This is John Batchelor.

What follows is a brief excerpt from a much longer conversation with distinguished author and journalist

Brett Forrest of the Wall Street Journal as to how he was compelled to follow the mystery of Billy Riley's

disappearance.

Brett's own experience took him to Russia and Ukraine, and those are the same pathways that he followed in his

reporting. This is a glimpse of how a reporter, one who tells long stories for his editors, becomes engaged, compelled, obsessed,

drawn by danger. by Danger and the unknown. Here's Brett Forrest on his path and Billy Riley's

past. Well for me personally, John, it was always a sort of dual calculation here.

One was, as a reporter at the Wall Street Journal with professional responsibilities of trying to unearth interesting stories and important stories to tell, but also filing regular stories and publishing regularly and meeting demands of my

editors I'm always looking at I was always looking at this story at

least in the early stages as I was trying to figure out if this was something worth

doing if it's something that the journal should do but on the other hand or in addition

I had a great personal attachment or interest in it because Billy had gone missing in Russia.

I had first gone to Russia in 2002 looking for a sort of new adventure a new chapter in my life and I my

travels there diverted my own path and I ended up living in Moscow for five years. I ended up living later in

Kia and I've been working at that time in those two countries for about 15 years and

it developed a lot of friendships, a lot of professional contacts, and traveled

widely in both countries.

So the fact that Billy had gone missing there in connection to the war between these two countries

was something that was almost irresistible for me.

Thank you.