The Enemy Within

by Tim Ayliffe

  Using his left hand to wipe his eyes, he noticed something moving in front of him on the grass. Russell. On his knees, swaying and trying to get up. Bailey yanked on the handle of the car door with the hand that worked, pushing it open, falling out and onto the road. He rolled onto his side, pushing himself up off the ground, oblivious to the people staring at him from the footpath, the grass and the shops on the other side of Campbell Parade. Wondering what the hell had just happened. What was going to happen next.

  Staggering across the footpath, Bailey made it onto the grass, where Russell was lying down again, barely moving. The post from a sign that had been advertising the Australia Day festivities impaling his stomach. His shirt was torn open revealing a tattoo on his chest, the artwork bloodied but easy to see. Four numbers.

  14/88

  The Fourteen Words. Heil Hitler.

  Bailey was staring at the guy who had bashed Matthew Lam almost to death at a pub in Paddington. Someone linked to the murders of Augustus Strong and Jonny Abdo.

  Warm-up acts for a Bondi massacre.

  Dropping to his knees, Bailey wrenched away the weapons still attached to Russell’s body. Rifle. Knives. Pistols. Throwing them out of reach on the grass.

  Russell went to say something but all he could manage was a gurgling sound. He gave up, slumping onto his back, eyes staring at Bailey, suddenly realising this was it. His life was over. His grand statement reduced to a media story, then a footnote, before it became nothing at all.

  Watching the life fall from Russell’s eyes, Bailey searched his emotions, desperate to feel something for the pathetic extremist on the grass. He found almost nothing. No sadness. No grief. Only pity. Because Russell Ratcliffe had died a long time ago. The moment he started believing the lie.

  Bailey lay back on the damp grass, staring at the clouds, the drops of water floating down. His shoulder randomly clicking back into place, sending another pulse of pain through his damaged body. Bruises. Cracks. A busted nose. The things that happen when you drive a car head-first into a steel pole. When your head thumps a steering wheel. If only he’d followed his daughter’s advice and bought himself a better car. Something nice. Something modern. Something with an airbag. Maybe he wouldn’t be feeling so rough. Then again, Russell may not have careened through his windscreen and been impaled by an Australia Day sign if Bailey had owned a car with an airbag.

  He closed his eyes and heard sirens in the distance, getting louder. Cars skidding to a stop. Doors opening and closing. Footsteps running. He knew that he needed to get up but he didn’t want to move. He just wanted to lie there and let the raindrops fall on his face. Breathe the smoke-free air.

  ‘Bailey!’

  He opened his eyes, hoping the voice he’d just heard wasn’t a dream.

  ‘Bubba, you okay?’

  Ronnie was next to him, kneeling down, a makeshift tourniquet around his bicep.

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘It’ll take a lot more than a sonofabitch like that to take me down.’

  Bailey went to laugh but the pain made him stop. ‘All right, tough guy. Help me up, would you?’

  Bailey held out his good arm and Ronnie grabbed his hand, pulling him up.

  A loud blast of thunder grumbled from the sky and the rain that had started a few minutes earlier was now pelting down. The grey curtains that had been dangling over the sea were giving Bondi a drenching it hadn’t seen in years, sending people running for cover.

  The rain had also plastered Ronnie’s shirt to his body and Bailey could see where the bullet had entered his shoulder. ‘You need to get that looked at. Is it the only one?’

  ‘Copped another two in the vest before I dived down the embankment. Sorry I left you.’

  ‘You didn’t leave me,’ Bailey said, holding his gaze to let him know.

  ‘John Bailey?’ A guy in a raincoat appeared behind Ronnie. ‘I’m Detective Greg Palmer. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘We’ve been to Harding’s house. Just missed you. Mr Johnson filled me in on the way down. Thanks for sending Annie that text. We got some emergency calls from residents in Bronte who were woken by the gunfire. Put two and two together. Then we got a call about a guy with a gun.’

  Bailey wasn’t up for the debrief. Not yet. ‘Can I go?’

  ‘We need to get you to a hospital. But we’re going to need to talk to you later. Both of you,’ Palmer said, gesturing to Ronnie too.

  ‘Figured.’ Bailey nodded, tapping Ronnie’s chest with the back of his hand. ‘Good luck with him.’

