Chapter 30: My Work here is Done

Revenge

Early February, 2001

On the Wednesday morning, I had a phone call from Tanya Plibersek, the new Federal Minister for Housing, asking me if I would be able to attend the government’s ‘housing affordability and homelessness summit’, in Canberra at the end of next week. I said that I could make that, and she would email me the details, background papers, information on accommodation for me, and the agenda.

“I was hoping you might be able to give the opening discussion,” she said. “Maybe cover what you see as the main problems, and some possible ways to address them. Let me know what you think of that; you always seem to be able to cut through the bullshit and get to the core of an issue.”

I wasn’t all that sure what I could say that would make for a worthy opening address; maybe when I read through the material that Tanya would be sending me, I might get some inspiration. Right now, I turned my attention to the article on ‘Church Retention’ for Peter Carnley. At least the main office for the Anglican Church in Australia was in Sydney, not all that far from what was the old IBM Building on Kent Street, which had been converted to luxury apartments. I called the office there, and spoke to the communications director to find out what format and style I should have the article written in. They use Microsoft Publisher to produce the newsletter, but if I could provide the text in Microsoft Word, and have any photos in a jpg format, then they could pull that into their document.

I felt that the article needed a few photographs for context, one showing the outside of the church and the surroundings, at least one other of the inside, showing the choir stalls, organ, and PA installation. We had a digital camera here at work, I would take that with me on Sunday, and get a few photos before and during the service. I thought it would be important to include some background on the changes to the Birchgrove / Balmain area, particularly the demographics over the preceding fifty years, as an explanation on how the original congregation had declined in numbers. By the time I had done a rough introduction, I was interrupted by the phone, it was Lori.

“There’s been another murder of Epstein’s associates,” she said, without any introduction. “This one from England.”

“Really? That’s three in the last few days,” I said. “What’s the story? Surely not Prince Randy Andy?”

“No, not him, he’s too well protected, I guess,” she answered. “But someone close to him, a guy called Nigel Bowes-Lyons, a distant cousin of his, and the person who introduced Andrew to Epstein. I guess you could describe him as in the ‘second division’ of the British Monarchy, he’s a cousin of the Queen Mother, if that makes sense.”

“So, what happened? How did you find out?”

“One of the big news agencies that we monitor is Reuters, which is, of course, based in London; I get email alerts of news stories all the time, things that are of interest or related to other stories I’m working on; that is one of the ways I keep on top of what’s happening in the world. The report identified him as an ‘close friend of Prince Andrew’ – and ‘Prince Andrew’ is one of the names on my news feed watch list.”

She then relayed to me the details that were in the Reuters report – which were pretty sketchy, as the police had not yet released much information. All that was known was that he was snatched from a street in London’s Regent Park area, bundled into a white Ford van, then his mutilated body was dumped on London Bridge a few hours later – very dead.

“There’s not sufficient information to say it was identical to the two murders in NYC, but I’ll bet you pounds to peanuts that he would have been strangled by a garrotte, then his genitals cut off...” she said. “All I can assume is that Alexa is working through the list of names that I discovered. Now, I am talking with Robert McClelland later today, how much about these last three murders should I tell him?”

“It’s a pity we can’t meet with Alexa and talk to her, first,” I said. “I can’t see any problems telling McClelland about these three murders, he would easily be able to learn about them, and if we assume Interpol gets involved, they will come to the same conclusions about Ukrainian crime figures and revenge assassinations.”

“I will call Alexa’s office, see if I can get a time when she’s back in the country, so that you and I can talk with her,” she said. “When might you be free?”

“Monday mornings are always out, I’m tied up in meetings until lunchtime,” I said. “Next week, I’m likely to be in Canberra from Thursday afternoon to Saturday night.”

I told her about Tanya’s call, and she was curious to see just what they might be covering in conference.

“I think Alexa will be back by Friday, I’ll try to get time with her that afternoon,” she said. “See you at home tonight, love you.”

