The main difference with this employer from most others in the Australian scene was that employees were never to divulge to anyone for whom they worked; however modest one’s duties everyone was subject to the Official Secrets Act. This suited Wallace because there were so many people who had some form of paranoia about ASIO and its sister organisation ASIS. Consequently it was best kept under wraps to avoid being sucked into arguments at parties or barbecues, especially during election periods or strikes.
He could remember being told of incidents where nails and broken glass were scattered around the ASIO car parks when they were resident in St Kilda Road in Melbourne, which brought about an epidemic of punctures. The same problems occurred when they moved offices to Canberra but when working there Wallace lived near enough to either walk or catch a bus. This summed up some people’s views on security organisations, people who gave no thought as to what could happen if they didn’t exist.
Eventually the job began to pall, many of the people with whom he mixed exhibited similar characteristics to public servants everywhere else, whose main interests were checking the promotions lists, issuing paper clips, checking who was on time and who wasn’t, or issuing reprimands, so eventually Wallace handed in his resignation and tried his hand in the insurance market. He took examinations and began selling with some success and was so successful that in time he was called upon to give presentations to other salesmen and women as to sales methods. In time this evolved into presentations of motivational business presentations and management techniques.
In time his presentations skills became such that he left insurance to organise and run speaking and management courses full time for those who had to deliver speaking engagements on behalf of their companies. Wallace had joined Toastmasters International; a public speaking organisation based in America, and made a few trips to the USA under its umbrella while standing for various positions within it. While in the States he met many who earned a living on the speaking circuit and made many contacts. He also joined Rostrum, a similar organisation to Toastmasters which had a more Australian slant.
After gaining considerable expertise, he enlisted with an agency that arranged inspirational and motivational projects and seminars for speakers from abroad in addition to finding actors for parts in ABC and commercial television productions. There were not too many others in Wallace’s particular field in Australia, but he found the work began to accumulate. It was a hard road initially, necessitating part-time jobs along the way to keep the wolf from the door, but eventually Wallace broke through into the bigger time.
At the ripe old age of 32 he found himself a recognised member of the speaking circuit. He made some trips to the USA to gain experience and had one or two assignments there which also gained him more useful contacts. This brought him more attention in the Australian market and also Britain, and engagements began to come his way.
That was where Robert Bramble came in. Their first acquaintance had been at secondary school where Bramble was a few years older than Wallace and as a senior boy had often asserted his right to twist the arm of any more junior boys in the playground who were unlucky enough to stray within reach, including that of Wallace!
Their next meeting came about at the time Bramble was a junior executive in ASIO. Wallace had recognised him at once when he also joined the organisation; Bramble had not changed much since his arm twisting days and, having some semblance of seniority, tended to boss people around, including Wallace. He was dark haired, with a few flecks of grey, which was nothing to do with worrying or his life style, Bramble’s father had been grey haired when still a fairly young man though Bramble appeared to have avoided that fate. Bramble also had a hooked nose that was quite distinctive and a self important look. He adopted ASIO as a career where Wallace did not.
Their next crossing of paths came one cold June night when Wallace gave a motivational speech as a guest speaker at a Rotary Convention and Bramble, now a senior ASIO operative, was in the audience. After the Rotary meeting ended, he approached Wallace and re-introduced himself, there was a brief chat, during which Wallace pointedly asked him to stop calling him Josiah, and then they both parted. Wallace was never quite sure why Bramble was in Rotary; he wondered whether he used it for recruiting other mugs like him, unless Bramble suspected the organisation of engaging in nefarious activities. Two months later he approached Wallace out of the blue and asked him to do a small job for him, involving delivery of a package, when Wallace next went to the USA. Wallace refused.
He came round to see Wallace again two days later and insisted, promising him a small fee, and the chance of more work. To show his good faith, he landed Wallace an assignment at the annual general meeting of a large and well known Australian company. They wanted a light hearted speech delivered at their annual convention, based on their own industry, to break up an otherwise dreary sequence of serious business presentations. Apparently they supplied electronic equipment to ASIO so there was some connection there.
His ability to assist with procuring business persuaded Wallace to agree to help Bramble, and thereafter it became an irregular thing. Wallace would keep him posted as to his itinerary and Bramble would find small deliveries or collections for him to undertake.
‘Why don’t you use your own people,’ Wallace had once asked him when they were having a coffee in the open air section of a Canberra coffee house.
‘What own people?’ Bramble had answered sardonically.
‘What sodding government, especially those oriented to the Left, will allocate sufficient funds to its intelligence organisation?’
‘Surely our government does,’ Wallace had retorted. ‘You must have unlimited access to funds.’
‘Don’t talk bloody crap!’ Bramble had snorted bitterly. ‘Bloody Labor Governments think we are secret police oppressing the workers and spying on the unions, while Liberal Governments look nervously over their shoulders while they give us inadequate hand outs from Consolidated Revenue which is ostensibly for something else when they think Labor aren’t looking.’
He paused for breath in the middle of his tirade to sample his coffee.
‘All we’re good for is to be whipping boys whenever the CIA foul something up, there’s a Russian spy scandal or we invade somebody’s home looking for bomb making materials. When we had that bloody balls up at the Sheraton all those years ago we actually had the Victorian Labor government trying to have the names of our people publicised which would have blown their cover forever and wasted millions of dollars expended on their training! Don’t talk to me about fucking governments!’
Such had been the bitterness of his response that Wallace had let the matter ride, frankly he had some sympathy with much of what Bramble said.
Wallace had been asked to deliver a motivational speech to a convention that was being organised by the insurance industry and was being held in Singapore, and with the situation of the insurance industry as it was at that time they probably needed motivation. The industry was jittery and tending to tip large numbers of their workforces into the street clutching retrenchment cheques immediately after, or probably just before, the release of their annual statements.
Why the insurance industry selected Singapore for an industry conference was puzzling, unless they were hoping to stimulate re-insurance business from that sector, or maybe the strip clubs were more discreet.
The preparation for Wallace’s presentation was going well, he was arranging for some visual aids encompassing cartoons and drawings that should go down well. He called upon Laurie Frazer, an old friend and former work colleague who was the Assistant Manager at the Saturn Insurance, to check with him to see if he thought they were all right.
‘I can’t see much wrong with those,’ Frazer said as he riffled through them. ‘But you should make some adjustments