3. 15/11/2014

06:45. Undara Lava Tubes, Undara, Queensland

Around 1,900 kilometres north of Sydney as the crow flies, well past the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun was barely up as Ruth's eyelids fluttered open and she let her gaze roam around their small bedroom. Warm, varnished timber lined all the walls and the ceiling was white and curvaceous; large windows with shuttered blinds formed half the walls on either side while directly above the bed-head – old fashioned, horse-hair stuffed leather seat backs – a metal mesh overhead rack stretched the width of the old seat. The windows were partially opened behind the blinds and a fan mounted above them gently stirred the cool morning air. The small, neat en-suite, also furnished in vintage railway fittings, was behind the thin partition wall which behind the bedhead. All in all, she thought, the owners of the place had done an excellent job in converting the old railway carriages into comfortable accommodation.

They had only left home yesterday morning, saying a reluctant goodbye to Catherine and Aron, who had quietly arrived from their current base in Singapore a fortnight ago and were staying on the farm to look after the livestock for another few days, when they would be catching a flight from Cairns direct to New Zealand to spend the holidays with Aron's family. The previous year the young couple had spent a quiet few days over the season with Harry and Ruth, including visits to the coast for barbecues on the beach and lazy afternoons lolling in the lap pool stretching between the two now-completed wings of the building, falling in love with the house and the property in the process so they were more than happy to take up the invitation to baby-sit the place while the owners took a long-overdue break. After they left Ray and Marie would keep an eye on things for a few days before their own son, Paul, newly divorced and looking for somewhere to lick his wounds, would take over until Harry and Ruth finally returned in early February.

This had been first stop on the road trip, only about two hours away by road but feeling like a different planet. Long gone was the green lushness of the coastal rainforest, replaced by bone-dry paddocks almost denuded of vegetation and sparse, scrappy eucalypts clinging to the rocky ground. Drought had been gripping the inland in its parched, strangling grip for years and recent rains had done little or nothing to help. There was a flush of green on the verges and the occasional muddy puddle in the bottom of dams but that was about it. The difference was a major shock to the system.

They had arrived at Undara in time for a quick lunch at the on-site cafe and then joined an afternoon tour of the giant lava tubes, glad for an escape from the heat. It was even more of a surprise when they found the largest one was knee-deep in water that they would have to wade through. Others on the tour had hesitated but not Harry, who was taking his boots off without a second thought; Ruth shrugged internally and, despite the knowledge that the water and the handrail on the submerged walkway would be sprinkled with bat guano, sat next to him and did the same thing. The water was deliciously cool; the vast expanse of the basalt chamber like a cathedral and they had enjoyed it immensely, re-emerging with such wide grins that the couple of tourists who had declined to get their feet wet immediately regretted their decision.

Today they would be heading further south-west, intending to spend the night at the historic gold mining town of Charters Towers, but it was only a few hours away so they weren't in any hurry to get going. Some birds were warbling outside and the sky was still a pale, cool blue through the window of the old carriage; smiling to herself, she rolled over and wrapped her arm around her husband, tickling the back of his neck and down his spine to between his shoulder blades with light kisses before working her way back up again.

Harry had woken up before his wife but was enjoying the early morning silence when Ruth made her move. He enjoyed the sensation for a little while before deciding to admit he was awake by taking her hand, kissing the palm and rolling over to draw her into his embrace.

"Good morning, wife."

"Good morning, husband."

They kissed for a while, leisurely; running his hand through her silky locks as she settled in next to him for a cuddle, he asked,

"Ready for day two of our walkabout?"

"Uhuh. Although we're going to have to start making them longer if we're going to make Canberra by Christmas!"

"Worry-wort. We will be, as of tomorrow, and then you might regret what you're wishing for!" He squeezed her and added, "It's looking like a lovely day out there, Fruit. Let's just enjoy ourselves in the full knowledge that everything is under control and nothing is likely to go wrong to mar our peace and quiet…"

07:50. Brendan's flat, Newtown, Sydney.

