‘I was seeing a girl for a few years back in my uni days,’ Aazim reflected. ‘We had fun and we were really into each other. She was Australian and a Catholic, so when her friends and parents found out I was a Muslim everything changed. She became distant and eventually our relationship ended.’
‘That’s too bad. Probably for the best anyway.’
‘Why? We never argued, we shared the same interests and in the end it all ended because of religion.’ Aazim was getting tipsy and the memories of his past love came pouring out. Memories he’d suppressed for years.
‘We live in a world of fear, Aazim. People are scared of what they don’t understand, and Christian Australia finds your religion … How can I put this? Confronting.’
‘Her parents had that kind of belligerent attitude. It’s what broke up our relationship. It’s that kind of narrow-minded bullshit that creates problems for us Muslims,’ Aazim flared. Bill had hit a nerve.
‘You can’t change their reasoning overnight,’ Bill said gently. ‘It’s embedded in their mindset no matter how sophisticated they appear. Their family thinks that way, their friends think that way and that’s how it’s always been. European migrants went through this years ago. People fear a way of life that’s different to theirs. You can try to make them understand but some people just don’t want to understand. The unfortunate thing is, politicians and the media are exploiting that fear and the stuff that shocks us is what creates headlines.’
‘We’re under a microscope, Bill. Every time a bomb goes off somewhere in the Middle East it’s “those bloody Muslims again”. And every time some backward mufti claiming to speak on behalf of all Muslims makes a lunatic statement it’s seen as a view we all share. I didn’t care what religion she was, I had respect for her and I didn’t want to change anything about her.’
‘Did you ever talk it over?’
‘I tried but she was great at avoiding confrontation and wouldn’t admit to anything. When you love someone religion shouldn’t be such a problem. You discuss it and you resolve it. It shouldn’t have mattered what her friends or parents thought.’ Frustrated and light-headed, Aazim rapped his fingers on the table.
‘I’d hate to say it but maybe she just wasn’t into you,’ Bill said, grinning. He thought of his ex-wife and wondered if she’d ever really loved him. ‘Let’s change the subject,’ he said.
‘Okay, let’s talk about tomorrow.’
It was well past two in the morning and people were starting to come in from nightclub venues. A young couple in particular stood out, looking like death itself, each with bloodshot eyes squinting at the bright lights. The girl’s makeup was ruined and her skirt was riding up a little high, drawing attention from the restaurant crowd. She was trying to keep her staggering partner steady, tucking in his shirt and telling him to keep quiet.
‘At midday I want you to call Sam and tell him you’re ready to negotiate a deal,’ Bill said. ‘Tell him you’ll hand over the databases and give assurance that you’ll disappear for good once he pays you. Drop in a threat of a media leak for good measure, just so he realises you’re serious. Tell him to meet you tomorrow at midnight at your motel room.’ Bill spoke slowly and precisely, making sure every word was sinking in.
‘What? No way am I meeting him,’ Aazim protested.
‘You have to do it and do it soon or he’ll get suspicious and go underground. All this will be for nothing and both you and your father will still be in danger,’ Bill explained.
Aazim could see no other way out and nodded reluctantly at the mention of his father.
Bill continued. ‘He wants me to make the exchange but you must insist on his presence. Nothing will happen to you, Aazim, I promise. We’ll arrest him as soon as he shows up.’ Mentally Bill staged the plan as he would have if he’d been back in his unit, but in reality it all depended on Janelle. She would be the one organising the bust; he was just preparing the field. ‘We’ll talk again tomorrow. You go by the front and I’ll take the back exit. I’ll fix the bill.’
Bill grabbed the laptop and placed a few notes on the table. They left through separate exits.
Chapter 13
After their meeting Bill returned to his office and spent most of the night meticulously checking up on the Oracle accounts, printing out the company details from the laptop, messaging old work contacts and fishing for any scrap of information he could find on The Brotherhood. In the early morning he finally took a shower and threw himself on the couch.
