2. 05/12/2014

19:30-21:45 Lidcombe, Sydney

Friday prayers were over and the small congregation were standing around drinking mint tea or iced rosewater, nibbling on dates and baklava and talking amongst themselves in the anonymous, slightly run-down hall where they met in the outskirts of Lidcombe. This was the third time Brendan had attended the public gathering of Samatar's followers and on each occasion the rhetoric had ramped up until the man was preaching death and destruction and the audience was lapping it up. He was quite a performer, Brendan was willing to admit that, but the message, and the congregation's response to it, chilled the young man to the core. However, he did have some niggling doubts.

He might only be just twenty but his time living on Capricorn Downs had familiarised him with genuine, if psychopathic, believers; there was something about Dahir Samatar and his side-kick, the Iranian Jahan Bolzaar, that didn't quite ring true on that front. He couldn't pin it down at this stage but he suspected the pair weren't in it for the glory of Allah but more for the power for themselves. He was due to catch up with Uncle Joe tomorrow so it would be handy to discuss the gut feeling with him.

After chatting to a small group of old and new recruits – a mixed bag consisting of a Palestinian refugee, a Pakistani immigrant, and Anglo- and indigenous Australian converts – Brendan excused himself to get a top up of his tea. By this stage in proceedings the women were permitted to enter the meeting room to serve the refreshments and talk, in a limited way, to the attendees and at the moment Samatar's wife, Qirfa, was there on her own. He covertly watched her watching him approach through the slits in her niqab, her gaze strangely intent, and smiled shyly, dropping his own attention to the floor.

"May I have another tea, please?"

"Certainly." Her voice was low, musical and only lightly accented but she was still watching him with that unnerving intensity as she poured the drink and added sugar; too much for Brendan's taste but he drank it without demur each time it was presented to him.

"You are Cyril, aren't you?" Qirfa Alsoswa would watch and listen to the members of the congregation both during the prayer sessions, from the screened women's area, or afterwards and had a talent for spotting the most impressionable, and therefore malleable, of them to be drawn into the inner circle. The aboriginal boy had caught her eye early: he was quiet but asked intelligent questions which indicated both a true interest in learning about the religion as well as what appeared to be a passionate hatred of those he considered to be the invaders of his country and an equally passionate desire to do something about it. He was the sort of candidate who was ideal for what they were planning. She noted his shy, surprised glance upwards at her words and smiled behind the veil: it was so easy to turn these young boys with a few feminine wiles.

Brendan was thinking along similar lines. It was so easy to dupe these people by playing up to their expectations… The surprise was genuine enough, though: he hadn't expected to draw their attention quite so quickly and was quietly gratified. His acting ability was clearly better than he had thought it was, especially as he actively despised the likes of this group. He hadn't liked them two years ago and his opinion hadn't changed since.

"Yes, Miss."

Her laugh was as musical as her voice.

"Please, call me Qirfa. We are a little more relaxed, even modern, here than some other groups are." Only because it was a good way to draw in the likes of this youngster. Alsoswa hated doing it because it went completely against all of her beliefs but her desire to achieve their objective overrode her personal objections. His eyes widened again for a moment and he produced another shy smile. "What are you doing now, Cyril?"

Brendan took a sip of his tea and took a careful, slow breath to control his suddenly racing heart. Surely it couldn't be coming so soon? He allowed some puzzlement to register on his face.

"Now? I will be going home to study for a little while and then sleep. I have a job coming up after the new year at our summer school and have a lot of work to do to prepare for it."

That fitted with what she expected. She had already done some research on him and had found him enrolled on a scholarship at Sydney University, studying at the Department of Government and International Relations.

"It is good to see you following the obligation of our faith to improve yourself! Would you be able to stay for a little longer, tonight, though? It is not yet late and we would like to invite you to the smaller group we have for more serious studies."

She could have sworn on the Koran that the boy blushed with pleasure as he stuttered an agreement. He was a good looking lad, she decided, with his fine, dark skin, warm and soft chocolate eyes and flashing smile and was, of course, intelligent with it. He would be an excellent addition to their little team.