Sitting on his second-hand lounge Brendan was chewing on the last of his breakfast – vegemite on toast, washed down with strong tea – while absently watching one of the morning television news programs and contemplating the day ahead. Ten days before Christmas there wasn't much more to do in preparation for the summer school, which wasn't due to start until early January, but he was going into the university anyway in order to catch up with Uncle Joe for a debrief. They had seen little of each other since the session where the older man had fitted him with his wire and showed him the ins and outs of it, although it had been comforting for Brendan to know that his mentor had decided to be part of the team in the surveillance van. That had been the only time he had worn the wire thus far; a technical crew had been sent into the tatty hall the next day to fit bugs anywhere and everywhere they could, removing the opportunity for accidental discovery of the wire by any of the other members of the group.

So far little of real depth had been uncovered. Samatar talked fire and brimstone very effectively and was good at revving the others up; Jahan Bolzaar was the organiser, along with Abdul-Rahman but they still didn't have a fixed plan in place. They had originally been going to target Christmas Day but couldn't decide what to do, where and when and had now run out of time; instead, they were now considering either New Year's Eve or Australia Day, with Wanuwangul pushing for the latter so they could strike a blow both for Islam and for the indigenous people of this country. Both Brendan and Lucas were starting to wonder if anything was going to come of the group or not. Most of they time they were inclined to the latter but there was enough uncertainty to keep Brendan involved, particularly as it looked like Wanuwangul's plan was starting to gain traction. Personally, Brendan was damned if he could see how two wrongs (historic dispossession and marginalisation combined with modern mass murder) would ever make any sort of right but he kept his objections to himself and played along.

In some ways he felt sorry for the other man: unlike himself, Cameron Sales was a local and had grown up in the inner city and so had no real connection to his own culture or Country, having only a weak echo of what should have been there that was coloured by the worst aspects of western culture along with a grasp of the depth and breadth of the west that was as shallow as his hold on his own history. Brendan, on the other hand, was indelibly connected to Country, Language and culture and was developing an ever deeper understanding of and connection to the history and cultures of the West through his education and experience. Once more, he was grateful to both his extended family and to the wider society which was giving him the opportunities to become a global citizen who was firmly grounded in his own history. Others, such as the other members of this small would-be terrorist cell, were not so lucky.

Noting the time on the television screen he got up, walked into his small kitchenette and rinsed his dishes (automatically checking out the street visible directly outside his windows), left them to drain and picked up his backpack from the bed as he passed on his way to his front door. Once out on the nondescript street where his building and others were tagged with second-rate graffiti he jogged towards the railway station through the warm morning air; he didn't want to miss the train and be late because he had things to do later. Aunty Ruby and her family were hosting him for Christmas and he needed to go present shopping!

08:33. Martin Place, Sydney.

The man had been walking around the top end of the steep, paved plaza for the last half an hour or so, ignoring and being ignored by the morning crowds on their way to work. Dressed in a black jacket, camouflage pants, a baseball cap and carrying a black backpack and a large plastic bag that looked strangely rigid, he had initially approached the glass-walled building containing the studios of one of the major television broadcasters, from inside which the same morning show that Brendan had been half-watching earlier on was going live to air. There was visible security around the doors of the building so he thought better of things and walked off; now, he had made up his mind. Opposite the television studio was a coffee shop on the ground floor of a granite-clad building; looking at the large, plate glass windows he decided this place would do and so, without further delay, walked through the glass doors and into the Lindt Café.

10:00. A café near Sydney University

Lucas and Brendan had finished both their debrief and what was left of the work needed for the summer school and had left Miles' office to head to a nearby coffee shop, one of several they utilised in random patterns for their meetings, for a pre-Christmas coffee and cake. They were talking about their plans for Christmas as they walked in and threaded their way through an eclectic mix of tables and chairs that were decorated, along with the walls, the benches and every other conceivable spot, with a random collection of images and models of roosters, chickens and cows. It was bright and cheerful and served some of the best home made slices and cakes around so the thoughts of the two men turned to what they were going to order, not even registering the flashing images on a silenced television screen off to one side of the room.

