1. 18/11/2014
05:10-06:15 Siding Bay, New South Wales South Coast
Peach, apricot and lemon spilling like swathes of chiffon across a sky of the finest lavender silk greeted the small family as they emerged from the damp coolness of the forest. Stopping for a moment they surveyed the scene stretching before them, the world painted in pastels for these last few minutes before the sun hauled itself above the horizon to drench everything in harsh, white-limned brightness. Despite the slightest of silvery mists among the towering eucalypts at their backs, in front of them the view was clear. To their right a flat, wave-cut golden sandstone platform riven by faults and pockmarked with small, jewelled rockpools stretched many metres beyond the shore to continue its relentless and ultimately futile battle against the sea. Extending north from the platform a smooth expanse of fine silica sand, pinkish in the pre-dawn light, continued unbroken until meeting the rocky, wooded headland at the far end of the small bay. The sea itself was quiescent this morning, a clear, muted grey-green disturbed by only the slightest of swells that had barely enough energy to break, in a genteel manner, upon the shore.
Content that no unseen danger lurked the group moved again, towards the water's edge, spreading out as they went. The patriarch, bolder than the rest, made his way directly to the lapping shore, moving confidently through the glassy swash into the shallows where he stopped again, dark eyes scanning the sea surface as he listened, alert to every sound of the awakening morning. Nothing untoward registered so he continued forward, breasting the tiny waves until he was swimming strongly, keeping his head above water to maintain watch for now was the hour, despite its apparent calm, that sharks patrolled the shore, hungry for breakfast. Back on the beach two of the young ones were playing in the wavelets, not yet brave nor strong enough to follow him into the deeper water; further back, a mother and an aunt were casually checking things of interest that had washed up at the high tide mark.
Fifty metres offshore by now and already turning back to the beach the sound of splashing even further out alerted the male that he was no longer the only inhabitant of the bay. A glimpse of something dark among the low swell further out, although not moving fast, was enough to send his heart rate up and he made a bee-line for the shore, eternally grateful to feel sand underfoot again. As he hauled himself up and out of the littoral zone the rest of the family, alerted by his slightly precipitate return, came over to first join and then follow him further up the beach, back towards the safety of the bush. Once well away from the maximum reach of the waves he stopped and turned back again to see what was happening.
The dark shape was now considerably closer and larger than it first appeared. Within a minute the mystery had resolved itself, though, as the watching group saw the man stand while he was still waist-deep in the water and stride out, unzipping his wetsuit as he did so. Tall, muscular, dark-haired and slightly saturnine, he pulled the top half of the wetsuit completely off, leaving the sleeves trailing in the sand and revealing a torso covered in tattoo linework, slightly blurred around the edges. The watching group relaxed: they knew this man and knew they were safe with him.
As he made his way towards the back of the beach and the tree branch where he habitually hung his towel he noticed the mob watching him and grinned, wiping the last of the salt water off his face. They were here most days at this hour but had been absent for most of the past week and he had been starting to worry but now here they were, as large as life and gravely curious as ever and he was strangely glad to see them. Calling out a cheerful,
"Morning, all!" as he passed, several pairs of dark, lustrous, long-lashed eyes responded by turning his way, as did large, mobile ears as the mob of kangaroos considered the sound for a moment. One of the joeys decided to scramble back into its mother's pouch, breaking the spell between human and animals, and the mob turned and hopped slowly away. The man once known as Lucas North watched them go, still amazed after all this time that kangaroos could swim, and reached for his towel.
The sun suddenly broke free of its bounds and, in an instant, the world went from pastel to vivid: the beach gold, forest green and white and the water a suddenly glorious aquamarine shot with turquoise and edged in crushed diamonds. Remaining still he absorbed the view for a moment, breathing in the salt-scented air and feeling the gentle warmth of the sun on his face as, once more, he gave silent thanks that he was still alive and doing his best to live up to this one final chance that had been delivered to him out of the rancorous depths of his darkest despair. Whatever he thought his future might be back then it certainly wasn't this magical view and a silence that was only broken by the sounds of nature, tucked away in a small cove on the far side of the planet.
