A/N: Easter greetings to everyone from over the road from Harry & Ruth's place. Thanks for all your continuing support, as always.

29. Saturday/Sunday, three weeks later, Sydney/Capricorn Downs. Late September 2012.

Saturday morning, Sydney.

The Masjid Fatima Al Zahrah Shi-ite mosque had been on its site in the quiet suburb of Arncliffe for twenty two years. Ten kilometres south-west of the city's CBD as the crow flies, it was a complex of blue-roofed pale grey brick and stone consisting of the three storey mosque with tall, pointed arch windows, its associated meeting rooms and a school set around a triangular central courtyard paved in terracotta. On this pleasant Saturday morning as Hamzah Rashid approached the narrow street was empty and quiet, the neatly clipped hedges and tall palms glowing gently in the sun and giving the scene an almost tropical air. As he walked towards the entrance of the mosque – an enormous pistachio green pointed arch the same height as the building itself, decorated in geometric darker green and white, with an interior metal-lined cupola and the minaret towering up behind – a train rattled down the railway tracks on his right, hidden behind the raised tree-clad embankment but the noise bounced off the solid walls, disturbing a flock of rainbow lorikeets from their search for food in the palms.

Leaving the school building with its lacy blue metal window guards behind on his left, he continued past the open green metal fencing and terracotta-tiled cream and green entrance to the side offices behind the school on that side and a tall, rather statuesque multi-fingered dark green cactus to the right, Rashid walked through the mosque entrance, past a stack of document pigeonholes and then right, down a small corridor to the small meeting room where he was meeting the rest of the cell in the guise of a study group. The leaders were already there when he walked into the room: Rosita Macapodi and her husband, Rafiq Saliba. Rosita had recently visited Capricorn Downs, during Agustina Shinwari's last visit, for discussions on her part of the plans, as the women had known each other for the better part of a decade, and Hamzah had been introduced to her for the first time then, when control of that part of the operation had been handed over to him. Today he would be meeting the remaining members to finalise Phase One.

Coffee, tea and Lebanese sweets were on hand and Rashid had just accepted a cup of the former along with a piece of kunafi when the remaining three men arrived. Young, disaffected and confused about their place in the world, torn between the extremely conservative religious beliefs of their immigrant parents and the laissez-faire secular Western society in which they had been brought up, two were children of Lebanese-born parents and the third was from a Syrian family who had fled Hafez al-Assad's regime fifteen years earlier, when their son was a toddler. Now they were trying to find a sense of identity in radical jihad against the very society that had raised them and this was going to be their big chance to make their mark.

The discussion went well. Rosita and Rafiq had been busy, sourcing the weaponry and had already outlined the plan to the jihadis. That trio had all recently returned from three months fighting with the rebels in Syria and were keen to learn the rest of the details, absorbing them quickly and genuinely excited at their scope, already beginning to consider the words for their martyrdom videos. Unknown to them, Rosita and Rafiq, they were being told only half of the story. Although Shinwari trusted her friend, she didn't trust her Middle-Eastern associates: they tended, in Agustina's experience, to be too driven by emotion, displaying little of her own cool, objective control, so she had determined to let even Rosita know nothing about the second, greater phase. She suspected, rightly, that this group would take huge offence if they found out that their actions were merely to be a diversion to the main show.

Swearing the group to silence and satisfied that both Rafiq and Rosita could control the younger members, Rashid left as quietly as he had arrived. He had another appointment to keep, in Auburn, with the Iraqi and the Indonesian who were major players in that main show. The meeting point was at a coffee shop near the Gallipoli Mosque; he arrived early but had barely had time to order his drink when the Indonesian arrived, followed within minutes by the Iraqi. They greeted each other briefly and took their seats while Rashid delivered an update on plans and the other pair responded in kind. None of them took any notice of the couple who appeared shortly thereafter and seated themselves demurely at a nearby table – all tables were nearby, the coffee shop was small – proceeding to talk quietly over their morning tea. The man was Malaysian, the woman a local, Anglo, convert, judging by their dress and accents and they were cheerfully playing with what was clearly a couple of new acquisitions: a smart-phone and an i-Pad, taking snaps and videos of each other, their snacks and the interior of the shop. The trio of men took no notice, intent on their discussions; when they stood up and left the couple weren't far behind. Again. After they had both sent their messages to Canberra, informing their handlers in Ilian's crew of the data they had just uploaded into their secure cyber drop box. Splitting up, the woman managed to hail a taxi to follow Rashid's while the man tracked the other pair back to their accommodation, from which he and his co-worker had followed them in the first place. Still unaware, Hamzah made straight for Bankstown airport where his pilot was waiting to take him back to Capricorn Downs. Even at the speed that the turbo Cessna could fly it would be a long trip and they would probably have to spend the night at either Emerald or Charters Towers, and then had to drop into Cairns to pick up Agustina, but even so it was the most direct way to get to and from the station for these trips and left no public records of his movements, as their pilot was more than happy to not lodge flight plans.