Their order in, Brendan looked around for a table while Lucas settled the bill; there were only a couple free at this hour and one was near a group of yummy-mummies with prams half the size of the average SUV that contained, almost to a one, a fretting baby which was mostly being ignored by its parent. The other was in a small alcove directly opposite the television and it was that one to which Brendan lead his companion. It was a table for two and the younger man sat with his back to the screen, leaving Lucas with the one opposite.

They had barely sat down when the flashing yellow banner at the bottom of the screen caught Lucas' eye as did the images coming through live on the screen and he went pale, blue eyes sharp and glittering. Brendan frowned.

"What?"

"Do you know anything about this?" Both voice and expression were grim, the Englishman's face suddenly transformed into a hawk carved from granite and, just for a moment, Brendan felt fear. What had this man been through to look like that? Twisting around in his seat and craning his neck to look up the younger man didn't understand what he was seeing at first: heavily armed, black clad, helmeted men were spilling from equally heavily armoured vehicles in a near deserted plaza, only a few police officers visible in the background, while the banner was reporting a siege in the Lindt Café at Martin Place was now believed to be a terrorist attack, possibly related to Islamic State. The situation was still unclear but it was believed that there were only one or two terrorists inside along with almost twenty hostages. Footage from a few minutes beforehand was shown, revealing a terrified woman holding up a black flag with Arabic writing on it; Brendan tried to make out was it was saying while at the same time protesting,

"No! This is nothing to do with Samatar's crew and I've heard no rumours of anything else happening. And there is something wrong with that flag – I don't think it's actually the IS one—"

His phone rang at the same time as Lucas' and they answered as one.

"Aunty…"

"Ilian…"

"I'm safe, I'm with Uncle Joe…"

"It's okay, he's with me…"

"I don't know anything about this, it's not my group…"

"No, he knows nothing. Not his little cell and he's heard absolutely nothing of it…"

"I will."

"Hmm. Alright, I'll talk to him about it…Thanks."

By the time they finished their calls the waiter was putting their coffees and cakes in front of them. Lucas scrubbed at his face as he brought his adrenaline surge under control while Brendan looked slightly shaken.

"I presume you got the message. About keeping your ear to the ground?" The lad just nodded. "They haven't identified who it is yet, although they've got direct feeds from several cameras staring into the café, courtesy of some quick thinking from one of the cameramen inside Channel 7. Whomever it is he's claiming that he's acting on behalf of Islamic State and that he has a bomb, with another three In Martin Place, Circular Quay and George Street. The police are investigating. Ilian is firing on all twelve cylinders, powered by jet fuel!"

The last comment achieved its objective and elicited a smile from the younger man, although his eyes were still haunted.

"So's Aunty Ruby! I don't think I've ever heard her so hyped up in my life!" They grinned at each other before Brendan shuffled his seat around the corner of the table so he could watch more comfortably and attacked his baked cheesecake with panache before staring back up at the screen. "I'm still not sure that's an IS flag: it's the al-Shahada declaration but the format is completely wrong."

"It's more like what is used by Hizb ut-Tahrir," Lucas agreed, squinting at the image, "but the general public won't know the difference so it will achieve its purpose to stir up fear. It looks like it's working, judging by the wall-to-wall coverage on this channel and, no doubt, every other one. And the bastard is definitely terrorising his hostages."

Their smiles faded as once again footage was screened showing a clearly traumatised woman, her face a picture of misery, holding up the black and white flag in one of the windows. This was what Lucas really hated and Brendan was learning to hate: the indiscriminate coercion of innocents in a phoney, bloody mock-war that was merely an excuse for the exercise of barbarity and in the name of arguments and gods in which the innocents had no particular interest.

They continued watching quietly for another ten minutes until Cyril's phone rang. Brendan looked at the caller ID and raised an eyebrow at his companion before swiping the screen.