  Palmer laughed, like he was expecting it. ‘Interviews can wait. There’s an ambulance over there.’

  ‘You head over, bubba. I’ll catch up. Looks like you might need a minute anyway.’ Ronnie pointed at the ambulance, where Annie Brooks was standing in the pouring rain, staring in their direction.

  Bailey was already walking away as Ronnie pulled out his mobile phone, taking pictures of Russell’s dead body and the small arsenal on the grass. Capturing the scene for the Americans. Close-ups of the semi-automatic rifle with the bump stock attachment that would have helped Russell fire his weapon faster. Kill more people.

  The door of the ambulance was open when Bailey got there and a paramedic in a blue uniform was standing in the rain.

  ‘Mr Bailey, I’m Kath.’ She tapped the inside tray of the ambulance. ‘It’s bloody pouring. Let’s get you inside. Check you out.’

  ‘Give me a second, Kath.’ Bailey turned to Annie. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Am I all right?’ She squinted and held back a laugh. ‘You look like you’ve been to hell and back.’

  ‘Nah.’ Bailey smiled. ‘Seen that place. This wasn’t it.’

  ‘Everybody back! Back!’ Another cop had taken charge and she was ordering half the street to shut down, keeping gawkers at bay. ‘Further! Further!’ The rest of the cops were only metres away but the sound of the pelting rain was drowning her words. ‘Shut it down! The entire road! The diversion, now! Shut this down!’

  ‘Police wouldn’t let me onto the grass,’ Annie said. ‘You okay?’

  ‘A few bruises. I’ll obviously need a new car,’ he said, trying not to laugh because of the pain.

  ‘Mr Bailey.’ Kath touched him on the arm. ‘We should get going.’

  Bailey looked at her for a moment before turning back to Annie, pushing his bloody, wet hair out of his eyes. ‘Okay.’ He could see Ronnie walking towards them and he knew it was time to go. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Work.’ Annie held up her smartphone. The broadcasting tool that would deliver her to the masses as soon as she decided it was time. Not yet. Annie had made her choice. ‘Which hospital, Kath?’

  ‘Vinnies.’

  ‘Up for a visit later?’

  He let Annie’s question linger for a moment while he climbed, awkwardly, into the back of the ambulance, taking a seat on the stretcher.

  ‘As long as you don’t ask me for an interview.’

  EPILOGUE

  Five days later and the rain still hadn’t stopped. Hundreds of millimetres had fallen on almost every corner of the state. A fire-extinguishing, drought-breaking downpour.

  The bushfires may have never wreaked havoc on the Sydney metropolis but the smoke haze had taunted and threatened the city for months. Thanks to the rain, people could breathe clean air again. Unfortunately John Bailey wasn’t like other people and for him the air didn’t taste so good. Another threat still lingered and it would require more than rain to fix it.

  ‘I don’t understand what this meeting’s all about. If the story’s not ready, what are we doing here, Bailey?’

  Neena Singh was remonstrating with Bailey outside the café at Bondi Junction where they had met Jock Donaldson a week and a half ago. Bailey had requested an urgent meeting to discuss the article he was writing for the magazine and he hadn’t given anything away.

  ‘And what happened to your face?’

&nbs
p; It was a fair question. Bailey had two black eyes and a steri-strip across his nose. He looked like hell.

  ‘Car accident.’

  The police had managed to keep Bailey’s name out of what had happened at Bondi Beach on Australia Day and, because of the rain, the usual flood of social media videos had been reduced to a trickle. Somehow none of them featured Bailey. There was no hiding the fact that Bailey’s car had been the one to have slammed into a light post on Campbell Parade but so far nobody had linked the licence plate to him. Now wasn’t the time to out himself.

  ‘Let’s talk inside,’ Bailey said, peering through the glass. ‘I can already see Jock out back.’

  Bailey dropped his umbrella into the bucket by the front door and walked inside. Donaldson was sitting at the same table they’d sat at last time, a coffee and a newspaper in front of him.

  ‘Don’t get up, Jock.’

  Donaldson lifted his reading glasses off the tip of his nose, dropping them onto the paper.

  ‘Good to see you, John.’ The two men shook hands and Donaldson frowned at Bailey as he sat down. ‘You look like you’ve been in a fight?’

