Blood at Yellow Water (21 page)

They left together and got in their
vehicles. Jake followed Bill to Elsie’s house. It was an old three
bedroom weatherboard home but well-kept and recently painted. Bill
pulled out the key for the door but the door was unlocked.

*

“That’s strange, I’m sure Elsie locked the
door when we left,” Bill said.

Suddenly they heard a rush of steps and the
back door banging. They raced through the kitchen to see a man
sprinting towards the back fence. Jake set off in pursuit but the
man had quickly climbed over the fence and disappeared into the
next house. Jake hurled himself over the fence and dropped to the
other side, wincing with pain as he landed on his injured leg. Bill
landed next to him and they both set off round the side of the
house and out to the next street. They looked left and right but
there was no sign of the intruder. Bill swore loudly as they walked
back to Elsie’s home.

*

The house was untouched by the intruder
except for the office which had been ransacked with books and files
and papers scattered all over it. The screen on the computer was
still on so the intruder had obviously been going through Barry’s
computer files before he was disturbed.

“Barry must have had something of real value
for them to have another go at robbing the place. And whatever it
was, they probably didn’t get it because that guy wasn’t carrying
anything when he ran off. Poor Elsie doesn’t need this on top of
everything else.”

They set about cleaning up the office and
restoring everything to its proper place. Once the office looked
decent again Bill suggested they start their search.

“The problem is we don’t know what we’re
looking for. It could be on the computer, a memory stick, some
paper documents, an audio or video tape,” said Jake

“O.K., let’s do this room by room. Jake you
take the computer, the office and the bedrooms and I’ll do the
living areas and bathroom.”

They searched every room thoroughly,
checking for hidden spaces, hollow walls, loose floorboards, even
poked around in the ceiling, but could find nothing. After two
hours, they were convinced that whatever it was, it was not in the
house. They then started on the outside, the garage, the garden and
the shed, still without success. The only remaining place to look
was under the house. Bill changed into a pair of jeans and T-shirt
and brought out some old clothes and a torch for Jake. Jake
replaced his suit for the old clothes while Bill came out with a
set of house keys and found one that unlocked the padlock to the
gate providing access to under the house. Jake followed Bill as he
crawled through the gate and they found there was just enough room
to stand up if he bent right over. He shined the flashlight under
the house brushing cobwebs aside as he went. There was a pile of
timber, old bathroom tiles and a stack of plastic agricultural
pipes as well as assorted tools and junk lying on the earthen
floor, but nothing that would indicate a hiding place. They hauled
themselves back out through the gate and straightened up. Bill went
to replace the padlock when Jake stopped him.

“That padlock and key look new Bill, yet you
wouldn’t think Barry would have needed to go under the house too
often.”

“Yeah, that’s true but the old one could
have just rusted out” replied Bill.

“But there’s nothing of any value under
there, so why would he need a padlock at all? Let’s have another
quick look.”

Jake ducked under the house again and shone
his torch along the inside walls either side of the gate. There
were two PVC plastic pipes lying along one wall, each about four
metres in length and ten centimetres in diameter. They were the
type that Jake had seen carried on roof racks of 4WD vehicles to be
used for water storage. They had screw caps on each end. He picked
up the end of the closest pipe, unscrewed the cap off and shone the
torch down the pipe. All he could see was an old bag stuck in the
pipe. Without any expectation he pulled out a plastic bag sealed
with masking tape. He stumbled back through the gate into the yard.
He peeled off the tape and opened the bag. Inside the bag was a
small black box. It looked like a gift box used for jewellery or
watches. He opened the box and inside it was a key ring. The key
ring was of no interest to Jake. But he was very interested in the
USB memory stick attached to it.

“Bill, I might have something here. Take a
look!” Jake showed him the key ring and memory stick.

Bill looked at the memory stick. “Right,
let’s load it onto the computer and see what’s on it.”