The blush was as real as the earlier surprise had been but again was not for the reasons the woman was assuming. It was because it looked like he was being drawn into the inner sanctum, long before he thought he would, and his heart wasn't only racing but he was suddenly shot through with both fear and anticipation. They had been hoping for more warning so he could be wired up but that wasn't going to happen, not tonight. All he was going to be able to do was take internal notes and report back tomorrow. He didn't think they would be going into much detail on the first meeting anyway.

That assumption proved to be entirely correct. Qirfa had caught the eye of the Iranian, Bolzaar, after Brendan had agreed to stay back and the man had shepherded him to a discrete group who were loosely gathered at the back of the room. One of them was the other indigenous man he had been speaking to earlier, Cameron Sales Wanuwangul, along with another Somali (Idil Waris Feysal), an Egyptian (Omar Hadad) and an English convert with a huge red beard, pale green eyes and a slightly incongruous Cockney accent going by the adopted name of Mustafa Abdul-Rahman. The rest of the congregation slowly trickled out and within twenty minutes it was just Brendan with Samatar, Alsoswa, Bolzaar, the other four and Bolzaar's very young wife, Parvana Khorasani. To Brendan's great surprise, Qirfa Alsoswa had disappeared into the back room with the cups and plates and had returned some minutes later with not only Khorasani but her own two young children, Noor, who was about four, and Mohammed, who was barely toddling. The youngsters had been so quiet Brendan had had no idea they were there.

The subsequent meeting had not lasted long. He had been introduced to the group and vice versa and the conversation had been very skilfully turned towards Brendan, or more correctly Cyril, and his passions. He knew what was happening and went with it, feeling like something of a traitor to his, Brendan's, true beliefs and understanding of the world as he did so. Not wanting to over-egg it at this stage he managed to quietly confirm for Samatar Cyril's deep, visceral hatred of the events of the previous 226 years, how much he despised everything Western and desperately wanted to strike a blow against its rotten-ness without saying it so obviously. He was nervous to start with but once he had started and saw that everything he said was pleasing to the audience his nerves diminished and he rode the surge of adrenaline until the attention moved from him and back to Samatar.

The meeting wound up shortly afterwards with Brendan/Cyril invited to another private meeting the following week. Three other recruits accompanied him to the railway station with both Hadad and Abdul-Rahman then heading west to Auburn while Wanuwangul was, like Brendan, going the other direction, returning home to Redfern, so they caught the same train and continued to talk. Brendan kept quiet, encouraging the other and was quietly chilled at what he recognised as genuine jihadi fervour fed by a view of history that was as twisted as that of any whitefella redneck denialist.

The more he listened to people like this the more Brendan quietly thanked his mother, aunt and grandparents, including his Irish grandfather, for teaching him and his siblings to view history with a detached, clear-eyed, questioning view. From a personal point of view there was much to not like about history and he had certainly had his moments as a child and young teenager when he was an anti-whitefella firebrand but by now, a decade later, he knew perfectly well that every person on the planet could justifiably claim victimhood if they so desired, for a vast expanse of reasons. He was also well aware that there was no point in judging the actions of the past by the mores of the present: history couldn't be changed, all you could do was not let it weigh you down but try to do your best to ensure that the bad things never happened again while the good things expanded to fill the gap. Acts of hatred and terrorism like his fellow passenger was espousing were never going to achieve that and in any case he had always wondered if the 'good old days' were really as crash-hot as anyone thought they were. All he was learning at uni suggested that they probably weren't more often than they were.

He was intensely glad when Strathfield station rattled into view after a fairly short ride and thankfully bade his companion farewell. By the time he got home to his small studio apartment he was feeling flat and flopped into his second-hand recliner with a beer to consider the events of the night. That was something else he should probably give up for the duration – alcohol. It wouldn't do for a new Muslim convert to be sprung smelling of booze. Uncle Joe had warned him about the adrenaline surges and their aftermath that he was likely to experience during the course of the operation and given him some hints on handling them but he hadn't expected the feelings to be so powerful. Not even Capricorn Downs had been the same; there, he had been completely under the radar until the finish and when that had arrived it had all happened so quickly that he hadn't had time to be nervous, not even in the final confrontation with Hamzah Rashid. Now he understood the importance of having a handler and would be very happy to catch up with him tomorrow.

