CHAPTER SIX
Isaac
As she let herself through the door, Persephone was comforted by the silence that reminded her that this was her sole domain. The flat itself was quite large by local standards with a roomy bedroom and bathroom and a balcony that faced the morning sun where Persephone would often enjoy her early morning coffee, sitting on her chair and waving at the locals on the street below as they journeyed to work. Persephone had made the second bedroom into her home office and had equipped it with all the technology she could possibly need as well as a whole bunch of gadgets that she had just coveted and hadn’t been able to resist. The centrepiece standing in the middle of the huge Tasmanian Blackwood desk was an iMac with another enormous screen set up next to it that she used both for her work and also to play the television when she needed distraction in order to solve some tricky problem, or just for a break. She had a couple of other notebook computers and tablets around the place, all of which were networked and had cameras set up in every room that she could access from her smartphone anywhere in the world.
Her close friend and techno-wizard hacker extraordinaire Isaac had been instrumental in setting up her home and network security and was always around to help. Her long-standing and very close relationship with Isaac had managed to remain totally platonic partly because Isaac was overweight, hacker-pasty and bearded, and Persephone preferred her men lean, tanned and clean-shaven. She also needed them to not be as smart as her. This last aspect had always been the key problem with Isaac who was easily the most intelligent man she had ever met.
It had become a long standing game for Isaac to keep Persephone in his sights and for her to find out how he was doing it, get rid of the tracking device or software and escape his surveillance. To date, Isaac reckoned she had been out of his view for maybe a total of 24 hours over the past ten years. He frequently told her she had dropped off the grid even though this was typically when she found one of the primary tracking devices and was not aware of the backups. Persephone also suspected this was the case, but played the game anyway, feeling a little bit safer, if a bit creeped out, knowing that Isaac was watching over her.
Isaac Ben Meissen was a Sabra whose parents had moved to Israel in the early sixties from Dresden. Isaac came from a moderate but devout family and despite his grandparents’ time in the Nazi concentration camps, had been brought up to be an inclusive and tolerant man without the ultra-Zionist beliefs that peppered his generation. Like all Israelis, Isaac was required to serve 3 years national service and despite his lack of enthusiasm for the military and the ease by which he could have avoided it, his parents encouraged him to sign up as soon as he finished his degree in computer science at Ben Gurion University in Be’er Sheba. BGU taught him a number of things – most of them technical, but it also exposed him to some activist student politics in this West Bank location. As soon as he commenced his military service, he was snapped up by Unit Hatzav, where he learnt all about OSINT gathering. This is the specialised area of gathering information that is in the public domain (Open Source) and putting it together into useable military intelligence. This was probably the most useful training Isaac received in his entire life and underpinned his later life living on the fringes (and sometimes venturing into the depths) of lucrative criminal activity in Australia.
It was while he was working in Hatzav that Isaac had met Persephone. She was in Israel in a joint operation with a Shin Bet operative. They had both come to his unit to get some information on a terrorist group that they suspected was operating in Tel Aviv. Isaac had uncovered information about the group itself and had also uncovered some links to a prominent right-wing politician. This made any operation far more dangerous for the Shin Bet and also for Persephone and Isaac, who was smitten from the moment she walked into his office, was determined that she should know about this extra threat to her safety and the operation’s success. His commanding officer, however, had strictly instructed him to keep this specific information to Israeli eyes only.
Isaac’s attraction to Persephone, coupled with his dislike of the currently very popular right-wing politics, meant that he totally ignored his commanding officers instructions. After handing over the official version to both intelligence officers, as they were leaving, Isaac subtly whispered in Persephone’s ear that he had more to offer and would meet her for coffee at the Leonardo Hotel at 6 that afternoon. Persephone was surprised. How did he know that was where she was staying? Figuratively smacking herself in the head, she realised. She said nothing, silently nodded and left.
Once Persephone had left, Isaac started to realise the effect of what he was about to do. Not only was he about to disobey a direct order, he was about to step into a very murky and dangerous world where politics and terrorism collide. He started to sweat profusely, then panic set in as he realised that he was going to meet Persephone dressed in a soaking wet smelly shirt. What was she going to think? He had to find another shirt or Persephone wouldn’t want to some near him and he would have no chance of winning her heart.
In the hotel lobby, dressed in his friend David’s bright blue super-sized shirt and looking not at all inconspicuous, Isaac waited nervously for Persephone to appear. When she did, he was blown away. She was dressed very modestly in lilac silk pants and a cream long sleeved chiffon shirt that covered her completely whilst hinting at a spectacular body underneath. She wore a small set of pearl stud earrings and no makeup. Her long blonde hair was tied casually back and the overall effect overwhelmed Isaac who suddenly realised that he was punching way, way above his weight.
