The MI5 analysts were in the final stages of the investigation and had almost given up hope when one of them unravelled an old credit card transaction slip in the back of Cox’s wallet. The credit card number on the slip did not match any of Cox’s cards.
The mysterious credit card was traced to a company called Lomborg Financial, based in Brisbane. The transaction was for a lunch at a Brisbane restaurant six days earlier. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) began a discreet investigation.
The restaurant still had CCTV footage of the afternoon in question. It showed Barry Cox meeting with Arnos Lomborg, chairman of Lomborg Financial. At the end of the meal, Lomborg paid with his credit card. Cox left a cash tip and accidentally pocketed the transaction slip.
With nothing else to go on, ASIS began looking into Lomborg Financial. The family-run company employs thirty people and has fewer than a dozen large clients. Lomborg’s biggest client is a wealthy and secretive religious cult known as the Survivors.
When ASIS began investigating this business relationship they noticed that Lomborg Financial was buying shares and futures through other stockbrokers in order to hide what they were doing. They also noticed that the Survivors’ investment portfolio had risen more than 1000% in just four years. These extraordinary profits suggested that the Survivors had some kind of illegal inside knowledge.
It soon became clear that the Survivors’ investment strategy coincided with attacks by Help Earth. For instance, on 27 October 2004 the Survivors purchased futures contracts on four million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil. Three days later, Help Earth destroyed an oil pipeline between Venezuela and Brazil. The price of Venezuelan oil rose by six per cent and the Survivors’ profits exceeded $10 million on an investment of less than $1 million. Evidence has also been uncovered that the Survivors have siphoned $300 million of their profits into overseas bank accounts. The most likely explanation for this is that the Survivors are financing Help Earth.
As in all intelligence work, it is essential to gather as much information as possible before making the target aware that it is under investigation. There is already enough evidence to prosecute Lomborg Financial and the Survivors with fraud and money-laundering offences. However, ASIS and MI5 feel that any fast move would involve turning down an opportunity to probe deeper and reach into the heart of Help Earth, perhaps even destroying the organisation entirely.
To this end, ASIS has devised a number of schemes to penetrate the Survivors’ organisation. They believe that a family unit, utilising CHERUB agents, will stand the best chance of allaying suspicions and infiltrating the secretive cult.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SURVIVORS
In 1961, Joel Regan quit a moderately successful career as a vending-machine salesman. He purchased a disused church building on the outskirts of Brisbane and began to preach his own brand of the gospel.
Regan claimed that he had received a message from God, telling him that nuclear war was imminent and to build an Ark in the Australian outback. Regan said that his true followers would emerge from the Ark as the only survivors of the war and rebuild civilisation as a Christian paradise.
Most people expected the 38-year-old’s kooky brand of homespun Christian values and predictions of an apocalypse to fizzle out, but they had not counted upon Regan’s experience as a salesman, or his training as an intelligence officer in the Australian army.
Locals who attended Regan’s meetings as a joke often found themselves surrounded by attractive members of the opposite sex imploring them to return and many did. Regan also opened his church to local community groups, including single and divorced mothers, war widows and recovery groups.
Members of these groups were often lonely individuals, who took up Regan’s invitations to join his religious services and enjoyed the friendly atmosphere within the group, which Regan called the Ocean of Love.
But once a church member felt comfortable inside the Ocean of Love, the more sinister side of Regan’s religion would come to the fore. Using a mixture of traditional salesmanship and sophisticated mind control techniques he’d learned as an intelligence officer, Regan would invite his members to group therapy sessions where they would be asked to relive the most traumatic and upsetting times of their lives.
The sessions were designed to produce the effect commonly known as brainwashing. Regan would make stark contrast between the horrors of the outside world and the comfortable and friendly world of the people he called ‘Survivors’. After as few as three or four intensive sessions, members who were susceptible to the mind control techniques would begin to show radical changes in their thoughts and behaviour. They would become distrustful of formerly close friends and family members and spend increasing amounts of time involved in group activities with the Survivors.
As sessions continued, Regan would begin to emphasise the more eccentric elements of his religion. In particular, the need to build an Ark in the Australian outback. The Ark would have to be completely self sufficient and strong enough to withstand seven years of turmoil following a nuclear war.
Building the Ark would require vast sums of money. Once they had been successfully recruited, Regan’s followers were asked to move into basic accommodation adjacent to his church, donate all of their personal wealth to help build the Ark and serve as a disciple of the church.
The work of Survivors varies. Some work inside the church, preaching, counselling and recruiting new members. Others are sent out to earn money, as cleaners, farm hands, construction workers and even carrying on Regan’s original business as vending-machine salesmen.
THE SURVIVORS TODAY
A two-hour flight into the outback from Brisbane will take you to one of the most spectacular and eccentric structures on the planet. Forty-four years after being founded, the Survivors’ Ark is a spectacular A$5billion construction, combining the high walls and dormitory-style accommodation of a prison, with a 150-metre-high temple, airport, modern offices, educational facilities and a palatial sixty-room residence that is the official home of 82-year-old Joel Regan. He is Australia’s richest and most controversial man.