06/12/2014

09:15-10:55 University of Sydney, Camperdown

Mid-morning on a Saturday at the end of the academic year meant that the campus was fairly quiet as Lucas loped through the grounds towards his meeting with Brendan. The young man had sent him a text last evening saying he was okay but hadn't rung and Lucas had subsequently spent an unsettled night, chased by echoes of old phantasms from the darkness of his own history. The first rays of dawn had been a relief and he had taken himself off to Coogee Beach to join the other early-morning surfers and swimmers for a session in the waves. There was no mob of friendly kangaroos here but the view was still stunning and the people, what few of them there were, were polite and unobtrusive.

Although low rise multi-story buildings clung to the low hills behind him, in front of him was only the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, moving with a gentle swell this morning, while off to the left were the honey coloured sandstone rock cliffs that were typical of all the bays in this part of the world where the swell crashed into milky sea-foam with almost monotonous regularity. He could see why the people of this city loved their coastline but he preferred his own little stretch, further south, where there were far fewer people.

These ocean swims were one of his major lifelines: originally starting out in a local Olympic-sized public pool in Canberra early in his treatment, suggested by one of his therapists, he had quickly got into the habit of doing a couple of kilometres every morning, finding it akin to meditation; once he had moved to the coast he had exchanged the pool for ocean swimming and really found himself in his element, literally as well as metaphorically, and now it didn't feel right if he didn't get a chance to hit the water.

Afterwards he had washed the salt and sand off and got changed back into jeans and a tee-shirt at the public showers and change rooms before heading to the nearest café for a breakfast of strong coffee and scrambled eggs on toast. Another change in this new skin he was in: gone were the breakfasts of old, consisting of sugar, fat, carbs and caffeine – when he had eaten at all – replaced by healthier alternatives that he had developed quite a taste for. The eggs this morning were particularly good: organic, perfectly scrambled with small pieces of feta mixed through, topped with a few fresh spinach leaves and served on thick sourdough, he was half tempted to go back for more. Hazel, his yoga-teaching, slightly alternative physiotherapist girlfriend of sorts, would have been seriously impressed. In fact, next time they were here together he would bring her here. Ros, on the other hand, would have never believed it…

The thought of his old senior officer, sparring partner and friend brought a familiar pang of pain along with an equally familiar wistfulness. After his return this previously unknown woman had become his rock, albeit a spiky one, before either of them had fully realised it but he had always felt that he had not quite been able to return the favour when she had needed it, despite his best efforts. Jo's death had hit her hard, far harder than she had ever let on, even to him, although it had been obvious to all that she was slowly going down-hill, and he had felt increasingly powerless to help her or do anything about it. Then, after her sacrifice, he had started his own descent, slowly at first until Vaughn bloody Edwards had turned up and given him a sharp nudge into a death-spin that had proven irrecoverable.

He shook his head to clear the cobwebs that were threatening to trap him again. That was the past: he had lived through it for real once and on numerous occasions since but it was time to put it back where it belonged and get on with the present, which included meeting up with his protégée later in the morning. Rising to his feet he walked to the counter, paid the bill, ordered a second espresso to take away and left a few minutes later to go in search of his car. The sun was out and warming quickly but the breeze was still cool and as he moved along the footpath with the sparkling waters of the bay over the road on his right, beyond the green of the park, he thanked the cosmos that he had survived to start again, here on the far side of their small blue marble, in a place that had ended up being perfect for his needs: accepted as yet another immigrant and so nothing out of the ordinary and in a climate and geography that was almost as far removed from both Britain and Russia as he could get. He even had a safe link to the past in the form of Harry and Ruth, although God knew that, of everything, was the thing that he deserved least of all.