He tried to sleep but couldn’t. He didn’t feel good. His body began to shake and there was a cold chill in his chest. Suddenly the coughing started, slowly at first and then building up violently till his face turned red and the veins in his neck bulged. During one episode of calm he grabbed a scotch bottle and drank himself to sleep on the couch. As usual.
A knock on the door woke him up and once again he whacked his head on the light fixture. ‘Come in, it’s open,’ he said groggily.
The click-clack of high heels on the hardwood floor drew his attention. ‘Janelle Sheldon, what are you doing here?’ Bill realised he was still holding the bottle. Embarrassed, he placed it in his desk drawer.
‘Is that how you greet your old friends?’
‘Ah … come in, take a seat, I’ll just scrub up.’ He scurried into the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water. Looking into the mirror he saw a tired face staring back. He tried to recall if he’d asked Janelle to come over, which he had planned to do.
‘I’ve never been to your office before,’ Janelle called out. She looked around and smiled at the mess. Same old slob, she thought. Pizza boxes, scraps of paper, dusty books piled up in a corner.
‘It’s not much to look at.’ He came back in the room wiping his face and neck with a stained towel. They both stood for a moment and took a good look at each other.
‘Wow, you look great,’ he said. It was an understatement. Her dark curly hair was tied up in a bun and she wore thin stylish glasses that complemented her sharp hazel eyes.
‘And you look like you need a holiday,’ she replied, giving him a cheeky smile.
‘What I need is breakfast. Want a stiff one?’ He grabbed the scotch bottle and tilted it towards her.
‘No thanks, it’s too early for me.’
Bill had almost forgotten how good she looked in a tailored business suit that stylishly defined her womanly figure. With an air of elegance and professionalism, she walked around his office as if examining a crime scene. While some women piled on clothes to divert attention from the gawking eyes of co-workers, Janelle took the opposite approach. She used her good looks to her advantage; it was her way of getting attention but she made sure they knew who was in charge.
‘So you live here now?’ she asked, eyebrow arched.
‘Practically. You like it? Just needs a womanly touch, don’t you think?’
‘Maybe you should get your mum to clean it up.’ She moved one of the pizza boxes and sat on a chair, crossed her legs and allowed her skirt to ride up her stockinged thighs.
‘I was thinking about someone younger, someone sexy and modern,’ Bill said.
‘Then find yourself a twenty year old, but from what I see I don’t think you’ll have much luck.’ Flirting was in the nature of their friendship but mutual respect never allowed them to cross the line.
‘Playing hard to get, Janelle? Even now that I’m single?’
‘You’re just too easy for me, Bill. I need a challenge, not a toy.’
‘You say the sexiest things.’
‘Down, boy. Take a cold shower and put the flames out. Your pheromones are choking me.’
‘Smartarse,’ Bill laughed. ‘So, what brings you here?’ He realised that his initial phone call must have raised some serious questions for Janelle to come in person.
‘Right. I did a bit of digging on this Saeed character. I wired his profile to a few of our friendly agencies and they sent me some interesting info. It seems he worked for an accounting
company in east London by the name of UK Accounting Partners.’
Bill lit his first cigarette of the day and offered her one.
‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘Three years ago they were shut down and two employees were arrested for links to a terrorist group. The suspects were in contact with the Algiers Freedom Fighters. Evidence shows they provided financial aid for the purchase of explosives, which was later used by the AFF in a failed assassination attempt of a hard-line Algerian general.’
‘So why wasn’t Saeed picked up?’
‘There wasn’t enough evidence to pin on him. He left for Germany just before the bust. The Germans didn’t think he was worth chasing and from that point on no one knows what he’s been up to.’
‘What else?’ Bill took a large gulp of the cheap scotch without wincing.
‘We have nothing on him and now we find out he’s been working in Melbourne. On top of that, you tell me he’s your client.’
‘Yeah, well, you know how this client confidentiality thing works, Janelle.’
‘Don’t give me that shit. Now spill it.’
‘Have you heard of The Brotherhood for Justice?’