Shuffling his feet into leather sandals and tying the wetsuit sleeves around his waist so they stopped dragging in the dirt he threw the now-damp, slightly sticky towel around his shoulders and set off up the narrow dirt road that was the only access to the bay. Engulfed in majestic, straight-trunked trees soaring upwards for twenty metres or more with giant ferns forming an understorey that was both exotic and homely he considered everything that had happened in the two years, almost to the day, since he had been released from the shackles of his previous lives.
Ilian's core group of personnel had been both friendly and accepting on his first day and continued to be so whenever he was in Canberra. He maintained the Spartan, single-bedroom flat in the national capital that he had purchased almost as soon as he had arrived and had spent the following year in, rarely escaping the city between his debriefing after Capricorn Downs, fitting into the new work environment and the protracted, but vitally necessary, efforts he was putting in with the psychologists and counsellors to unravel, deal with and leave behind his past. The last was ongoing and would be for some time but now, at least, was considerably less intense. Helped by these morning swims, as close as he could get to meditation, he was even managing to sleep through the night without being woken by nightmares most of the time these days and the last time he had been able to say that was before Dakar.
Out of sight of the ocean by now he turned off the main track onto a barely visible footpath through the bush that was his personal short-cut to what he now thought of as his spiritual home. It was a short but steep climb up the side of the sandstone headland but it suited him, being an effective deterrent to most wandering sticky-beaks from the beach. Any who persisted didn't make it to the house anyway, coming up short against the two metre high fence that ran the entire length of the perimeter of his twenty hectare piece of paradise. Putting his thumb to the detector his gate unlocked and he passed swiftly through it, allowing it to clang shut on his heels as he continued up the last few metres to the crest of the ridge and into view of the house.
Even before he had left the remote cattle station at the southern end of Cape York for the last time he had been considering finding a bolt-hole somewhere that allowed him the same feeling of space, silence and connection to the environment. Canberra most certainly wasn't that: it might feel strangely empty a lot of the time but it was, nonetheless, a city, albeit a small one, and offered little real escape when he really needed it. After his first few weeks there he had been starting to want to escape his temporary lodgings, provided by ASIO, so had finally sat down and consolidated his finances.
Ignoring the Chinese blood money that was steadily accumulating interest in Switzerland he found that he had far more in the kitty than he had thought. Eight years of pay from his period of incarceration in Russia had barely been touched and his frugal living for the two years after his return had added to the account, an account he had emptied in the form of a bank cheque the afternoon of his escape and taken to establish a new one on his arrival in Luxembourg. Some of that had been eroded while he had been wandering half the world in the months after he had slipped out of the UK but once he had started working for Hamet Fasli he had left that account where it was safe and opened yet another one, in the Cayman Islands this time and had lived off that until he had consigned Jonah West to oblivion and welcomed Nathan Tolmie into the light. After untangling the international web of banking he had set up he had looked at the total in his new Singaporean account, translated it into local money and realised just how lucrative his time with his old prison friend had been.
The upshot of that was that he had found and purchased his small flat – little more than a studio apartment not far from work – reasonably quickly but that hadn't slaked his desire for isolation. He had been talking to Ilian about it one Friday afternoon over a quiet post-work drink in a pub near the court where Megan, Ilian's wife, was still in session and she had suggested he get out of the Territory and look over the border in New South Wales, either in the mountains or on the coast. Not having yet explored much of this part of the country he spent that weekend ranging from the Southern Highlands to the north-east of Canberra as far down as the small towns of the Snowy Mountains to the south-west. Although there were places of beauty that caught his eye it was also leading into winter at this point and the bitter cold of the southerly wind was a reminder of a life he was trying to leave behind.