"Yo, bro', watcha doin'?"

Lucas couldn't repress a sparkle in his eyes as he listened to Cyril talking, he guessed, to one of his fellow cell members in a vastly exaggerated, somewhat sing-song version of his real accent. It sounded like the other person was extremely excited, some of his words audible to Lucas, and Cyril was agreeing enthusiastically. Eventually the call was terminated and Brendan dropped the phone back into his pocket, his expression both thoughtful and concerned.

"That was Cameron. He's with Hadad, avidly watching all this. They think it's great and are now feeling even more inspired to wage jihad on behalf of the Prophet. Or get their 15 seconds of fame, more likely." He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment before giving Lucas a deep, clear, focussed gaze. "Damn whoever this bastard is for encouraging these loonies. I will find out what they're planning and we will stop them." Throwing back the last of his drink he stood, followed by Lucas, and held out a hand. "Thanks, Miles, but I'd better get going. Catch you later."

They shook.

"Stay in touch, Cyril. You know where I am if you need me."

They left, separately, Lucas just in time to see his young protégée turn the corner, making for the bus stop. He was getting more impressed by Brendan every day; it was a pity they didn't get more recruits like him. With nothing more to do the Englishman walked away in the opposite direction to go back to his car. Might as well go home and watch what was unfolding. It was a pity that Harry was on the road and incommunicado somewhere, he wouldn't have minded giving him a call…

10:52. ASIO Headquarters, Canberra.

In the dim light of the war room Ilian, Ruby, Tori and Nevil, their senior techie, were clustered together, with Lorraine and her team patched in from the Sydney office on one of the smart screens while the constant live feed direct from the Channel 7 cameras were on another and all the major news channels, television, radio and print, were being streamed to the other screens across the end wall. Teams of analysts were trawling through data from the last few weeks, trying to identify who the perpetrator – it seemed to only be one – was, so far fruitlessly; on the ground in Sydney intelligence officers were squeezing their assets for every drop of potential information, again mostly to no avail.

Ilian was almost constantly on a video link with the head of the Tactical Response Group and the New South Wales Police Commissioner, and Ruby was intercepting and fending off calls from politicians while talking to a contact inside the sister organisation, ASIS. Meanwhile, Tori and Nev were trawling through the cream of what the analysts were coming up with while simultaneously monitoring the camera and some sound feeds. Everyone was frustrated; whatever this was, this seemed to be happening not only with no warning but with no traces, either. And Ilian for one didn't believe that, there was always a footprint. Somewhere.

Glancing up at the live camera feed she stilled, instantly, and her glance intensified.

"Nev. Back up the last few seconds of feed and clean it up as much as you can."

There was a tone in her voice that made everyone else in the room stop what they were doing and look from her to the screen and back again. Everyone except Nev. He knew that tone and was grabbing the footage as she spoke. A couple of minutes later he had done what he could with the time available and projected it up on one of the main screens, kicking the digital print media off to a smaller one on the side. The grainy image had been cleared up enough to show a bearded man in a bandanna behind one of the hostages in a window; Ilian's sudden hiss was snake-like and as venomous before she threw the document in her hand onto the desk with a snap.

"You bastard." Everyone turned to look at her again but she was still staring at the screen. "What the hell is he even doing still out of prison? The last I heard he was up on charges of accessory to murder and multiple sexual assaults and I was hoping they'd lock him up." She noted some of the uncomprehending expressions and suddenly roared, "Take another look! It's fucking Monis. Jesus Christ…"

It was hard to tell what was winning, fury or anguish, as she came to terms with the spectre of her worst nightmare rearing up in front of her. Man Haron Monis, or Mohammed-Hassan Manteghi Borujerdi, the self-styled Sheikh and religious leader, had been an increasingly painful thorn in the security service's side over the years as he had become more and more radical and increasingly violent along with it. The Islamic community didn't have to disown him because they had never acknowledged him in the first place, recognising him as a fake and a trouble-maker almost from the start and his ongoing, indeed worsening, criminal behaviour and unpredictable aggression had reinforced their desire to distance themselves from him as far as possible. Ilian had been after him for the better part of the last decade, convinced he was far more dangerous than many gave him credit to be; now, it looked like her fears had become fact.