‘Yeah, a terrorist fund group. They’re somewhat of an enigma. We didn’t believe they really existed until the arrests in London.’
‘They exist and he’s not just a member. He could be responsible for a major part of the money flow. Another name for you is Rami, a messenger.’
Janelle took out her notepad and scribbled hastily. Bill’s office looked like a condemned site and he was behaving like an active agent. She didn’t know what to make of it but knew better than to doubt him.
‘I have a lot more you’ll find interesting,’ he said. He grabbed the printouts and handed them to Janelle, aware that his laptop was locked away in the office safe. ‘I smelled something foul with this job so I managed to get in touch with Aazim, the guy Sam’s claiming has stolen valuable data from them.’
‘Sam?’
‘That’s what they call Saeed.’
‘A bit unorthodox for a PI, don’t you think?’ She grabbed the pile of printouts and flicked through the pages.
‘I’m still learning the rules. Anyway, Aazim had no intention of blackmailing Aust Global Fund. He wants to blow the whistle on these guys but they’ve got him scared shitless after he found his apartment trashed and a dead neighbour in his bedroom.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘So what exactly am I looking at here?’
‘It’s a list of financial accounts from Aust Global Fund. Aazim downloaded it and he’s been in hiding ever since. These guys are using the SWIFT system for money laundering and they’re well connected.’ Bill sat next to her and pointed out how the scheme operated in detail.
‘Whoa! This list contains major banks. The Colonial Bank of Australia, UK National Bank and US banks. I never knew Americans were linked with SWIFT.’
‘They have a partnership with the bigger ones and the EU is a major US trading partner.’
‘I’m sure we’ve picked this up. There’s got to be something on it – the US has been probing banks for years.’
‘Not entirely true,’ Bill said. ‘They probe financial records from a vast international database, mostly initiated by legislation brought in after nine-eleven, which gave their agencies power to pursue anyone suspicious of funding terrorists. Most international banks affiliated with US businesses on American soil are subject to this law, except SWIFT.’ Bill stubbed out his cigarette and took out another one while Janelle listened intently. ‘In fact, the treasury reiterated the exemption of SWIFT from American laws, and restricted government agencies from accessing private financial records of their clients.’
‘Yeah, I remember reading something about that but it didn’t make big news at the time.’ Janelle shifted in the lopsided chair to a more comfortable position. ‘What was their reason?’
‘They were considered a messaging system for financial transactions rather than a bank or financial institution. A clever lawyer found a loophole in the legal system.’
‘How do you know all this? You’re not still working for ASIO, are you?’ she joked, but the question sat awkwardly. Her department dealt with this type of information and it bothered her that Bill knew so much.
‘If I was, darling, you would know about it. I specialised in counterterrorism back in the old days, as you know. The inside info on all this stuff came to me firsthand. It’s nothing new. In fact, I doubt it’s a great secret anymore. Just google it and you’ll find all sorts of stuff. Take a look at the funds and their sources.’ He pointed to the notes. ‘I’ve marked as many as I could find that don’t add up. Check the transaction trail and where the money ends up.’
‘Christ, how many are there?’ Janelle’s eyes widened as she followed the trail and realised the significance of it all. There must have been hundreds of millions of dollars being ‘cleaned’ illegally. ‘These are all names of dodgy Islamic groups,’ she said. ‘They’re all fronts. You think they’re terrorist funds?’
‘Not all of them. Some are NGOs like the High Crescent of Mahdi. They establish in hotspots like Afghanistan and Kosovo, providing food and blankets to refugees, but they’ve been known to smuggle weapons and ammunition to hostile forces.’
‘How did you make the connection?’ Janelle asked.
‘Their financial backer is Yusanti el-Masri, the son of a wealthy Saudi sheik. He was once photographed with Bin Laden’s right-hand man. That’s how I realised this wasn’t just a corrupt business dealing with money laundering.’
He handed her a green folder from the safe. ‘Now take a look at this list. I ran a few record checks on those businesses for links to crime syndicates. At first I found nothing. So I dusted off my little black book of phone numbers and called in favours from old friends. Don’t ask. I know it’s against protocol. I sent faxes to MI6, CIA, CSIS and even Interpol. By far the CIA has the largest database and some colourful names were sent back to me.’