“H-hello” he stuttered, “you look lovely.”
Persephone said nothing, looked around the lobby and, finding nowhere that they could have a private conversation, walked over to the bar, which at this time of the afternoon was only half full. She chose a booth in the far corner and beckoned for Isaac to join her. Getting a firm grip on himself, Isaac slid onto the bench next to Persephone, who ordered a martini for herself and a beer for Isaac as the waiter walked over to serve them.
“Thanks, Persephone, a beer would be lovely.”
Persephone smiled at him. She was curious about what Isaac had to say, and although she could see that he was very attracted to her, she realised that this was not a date and that Isaac had important information that for some reason he was unable to talk about in the office. She was a bit suspicious, but unless the IDF had trained its operatives to perspire on demand, Isaac was clearly genuinely afraid and she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he had come with glowing recommendations from her Shin Bet contact and she had nothing to lose meeting him and hearing what he had to say. Isaac coughed and was about to start when the waiter arrived with their drinks. He quickly stopped himself and waited until the waiter withdrew and nobody could hear their conversation. He explained the link between the Tel Aviv group and the ultra-right wing politician and how this impacted the operation. He stressed that this man was very well connected with some right-wing groups who were not above spilling Israeli blood if it served their cause to stimulate fear of Palestinian terrorists in the Jewish community.
Persephone was grateful but not surprised at the news as she had already had significant experience of the complex and dangerous political and military situation in the Middle East and knew all too well that there were some very unscrupulous players on each side. She was also very pleased to have such a great source of information within the IDF and she knew that now Isaac had compromised himself on this occasion, she had a significant hold over him and would be able to use him again if the need arose. Despite Isaac’s valiant efforts with the clean shirt, she was not at all attracted to him and although she was sympathetic to his desires, was not going to take this in the direction that Isaac clearly wanted. She was conflicted, as although she could see that having Isaac under her spell could be handy, she was beginning to really like the man and didn’t want to start this relationship by deceiving or manipulatin
g him. Or at least not too much.
She was amazed, therefore, at Isaac’s insight behind his next statement.
“I know I’m never going to get anywhere romantically with you, Persephone. But I want you to know that I would like to be your friend. I’m not going to be in this job forever, and maybe later on we can get to know each other. I’ve done a fair bit of reconnaissance on your background and history – sorry about that, but it’s what I do – and I think you are a decent and honourable person who happens to be doing a pretty difficult job right now. I reckon you too will get sick of this soon and I want you to know that I will be keeping an eye on you wherever you are and hoping that we can meet up again some time. I am not going to repeat this information security breach again and although we both know you can get me in real trouble, I know you won’t.”
With an effort of will that Isaac didn’t know he had in him, he casually finished his beer, got up from the bench, shook Persephone’s hand and walked out of the bar.
Although Persephone had no idea at the time, Isaac’s obsession with her continued unabated. He watched as she left the military and moved across the world. He didn’t know what had precipitated this enormous change for Persephone but vowed to himself that if someone had hurt her enough to cause her to run halfway across the world to escape him or her, then he would one day make them pay. As Persephone moved into the corporate world, he used his growing contacts in the Jewish business community to not only keep an eye on her, but wherever possible, give her assistance with her new career. Persephone was totally unaware of her guardian angel’s help and continued to gain more and more experience across many industries and roles both in Australia and across the world.
Persephone sat down in front of her computer in Surry Hills. As she fired up the screen, a window popped up containing a grinning face of her techno-pal.
“Christ Almighty, Isaac, it’s one o’clock in the morning! Are you spying on me?”
“Of course I am Bubbala, why would I spend all that time putting cameras in and not pay attention to your comings and goings? You know I only do this to keep you safe.” Isaac grinned, not at all apologetic. Actually Isaac had set up motion detection alarms so that he was notified of anything happening in Persephone’s flat. Luckily Persephone chose to keep her home pretty much to herself and rarely invited anyone there, so Isaac had not to date been treated to full-colour video of her sexual exploits.
“It’s great to know you have my wellbeing at heart, Isaac, but is there any chance you can fuck off and let me get on with some work?”
Isaac grinned again, waved and turned off the video link and Persephone started to type up a skeleton plan.
This was the first time Persephone had taken on a clandestine project like this, but she saw no reason to abandon the techniques that had worked well for her for years in conducting consulting assignments and major projects across the corporate world. So she started at the top.
What were her objectives?
