the warrant. He knew that the AFP were on a fishing expedition and without either confirmation from Bailey that Harriet Walker was his source – which they’d never get – or documentation that proved it, the raid on his home would end up being nothing but an exercise in intimidation.
His confidence took a blow when he made it to the section about the powers of the warrant though. It gave them the right to enter Bailey’s house and take forensic samples.
He kept reading, skimming over words that listed, in multiple ways, how these people were about to turn his house, and his life, upside down.
There was one other clause he found deeply disturbing. It related to every electronic device found in Bailey’s possession. Computers. Phones. Storage devices. Police had the power to search whatever they wanted. And more.
Bailey was trying not to panic as the words filtered through his eyes and into his brain. The warrant said they had the power to ‘add, copy, delete or alter’ anything they found on his electronic devices. The words filled him with fear. Those specific powers were mentioned over and over, reinforcing the extraordinary scope of the warrant. They could alter and delete his files? It didn’t make any sense.
And then, on page 6, came the clincher. It said that ‘the executing officer, and any constable assisting in the execution of this warrant who is a police officer, may use such force against persons or things as is necessary and reasonable in the circumstances.’
The guy standing in front of Bailey had just been granted the power to put him in handcuffs and lock him inside a prison cell on nothing but a whim.
‘I’m going to need you to unlock your front door,’ Harding said, obviously deciding that he’d given Bailey enough time to think. ‘Then you’re going to need to give us access to all of your electronic devices. Phones. Computers. Laptops. Anywhere you store information. Passwords to unlock them. Any original materials relating to the Uruzgan stories. And don’t play games with me. It’s a short drive to the nearest prison cell.’
Bailey was so angry he was almost shaking.
The link that the warrant had made between him and Harriet Walker was an allegation. The raid on his house was about finding the proof. About pressuring Bailey to make an admission. But that would never happen. Bailey always protected his sources.
‘Wait a minute.’
Campo. He’d forgotten about Campo.
‘I left my dog in the car.’
‘What?’
‘My dog. I took her for a walk this morning. She’s still in the back of the car.’
/> ‘Give me your keys,’ Harding said, holding out his hand. ‘One of my team will get her.’
‘No, they won’t.’
Bailey turned and started walking up the street, hearing the sounds of footsteps trailing him, turning to see the officer who had escorted him to his house returning with him to his car. He opened the boot of his station wagon and watched Campo take a few awkward goes to get to her feet and then climb, slowly, onto the footpath. Her beady eyes staring affectionately at her master before she gave the stranger a sniff. Checking him out for the both of them.
‘Greyhound?’
‘Yeah.’
Bailey got down on one knee, attaching the leash to Campo’s collar, noticing the drain next to his car tyre. Bone dry and inviting. A place to hide.
‘Fuck! A cat!’ Bailey yanked on Campo’s leash, pulling her back, distracting the officer for a split second as he dropped his phone into the drain, coughing loudly to disguise the sound it made when it hit the concrete a couple of metres below.
‘What are you playing at? I didn’t see a cat.’
Bailey got to his feet, feeling slightly guilty about startling Campo.
‘I’m not worried about you seeing it, mate. My dog clocks a cat and she’ll be off like a bullet train. All dogs chase cats but the problem with greyhounds is they can actually catch them. It’s not pretty when they do.’
‘Okay. Enough about your dog.’
‘You’re the one who keeps asking me questions about her.’
The guy went to respond but thought better of it, tapping Bailey on the shoulder, pointing at his house.
‘Stop pissing around.’
Bailey walked up the front steps of his house without looking at Harding. ‘I need a minute to put my dog out back in the courtyard. Get her a drink. Then you can do whatever you fucking like.’
Worried that the scope of the warrant could lead the AFP down rabbit holes that he hadn’t even thought of yet, Bailey was trying to buy time so that Gerald and a lawyer could get here. More witnesses. More eyes.
The warrant appeared to be so broad that Bailey feared that anything could be deemed relevant to the years-old investigation. Could other stories he’d written suddenly become more interesting as they sifted through materials on his devices and in his home? Decades of stories – investigations – upended and undermined, ripped to shreds by a local judge’s interpretation of a criminal act that had been written at a time when the most common mode of transport was a horse and carriage.
These officers wouldn’t just be going through Bailey’s work documents. They had the right to search anything they bloody well wanted. Email communications with his daughter, his ex-wife, his friends. Were they fair game too? The thought was terrifying. Personal information becoming public. Things people had no right to know. His medical records. All those sessions with shrinks. His breakdown. Alcoholism. His role in the counter-terrorism investigation that had brought down the FBI’s most wanted terrorist. The murder of Sharon Dexter.
Fuck.
Bailey felt like he was in a sauna, panic rising through his body in a rush of heat. He could feel the beads of sweat pushing through the skin on his forehead, blood flushing his cheeks.
Throwing his jacket on the kitchen table, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, pausing at the pantry to get Campo one of those pork snacks she liked to chew on, before leading her to the courtyard. Taking his time to fill her bowl with water, gently stroking her head. His only friend. Those calming beady eyes.
‘C’mon, Mr Bailey. Now you’re just trying to piss me off.’
Bailey closed the door to the courtyard, leaving Campo outside on her own. ‘Where do you want to start, then?’
‘Laptop. Phone. Desktop computer.’ Harding didn’t need to quote the warrant, he knew exactly what he wanted. ‘And my team will also be searching the rest of the house. Cupboards. Drawers. If you’ve got a safe, you’ll need to open it. Any boxes where you store files. Everything.’