12:05. Charters Towers, Queensland.

After the better part of four hours' driving they were both looking forward to finally arriving in the old gold mining centre, finding somewhere for lunch and then a motel for the night, having only broken the trip for a quick coffee at the roadhouse at the former nickel mining town of Greenvale. It had been a long, sobering trip in many ways; hundreds of kilometres of nothing much except old basalt flows and scrappy bush, the scrub getting sparser and drier as they headed west then south and the few cattle left in the overgrazed paddocks getting thinner and thinner. As they got closer to the small city – a large country town, really – what little grass there was faded from khaki to pale brown to grey and the skeleton of the earth increasingly poked its bony frame through the thinning skin of bleached dirt. They had thought it had been dry up around Undara but that had only been the start of it…

The only 'highlight' of the trip, if it could be called that, had been the challenge of dicing with death in the form of the fifty metre long, double or triple deck, triple trailer road trains that were both an icon and notorious feature of outback roads. It was bad enough when the road consisted of two lanes of tar, even though they were generally rough with crumbling shoulders consisting of dirt and gravel, but dealing with the oncoming monsters on the many sections of road that consisted of only a single ribbon of tar down the centre was another thing altogether. Lucas, when he had found out their planned route, had given them some tips for just those circumstances, gleaned from his endless days of driving between Capricorn Downs and Cairns; Ruth, when she was driving, had taken the option of getting right out of the way and stopping until the behemoth had passed, spraying rocks and gravel in its wake; Harry, braver (or, possibly, crazier) elected to (mostly) take the other option, of slowing down a little but still driving on the dirt shoulder until the vehicle was gone. That worked okay when the other vehicle was another car or four-wheel drive but was distinctly more hair-raising when it was a colossal cattle truck that did indeed resemble a train far more than what it actually was.

As if the machines' reputation wasn't enough, they had seen proof of their power soon after leaving Undara. Travelling through an area of high, rocky hills with no fences, they had noted the cattle on both sides of the road, chewing on the slightly more abundant tufts of slightly less dry grass that grew just off the tar; rounding a corner they came across the evidence of what happened when one of those fleshy beasts, big enough themselves, took on the larger, metallic one. Initially unable to quite recognise what they were looking at, they slowed down to begin weaving their way through the obstacles and suddenly realised what those obstacles were. A haunch here; a hoof there, scattered puddles of blackened, dried blood but it was the head, staring morosely at them from it's position in the middle of the road, that almost did for them as they recognised they were driving through an exploded cow. There had been one or two other intact carcasses elsewhere but only one thing could have been responsible for this horror: some time earlier in the day, probably before dawn, a cattle truck moving at its full speed of 100kmh had cleaned up the unfortunate black steer. It was unlikely that the driver had even seen it until the last second and by then would have had no way of avoiding the collision; the machines could weigh up to 200 tonnes, fully laden, and even when empty weren't far off 100 tonnes so travelling at that speed and pulling that weight he would have had no choice but to go straight through. After that, the pair in the small Subaru were more than happy to keep right out of the way.

Now, slightly frazzled by dealing with the harsh road conditions, they were heading gently downhill past the green of the cemetery into the outskirts of town. Wondering what was going on in the world Ruth leaned forward and stabbed the power button on the radio, followed swiftly by the scan button to find a station. Ignoring the first two – raucous music and ads respectively – she settled on the third, which seemed to be news. What they heard a few seconds later made their blood run cold as the announcer detailed what was happening in the centre of Sydney, with mentions of bombs, guns, hostages and Islamic State. Glancing at each other, they both had the same thought.