After I had hung the phone up, I fired up Netscape Navigator, and browsed to the BBC website, to see if they had any information on this latest death. After a bit of searching, I found a brief report, which had just the same information that Lori had passed onto me, with the rider ‘this is a developing story, and further information will be posted as it becomes available’. There was also a brief story, a news release from Buckingham Palace, where Prince Andrew noted his great sorrow at the death of his friend and offering his sympathy and support to his family.

“I bet Randy Andy is shitting bricks at the moment, wondering if he will be next,” I thought to myself. It would be interesting to see who Alexa might target next; assassinating a member of the British Royal Family might be beyond even her capabilities. The list of Epstein’s associates was still a ‘target-rich environment’, as Lori had identified quite a few people who had travelled on Epstein’s private plane to his Caribbean retreat.

With all that put to one side, I resumed my report for the Anglican Church, and by lunchtime I had the new introduction reasonably complete. Lori called me back, just as I was about to have lunch, to let me know we could meet with Alexa early afternoon this Friday; she would be back from Europe on Thursday night. I did a few quick time calculations, and I worked out that she must have left London almost as soon as Bowes-Lyons had been killed. I guess the flights from London to Sydney tend to stop somewhere around Bahrain or Dubai, then Singapore, and finally Sydney. Unless she was flying business class, she would be exhausted by the time she was back in Sydney. Still, it would be great to catch up with her.

The next few days were a combination of reviewing course plans and assignments, writing the article on church retention for Peter, and preparing for the conference in Canberra at the end of the following week. By Thursday evening I had my article for the Anglican Church newsletter finished – at least to the stage where it was ready to give to Lori for her review; I had the digital camera with me to take some photos on Sunday.

On Friday, I took an early lunchbreak, then drove into the City, picking up Lori from outside her office, and from there we drove to St Leonards, parking underneath the Bitola building. Alexa was waiting in her office, and she told us to take some seats around her coffee table.

“I guess you’ve got questions about some recent murders in New York City and London,” she said. “I’m just waiting for some news to come in from Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, there’s likely to be a car bomb explosion, before Friday morning prayers.”

“A car bomb?” Lori asked. “Not death by garrotte?”

“There is such a lot of sectarian violence in the Middle East, the Iraqis and the Iranians hate the Saudis, then there is a myriad of terrorist groups, and don’t forget Mossad ... Any assassination by a car bomb would be automatically blamed on one of those groups.”

“I guess if there are too many similar deaths, then the international authorities might start to get suspicious,” I said.

“They are already very suspicious,” Alexa said. “The three murders over the last few days, combined with that of O’Rourke last year, it’s pretty obvious to them that someone is working through Epstein’s associates. At the moment, the ‘Ukrainian crime syndicate assassin’ theory is still the one favoured by investigators, considering the same crime figure has shown up on the appropriate international passenger arrivals and departures. That fits into their preconceived ideas and prejudices; some of them are not all that imaginative when it comes to investigations.”

“As I told you earlier,” Lori started to say, “I had a meeting with the new Federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland earlier this week, about the O’Rourke affair. He was very interested in learning more, over and above what was on the TV documentary. Most of the issues involved in the prosecution of paedophiles, and all that, are the responsibilities of the various states, but there was some action the Federal Government could take. He was particularly interested in the international aspects, the Epstein / Maxwell syndicate, and I told him that Interpol was working on that, which he acknowledged. He talked about a few things that could be done at his level, firstly, encouraging changes to the ‘statute of limitations’ for these sort of sex crimes; by the time some victims feel able to make a complaint, it’s too late for a criminal prosecution. Secondly, a nationwide consensus on ‘age of consent’, and he would be pushing for the age to be sixteen, for both sexes. A higher age – probably eighteen, where there was a ‘position of authority’ involved – like a teacher / student, athlete / coach, church official, or similar. Just as well you don’t have any sixteen-year-old students, Will!”