They walked inside and Jake plugged the USB
into Barry’s computer. He started scrolling through the files. He
found several documents that looked interesting including a letter,
some emails and two contracts. He read the letter quickly and
gasped.

“What’s in it Jake? Bill peered over his
shoulder at the computer screen.

“This is a copy of a letter from a company
called Northern Consulting to Baobab Trustees. It states that they
will pay Baobab $2.25 million for services relating to land rights
and environmental issues in the development of the Jabiru
mine.”

Bill interjected “Christ Almighty! That’s
what the intruders were looking for. Northern Consulting is the
consultant commissioned by Energet to negotiate with the Land
Council over the aboriginal land rights issue holding up the mine
development. I’ll bet Baobab Trustees is owned by Bert O’Shea,
President of the Land Council. They’ve made a secret deal with
O’Shea to make sure the Land Council doesn’t object to the
development of the mine. Barry’s got hold of a copy somehow. This
is dynamite!”

Jake checked the other documents. There were
emails detailing technical specifications of the area for mining
development in Jabiru which didn’t mean much to him. Then he
examined the largest document which was entitled “Agreement between
Energet Resources and Nippan Energy”. It seemed to be a standard
contract detailing terms and conditions for the exploitation of
uranium in the Jabiru district. His interest was sparked when he
scanned a second contract which was marked “Highly Confidential”.
This outlined an agreement between Energet and Mitsustrata, a
Japanese company he had never heard of. This also seemed to be a
standard contract but one clause took his eye. It set out special
payments for the production and supply of rare earths and spelt out
the names of particular rare earths of interest. This confused Jake
because all the publicity for the mine related to the production of
uranium.

Just then, Lizzie and Elsie walked in the
front door. Jake hastily closed down the computer and removed the
memory stick. He returned it to the gift box and put it in his
pocket. He spoke to Bill, “Let’s talk later about what we do with
this.” Bill nodded his head in agreement and walked to the
kitchen.

In the kitchen, Lizzie was comforting Elsie
who was overcome with grief and exhausted from the effort of trying
to hold herself together at the funeral. Lizzie made her a cup of
tea and encouraged her to lie down on her bed after giving her some
sedatives to help her sleep.

Bill told Lizzie about the break-in and what
they had found under the house. She gasped when Jake pulled out the
memory stick from his pocket and explained its contents. They
discussed what they should do for several minutes. Lizzie sat down
next to Jake and said

“Jake, we’d like you to keep the USB and
follow this up. Elsie won’t want anything to do with it after
what’s happened to Barry. You understand this funny business better
than anyone we know and we trust you. Will you take it and see that
Barry gets some justice?”

Jake thought about it. “I’m not sure I’m the
right person to follow this through. What about giving the stick to
the police and letting them pursue it.”

“I wouldn’t trust the coppers as far as I
could throw them. Look what happened to Barry. Please Jake, we
don’t know anyone else with your background that could follow this
up.”

“O.K. I’ll give it a go. I’ll talk to a few
people and work out what’s the best course of action. But Elsie
should have a say in this.”

“Thanks Jake. Don’t worry about Elsie. I’ll
talk to her tomorrow when she’s recovered a bit from her ordeal.
But I’m sure she’d rather you followed it up. All she wants is
justice for Barry’s death.”

Jake nodded, not sure what he was getting
himself into.

“I’ll think it over for the next few
days.”

“You’d better stay here tonight Jake, it’s a
long drive back to Daly Waters.”

Jake agreed, returning the memory stick to
his pocket, and spent the evening talking to Bill and Lizzie. He
retired early and slept on a mattress on the floor in the
sleep-out.