Several weeks passed before he had a chance to get out again and this time he took the road over the highlands to the coast. Glimpses of the sea between green hills reminded him briefly of the end of the long drive to Cairns from Capricorn Downs and hit him with an ache of longing that surprised him. He hadn't cared one way or the other about that city – too many people after the intense isolation of the cattle station – so the ache wasn't for that. He knew, perfectly well, that it was for the isolation instead. That was the point when he realised there was no earthly use in him looking for a home in any size of settlement. His favourite log by the billabong came to mind, telling him what he really needed: his own patch of the bush. The entire focus of his search had changed and ultimately led, a few months later, to where he was now.
The house had been built as a weekender by a city businessman who had gone bust and Lucas had picked it up in the subsequent fire-sale of his assets. It appeared to be little more than a tin shack from the back, the view that greeted him at the end of the long driveway that wound through his patch of thick coastal forest. From the front it was revealed to be a little more and at this time of the morning it was looking at its best.
Clad in corrugated iron it consisted of a simple floor plan: a glass-fronted central open living area flanked by longer modules containing the main bedroom suite in one wing and a couple of smaller guest rooms in the other. Between the two wings a broad timbered and roofed deck extended the living area outside and provided a frame to the view that had captivated him the first time he had seen it. Set on the high point of the block on a cleared half-hectare on the escarpment, all he could see was ocean, trees and the northern end of the beach. Walking up the couple of steps to the deck he could see the view reflected in the glass and as always it made him smile.
Turning to face the real thing he slung his towel onto a chair and extricated himself from the wet-suit, hanging it over the deck railing so he could rinse it off later. The sandals were kicked off at the door and he padded over the polished timber floor to the refrigerator to get a drink. On the kitchen bench top his phone was flashing; returning to it with drink in hand he swiped a finger over the screen to see a missed call and a text message from his part-time boss.
"Hi Nate. Give me a call when you get this. Ta."
It didn't sound urgent so he'd leave it until after he had showered and had breakfast. That was a good half-hour later, when he took a cup of coffee and the phone out on the deck, settled into his sun lounge and thumbed the speed dial. She answered on the first ring.
"Hey, Nate. Thanks for calling back so quickly."
"Good morning, boss. You're at work early."
She groaned and Lucas could just about see her leaning back in her seat and stretching, cat-like, before answering.
"Mmm, trying to get everything up to date before I go on holidays on Friday."
"Poor you." Lucas was grinning but his voice was unsympathetic.
"Watch it, boyo, or you'll be in trouble."
"So you keep promising but I've yet to enjoy it."
Their relationship had advanced in leaps and bounds since their first meeting in Cairns and as he had slowly come to terms with and then left behind his past. He admired her bone-dry sense of humour, irony and appreciation of the finer points of satire; she saw the same qualities in him and, once she was certain that he was serious in his new life, had encouraged their return and a cautious friendship had developed that had since grown into a relaxed mateship which allowed them to swap such banter. A gurgle from the other end told him that she was trying not to laugh too loud so he took a mouthful of drink and waited for her to get her breath back.
"In your dreams, Tolmie, in your dreams. Anyway, pleasant though this is it's not why I called and I've got a meeting in ten minutes. Were you coming over this week?"
"Thursday, to see the doc." He had appointments with a couple of his therapists and needed to go in to work to see the training department about an update to the curriculum for the next intake of greenhorns who were currently going through the selection process. It had been a surprise how much he enjoyed the training, from the greenhorns to the very advanced counter-interrogation and torture survival techniques he delivered to very small groups at both ASIO and ASIS. The latter had been his own idea and it had taken some considerable persuasion by him, supported by his psychologist, to get it past Ilian and the DG but it had proven very successful and had done him good, actively facing some particular demons and then turning them into something beneficial.
"Can you make it tomorrow? I've got something to run past you."
A kookaburra started laughing hysterically somewhere in the canopy of the trees, one of its friends chiming in from further away.
"I can make it today if you like. It's only a couple of hours drive." After the multitude of day-long trips between the cattle station and Cairns he now thought little of any trip that was under four hours. Ilian's voice brightened.
"Could you? After lunch?"