  ‘Fender bender in my car. Long story.’

  ‘Hi, Jock.’ Neena gave Bailey a dirty look as she went around to the other side of the table, giving their financier a peck on the cheek, sitting down. ‘Sorry to drag you out in the rain.’

  ‘I’d planned on dropping by to see my daughter, anyway.’ Donaldson nodded his chin at Katie, who was manning the coffee machine behind the counter. ‘So, John.’ He smiled at Bailey. ‘Neena said you wanted to discuss our cover story. When do I get to read it?’

  ‘Should be up in a few hours.’

  Donaldson had been rocking the handle of his walking cane from side to side and Bailey’s response made him stop. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Bailey?’ Neena clearly wasn’t amused.

  Bailey glanced at the face of his watch. ‘The story will be up on The Journal’s website in around two hours.’

  ‘Neena?’ Jock was scowling at his editor. ‘Care to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘If this is your idea of a joke, Bailey,’ Neena said, ‘it’s not funny.’

  ‘Sorry, Neena. I really am. There was no other way.’ Bailey shifted his attention back to Donaldson. ‘This magazine’s not going to happen because we’ve got a few problems, don’t we, Jock? Or should I call you Wise Elder?’

  Donaldson said nothing, squinting his eyes. Sizing up an adversary he hadn’t seen coming.

  Bailey glared right back at him. ‘All the money in the world and it was never enough. But what I don’t get is all that hate, Jock. Where does it come from?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Donaldson tried to appear calm. ‘What is this nonsense?’

  ‘Bailey, you really need to explain yourself,’ Neena said. ‘Who or what is Wise Elder?’

  ‘Wise Elder is the pseudonym used by a white supremacist who’s been bankrolling Neo-Nazis in Australia and around the world. Trying to unite them together to form some kind of global movement. Isn’t that right, Jock?’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Donaldson said, forcing a contemptuous laugh. ‘I give you money for a magazine. Your first story’s connected to this very bloody topic. You’re sounding like a madman!’

  ‘Am I?’ Bailey fired back. ‘As Neena well knows, a key tactic of these groups is to get publicity any way they can. What better way than to feed an idea you knew made sense for a simple reporter like me. Whose idea was it for me to write the piece about far right nationalism and Augustus Strong, Neena?’

  Neena’s pale face was enough for Bailey.

  ‘Just as I thought.’ Bailey kept going. ‘Matthew Lam. Augustus Strong. Jonny Abdo. And then your finale, if that’s what you want to call it. Arming Russell Ratcliffe with the weapons you’d smuggled from California, sending him to Bondi Beach for an almighty statement on Australia Day. Hitting the crowd that had gathered for a citizenship ceremony and a multicultural breakfast. That’s some plan, Jock.’

  Donaldson used his handkerchief to dab at the beads of sweat escaping from his bald head.

  ‘You might have gotten away with it too.’ Bailey wasn’t looking at Neena any more. Only Donaldson. Studying his facial movements as he unleashed the truth on him. ‘But you got sloppy with Sunshine Inc. Did you really think no one would link it back to you?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’ve got to admit, you’re bloody good at hiding money. Offshore bank accounts. Trusts. But Sunshine Inc? That was sloppy. You should have known people would dig into Liam Callaghan’s finances. Try to figure out who killed him and why.’ Bailey kept at him. ‘Turns out Callaghan was a meticulous bookkeeper. Almost missed it, to be honest. The only reason I decided to take a look at Sunshine Inc was because Callaghan was paying the company ridiculously low rent to live in such a nice house.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this.’

  Donaldson folded his newspaper and leaned on his cane, pushing his chair back.

  ‘You didn’t think about the other people you’d take down, did you, Jock?’ Bailey decided to up the stakes. ‘The other lives you’d ruin. Friends. Family.’

  Donaldson sat back down, slapping his paper on the table, folding his arms. Saying nothing.

  ‘I thought you might want to be sitting down for this part.’ Bailey grinned with a knowing intent. ‘The house that Callaghan was living in last sold in July 1996, almost twenty-five years ago. Sunshine Inc was registered as a company three weeks later. So for three short weeks, the house was in the name of Elisabeth Sandford.’