“You know I don’t do anything with any students, regardless of their age!” I protested.

“I can recall a time you and I role-played a scenario like that,” Alexa said.

“Role playing is one thing, I mean, ask Michelle,” I said. “But with an actual student? No way!”

“Now, back to being serious,” Lori said. “McClelland also spoke about what he called a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ provision, so if a seventeen-year-old guy, with a fifteen-year-old girlfriend were doing things, then that wouldn’t count as ‘statutory rape’, all things being equal. What it wants done is some consistency in the laws across the country, with common sense applied, and none of the handwringing and clutching at pearls from the moral panic crowd.”

“I wish him luck with that,” I said. “The conservatives would like a world where teenagers never even thought about sex until they were legally married.”

“Teenagers not thinking about sex? In what alternate reality are you talking about, Will,” Alexa said. “I know when I was a teenage girl, sex was ALWAYS on my mind.”

“So, what’s the difference from now?” I asked her. “Sex is still always on your mind!”

“Don’t be rude, Will,” Alexa replied. “You act like I’m a nymphomaniac or something!”

“You say ‘nymphomaniac’ like it’s a bad thing,” I said, smirking at her.

“Now, now, children,” Lori said, “play nice with each other, don’t make me send you off to your rooms!”

Alexa’s secretary knocked on the office door and came in with a piece of paper.

“That news report from Saudi Arabia has just come through,” she said, passing it to Alexa.

“Thank you, that was quick,” Alexa said. When her secretary had left, she read the report summary to us. “Here we are ... at 6:00 pm local time – yesterday evening – there was a massive car bomb in the city of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Three people were killed, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a distant cousin of the Saudi Royal Family, one Osama bin Laden, another distant relative of the Royal Family there, and the driver of the vehicle. No suspects have been identified as of yet, but there have been credible threats made to the Crown Prince from a number of terrorist groups in the area, including the Taliban and a shady group call ‘The Islamic State’, and, of course, the Iraqi regime has been hostile to the Saudi government ever since the Gulf war resulting from Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Some people are putting the blame on Israel and Mossad, but it is unlikely they would risk retribution from attacking the leader of a country who is at least not overtly hostile to Israel.”

“Wow!” Lori said. “So, you ... I mean, I assume it wasn’t some Middle Eastern terrorist group who actually planted that car bomb?”

“Well ... one of them did, but they were... ‘encouraged’ to do it,” Alexa said. “At my stopover in Dubai, on the flight back, that was to give the final approval.”

Alexa’s range of contacts never ceased to amaze me, never mind how she could organize and carry out three ‘assassinations’ of high-profile people in cities on the other side of the world, but she had contacts in a number of middle eastern terrorist organizations, and somehow convince them to carry out car bombings. I felt that there was no one, no matter how powerful, that would be safe from her, if she decided to take that person out. I tried to make a quick count of how many people that I knew she had taken out since I had met her, Flannery, Domican, O’Rourke, the four recent ones ... I was sure there were quite a few more that I wasn’t aware of.

“Anyway, I think all is going well with the clean-up of the O’Rourke situation,” she said. “Interpol is still pursuing the Ukrainian answer, that Epstein or one of his associates pissed some crime figure there off, and they are extracting their revenge. There are a few more people involved in that group that need to be dealt with, but that will come in time.”

“How come you haven’t targeted Epstein and Maxwell?” Lori asked. “They are the main two people behind it all.”

“While ever there are ‘clients’, someone will just take over the organization,” Alexa said. “What I’m trying to do is scare the people who are the customers of Epstein, the paedos who abuse those young girls, that if they stay in the group, they will be killed, too. Before much longer, it will all fall apart, then we can let the authorities take the two top people down.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” I said. “I didn’t think about the situation of an existing member stepping if the two top people were taken out by the authorities. I bet both of them are very worried about their own safety right now; they will clearly know why these others have been killed.”