The trip back to his small serviced apartment, half way between the beach and the university, passed smoothly, allowing him time to change from the baggy, slightly torn tee-shirt to something more suitable for a university lecturer, run a comb through his hair and pick up his laptop backpack. His role in this operation wasn't, for once, entirely a fiction. Dr Miles Greenhalgh, originally from the University of Salford in Manchester and now a senior presenter at the post-graduate summer school on international counter-terrorism, was actually a semi-regular persona that Lucas took on as part of his training role with ASIO and ASIS, when he was representing those organisations without wanting to be identified. He also did genuinely lecture at specialist courses such as this, although this would be the first time that Brendan would be present. As a result he was now familiar with this campus, along with a couple of others, and the regular staff had got to know him so he slotted in quietly and efficiently these days. A couple of the staff had already headed off overseas on their own study jaunts so he had scored a small office from which to work, giving him a much more solid aura which would be important for the next few weeks. It the threat extended much beyond Australia Day he would be in trouble but they would worry about that if and when it happened. He had a feeling it wasn't going to be an issue.

As he suspected there was no-body much around in the department when he got there, only one of the more conscientious doctoral students quietly beavering away in her small, shared office. He was early for his meeting with Brendan so took the opportunity to plug into the network and catch up on some personal emails as well as doing a bit of work on his summer school presentations before packing it in an hour or so later and heading out. They weren't meeting on campus as such but at a café nearby that was a bit of a hangout for students and staff alike outside of hours. Ambient world music – somewhere from North Africa, by the sounds of it – formed a slightly exotic background to the normal café sounds as he walked in, winding his way through the trendily mis-matched furniture and scatter rugs which broke up the coldness of the polished concrete floor. Modernist artwork decorated the walls and quirky little sculptures adorned each of the slightly battered tables, adding a bohemian atmosphere. Having surreptitiously checked the few other patrons already there, Lucas found himself a table and settled himself in to wait.

Uncle Joe was sitting at a table at off to the side near the entrance, back to the wall, bright blue eyes scanning the surroundings as they always did, when Brendan arrived. He had noticed the scanning during every meeting since this operation had begun and he was quite convinced that the man had no idea that he was doing it. However, it was something he had also caught himself doing more and more often of late. Aunty Ruby and Ilian had told him quite bluntly to stay vigilant; the meetings with Uncle Joe had only reinforced that and now, after last night's events, he understood why.

Joining the man at the table with a quiet greeting, they exchanged small talk until the waitress had been to take their order. After that the discussion turned to the previous night. Initially Brendan gave Lucas a run-down on the earlier, open meeting; following the hiatus caused by the return of the waitress with their morning tea Brendan took a sip of his flat white, looked up to catch Lucas' eye and said simply,

"I'm in."

It was so quiet that Lucas wasn't sure he'd heard right; the intensity in the dark, velvety eyes – reminding him in a freakish flash of Harry – convinced him otherwise.

"Already? You are sure?"

"Yes. I was invited to a private meeting after the public one. Nothing specific was said about what they are planning but they were checking me out. There's another meeting on next Tuesday."

"Who else was in the second meeting?"

"Samatar. Jahan Bolzaar. Both of their wives. Another Somali called Idil Feysal. Omar Hadad, who I think is originally from Egypt. There is an Englishman who's calling himself Mustafa Abdul-Rahman – don't know his original name but he's a red head with pale green eyes and a beard that would put Ned Kelly to shame – and a Redfern boy, Cameron Sales Wanuwangul. The last two are the most vocally extremist; they walked back to the station with me and Wanuwangal joined me on the train." A moue of distaste crossed his face as he tore a piece from his salted caramel muffin and slathered it with butter. "He's not my idea of someone I want to listen to for long." Swallowing the bit of muffin he added, "You might want to look into Qirfa Alsoswa. She's the one who initially approached me to join the group. A couple of the others said later on that she had done the same thing to them."