  Donaldson’s face dropped.

  ‘Who’s Elisabeth Sandford?’ Neena asked.

  ‘Jock’s ex-wife. Number two, or was she number three, Jock?’ Donaldson didn’t answer. ‘Doesn’t matter. What matters is that the house hasn’t been sold since, and it was transferred into a company called Sunshine Inc. Elisabeth sends her regards, by the way,’ Bailey said, smirking again. ‘You set her up with a lovely home in Bowral. It appears she was happy to look the other way as long as the money kept coming. Who could blame her? She trusted you. Even when you did the rich man thing and dumped her for a younger woman. But Elisabeth had no idea what you were up to and, quite frankly, she was horrified when I gave her an inkling. Even more so because the events of the past few weeks exposed the truth about her brother. Someone she’d idolised. Commander Dominic Harding.’

  ‘So what?’ Donaldson scowled. ‘So one of my companies owns property in Sydney and one of the tenants happened to be a corrupt customs official.’

  ‘I never said Liam Callaghan had done anything illegal, Jock,’ Bailey said, tightening the vice. ‘Police have suppressed Callaghan’s identity. His crime.’

  ‘He was a tenant in one of my properties.’

  ‘I’ve dug into all your properties, Jock. All thirty-five of them. Not counting the number of apartments you own in those buildings in Parramatta. Do you know the names and occupations of all your tenants, or just Callaghan? And why the discounted rent?’

  Donaldson responded with silence, which Bailey took as his cue to keep going. Bury him in his hole. Because he’d saved the best for last.

  ‘You’ve just admitted that Liam Callaghan was one of your tenants, which means that Sunshine Inc is, in fact, a company owned by you. Care to explain why Sunshine Inc appeared on the invoice for a shipping container that arrived in Sydney not long ago filled with Californian oranges and guns?’

  Donaldson left his newspaper on the table this time as he pushed back his chair, standing up. ‘I think we’re done.’

  ‘Sit down, Jock.’

  A big hand landed on Donaldson’s shoulder, pushing him down into his chair. Ronnie.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Donaldson said, pushing away Ronnie’s hand.

  ‘A friend of Harriet Walker’s.’

  The name caused Donaldson’s cheek to flutter.

&
nbsp; ‘You’ve always had friends in high places but they can’t help you now,’ Bailey said. ‘You won’t get sympathy for being involved in the murder of a decorated officer from the Australian Federal Police. And, as you’ll soon discover, people loved Harriet Walker.’ Bailey coughed, swallowing hard, surprised by his physical reaction after mentioning his dead friend’s name. ‘Going after Hat was a bad idea. I presume that was Harding. That he’d cottoned on to her investigation and realised how close she was to tearing you lot down. So you had her killed.’

  Bailey stopped talking, searching for an answer in Donaldson’s eyes. An admission of guilt.

  Nothing.

  ‘This is where you really came unstuck, Jock.’ Bailey kept at him. ‘Getting Harding to raid my house was a bad idea. But I get it. I know why. Harding must have known that Walker and I had met the day before. That we were sharing information. So you needed to know what she’d given me. The raid on my house didn’t yield much. But Harding found the video I’d taken of the crowd at Augustus Strong’s talk and decided it was a problem because it identified Russell Ratcliffe. The kid lived in my street. I know the family. So Harding deleted the video.

  ‘I’m not the type of guy who ignores something like that. Deleting that video made me more than curious. Made me think the raid wasn’t about my old Afghanistan stories at all. That Harding had abused his power at the Australian Federal Police to do something he knew was wrong. I couldn’t let that go, Jock. It’s not in my nature. I’ve spent my life chasing stories. I never let go. Like a dog with a bone.’

  Bailey laughed, awkwardly, taking a breath. ‘Don’t bother calling your mate at home affairs for help. Wayne McMahon will be hard-pressed trying to explain all the money you’ve donated to his campaigns over the years and why he let you talk him into granting Strong a visa to enter the country. He’ll be running from you like you’ve got the plague. And if there’s one thing politicians are good at, it’s throwing discarded friends under buses.’

  Donaldson was shrinking into his chair as he listened to Bailey’s attack. The untouchable billionaire suddenly reduced to a frail old man, captive in his own café.