"Okay. See you then."
He dropped the phone on the coffee table and swallowed more of his drink, eyes roaming across the view before settling on a container ship that was just visible on the horizon. He hadn't had anything planned for the next couple of days anyway so he might as well go back to work. Having long-since given up trying to second guess his mercurial employer – she was every bit as opaque as Harry had ever been when it came to work – he didn't bother wondering what it was about. He'd find out soon enough.
09:30-06:15 Siding Bay NSW –Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
Tidying everything away so the place could be locked up for a few days meant Lucas didn't hit the road until after nine. Influenced as much by his experiences working for Hamet as by his time on the cattle station he had invested in a slightly second-hand, innocuous, white four-wheel drive Toyota Hilux utility which chewed up the kilometres very effectively as well as climbing up and over the escarpment without effort, as though it was barely there. Not entirely fuel-efficient it was completely reliable and he knew the make lived up to its reputation of being almost unbreakable so this morning he had no hesitation in giving the machine a cursory once-over before getting in and setting off on a 200km trip.
Today, once he was through the small town at the river mouth that was his nearest point of civilisation (ironically named Bateman's Bay: he had left the area until last on his search but having immediately fallen in love with his block decided that the town's name would be a salutary reminder of the reality of his past, like a slave whispering reminders of mortality in Caesar's ear), he settled back into his seat, put the cruise-control on and proceeded to drive almost on automatic pilot as he let his mind wander to the approaching festive season.
The day itself he would spend on his own, as usual, although he was unsure as to whether it would be on the coast or in town; Boxing Day he would spend lunch and part of the afternoon at Ilian and Meg's, who had a few other guests attending as well. Two of those guests would be Harry and Ruth, who were escaping their tropical mountain fastness for a holiday for the first time in three years and had been persuaded to drop in on the way through. Even more amazingly, he had managed to talk them into visiting him on the coast a few weeks later, after new year, when they would be following the coast road all the way back home.
Their contact had been sporadic and semi formal to start with, in the wake of Capricorn Downs, but had slowly grown warmer over the succeeding months and years. The relationship could never return to what it was, he accepted that now, because everything had irrevocably changed but it could develop into something new instead and that was what his focus had been. They had only met in person once in the past two years, when the couple had appeared, anonymously, in closed session, to give their evidence during the trial of Agustina Soraya Shinwari and Hamzah Rashid, after which they had gone out for a quiet dinner, ironically to a small Indonesian restaurant. That had gone better than anyone had expected and had given him the impetus to extend an invitation to visit this time, once he had found out that they were coming down his way. It would be up to them whether they stayed with him or not; he would be happy either way.
By this stage the ribbon of tar had wound its way through the forest and topped the high point of the Great Dividing Range. The Western Downs had opened up before him, the bush being slowly replaced by fields with scattered farm buildings in the valleys and, now he was leaving the last of the hills, the first town he had seen since departing the coast coming into view ahead of him. He didn't stop today, being less than an hour away and intent on making the city in time to restock his refrigerator before going to the meeting.
Once through town and on the last leg of the trip Lucas couldn't help his thoughts turning towards the more immediate future and what his favourite redhead might have up her elegant sleeve for him. Presumably it was either urgent or important, or maybe both, otherwise she wouldn't be asking him to come over, and clearly it needed to happen over the next few weeks while she was away. A sudden tickle at the back of his mind filled him with uncertainty tinged with a little dread and what might be anxiety. Surely she couldn't be thinking of sending him out in the field? Not yet, he wasn't ready for that. Maybe would never be ready again.
Despite all the advancement he had made with the help of his therapists, he still slept badly sometimes and bouts of depression occasionally dogged his days. The latter had, surprisingly, served to draw Harry and him together more over the past year. After their dinner together in Sydney following the court appearance the three of them had gone for a walk down by the beach. The evening was warm and they were all feeling relaxed and mellow so conversation flowed freely and ranged widely although no-one was interested in discussing anything but the immediate past. Ruth had spotted a gelataria in a group of shops and had dragged the two men over with her to pick up some dessert; ten minutes later they were seated around a table trying to catch the drips from what was left of their cones when Ruth had turned those luminous, translucent eyes of hers on him and asked,
"How are you, Nathan? Really."
