The Delta Chain (38 page)

Throughout England, Europe and the U.S,
covert intelligence agencies such as MI5, the CIA and the FBI have
surveillance people who listen to tapes, and view emails around the
clock, endless relay teams of “listeners” and “watchers”. They work
with communication software that scans the digital pathways, the
airwaves and the telecommunications cables. Key words and
combinations of words have been programmed into these systems. When
these words occur within a particular verbal or written
communication, an alarm signal is activated and the communication
is routed to central mainframes, recorded, listened to over and
over, the “chatter” evaluated for its security implications.

Known collectively as Echelon,
it is the method by which the secret services have in the past
detected terrorist plans to kidnap or assassinate politicians,
members of the Royal Family or high-ranking law enforcement
officers.

Nexus had its own such
communications surveillance centre. Within the last week, given the
problems surrounding the Institute, they had set up special scans
in the Northern Rocks region. Forty eight hours ago
they
’
d first zeroed in on half a dozen
phone calls and emails, containing one or more word/phrase
combinations of
‘
Westmeyer
’
,
‘
Institute
’
,
‘
drownings
’
,
‘
Greg
’
, and/or
‘
Kovacs
’
,
‘
Adam
’
, and/or
‘
Bennett
’
,
‘
crocodiles
’
, and
‘
poachers/hunters
’
.
The recorded conversations were replayed again and again, the
information cross -referenced between one tape and
another.

The Head of Nexus
Surveillance was then in contact with Asquith as he travelled to
Australia. It was confirmed that Bennett
’
s investigation of the Jane Doe led to his involvement with
a Task Force codenamed Origin. It was ascertained the Task Force
had connected the Institute with both the croc hunters and the
drowning victims off the Australian and North American
coasts.

By the time Asquith
arrived in Northern Rocks that morning he
’
d been advised the Task Force was in town, readying itself
to move in on the Institute.

Asquith felt the old rush of
battle, of being in the front lines. There was a calm confidence, a
steely resolve.

He remembered that day, as
a boy, in his father
’
s storm shelter on
the old farm.

You can only be in control in a
place like this, a place of calm.

The eye of the storm.

He and his team would be taking
control. No need now for the usual, preliminary on-site
observations and considerations. The crisis was more advanced than
expected, the need for action clear.

The “relocation” would be brutal
and immediate.

Dianne Jarvis and Bob
Pritchard arrived at the domestic terminal, Brisbane Airport, late
that morning. Both possessed comforting, easy-going personas, that
led them to the top of their field when it came to communicating,
counselling and negotiating with young people
–
teens and pre-teens who were victims of crime and/or of use
to police in assisting with information.

O
’
Malley had called them in as counsellors for Daniel and to
act as go- betweens to the boy and the Task Force. The only
information they
’
d been given so far was
that the boy was possibly a runaway from a religious
sect.

They were due in Northern Rocks
early afternoon. Aware of the urgency, their frustrations were
heightened when the airport loudspeakers announced a forty-minute
delay to their connecting flight.

Erickson had given Tannen the
task of observing the Cail home. One of the younger members of the
croc hunting crew, Collville, was across town watching the Costas
Yannous address.

Tannen found a spot,
between bushes, near the corner of the nearest cross street. He
trained binoculars on the house, watching for movement inside the
windows and the side paths of the home. The information
he
’
d been given was that Barbara Cail and
her son, Joey lived there and that the Greek, Yannous, was a
regular visitor.

Tannen, like the others on the
team, had been shown a photo of the boy they were hunting.

As Erickson was a moody,
intense character, Tannen liked it when he was particularly
‘
on side
’
with his
boss. He enjoyed the life he
’
d been
living these past few years, hunting reptiles and the occasional
hapless human out there in the wilds, plenty of adventure, plenty
of money, nothing to worry about. Today was one of his lucky
days.

There were two boys in the
house, visible through a parting in the curtains to what must have
been the Cail boy
’
s bedroom. One of them
met the description of the boy they were hunting.

Pushing his bushy dark hair back
from his eyes, Tannen flipped open his cell phone and called
Erickson.

Having returned to The
Institute, Erickson was in Donnelly
’
s
office when he received the call. Triumphantly he sneered at
Donnelly.

‘I told you I would find
the boy.
’

Daniel
’
s freedom was an exceptional worry to the First Keeper.
He
’
d had runaways before but
they
’
d been caught quickly.
There
’
d been very little disruption to
routine.

Daniel had been on the
loose too long. Even though he
’
d walked
into their trap at Northern Rocks he
’
d
still managed to escape. That was why the First Keeper had called
Westmeyer. This time, for the first time, he needed the help of
Westmeyer
’
s goons.

When faced with this level of
anxiety, the First Keeper liked to walk the streets of the large
regional New South Wales town nearby. Wearing casual, everyday
clothes he blended in easily. It amused him, watching the passing
parade of men and women, young and old, from all walks of life,
going about their petty business in their temporary little
lives.

One hundred years ago another,
similar group had gone about their business in this same place, all
gone now, none of them remembered, even the next generation that
did remember them also mostly long gone. And so it was all over the
world. Six billion people, selfish, greedy, all the centres of
their own temporary universes, reaching out with their wants and
needs and desires, all to be gone and largely forgotten in another
hundred years.