THURSDAY - DALY WATERS

Early in the morning Jake farewelled Bill, Lizzie
and Elsie, climbed into the Toyota and headed back down the now
familiar highway to Daly Waters. He entered his cabin to find a
note on the kitchen table from Shoni saying she was working that
evening at the hotel and suggesting he eat dinner there and have a
drink with her at closing time. He walked across to Bill’s office
and let himself in. He plugged the USB into Bill’s computer and
printed two copies of the documents. After removing the USB, he
folded up one complete copy of the documents, walked across to the
general store which also acted as a post office and bought some
large envelopes and postage stamps. He then wrote a short note,
placed the note and documents in one of the large envelopes,
addressed the envelope to Helen Kwang at the National’s office in
Canberra, marked it PRIVATE in big bold letters, stamped it and
dropped it in the mailbox outside the store.

Back in the cabin, he placed the second copy
of the documents in the other large envelope with the intention of
giving it to Bill to hold in his office safe.

He opened his laptop and started searching
on the internet for information about rare earths.

He found several articles of interest. Rare
earths comprise seventeen different metal oxides such as cerium and
lanthanum which are used in manufacture of emerging technologies
such as lasers, magnets, batteries, defence equipment, fibre optics
and electronic components. China has 95% of world production and
controls the world market. By contrast, Japan is the world’s
biggest consumer of rare earths used for its high technology and
defence industries. Following the recent disagreement over disputed
territories in the East China Sea, China had refused to supply
Japan with its rare earths. This had left the Japanese desperately
seeking alternative supplies of rare earths.

Jake rang around some of his contacts in the
mining industry until he found an expert in the field of rare
earths. His name was Stan Hill, a former employee of the Australian
Bureau of Mineral Resources, and now working as a consultant. Jake
introduced himself as the Australian Trade Commissioner based in
Tokyo and was seeking information on the pretext of looking for new
opportunities for Australian companies. He asked him whether any
new suppliers of rare earths had emerged in recent times and the
likely effects on the market if a substantial new supplier
emerged.

Stan advised that there were reserves of
rare earths in a number of countries outside China but China had
vigorously undercut any international rivals and had driven them
out of business. Australia has large reserves in the Northern
Territory and South Australia and was the only country outside
China which had the reserves and capacity to produce rare earths in
commercial quantities. The problem was the huge cost of developing
any new mine to produce rare earths.

Jake queried Stan on the Chinese-Japanese
relationship regarding trade in rare earths. He affirmed that it
was an extremely sensitive area between the two countries and that
China would do anything to prevent any other country supplying
Japan. It would be seen by the Chinese as a threat to its
domination of the world market and to its leading position in the
development of new technologies, especially for weapons
systems.

On further prompting from Jake, Stan
suggested that China would try to buy into any new deposit of rare
earths in Australia and would want a controlling share in any new
development. China was vehemently opposed to the current limit set
by the Australian Investment Review Board of 49% on foreign
shareholdings in mining development and had made its views known on
numerous occasions to the Australian Government on mining projects
of interest. Any move by Australia to produce rare earths without
China’s involvement would most likely lead to a severe protest from
China and deterioration in relations.

Jake thanked him and hung up. The more he
thought about it the more intriguing the situation became. He
remembered his conversation with Felix Sherbel, the Operations
Manager for Energet, who was evasive about the production of
uranium at the Jabiru mine. What if the top people in Energet and
Nippan, the joint operators of the mine, had conspired to produce
rare earths to supply the Japanese market, not just uranium as
widely publicised. It was not uncommon for uranium and rare earths
to be found together and the uranium mine could be a smokescreen to
cover the production of rare earths. Such a secretive operation
could only be undertaken after close collaboration at the top level
of the Australian and Japanese Governments. The Australian
production would fill the void of rare earth supplies that had been
left by the withdrawal of Chinese supplies. Consequently the
Japanese defence industry would have access to the metal oxides so
critical to development of new technologies for its strategic
industries, especially in the defence area.

With a start, Jake realised there could be a
connection between the Chinese terrorist attack and the production
of rare earths at the Jabiru mine. Was it possible that the Chinese
had discovered that the mine was intended to produce rare earths
and wanted to prevent the Japanese from receiving alternative
supplies? He shuddered at the thought that the Chinese Government
might take such action - or was it a splinter group within the
Chinese bureaucracy?