Lucas was impressed. The lad had been a quiet achiever at Capricorn Downs and it looked like he was going ahead in leaps and bounds. Although he wasn't exactly a lad any more, he reflected, taking a piece of his own pain chocolat along with his drink, a good, strong, sweet tea this time. He hadn't seen Brendan for several months when they had met up a few weeks back and he had been surprised at the physical change in him. Although he had been fit enough on the cattle station he had lost a lot of it during his first year of study and so had taken up boxing earlier this year and the effort was now well and truly showing up in his physique. Lucas was no slouch himself in that department, having worked hard since his redemption to recover something approaching the levels he had maintained while working on the Grid, but he recognised the younger man was now probably ahead of him. Which was all to the good: he may well need it if this operation turned bad. And on top of that he had grown a beard to suit his new-convert fervour! Fixing his protégée with his crystalline blue gaze he said,

"Good work. Very, very good work. What time is the meeting on Tuesday?"

"Early. 6.30."

"Come to the office at half-five. We'll get you kitted out and have someone out the front monitoring things. I can be there if you want but won't be visible, it's too risky."

"Okay. I'd like that, if you could. First time doing this and all that." Brendan gave a small smile but there was something in his face that made the older man narrow his eyes slightly.

"Are you alright, Brendan?"

That was something else Pearson was discovering about his chosen handler: the man was a mind-reader or had x-ray vision or something. It was impossible to hide anything from him! Still, he'd been doing the job for as long as Brendan had been alive so he'd want to be good… He sighed.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just a bit nervous."

The unnerving blueness didn't waver.

"That's understandable. And not a bad thing as long as it's keeping you on your toes and not crippling you with fear. There's something else."

Christ!

"Alright." He took a deep breath. "I'm having difficulty listening to these people. They hate us, everything we stand for, so deeply that it's almost primordial but I don't understand why. They've all come here willingly, have received the benefits of the West yet they want to destroy it all and you know what? I don't even think it's because they believe in the religion; I think it's because they love the violence and whatever power they think it's going to give them. And you should see and hear them when the meetings end up with viewing of the latest footage from various IS websites. It makes me sick."

The kid was good. Better than good, he was a natural and would make a damned good field agent. As long as he got through this one without too much damage.

"That's what it always comes down to, Brendan. Power, or the perception of it and there are some people who will do anything, use any excuse, to get it. For the ones who choose to attempt it illegally we are the ones who get to stop them, who get the opportunity to reduce the body count." His companion nodded and seemed to relax. "Are you sure you're good to continue with this? You can back out any time you like."

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine. It's just learning how to deal with all the shit these people spout."

The rare, brilliant smile transformed the older man's face for a moment.

"And that's why you've got me! How's our friend Cyril taking it?"

Brendan grinned back.

"Oh, loving it. In his element, in fact, can't wait to get on with it."

"I bet he is!" The smile faded a little. "Just make sure you keep yourself and him separate. For the protection of both of you. You understand what I mean?"

A nod answered the question.

"I do. I've got a couple of outfits for him that I take out when I need him: putting the right shirt on and picking up that wallet makes all the difference!"

Brendan watched the face opposite him become more serious and a wry, almost wistful, expression flickered momentarily.

"You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago – a friend from before my time in Russia. He used to do something similar, have certain things that represented his legends, all meticulously kept together in their own boxes. I used to tease him about it – I work completely on the fly and always have – but it used to work for him. At least until it didn't…"

"What happened to him?" Brendan knew that Uncle Joe had lost people – co-workers, friends and more – through the job but didn't know any details; his life before Capricorn Downs was rarely mentioned to anyone.

"Nothing bad, as far as I know. He left the Service in one piece and went into business for himself, very successfully I believe." He suddenly smiled. "I bet he's still got his boxes!"

They laughed and the conversation turned back to generalities for the next few minutes while they finished their refreshments. Lucas paid the bill while Brendan moved out onto the footpath and found himself checking everything in sight although there was nothing suspicious to see.

"All good?"

"Yeah."

"Very well. I'm going back down the coast now but I'll be back late tomorrow night. Don't hesitate to ring me if you need to."

"I will but I shouldn't need to. Thanks, Miles. Have a good weekend."

"You, too, Cyril. See you on Monday."

They shook hands and parted company, Lucas impressed by his young protégée's professionalism and Brendan buoyed by the support he had received and feeling more positive about what he was taking on. He was looking forward to finding out exactly what the group was planning.