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?
Jake checked through some other documents on Barry’s memory stick. Apart from the contracts there were also details of payments to overseas bank accounts. He did an extensive internet search on Mitsustrata, Northern Consulting and Baobab Trustee and the overseas banks but came up empty-handed. The only two people he knew with the skills to track something like this down were Helen Kwang and her daughter Sarah. He picked up the phone and dialled Helen’s mobile number. After a couple of rings, Helen picked up.
“Hi Helen, it’s Jake. How’s it going?” Jake enquired.
“Still frantic Jake. Koshi has just returned to Tokyo and everyone’s heaved a huge sigh of relief. But there’s still a lot of unanswered questions about the Chinese terrorists. What have you been up to Jake?”
“Helen, I’ve mailed some confidential documents to your Canberra address. Could you keep them safe for me till I get to Canberra and can discuss them with you.”
Helen responded “Sure Jake. I’ll be back in Canberra tomorrow. Give me a call when you’re in Canberra and we can have a meal together. Have you found anything of interest?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve got some names of companies and overseas banks which might be important but I can’t track them down. Would you be able to help me?”
“I’ll do what I can Jake but I’m no expert in chasing these things either.’
“What about Sarah, is she still in the finance security business?”
“Yes, she is, I could ask her to help. What’s this all about Jake?”
Jake knew that Sarah worked with one of the financial security companies and was an expert in tracking transactions to their source. She had also saved one of the banks millions of dollars by running down some hackers who had infiltrated their financial system.
“It may be nothing or it could be something sensitive. Look if it amounts to anything, you’ll be the first to know.” Jake was being deliberately vague.
“O.K., send me the details Jake and I’ll talk to Sarah about it.”
Jake thanked her and texted her the names of the companies and banks involved.