There was genuine warmth in her voice and he found himself answering honestly.
"Better than I was but that's a given when you consider what the only other option was. There is still a way to go, though: apparently I have depression, dating back to the events of my childhood. That's going to be a long term battle but you know what? It's been an enormous relief just to know. It explains a lot and in a strange way gives me an anchor point from which to work."
He hadn't missed the quick look she had flicked at Harry but hadn't thought anything of it at the time. They had continued talking about it for a little while, or he and Ruth had: the older man hadn't said much at all although he had been listening, and watching with lambent amber eyes. So it had been something of a surprise when, a couple of months later, he had made a rare, impromptu phone call to his former boss in response to the latter's most recent, scarily prescient published article and they had ended up discussing his illness. It had taken a few more such phone calls for Lucas to confirm his suspicion that Harry had been stalked by the same black dog for almost as long as Lucas had been alive. Knowing that had been a huge help for Lucas and, although he would rather swallow a brick than ever admit it, had also been beneficial for Harry and had served to break down a lot of the remaining walls between the two.
An awareness that the traffic was increasing brought him back to the present as he realised that he was in the outskirts of Queanbeyan with Canberra spreading out around its lake in the hazy distance. It was time to stop day-dreaming and start concentrating before he ended up lost in the endless maze of interlocking rings that was the capital's road network.
By one thirty Lucas had been in his cubicle for almost an hour, had caught up with a few work associates, his phone messages and was working through the last of his emails when his phone chirped and Ilian popped up on the video screen when he answered.
"Sorry I'm late. We seem to have a particularly obtuse bunch of politicians at the moment, honestly." She grimaced and he realised she looked exhausted. It had been a long year in more ways than one for her so it was no wonder she was desperately looking forward to her break. "Can you come up now? The main meeting room."
"Okay."
Taking one more glance at the view from the large glazed window next to his desk – triple-laminated and both bullet and bomb-proof – he stood and made his way through the rabbit-warren to the lifts. He wasn't based on the active counter-espionage floor but the next level down, for which he was grateful. He still needed the quiet to function and although he always felt the pull of adrenaline on the main floor it also tended to stir up his anxiety so he wasn't entirely comfortable there. Nonetheless, due to his regular interactions with the First Assistant Director General (Ilian's ridiculous mouthful of a title) and her entire crew, he had a pass for the main floor that also took him through the secure airlocks into the live area and he utilised it now. Both main and live were busy but not frantically so; he waved a greeting to those who hailed him as he passed but kept going towards the meeting rooms.
Ilian was already there when he walked in, as were Ruby and Tori. There was no sign of Wisnu but Lucas hadn't expected to see him, knowing the other man was kicking around Darwin somewhere on assignment. Instead there was an older woman, probably Harry's vintage, seated at the far side of the table with a slim document folder in front of her. He greeted the familiar trio and Ruby introduced him to the stranger.
"Nathan, this is Lorraine Curtis. She runs the desk in Sydney but has come down to brief us on what's going on."
Now why did that sound ominous? he thought as they shook hands and checked each other out. Lorraine was short, probably not much more than five feet in the old measure, with pale blue-grey eyes, fair skin that had seen too much sun and iron-grey hair cut in a short, practical but stylish bob. Her voice and demeanour were practical and no-nonsense as well and she reminded Lucas irresistibly of his mother's mother, the one whose surname he now bore and whom he had absolutely adored. Lorraine saw the quick glint of humour in the man's very blue eyes as they exchanged pleasantries and wondered what it was about but whatever it was it didn't matter: at least it was humour and not anything else but in any case they had more important things to get through right now. In her broad outback drawl she said,
"Pleased to meet you, Nathan. Now, if we're all here, we might as well get into it."