As she read the list Janelle’s mouth fell open and she looked at Bill in disbelief. Each business name in the notes was cross-referenced with a known criminal element, a syndicate, a political faction, corrupt governments and terrorist organisations. The last was the most extensive and also where most of the funds were concentrated.
‘Sorry, but I’ll have to confirm this myself, Bill.’
‘Oh, I hope you do, Janelle. I’m counting on it.’
He gave her a moment to read through the list and take in the enormity of his findings. Some of the world’s most dangerous organisations were implicated: the Algerian AFF, a splinter group of the notorious GIA, albeit not as violent as its predecessor; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al-Gama’a Islamia, known for car bombings and targeting US interests in Egypt with a goal of overthrowing the Egyptian government and replacing it with an Islamic state. A few Iraqi groups were there too, such as Abu Nidal (ANO); the Islamic Resistance Movement; Pakistan’s Harakat Ul-Ansar, a movement to unite Kashmir with Pakistan; and of course al-Qaeda. The detailed list contained each organisation’s strength in numbers, main activities, goals, operational locations, affiliations and dates last active, some going back two decades.
‘Are you sure you can trust this Aazim guy? How do you know he’s not leading you on?’ Janelle asked.
‘I’ve checked him out and I know he’s telling the truth. Aazim’s old man is in Lebanon at the moment and I ran a thorough check on him too. He was on the run with a pregnant wife just before Lebanon erupted into war. Threatening messages came from Palestinian factions when they campaigned against their presence in Lebanon. Aazim’s mother was killed in a hit-and-run not long ago and the driver was never caught. Some powerful people were pissed off and the couple nearly paid with their lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys are hunting him down as we speak just to settle an old grudge. The PLO was on their funding list too. Aazim’s done a good job of staying alive but I get the feeling he should’ve been dead a long time ago.’
> ‘What do you mean?’
‘Organisations like The Brotherhood have long tentacles. Sam implied to Aazim that they’re well protected so we have to prevent possible leaks. Minimum agent involvement, create a small crack team of your own.’
‘An insider? Who with? The feds? It can’t be us.’ Janelle was beginning to feel very naive.
‘I don’t know yet.’ Bill held back from making assumptions. He worked with proof and until he got it anyone was a suspect. The informant had access to vital information that could jeopardise their evidence.
‘Okay, Bill, what’s on your mind? You have to leave the arrests to us, you know that. I can’t have you chasing fanatics like a crazed reporter.’ She was pre-empting his intentions and he knew it.
‘You’re telling me to stay out of it? Sam didn’t hire me by coincidence, Janelle. He came to me because someone told him to and I want to know why.’
‘Barry will never approve it, you know that.’
Barry, the deputy director of ASIO’s investigation department, was Janelle’s superior and responsible for rubber-stamping all field operations. Once the go-ahead was approved the strike team would be formed, and she was itching for some action. Barry had been favoured as the next director-general of security back in Bill’s day, when Barry was a manager of counterintelligence and security. After twenty-five years of service, the incumbent director-general had been due for retirement and Barry Donovan and Rodney Blunt were the top candidates to replace him, a position very much sought after as the director’s boss was the attorney general and not the prime minister. Agents called it the ‘retirement chair’: after being a director the next step was retirement or moving on to a political role.
Barry’s chances at the chair faded with the Indonesia scandal that Bill had sparked. Officially the covert operation was nonexistent, so a public investigation couldn’t be mounted and no one was made accountable for the high number of casualties that could have been prevented. Unofficially, it was a black mark on Barry’s record, as he was the one who had authorised it and pulled the plug. He was encouraged to withdraw his candidacy, avoid a future public inquiry and salvage what reputation he had left. After that there was no more room for Bill in ASIO or any other government agency: Barry saw to it personally and eventually Bill found himself unemployed.
THE BROTHERHOOD Page 9