“Oh yes, my sources tell me that they have hole up on Epstein’s Virgin Island place, and they have a bunch of ex-Mossad, ex-Israeli special forces soldiers guarding the place,” Alexa said. “I’m happy to let them stew for a while, it will certainly stop them hosting more ‘parties’ there. Their time for judgment will come. Now, let’s talk about far more pleasant things, how is Megan’s musical going? I’ve heard some good reviews about it, I’m thinking of taking my mother to it next week.”

“We went to the opening night,” Lori said, “and it was fantastic. Megan mentioned they have extended the season for an additional two weeks; ticket sales are so strong.”

“I’ll mention to her that you are interesting in going,” I said, “and she should be able to get some comps for you.”

“She doesn’t have to do that,” Alexa protested. “I’m more than happy to pay!”

“It’s the same as when we have our concerts,” I said. “There’s always a bunch of complementary tickets, most of them go unused. You are family, so shut up, and accept the fact that we can do you a favour for a change!”

“Okay, I am very much appreciative of you doing that for me,” she said. “Not that you haven’t done so much for me and the family, we are deeply in your debt, Will.”

“I could say the same for you,” I said. “I know I owe you and your brothers so much...”

“That’s what our relationship should be all about; we support each other, help whenever we can. Now, how are things going with your new job at the University? Classes start at the end of this month, don’t they?”

I told her how we had revamped the first- and second-year classes and done some reorganization of how the school was set up. I was happy with the progress that had been made, the staff were very cooperative, and I felt that the school was now getting back on track.

“I was very confident that you would be able to do that, Will,” Alexa said. “You were the right person for the job. I guess as a graduate of the old Department of Computer Science, I have a vested interest in seeing it succeed. I loved being a student in your classes, I guess now as the Head of School, you don’t do any actual lecturing anymore.”

“Well, there are some graduate level subjects that I will be teaching, plus a fourth-year networking subject,” I said. “No rest for the wicked!”

“You’re not wicked, Will,” Alexa said. “Although there were those times in my old office..., but the less said about them the better, I think.”

“I have certainly changed from my old ways,” I said. “And I’m much happier now, I have the three women in my life that I love, and I don’t want anyone else.”

“He even turned down a young, very attractive women, one of the starlets of Megan’s stage show,” Lori said. “She really put some moves on Will, but he turned her down in no uncertain manner!”

“I bet she wasn’t happy about that!” Alexa said. “I know what it’s like to be turned down by Will, even if he eventually relented and we ended up in bed together. Oh, I’m sorry, Lori, I guess I really shouldn’t be boasting about that!”

“Oh, Alexa, don’t be silly!” Lori said. “Of course, I know you and Will had sex many times, that doesn’t worry me. If Will wanted to sleep with you again, then that’s his decision, I’m not going to get upset if he comes to me and says he wants to do that. I know he’s decided not to sleep with anyone but Michelle, Megan, and me, but that’s his choice, it’s nothing any of us have imposed on him.”

“It’s just that after what had been an extended period, since late 1999 of being what I considered as ‘out of control’, I am very happy with my current situation,” I said. “Having Lori, Megan, and Michelle as an integral part of my life, as my lovers, for now and into the future, has truly given me the contentment and happiness that I have been seeking for a long time.”

“I am truly happy that you feel that way, Will,” Alexa said, “even though it means I’m not likely to be able to make love with you again; I can get by without that, knowing that you are satisfied with your life.”

“It’s not just Will who has now found a happy and fulfilling life, and complete contentment,” Lori said. “I am so much happier now I am back here with him, Megan, and Michelle; I realized what was missing in my life, what I had given up when I left here over twenty years ago.”

“And I’m sure both Megan and Michelle would say exactly the same thing,” Alexa said. “Which is what is important, not whether I want to fuck Will again!”

“You never know, Alexa, maybe Will can be convinced to make love with you again,” Lori said. “I’ll speak with him, see what his thoughts are.”