The Survivors have more than 13,500 full-time members living on 23 global Survivor communes. Another 17,000 regularly attend Survivor meetings and self-help groups. A second Ark is under construction in Nevada and there are plans for a third in Japan.
The cult has sprawling business interests in farming, medical care and information technology, and is the world’s largest provider of vending machines and support services. If the Survivors were a corporation instead of a religious foundation it would be Australia’s tenth largest.
THE CHERUB–ASIS MISSION
The primary aim of the CHERUB–ASIS mission is to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the Ark and try to uncover the links between the Survivors and Help Earth. The mission is likely to take between two and six months to achieve success, and involves four complex phases.
(1) JOINING
Posing as a divorcee and her family, Abigail Sanders and three CHERUB agents will move into a wealthy Brisbane suburb that is known to be a hotbed for Survivor recruitment and activity. All four agents will make efforts to join the cult. This should be easy as the cult is always on the prowl for new recruits, particularly those with money.
(2) INTEGRATING
The four agents will be expected to undergo counselling and become full members of the cult by moving into a commune. It should be noted that once a person understands how mind control techniques work, they are relatively easy to resist. There is no chance that a young agent who has adequately studied mind control techniques before the mission will accidentally become brainwashed.
(3) ENTERING THE ARK
While the Survivors’ Ark is primarily intended as a shelter in the event of an apocalypse, its day-to-day function is as a headquarters for the Survivors business operations and a place of education. Unless they are employed as administrative staff, or are members of the cult’s elite, adults are only likely to attend the
Ark for short religious seminars and ceremonial events such as weddings and christenings.
Younger cult members stand a much better chance of becoming permanent residents inside the Ark. While most youngsters inside the Survivors attend regular state schools, or schools within their commune, the brightest 10% of children aged 11+ are creamed off and sent to one of five Survivor boarding schools around the world. Australian children are sent to a boarding school within the Ark itself.
These schools exist to train the Survivors’ Elite Corps, who Joel Regan claims will run the world after the apocalypse. Pupils are taught an eccentric curriculum and graduates can expect rapid promotion, often attaining positions of authority inside the cult by their early twenties.
All CHERUB agents are intelligent and it is expected that they will meet the academic requirements for the elite school.
(4) MAKING THE LINK TO HELP EARTH
ASIS are currently unsure how deeply links run between Help Earth and the Survivors. The arrangement could be exclusively financial, with the Survivors using their considerable wealth to fund terrorist attacks, or it could be that Help Earth is effectively a branch of the Survivors, with Survivors actively planning and carrying out terrorist acts under the name Help Earth.
According to former members of the Survivors cult who have lived inside the Ark, there can be anything up to 1,000 Survivors in residence at any given time attending courses and ceremonies. However, the permanent community consists of Joel Regan and a few close members of his family, 120 senior cult officials and support staff, plus about 150 pupils who attend the boarding school.
The community is tight knit and the adults closest to Joel Regan are notorious for their petty jealousies, one-upmanship and gossip. The children attending the boarding school are expected to do chores inside the Ark and many of the older pupils do part-time administrative jobs.
Although ASIS and CHERUB have had less than a week to prepare this mission briefing, preliminary assessments suggest that CHERUB agents who get accepted into the boarding school and make good use of their espionage training will have an excellent chance of uncovering information about the link between the Survivors and Help Earth.
THE CHERUB ETHICS COMMITTEE UNANIMOUSLY ACCEPTED THIS MISSION BRIEFING BUT REQUESTE THAT ALL POTENTIAL MISSION CANDIDATES CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
(1) This mission has been classified HIGH RISK. Agents may be expected to work in a remote location without close support from mission controllers.
(2) The Survivors cult espouses ‘traditional’ values, including the physical punishment of children.
(3) Because of the remote location of the Survivors’ Ark, agents may find it difficult to withdraw from the mission at short notice.
(4) The length of the mission means you will be separated from siblings and friends for a significant amount of time.
10. AIRBORNE
Dana had been born in Australia and recruited from a Melbourne children’s home, but for James and Lauren the trip to Australia was set to be the longest of their lives. The first stint to Singapore was thirteen hours, then they had a six-hour layover before an eight-hour flight to Brisbane.
They flew out on a Sunday morning, with John, his assistant Chloe, and Abigail Sanders from ASIS. Once word got around that James and Lauren were going away for up to six months, a few friends decided to make the journey to Heathrow and say goodbye: Kyle, Bruce, Kerry, Callum, Connor, Bethany and four of Lauren’s other girlfriends. While they babbled on the minibus ride to the airport, Dana stuck her iPod headphones in her ears and started reading a battered copy of Lord Of The Rings. She didn’t have any close friends, and while James felt bad for her, Dana didn’t seem to care one jot.