Find out who had perpetrated this fraud; what was its exact nature and scope; and how many people were involved
Punish the perpetrator or perpetrators
Track down the money and retrieve it
Successfully complete the consulting assignment
These clearly needed a bit of refinement and weren’t in any particular order, so she sat back and considered them. The first objective was okay and didn’t need much work. The second, punishing the evil bastard or bastards, needed to be scoped. What punishment was appropriate to the ‘crime’? Bit hard to work out until she knew what the crime was, but the real question was looming. She already knew there was at least one person missing and one dead related to this matter, so if the perpetrator had caused the deaths of these people, how far was she prepared to go to punish them? The problem was that she and Reg were already outside the law and there was really no foolproof way to get back, so relying on the police and legal system to deal with it wasn’t going to work. In any case, long exposure to the behaviour of corporates had proven to Persephone that crimes were mostly covered up and the criminals paid off to keep quiet, all in an effort to keep the company looking squeaky clean and acceptable to shareholders and the media, again keeping executive bonuses high. So clearly, any punishment meted out to the bad guys was going to have to be meted out by Persephone herself. This could be put on the back burner for now, but she really needed to think this through – after all, if she was going to be a vigilante or avenger, acting for the victims of corporate evil, it was no good slapping the bad bastards over the wrist with a limp lettuce leaf when she caught them. She had to be prepared to go all the way. This would not be her first time that she had taken lethal action when it was required, but it was still a big step to take on her own without the protection of an organisation to support and legitimise it.
The next objective was finding and retrieving the money. Finding it would probably be reasonably straightforward, especially as she had Isaac in her camp, but what would she do with it when she found it? You can’t give money to a dead person, and like many other corporate frauds this might well turn out to be the classic ‘victimless crime’, which is okay as long as you don’t worry about shareholders. And how could you possibly distribute the proceeds to these shareholders anyway, especially when most of them would be other corporate entities who were doing the same thing anyway? It was looking like there was only one reasonable destination for any funds recovered from this work – Persephone. Funnily enough, she was having no problem at all justifying this decision. This was going to be her ‘finders fee’.
The final objective was there mostly so she didn’t forget that the job still needed doing. After all, she had a professional reputation to maintain, and Matt wouldn’t be pleased if he put her into the company and she screwed up the job. And the sex had been mind-blowing so keeping Matt sweet had a number of potential benefits.
Okay, so the next step was to try to identify the key challenges that would lie in the way of achieving the objectives. She eyed the computer screen, but it was getting a bit blurry. Determined to get at least the first bit down before she fell asleep, she wandered out to the kitchen, retrieved a bottle of Scarborough Chardonnay from the fridge, poured herself a large glass and went back to the study.
The challenges she could work out at that time of night were:
Finding out who was doing this without them knowing that she had found them (at least until it was too late for them to do anything to help themselves)
Tracing the money without letting them know that they had found it and working out how to get it
Delivering the punishment without getting caught. Nobody must know that she had done this, especially Reg, who could probably be relied upon to turn a blind eye to stopping a white collar crime that his boys couldn’t, but would certainly not be able to ignore a violent or even deadly retribution.
Working out how to launder the proceeds – after all, no point in collecting them if you can’t spend them
It looked like secrecy was going to be critical. The different parts of this plan must be kept separate to make sure that nobody saw the whole thing. On this thought, Persephone drained the last of the wine, saved her project plan on the computer (first encrypting it and putting a password on), and staggered off to bed. Her dreams that night were pretty confused, and ran from wild sex to back-alley murder all mixed up with a mysterious figure that looked a bit like Reg, but was somehow sexy and violent at the same time.
The following day Persephone woke up with a pounding head and a nauseous taste in her mouth. She dragged herself off to the shower and stood under the hot water for at least ten minutes while her head cleared. Towelling herself dry she vowed never to drink again. Today she was determined to finish her plan and get the important bits set in motion. Before getting back into it, she badly needed coffee, so she pulled on a pair of shorts, bra and t-shirt and headed downstairs to the coffee shop two doors down, where Vi
nh spotted the signs of her hangover and sat her down in the corner with a promise to look after her. He quickly brought her a double espresso and yelled at his daughter to “hurry up and cook the hangover special for Poppy, and make it extra greasy today!”
After her “Dinkum Aussie Fry-up”, Persephone felt much more human and even smiled and thanked Vinh for his kindness as she paid him for the coffee and grease and another espresso to take home. She walked briskly back to the flat and was greeted again by the familiar face of Isaac as soon as she turned on her computer.
“Morning beautiful, what’s happening today?”
Persephone was about to tell him to go away in no uncertain terms again when she realised that Isaac was going to have to help her with her new task and that perhaps she should try to be nice. She was going to have to get Isaac to track down the money for her and show her how he did it so that next time (should there be a next time) she could be a bit more self-sufficient. Isaac watched as Persephone struggled with the dawning realisation that she was going to need his serious assistance. He reflected that he was now at a point in his life where he both wanted to help and could offer skills, contacts and experience that made him the ideal partner in her mission.