Bailey looked at his watch. It had been around fifteen minutes since he had spoken to Gerald. His old friend lived on the other side of the bridge, hopefully the morning traffic was moving.
‘Laptop’s there.’ Bailey pointed at the computer by the telephone on the kitchen bench. ‘It’s all I use. Desktop packed up on me a few years ago, realised I didn’t need one any more.’
Harding directed one of his officers to get to work on the computer. ‘Password?’
‘Leichhardt.’
Harding raised an eyebrow, like he was about to ask Bailey why he’d chosen a Sydney suburb as a password, and then thought better of it. Not that Bailey would have told him. Leichhardt was the suburb where Sharon Dexter had lived. Where she had owned a house. The house that she’d left him in her will.
Click. Click. Click.
‘Mr Bailey?’
Harding was clicking his fingers at Bailey, who’d zoned out, thinking about Dexter.
‘Your phone. I need your phone.’
Bailey patted his pockets, pretending to search for the phone that he’d dropped in the drain up the street, before doing the same with his jacket on the bench.
‘Don’t play games with me, Mr Bailey.’
‘Not sure where it is.’
‘Is it an iPhone?’
‘Yeah.’
‘We can pull the data we need from the cloud,’ Harding said, smirking. ‘But I still want your phone. Find it.’
‘What cloud?’
‘Don’t get smart. The warrant permits us to go through everything, including data storage.’
Bailey shrugged, looking again at his watch. Twenty minutes since he spoke with Gerald. Hurry up, mate.
‘Sorry. Bit of a dinosaur with all that stuff. I don’t use the cloud. Don’t trust it. I figure if I can put stuff up there then someone else can pull it down.’
‘You must back up your files somewhere.’
A statement not a question.
‘USB sticks and portable hard drives.’
‘Where are they?’
‘The drawer in the study.’
‘Go get them.’
‘No.’
Harding took a few paces towards Bailey, leaning on the bench. He was a few inches taller than Bailey and he was looking down on him, an obvious attempt at intimidation.
‘Are you intentionally failing to comply with a search warrant?’
Bailey stood his ground. ‘Look, fuckwit. You can grab whatever you like. Consider my house an open book. But you’re going to need to sift through the pages yourselves. There’s nothing in the warrant that says I need to spoonfeed you people. Don’t expect me to make you coffees and serve you lunch. Don’t expect me to be a good bloke, either.’
‘Sir.’ The guy who had escorted Bailey to and from his car was standing in the corner of the kitchen. ‘Could I have a word?’
Harding walked over to him and Bailey could hear the two men talking quietly, although he couldn’t make out the words.
Eventually, Harding turned back around, a smug look on his face. He pointed to a woman in a suit. ‘Watch him. If he moves or tries to do anything suspicious, arrest him.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, looking blankly at Bailey.
Harding and the other officer left the room and Bailey and the woman stood in silence. Seconds turning into minutes. Bailey’s legs suddenly tired and heavy.
Minutes later, Harding walked back into Bailey’s kitchen holding a mobile phone in his hand with a cracked screen. He had a disturbing, triumphant smile on his face.
‘Managed to find that phone for you.’
The other guy must have remembered the drain. He must have heard the phone hit the concrete. Or at least he’d seen enough to make him suspicious.
‘Not mine.’
Harding took a few steps forward, pressing the screen so that Bailey could see the photograph of his daughter through the cracked glass.
‘So that’s not Miranda?’
The bastard even knew her name.
/>
‘Password?’
Bailey was in trouble. He’d read the words of the warrant and knew that he needed to give Harding and his officers access to all of his electronic devices. That meant passwords too.
‘Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.’
Harding punched in the numbers, the glow of the screen flickering on his face as the phone came to life.
‘Do I need to search any other drains in the street before we get started?’
Bailey answered his question with silence, panicking at the reality of what was going on inside his home. The realisation that his conversation with Harriet Walker on Signal was only a few swipes and presses away. Wondering whether that would be enough to take her down. Knowing that the raid on his house wasn’t about him, it was about exposing the person who had leaked a classified ADF file.
‘It didn’t have to be this way.’ Harding was standing beside Bailey now, metal handcuffs jangling in his hand. ‘Turn around.’
‘What?’
‘John Bailey, I’m arresting you for failing to comply with a search warrant.’
CHAPTER 14
As prison cells go, this one wasn’t so bad.
Everything in the room was made of steel and bolted to the floor. Toilet. Sink. Table. Stool. Even the bed he was lying on. The only things that weren’t held down with bolts were the plastic mattress and the thin blanket that he had scrunched up and tossed into the corner, fearing that it was crawling with bed bugs.
The small window didn’t open but it was big enough to flood the cell with natural light. The yellow dim telling Bailey that it was getting close to sunset, which meant that he’d been locked inside for at least seven hours. More.
Bailey had spent most of the day at Paddington Police Station, lying flat on the wafer-thin mattress, counting mould spores on the ceiling, surprisingly intrigued by the swirling patterns they made. He was trying not to think about what was happening back at his house. His drawers being tipped upside down. Cupboards raided. Investigators scouring through his computer and every storage device they could find. Copying and altering his files. Deleting them. Doing whatever the hell they wanted, thanks to the ridiculous suite of powers signed off by a district court judge in Penrith.