Mercifully, the economy section of the plane was booked out and CHERUB had to stump up for business-class tickets. After a short wait at the check-in counter, the six passengers headed upstairs and joined the gang in the self-service restaurant.
James got a cooked breakfast with orange juice and went to join the others, but he noticed Kerry was on her own at the next table across and she waved him over.
‘Hey,’ James said. ‘What are you doing over here?’
Kerry looked down at her mug of tea. ‘I kept thinking about you when I was in Hong Kong. I was gonna say something when I got back, but I never found the right moment.’
James smiled uneasily. ‘Say what?’
‘You know, we’ve ended up snogging quite a few times since we broke up last September and neither of us has really been with anyone else …’
James grinned. ‘I’ve struck out enough times.’
‘So Gabrielle tells me,’ Kerry smirked.
‘Yeah, well … That one didn’t really mean much, ’cos I was so wasted.’
‘Should I relay that information?’ Kerry grinned.
‘No, she’ll kick my arse. So what exactly are we having a conversation about here?’
‘When you get back – whenever you get back – I’d like us to give it another go.’
James smiled. It was something he’d wanted to hear Kerry say for five months; just a pity the timing was so awful.
‘That’s if you’re around,’ James said. ‘You might be off on a mission yourself.’
‘I know,’ Kerry said, stirring her drink sadly. ‘And I’m not gonna start turning down juicy missions, even for you.’
‘You’re not a cherub for very long when you think about it,’ James said, shaking his head slowly. ‘I was talking to Kyle about this before you went to Hong Kong. He’s sixteen now. Another year or eighteen months and he’s not going to be around.’
Kerry smiled. ‘Mind you, Kyle’s such a titch. It’s only a couple of tufts of bum fluff that makes him look any older than you.’
Kerry looked up with a needy little expression that James recognised as her I want you to kiss me face. There were more than a dozen cherubs and staff sitting at the next table, so it wasn’t exactly discreet, but James realised it might be his only opportunity in months.
They both leaned forward. It started off with a standard kiss, but they got quite excited and James ended up with his hands around the back of Kerry’s head and his T-shirt dragging through the runny yolk of a fried egg.
It took a barrage of bread rolls and butter pats to break them apart.
‘Get a room,’ Kyle shouted.
Lauren deepened her voice, mocking James. ‘I don’t know why you keep going on about me fancying Kerry. We’re just good friends now.’
James and Kerry both smiled guiltily at their mates before looking back at each other.
‘So, I’ll try and keep in touch,’ James said. ‘You know, e-mail and that.’
Kerry held her mug of tea up to her face, looking sad. ‘Yeah.’
*
Six weeks of getting up early for ACC training with a full day of school afterwards had left James bruised, aching and run down. He usually struggled to sleep on aeroplanes, but this one had sleeper seats that reclined into flat beds and the attentive staff fetched you pillows and a duvet as soon as you showed any sign of nodding off.
When he was awake, James played on his PSP, ate junk food, chatted to Abigail about the Australian lifestyle and skimmed some books John had got hold of on cults and mind control. The books looked stuffy, but James was amazed by some of the facts and got quite interested.
He’d never devoted any thought to cults, but had always assumed you had to be a whack job to join one. According to the books, the truth was different.
People recruited into cults tended to be thoughtful and intelligent. Their backgrounds were normal, although they were usually recruited at a time in their lives when they were lonely and ill at ease with everyday life. Typical cult joiners were people who had recently divorced, or lost their jobs, university students living away from home for the first time and older people who’d recently been widowed.
According to one of the books there were 7,000 known cults with more than five million members around the world.
They ranged from dirt poor groups of a few dozen people who lived in tents and ate out of dumpsters, to billion-dollar corporations with their own TV networks and branded products.
Lauren was in the next seat to James. She’d got interested in the books too and they kept reading bits to each other, especially the more lurid stuff about cults that had assassinated politicians and kidnapped judges, and especially about mass suicides.
‘Here,’ Lauren said, ‘listen to this: There have been more than seventy recorded incidences of mass cult suicide. The largest was the People’s Temple, where leader Jim Jones ordered his followers to commit suicide, resulting in nine hundred deaths. Babies and small children who were unable to take their own lives were given bottles laced with cyanide. Then further down it says, Cults based around an apocalyptic vision are usually the most destructive.’
James smirked. ‘Well, that’s reassuring.’
*
February is high summer down under and Australia greeted James with a thirty-eight-degree blast of heat: the muggy kind that makes your shirt stick to your back three steps out of an air-conditioned building.
John and Chloe headed off to check into a hotel in the city. Abigail and the three youngsters took a yellow Toyota taxi. Brisbane was clean and modern, but there were road works on the way out of the airport and they spent three-quarters of an hour tangled in traffic.
While they crawled, the sky darkened and giant globs of rain began drumming the metal roof, while lightning exploded behind the tall buildings in the city centre. Once they got past the jam, they hit a hundred and twenty kph around the outskirts of the city and ended up in a suburban area ten kilometres from the centre.