I sure did now.
By all accounts he had devoted his life to a range of charity causes, was well-travelled and intelligent. There didn’t seem to be any underlying health reason to explain a drastic shift of opinion or focus. It was entirely incongruous with someone who would join a right-wing extremist group.
His girlfriend, Jessica, was a similar story, at least superficially. A graduate of the Australian National University with a dual Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Business, she worked as a junior lawyer for a small, prestigious law firm in Sydney. Her flawless record was a façade though; in the file was a quashed criminal record for drink-driving and another for drunk and disorderly conduct. The last entry was an abysmal performance review from the law firm recommending the termination of her employment, overruled by a handwritten note on the paper by one of the partners and details of the subsequent termination of the manager who had written the performance review. Was it her father’s direct interference or even the potential for it that had given her a layer of protection?
There were no references to racism, group membership, or anything else so far that might indicate why Philip had assigned me the case. I leaned back, annoyed. Studious boy and party girl, gone off the rails as part of a group with politics that would be embarrassing to their fathers. Who cares? Jessica might have possessed a somewhat rebellious or random character that could see her prone to all sorts of embarrassing moves, but Edward sounded almost the diametric opposite of someone who would be drawn to a racist group. Could it be an abduction – a kidnapping as part of a broader political play by the right-wing group?
Digging further into the file, I found phone records with detailed lists of who the pair had called, when and the cell tower that their cell phones were connected to when the calls were made. Both records had the last calls made almost a week ago from a cell tower in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, almost an hour north of Brisbane. Each final call was to family members and lasted two minutes and a handful of seconds.
There were also four emails, two from each of the runaways. As Philip had noted, the last from each of them was identical, a short missive with the operative sentence being ‘we have embarked on a Special mission and joined the World Liberation Organization (WLO) and will not be in contact again’.
It was an odd sentence, repeated word for word on both. I didn’t think University graduates would make a silly mistake like capitalising Special mid-sentence for no reason. I was leaning towards the email being written by someone else, which would be the first step in the possibility they had been abducted or were pawns in a broader game.
As I read the other two letters, it struck me that they were almost identical too, containing a request for space or time, some commentary about working for a higher cause, and assurance they were healthy and happy. I frowned and pulled out my laptop, a small HP Spectre with layers of anonymisation and encryption that I didn’t pretend to understand but thankfully Jack did. Using my ghosted iPhone as a data hotspot, I opened the links he had sent me to his basic internet searching. He had discovered nothing for the World Liberation Organization.
There was, however, a substantial amount of information about the World Liberation Front, a group that called itself WOLF. The information was vague and alluded to changing the political order of the world. The more I searched, the more I was convinced that it was the group they had joined. So why the error in the group name, particularly if it was a cause they had adopted as their own?
I read the sentence again. The S stood out to me, as did the use of Organization not Front. The Americanised spelling was also odd. Something clicked in my brain. The S, the O, a Z that should be an S. Was it a coded SOS message? That would be appropriate for the intelligent, educated son of Australia’s spy master. It was also possible that I was reading far more into a letter than was intended. For a moment of melodramatic self-pity, I longed for a return to the murky depths of the East Coast criminal syndicate where my involvement was far clearer cut. I enjoyed investigative activity, but over the last five years drew far more satisfaction from the physical side of our work.
I took note of the next scheduled WOLF ‘exhibition’ date and location – in two days and Brisbane, an hour’s drive from the location of Edward and Jessica’s last cell phone calls. I looked at the scant information they required to reserve a spot, but even that made me pause. Attending would be a good way to either rule the group out, or hopefully locate the missing pair. But if I attended, how would I approach my identity? I had access to a range of alternative identities, backed up with driver’s licences, credit cards and other documents. But false names were becoming difficult from a tradecraft perspective, with the increasingly ubiquitous nature of biometrics and an ability to triangulate people’s details through social media and open source intelligence.
In the end, I settled for an identity I was only slightly more comfortable with than the rest: my own. I had very little real presence on the internet, but with Jack’s help, had put some time into maintaining an alternate life. The internet version of Valen Tyler was a consultant for Department of Defence, specialising in policy around chemical, biological and nuclear weaponry. I had a quiet social life and followed local sports teams in my Canberra home town, including the Brumbies Rugby Union team. In truth, I hadn’t really lived in Canberra, or any one place, for the last five years of working with Philip.
I sent the link to Jack for him to quickly scan the domain registry and site details to see just how open my personal information would be if I entered it. One could never be sure whether the website you were visiting was the real location or a sophisticated mirror set up as part of a phishing attack, the modern terminology for electronic identity and financial theft. Jack sent me a reply saying it seemed fine, so I filled in the registration form, using my real name and a matching credit card.
With registration to attend the event complete, I checked the relatively untraceable email I’d used to sign up and took a screenshot of the ticket on my phone. Two days. Enough time to get to Brisbane, recuperate some more and see what I could find out from the venue. At least it wasn’t in a month or two days ago, though the convenient timing seemed too good to be true. Our cases rarely seemed to resolve themselves so easily. I turned my mind to how to get to Brisbane, two states away from Canberra.
Disrupted by a knock on the door, I immediately tensed at the unexpected intrusion. The knock had been perfunctory, the robotic tap from someone who had done the motion hundreds or even thousands of times. But it was unforeseen, enough for my instincts to kick in. Grabbing the ceramic bladed knife that was typically in my possession, I unfolded the blade and held it in a reverse grip, blunt end tucked along the inside of my wrist.
I headed to the door and glanced at the shadows visible in the small space between the hinges. I avoided the spy hole altogether. It was far too easy to find out where a target was staying, knock on the door and wait for the spy hole to darken before sending a single shot through that glass portal.
‘Yes?’ I asked, keeping my body line away from the door.
‘Front desk, Mr Tyler. We have a delivery for you.’ The voice sounded bored, a little annoyed.
‘Leave it there, please. I’ll be right out.’ I received a muttered grumble of agreement from the other side of the door and heard footsteps retreating. It was probably out of the ordinary for a guest to want it left in the hallway where someone else could steal it, but from the tone of the guy, he couldn’t care less and considered his duty done. I waited another minute before unlatching the security bar and bolt from the hotel room door, waiting a few more seconds to see if I could detect any noise or the subtle vibration of human presence. Nothing. I pulled the wedge out from underneath it and opened the door, keeping the wooden portal as a shield for most of my body mass and glanced out quickly. In the middle of the portal stood a small, carry-on suitcase that I recognised as matching the case Philip had given me. I exhaled a slow breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding. Some would call