Ilian would be tearing her hair out…

16/12/2014 02:14

A sudden gust of breeze sent an empty paper bag skittering noisily down the empty expanse of Martin Place. Some of the black-clad, helmeted and heavily armed men twitched at the sound, nerves keyed to breaking point after the past sixteen hours. Groups of hostages had managed to escape, here and there, but with unknown consequences for those remaining inside; the bomb threat had turned out to be a lie; the shock-jocks had been on their radio and television shows, whipping up unnecessary hysteria while the armchair experts were already criticising what they thought they were seeing; at least one shot had been fired inside and, as the hours wore on and on, everyone's nerves were stretching to breaking point.

In a studio apartment in Newtown and an architect-designed house on a headland well to the south two men were doing the same thing: sitting up in the dark with a television flickering in front of them, sound turned down, watching the live feed from various cameras stationed at the security perimeter cordon some distance from the café. Brendan had had a long day fielding phone calls from the over-excited members of the cell who regarded themselves as his friend; eventually his phone had obligingly rescued him by going flat and he had let it stay that way, keen for a bit of peace. Nothing much had happened for a while and he was hoping it stayed that way; in fact, he was hoping that it would all fizzle out, preferably without bloodshed and with the man – they knew there was only one – being dragged out in handcuffs, a failure. At least that might hose down the over-enthusiasm being stirred in the others.

At Siding Bay Lucas was also up, watching the glowing images on his large flat-screen. He hadn't even tried to sleep and was silently glad that Hazel had stayed in the city for a few more days, otherwise he would have been keeping her awake – again – with his insomniac tossing and turning as he wondered what was going on both in Martin Place and in the office in Canberra, as well as reliving any number of moments from his past life on the Grid. So far this country had mostly avoided terrorist acts within its shores but he had a horrible feeling that state of grace was about to change.

In Charters Towers Harry and Ruth were in the comfortable bed of their motel room. Ruth was finally asleep, breathing quietly, but Harry was still wide awake, lying on his back watching shadowed headlights occasionally ghost across the ceiling. Like Lucas, he was deeply unsettled by the events and for the same reason. He couldn't remember how many times he had seen exactly this sort of situation explode beyond what anyone would have predicted, with tragic consequences. Granted, it was almost as likely that the whole thing would end as quietly as it had begun but his instincts told him not this time. He just hoped that the unfortunate steer earlier in the day hadn't been a portent of what was to come. Sighing, he told himself yet again that it wasn't his problem, rolled onto his side, wrapped an arm around his wife and closed his eyes. If he tried, he might get to sleep tonight. There was nothing else he could do. It wasn't his job any more.

The light in the room in Canberra was muted but brighter than in the Towers, Newtown or over on the coast. The teams had been working flat out all day going through everything they could find to see if there had been any warning signs that Monis was planning this or that Islamic State had anything whatsoever to do with it, so far without success. It appeared he had attempted to join one of the more notorious bikie gangs recently but they had declined the opportunity because he was too weird for them (that said a lot, when a bunch of hardened criminals thought you were strange, had been Ilian's dry comment at that news) and someone had uncovered a letter that the man had sent to the Attorney General a few months beforehand, basically asking if it was illegal for him to contact ISIS directly but with no come-back from they themselves (that one had caused her to blow her stack – it was the first time she had heard of it and wanted to know how the hell that had happened) but nothing else.

Now, it was past two in the morning and she had padded, bare-foot, back into the nerve centre where she was standing clutching yet another espresso and watching the media feeds. The lonely plaza with its black shadows was empty and chill and the café itself appeared dark; she was wondering exactly what was happening in there when a gun-shot rang out, followed almost immediately by a cacophony of flash grenades, shouting and automatic rifle fire. Lightning lit up the windows of the café as everyone in the nerve centre stopped what they were doing and stared in frozen horror at the screens. Ilian's heart plummeted to her feet and her gut contracted as she watched her worst dreams come true. After all her years of fighting it, international terrorism had finally arrived in their remote outpost of what passed for civilisation and she hadn't been able to stop it.

Bali 2002 notwithstanding, this country had just lost its innocence and nothing would ever be quite the same again.