Once she was dropped off by the taxi, the woman removed her hijab, reverting to looking like everyone else, and took up a position to watch Rashid as he disappeared into the small terminal. Within ten minutes he and the pilot had emerged from the other side and walked over to a Cessna Stationair turbo-prop which was parked near by and obviously ready to go, as they were taxiing for the runway within another five minutes. Taking note of the registration identifier, VH-ZZY, the woman sent that through as a text to the drop box and waited until the aeroplane had disappeared to the north-west before catching another taxi back to her home. Although she had no idea of what was really going on, she felt like it had been a useful morning.

Sunday, Capricorn Downs

Things were quiet on this Sunday morning as everyone awaited the return of the plane carrying Rashid and Shinwari so Lucas had gone out for a run in the post-dawn cool, pounding down the dusty track to the river and back again, a good hour for the return trip. Once back he had showered and changed and made his way up to the main house for breakfast. The room was deserted, which suited him no end – the trainees would all be at prayer at this hour and Burgess was nowhere to be seen – so he settled down with coffee and toast spread thickly with strawberry jam to consider what the day might bring. When he had last been in Cairns – when he had seen both of them – he had picked up a few small bits and pieces that he had spent his spare time turning into a couple of serviceable bugs that he could tune into with an app on his tablet and yesterday he had taken the opportunity of Rashid's absence and Yorse being out with the latest bunch of agriculture students to place those two bugs in areas that he thought might be of most interest. The office and the bedroom Shinwari used when she was on site. He had been able to test the one in the office as Yorse was still using it but not the other; he just had to assume that it was also working. He would find out today, anyway.

Unbeknownst to him, Brendan Pearson had also been bugging the same rooms as well as the main eating area, although his equipment was rather more high-tech, coming as it did directly from his Aunt. It had taken him a few days to get his system working properly but now he had it down to a fine art, using the algorithms programmed into the software loaded onto his notebook to search the recordings for anything interesting, which was then automatically uploaded via his satellite phone every night. The geeks in Canberra had also loaded an app on the satellite phone which allowed him to listen in on any of the bugs whenever he wanted to. Unfortunately, he hadn't picked up much either. Shinwari had only been in briefly during the period he had been recording and had said little that the algorithms thought worth keeping; the other bugs had resulted in a few snatches of conversations here and there, most of which revolved around discussions about bombs and major infrastructure, and that was all. It was disappointing but Ruby had warned him that the business required endless patience so he had cleared the memory of his computer the night before and headed out early himself, with the same group of students. All he could hope was that something more might come up when the woman arrived today; they would all be back for lunch and he intended to find an excuse to stay around that afternoon. He had a feeling things could be about to get interesting.

The Stationair touched down at just after nine and, as was her wont, Agustina called Lucas and Elliott into the office early. The next stage would be the last for them: they would have only the best of the students – two or three at most – and would be working together to refine the final details of the operation. Those details would be revealed when they returned from dropping the current students back to the coast and successful completion would bring them a healthy bonus, as this was not part of the original deal. They would need to stay in town for a few days this time, as a couple of the participants were coming in from jobs overseas and had been delayed. With that, they were dismissed.

The two men walked back towards their accommodation together, Elliott voluble on what was likely to be revealed and how much it would be worth and Lucas quietly wondering the same thing with the addition of a niggling feeling that he might have to start making plans for a quick exit, if he even came back. He would decide that after he had seen Harry…if Harry didn't solve the problem for him. The other man was keen to continue talking once they got back to their dongas but Lucas put him off, preferring instead to lock himself inside and listen in while he could. By the time he had settled down Shinwari and Rashid were in full flight. Unfortunately for Lucas, in Indonesian. Although he had been applying himself to learning the basics of that language for most of the year, using his charm to get some practice in with those students who could help as well as the quick trips to Bali, this pair were talking too fast for him to pick up much. He did, however, hear talk about a mosque at somewhere called Arncliffe and more that seemed to suggest they were planning a multi-phase attack, including a major bombing. It was definitely the G20 meeting: the names Obama, Cameron and Merkel were impossible to miss.

He was almost glad when the other man banged on his door and said he was heading to lunch. Leaving the machine recording, Lucas walked out, locked his door and followed Elliott to the dining hall, all the way wishing that he still had the resources of the Grid at his beck and call. But he didn't so he was going to have to risk Harry's wrath to get the help needed to stop this plan.