In 2004 Andrew Kelly's former colleague at the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Greg Whiteside, moved into a private sector role in Dubai. There, petro-dollars were raising from the desert a city of impossible excess.
Kelly coveted the tax-free lifestyle he imagined his friend was living. ''I was thinking about how a washed-up has-been might make some serious money,'' he joked to Whiteside in an August 2006 email. How did you get your job, he wanted to know. ''Start talkin to get me walkin.''
It didn't take Kelly long. Nine months later he was gloved inside a limousine as it purred across the desert to Abu Dhabi, where he would check into the Emirates Palace Hotel. It was an extraordinary position to be in for a mid-level government functionary. And in the end, he hadn't needed Whiteside; seated next to him during the flight was Charif Kazal.
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