Everyone made themselves comfortable as Ilian dimmed the lights from the console on the table and Lorraine fired up the smart screen. Unlike the light-filled working areas the meeting rooms had no windows; instead, the opaque glass panels at the end of each room were fully functional touch-screen computers linked into the intranet. As she spoke Lorraine's hands moved like a conductor across the screens, bringing up photos, films and information summaries.
Over the following fifteen minutes she painted a picture which was depressingly familiar: chatter had emerged over the past few months which suggested that a disparate group of outsiders, social misfits and the disenfranchised were falling under the spell of a Somali immigrant and self-styled Imam going by the name of Dahir Barre Samatar who had started out preaching piety and rapidly escalated through fundamentalism to violent extremism. He had lost a few followers but gathered more to replace them and it was the recent change to the open support of jihad and ISIS, both abroad and more specifically at home that had finally brought him to the serious attention of the security services.
Based in Auburn he had arrived in the country six years before via Yemen, Pakistan and on a leaky boat to Christmas Island from Indonesia as an illegal immigrant, eventually being released into society two years after that. In Yemen he had found a wife, the extremely devout Qirfa Alsoswa who had completed the journey with him and was now a mother of a toddler girl and a newborn boy.
Since arriving in Sydney they had gathered a third member of their inner sanctum, Jahan Mahdi Bolzaar, the son of Iranian immigrants who had fled Tehran late in 1979 after the Iranian revolution and subsequent crackdown imposed by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Born three years later, their son had grown up entirely in Perth where his largely secular parents were employed as university lecturers and had led a normal life until he left home to attend university in Melbourne where he had joined an Islamic student group, becoming more devout over the following months. The events of 9/11 had divided the group, with the majority reviling the act but a small number of the students, including Bolzaar, embraced the al-Qaeda fundamentalist manifesto.
Moving north in search of work, he had settled in a dingy room in a run-down house in the backstreets of Punchbowl; within weeks he had landed a job doing the accounts for a small Halal supermarket and, through the internet and word-of-mouth, joined Samatar at his exclusive worship meetings.
The group had stayed off the radar until earlier in the year when Samatar's increasingly incendiary exhortations, on line and in person, to his followers to join the global jihad and then bring their 'skills' home had escalated from a local to a national threat level for the security services. As a result of the increased surveillance some evidence had come to light that Samatar and his wife were not only actively recruiting for the cause but were assisting would-be jihadists to travel to Syria to gain experience. Evidence, but not quite enough actual proof.
There was one final issue. Far from being the persecuted student that he had proclaimed, it was looking more and more likely that he was actually a member of Al-Shabaab who had fought in the Second Battle of Mogadishu in mid 2006, experienced defeat at the fall of that city in December of the same year and was probably present at the capture of Baidoa in January 2009, just prior to his departure to Yemen, and was now using his old network to facilitate the movement of personnel to Syria and money to both Somalia and Yemen. Again there was no concrete evidence but the circumstantial case was gaining more solidity by the day.
The room was silent when Lorraine finished, everyone digesting the summary. Ilian, who had already heard it, allowed them a minute or so to cogitate in the dimness before she turned the lights up again and looked around. Ruby was also aware of the salient facts and was looking uneasy for reasons that would be revealed soon enough but both Tori and Lucas were clearly still processing the information, the former with dawning apprehension and the latter with puzzlement.
This was the first time that Lucas had been on a briefing since his disastrous exit from the Grid and he was battling with conflicting emotional responses: interest, mystification, excitement, anxiety and even mild claustrophobia – he was immensely relieved with Ilian brought the lights up again – battled for dominance as his mind went over everything again at lightning speed. He could see where things were headed: they would be wanting to get someone inside the group somehow but he couldn't for the life of him understand why he was here or why it had been so urgent.
As though she had been reading his mind Ilian took over the talking.
"The reason we're all here is because the chatter has escalated over the past couple of weeks and we've had some support from surveillance strongly suggesting that the group are planning something big some time over the festive season. We're still not sure what or exactly when – it could be any time from Christmas Eve to Australia Day – so we need to get someone inside and that, Nathan, is where you come in."