All ensconced in their sin, in
the evils of the world. Destination: hell.

He was the only one to see the
futility of it all…that the one and only way to get close to God
and be truly saved, to achieve everlasting life and become totally
pure of spirit, was to remove yourself from the rest of humanity,
to purge yourself of the infection.

Because sin was infectious and
it spread like wildfire.

How to do that, to purge
oneself? There were so many religious leaders, so many
churches
, so much
sin…

The First Keeper had tried
many of them in his younger days. He
’
d
been raised in the traditional church, trained for it, and then
later hounded out because of his unorthodox views.
He
’
d served in Vietnam, and then wandered
the world, dropping in and out of various religions and sects.
He
’
d always gravitated toward the
leadership and always duelled with the other leaders.

And then a unique financial
opportunity to return to Australia and set up his own group, true
to his own vision: a small but growing “family” that could strive
for spiritual purity by ensuring it was segregated from the
mainstream; a “perfect” society ready and in-waiting for the coming
of Armageddon and the return of the true Lord of all things.

The Keepers Of The Faith
were born and the first Com made possible by William Westmeyer and
his links with an odd tearaway group within US Defence, calling
themselves Nexus; it
’
s beginnings seeded
in those days and nights, so long ago, in the Mekong
Delta.

It came as no surprise, to
the young Westmeyer, that there
’
d been
one other survivor of the massacre in the Vietnamese Sun La
Province
–
the Australian, Joseph Vender,
his bizarre and unlikely companion these past twelve
months.

Morning broke with a watery
orange sunrise, rays of light like splashes of watercolour against
a sky of rich azure. William had begun an aimless wander along the
river, one of the tributaries of the Mekong. Not far from the scene
of the mass drowning, he came across the equally distraught Vender.
Tall, stringy, hyper, Vender had eyes that shone like beacons
whenever he was animated, which was most of the time.

Hobbling around in circles,
muttering, with his matted long hair and beard, dripping sweat, he
was a surreal cross between Rasputin and the leader of rock band
Jethro Tull, a lunatic figure in a landscape gone mad.

It was Vender who
persuaded the villagers to accept him and William into their fold,
a year earlier. It suited them both, hiding them not only from
their own troops but also from the Vietcong. The villagers were
hated by both the South Vietnamese people and by the communist
insurgents from the North. The villagers
’
strange religious beliefs made them outlaws from the forces
that were overtaking their country.

They had created their
camouflaged village in the marshlands and were ready to move it at
a moment
’
s notice if threatened by
exposure.

And yet, despite all that,
William had felt safe here.

Later on, looking back, he
realised he must have “gone troppo”, that mix of exhilaration and
delirium that could affect people in the wild. Civilised people
wrenched back into a world of savagery and survival, exposed to the
elements, becoming at one with nature. It hadn
’
t been uncommon in Vietnam. To this day, William had never
been sure whether Vender was similarly affected, or whether in
fact, always an oddball, he
’
d simply
found a place that suited him.

The Mekong River basin was
separated from the country
’
s other
geographical basin, the Red River, by a mountain chain backing onto
narrow coastal plains. Most of the traffic in the north of Vietnam
was along the maze of waterways, even more so in
wartime.

The Mekong Delta was a
flat alluvial plain, much of its land surface covered in rice
paddies. At least one third of the region was marsh and swamp, many
of the swamp areas difficult to access. The road system was so bad
it wasn
’
t even considered usable by the
military forces.

William and Vender went back to
the smouldering remains of the village and scavenged for the little
food they could find. Then they wandered the banks of the tributary
for five days. On the sixth day, they were rescued by an American
Forces River Patrol.

The U.S. Navy had
established the River Patrol in
’
65 to
patrol and take command of the rivers. The boat that picked up
Westmeyer and Vender was a PBR, a 31-foot fibreglass hull cruiser
especially suited to operations in shallow waters. Manned by a crew
of four, the PBR boats were equipped with surface radar, radios,
and armed with .50 and .30 calibre machine guns.

William was surprised by the
dope smoking, gung ho captain of the crew.

The young
man
’
s name was Donnelly. And whilst he
regarded Vender as something of a freak, Donnelly seemed to enjoy
spending time chatting with William.

William and Vender made
sure they wouldn
’
t face court martial for
going troppo-or going AWOL as far as any military judge was
concerned. Until now they
’
d been listed
as missing in action. They informed their rescuers
they
’
d been captured and imprisoned in a
Vietcong detention stronghold hidden within an obscure Vietnamese
religious cult. The U.S forces had never heard of any such
religious sect but had no reason not to believe the two
men.

But Donnelly, a man who enjoyed
vindictive acts simply for the hell of it, suspected their story
was a lie. He knew the Vietcong would have no such tolerance of any
religious cult. He voiced all this to Area Commander Logan
Asquith.

Vender and Westmeyer were
demobbed and sent home, but Asquith let it be known to both men
that he knew their secret and could expose them. This granted him
favours he knew he could call in at any time. He
wasn
’
t sure what use, if any, the warped
Vender might have. Certainly he would always be useful, with his
strange background, as a patsy. Westmeyer, on the other hand, had
entered into service as part of a little known sponsorship program.
He would continue with the Forces in scientific research. After a
period of service he would be free to go out on his own. A man like
that could prove incredibly useful to the ambitious
Asquith.