I wasn’t all that sure that Lori could make me change my mind, I was much happier with my wild, casual sex days behind me. Not that I would regard making love with Alexa as ‘casual sex’, it was never just ‘pure fucking’ with her, but ... Now I had my life under control, why should I revert to how I was before? I think I would need to have a good talk with the three of them, just so they understood my feelings about sex with other women.

We had covered everything that we had hoped to cover with Alexa; I told her to be careful with the people she was dealing with, and she assured me that she would. We all kissed before Lori and I left, I dropped her off at her office in the city, before returning to the university and reviewing the details of our network upgrade plan. I had been working at it for about an hour – the plan was looking particularly good and well thought out – when I was interrupted by a phone call from Alexa.

“I didn’t want to bring this up in front of Lori,” she said, “but do you remember the letter that Baba had for you when she died? She talked about the things she learned when she did that deep delve into your future.”

“Of course I do; I seem to recall she had three pieces of advice for me,” I said. “The first was how to conquer my fear of flying, that, and the talisman she gave me have worked. Sometime next month, Angie will be flying a bunch of us up to Cessnock for their annual picnic races, I’ll probably go with them. What she told me really helped, I have no fear at all now. The other thing she told me was about the heartbreaks that would be coming – I can only assume that was about Lisa’s death, I seem to have got through that fairly well.

“The final thing that she told me was to stay true to my calling, keeping the Labor party true to its history. Next weekend I’ll be down in Canberra at a conference to help address the housing situation; and I had a key role in getting Howard kicked out of government.”

“A question on that, have you had any recent visits from ... what did you call them, the Guardians? And that girl who died, Jillian? Have you seen her recently?” she asked.

“No, I haven’t,” I said. “Although Allison mentioned to me the other month that she felt that someone had been following her, stuff like that.”

“Well ... and don’t tell ANYONE about this, not Lori, not even Allison, but over the last few months – since just before we took out O’Rourke, she’s been visiting me. It freaked me out at first, but then I realized that she was visiting me, because I had a role in one of their plans, to rid the world of people like O’Rourke, and the others. It’s almost like they make the plans on how best to eliminate one of those paedophiles, and I’m the one who carries it out. Jillian will suggest the place and time, and then leaves the organization up to me, but...

“If you hadn’t told me about how she would visit you, I would have freaked out! But when she first appeared to me, she told me who she was, and I recognized her from when you were all in the terraces in Erskineville – her tits are much bigger, of course – but she still looked pretty much the same. What do you think it means? Why me?”

“Well, my understanding of the Guardians, and how they work, is that they can’t do anything directly to people on earth. They can’t kill someone who might be a potential problem, they can’t take any direct action. But, what they do, is influence people here, people with the ability or potential to do whatever is necessary. Maybe you were chosen because you have the ability, you have the resources and experience to rid the world of people like O’Rourke, Weinstein, and the rest of those scum. All you need is the outline of a plan, and you can take it from there.”

“That sort of makes sense,” she said. “If anything about them makes sense; it’s completely contrary to everything our church teaches us.”

“But that’s only because mainstream religion’s understanding of what ‘God’ is has been very a very limited understanding; remember, what we have in scripture is what was told and explained to a simple farming people, the story had to be kept simple, and in terms they could understand,” I said.

“I guess so,” she said. “I can remember our priest talking about why there is so much in the Bible about shepherds and sheep, because they, the ancient Hebrews, were herders of sheep and goats. Had God chosen the Eskimos, there would have been none of that about sheep and shepherds, they wouldn’t have understood!”

“Exactly, things had to be relayed to them in a way they could understand, and pass on the message clearly and unambiguously,” I said. “Now, some of us know a whole lot more, we understand it, because it’s been explained in great details to us, but imagine trying to convey what we know about the Guardians to the general public? They would think we are off our mind!”

“You are the only person I can talk to about this stuff, for precisely that reason,” she said. “If Jillian, or any of the others contact you, can you let me know? We can share our experiences.”

“Sounds good, we can keep in touch if anything happens,” I said. “When should we resume our regular technology briefings?