She hated to drop it on him like that but everything had moved so quickly over the past 48 hours that she didn't have any choice. Wondering what his reaction would be she kept a close, blue-green gaze on him as she spoke. As she expected there was no surface reaction but she thought she caught a flicker of uncertainty in his bright blue eyes. All he said, though, was a cautious,
"How so?"
She smiled suddenly,
"Don't worry, I'm not going to chuck you back in the field quite yet. We've got something else for you to do instead." The response was silence as the man battled to control his skittering thoughts and feelings. Ilian let him have the moment before she expanded on her statement. "We have someone ready and able to be inserted into the situation but he has a request that we are inclined to grant if you are agreeable. He would like you to be his handler."
That was unusual. Didn't the man already have a handler?
"Who?" It wasn't a demand, more genuine mystification. "Who is this asset and why does he want me? How does he even know about me?"
The answer shocked him.
"Because he's already worked with you." The man's brow creased, making him look more saturnine as he struggled to work out what she was saying. Eventually Ruby spoke quietly.
"It's Brendan, Nate. He has volunteered to go into this group as an observer, like he was at Capricorn Downs, and we've agreed but on the condition that he has someone very experienced to back him up. I can't do it – not allowed, as we're family – but he asked for you, anyway."
"He knows and trusts you, Nathan, and in any case I'd rather have an experienced hawk protecting our fledgling than a lesser bird. If not you then it will have to be Wisnu but he's already got two or three other things on the go that are taking up all his time. You won't be on your own: Lorraine will be there to back you both up."
After Ruby's surprise announcement Lucas barely heard Ilian's words. He had kept in intermittent touch with the lad ever since their time on the cattle station but had thought him safely at university; the news that he was about to be thrown into the lion's den again had both shaken and disturbed him. Brendan had done a brilliant job two years ago, above and beyond anything that had ever been expected of him but the thought of him going into the situation as described filled the older man with dread. He was also still not an official member of the Service which had the potential to leave him a little more vulnerable despite the presence of his Aunt at such a high level within the Organisation.
"It is his choice, if that's what you're worried about."
Ruby's words hit the nail right on the head. Brendan was competent, more than competent, he was well aware of that but he wasn't anywhere near ready to do what he wanted so desperately to do: return to the field as a fully trained agent rather than just an asset and it had occurred to him to wonder if the young man's enthusiasm had been exploited. Lucas was well aware of how manipulation in the services worked… She was still speaking.
"He had heard rumours of what was going on through friends of a friend at university and brought the subject up when he was down here for a visit one weekend. That was a huge surprise because we'd not long beforehand escalated surveillance on the group. He volunteered to keep an ear out but I gave him strict orders to not go anywhere near it." Her sudden smile was brilliant. "True to form, he didn't listen to me! Unsurprisingly, next thing you know his name crops up on a list, albeit as someone regularly accessing the social media sites rather than actually attending any meetings, and Lorraine starts asking rather pointed questions!"
"Well what did you expect when the nephew of the 2IC at head office pops up as a prolific user of a possible extremist cell web-site?" Lorraine's reply was tart but there was a smile lurking in her pale blue eyes. "You really need to train the boy better."
"The little bugger was giving me cheek in his own inimitable way, you mean," was Ruby's response, her tone of voice quite clear in its resignation. Knowing the young man in question Lucas had some fellow feeling with Ruby and suddenly relaxed. No-one was manipulating anyone into anything. Except perhaps for himself. He sighed, seeing the inevitable rolling towards him like an unstoppable steam train and prepared to capitulate, feeling surprisingly relieved.
"What was that, Nathan?" Ilian twinkled at him, one eyebrow elegantly arched.
"Okay, I see your point. I'll do it." Her twinkle turned into a grin; Ruby visibly relaxed, knowing her nephew would be in safe hands; and Lorraine just nodded once, firmly. "When do we all meet?"