“Maybe in two weeks’ time, once the housing conference is over?” I suggested, and she agreed.

I had brought a digital camera home from work so I could get some photos of the church to go with the article I was writing. Lori would use it on Sunday morning, taking photos of the service, including the choir, the musicians, and the audio control panel. On Saturday, she practiced with it, taking photos around the house; we were able to download them to one of my computers, and view then with the ‘PhotoViewer’ software that was part of the Windows software.

“I could take some sexy photos of us, doing naughty things!” she said. “At least we don’t have to send any film off for processing with this.”

We spend Saturday night playing with the camera, taking rather explicit photos of the four of us – close ups of genitals, me sliding into each of the others, me coming over various sets of breasts. It was fun looking at them on the computer later; we made sure they were fully erased from the camera’s memory; it wouldn’t do for them to somehow get out into the public domain!

Sunday’s photos were far more serious; we got several photos of the outside of the church, plus interior shots that would accompany my article. I would have to work out a way to get the Word document, and the JPG files to the Anglican Church synod offices in Clarence Street. The total file size was too large for a floppy diskette; I would have to see if we had a USB ‘thumb drive’, there were some at work with a 2GB capacity which would be sufficient. I was impressed by the quality of the images from the camera; while not up there with the best SLR cameras, or even professional medium-format cameras, the pictures were more than acceptable. Maybe I should see about getting one, I would talk to some of the guys in Electrical Engineering, see what technology was the best for the long term was. There would be plenty of opportunities for the four of us to have fun with taking photos of each other without the fear of having to take film to a commercial processing place.

At least that evening I had both Lori and Michelle review my article, there were a few suggestions on wording, and I ‘toned down’ the reference to St Albans expelling John and his girlfriend for ‘living together in sin’; I didn’t want anything that could reflect badly on specific parishes or identify individuals. I’m sure that the way I had written that section originally people – in Sydney, at least – would be able to identify the parish and the people involved, and I didn’t want to cause any embarrassment to John or his wife. In the revised version the point was made sufficiently for the purpose of the article. I copied the word document, and the best of the photos to a USB thumb drive, ready for me to deliver it to the Church offices tomorrow. Another task complete, now all I had to do was prepare for the housing summit at the end of the week.

The House will come to Order.

Mid February, 2001

I had been reviewing the papers that Tanya had sent to me for the conference. As I read through I shook my head in despair. There was a complete lack of understanding in how the property and housing markets worked; there wasn’t just a single ‘housing market’ in the country, but a number of interlinked markets, and any change to one – say, rental apartments – caused a flow-on effect in the freestanding house-for-sale market. If the government wanted to improve the affordability of residential housing, then they would have to take a far wider policy view; I felt the State government was on the right track with its decentralization and regional development policies. As long as there was a massive demand for residential housing in the main state capitals, where there was a shortage of available land for housing development, prices would remain high – simple ‘supply and demand’, basic economics.

Reading through some of the papers, I felt that those pushing certain approaches were ignorant about the history of housing development in the country, the various policy decisions that had been taken, and the reasons behind them. Not that I felt people were pushing dangerous policies, but I felt they would have little worthwhile effect, as ideas were being proposed in isolation, with no clear attempt to come up with what could be seen as an overarching, nationwide strategy. They were just attacking what each person felt was their ‘hot issue’, not really thinking things through properly. Whether I could convince others – and I had no idea who else would be at the conference – of the need to take a broader look at the problems, that would be the big question.

I spent the next few days doing some research – the background to Australia’s post-War housing policies, the shift in emphasis from rental to ownership, what government assistance to home ownership had been provided over the years, grants, and tax incentives, and the like. I had planned to take the train down to Canberra on Wednesday afternoon, arriving at Kingston in time to checking into the hotel before the opening session the next morning. For once, Cathy wouldn’t be in Canberra to spend the evenings with me, not that I really needed any additional attention these days.