5. 19/01/2015

11:00. Bateman's Bay

I thought it was supposed to be Summer, Lucas grumbled to himself as he dashed through an unexpected flurry of rain back to his Hilux, clutching his shopping bags in one hand and keeping his light jacket closed against the sudden chilly breeze with the other. Granted, it had been bordering on cold when he had been out for his morning swim – all of fifteen degrees, as he found out when he checked his weather station on his return – but he had expected it to warm up by now and it hadn't. It must be making a difference for Harry and Ruth, wherever their exact location somewhere south of him this morning was, from what they were now used to, might almost remind them of home, although whether that was necessarily a good thing was a point to ponder. He suspected it wouldn't really matter if it did. Like himself, they were used to their new lives and, although they all occasionally missed specific things and people, they also knew there was no going back. To be honest, none of them wished to, any more. It would be going backwards in more ways than one.

The rain continued as he drove out of the supermarket carpark and onto the highway which had him crossing the Clyde River almost straight away. He always enjoyed the view from the old lifting bridge with its heavy, grey iron girder frame. The river was large, for this country, and, unlike the majority of rivers west of the Great Dividing Range, was permanently full of water. Upstream to his left it stretched away between bush covered hills with a few small yachts and houseboats moored nearby; downstream to the east it widened out quickly towards its mouth and the sea beyond, where Snapper Island was just visible through the haze of the rain. The foreshores on this side were much more manicured, with a rock wall on the southern bank and lawn around small cabins at the caravan park on the northern and more yachts floating serenely, like overgrown swans, on the calm surface of the water. Despite its name, he had come to like the town which was still redolent of its fishing village past but was large enough to provide all the facilities he required yet far enough away from his small acreage to give him the peace and quiet he craved.

By the time the isolated bus-stop that marked his turn-off appeared the rain had cleared and the clouds were thinning, allowing more light through and brightening the green of the paddocks that he was passing through. Forested hills and valleys soon replaced those paddocks and the view closed in as trees stretched up towards the sky. He wondered how far behind him his visitors were. They were supposed to arrive for lunch and then stay the night; glancing at the clock on the dashboard he realized they probably weren't that far from arriving. Last night they had been down near the Victorian border, in Eden, and the plan had been for a leisurely drive up the coast to his place, taking in the spectacular scenery all the way. Their exact arrival time was dependent on how side-tracked they got by that scenery whilst en-route. Lucas rather hoped that they had stopped for morning tea somewhere to give him a bit more time to get ready; Hazel had helped him tidy up yesterday but she had gone back to town early this morning for her working week and he still had some stuff to do.

It was with a sense of relief, therefore, that he arrived at his unprepossessing gate to find no trace of visitors. Something over an hour later everything was done and he settled himself in on his sun lounge with a tall glass of iced tea to contemplate the waves marching steadily in to break on the beach – he couldn't hear them so clearly at this hour of the day but he could feel them – and the events of the last twenty-four hours.

Although he had enjoyed a quiet weekend with Hazel he had been a little distracted for most of it, not only by his prospective visitors but because he hadn't heard from Brendan for a few days. The last contact had been an email on Thursday evening from Cyril's account to Miles', innocuous in content and coded to say that activity in the group had picked up but there was still no decision on a target. That wasn't the worry. He was more concerned because after the new year the inner circle group had stopped using their tatty little hall and had taken, instead, to meeting at Samatar and Alsoswa's house, meaning they had lost their ability to eavesdrop at will, although Brendan had managed to place a couple of very basic bugs during his second visit, which meant they could hear some of what was being said, after a fashion. He had impressed on his young protégée the importance of staying in touch and Brendan did but he wasn't quite as regular as he should have been; it was something they were going to have to talk about.

The boy had finally put him out of his misery on Sunday afternoon. A message this time – he and Hazel had been down at the beach for a quick dip – saying that all was good and that there was meeting on tomorrow night that he thought was going to be it, where they finally decided what they were going to do and where. Lucas had silently cursed at that, it was lousy timing as far as he was concerned with his visitors, but by the same token he realized that there would have been no point in him rushing up to the city to hover over Brendan anyway. Under the new conditions that would have just brought unwanted attention because he would have stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb in that part of town. The obbo crew were having enough of an issue as it was.

He hadn't said anything to Hazel about it and she had apparently not noticed. The same couldn't be said later when they were out on the deck having an aperitif before dinner and enjoying the fading light over the water. His work phone chirped; tempted to ignore it he nonetheless didn't and found Lorraine on the other end. The discussion was short and to the point but it also made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Over the past few weeks Samatar and Bolzaar seemed to have ceased their suspected involvement in supporting jihadis traveling to and from the Middle East, probably due to having other things closer to home to concentrate on so Lorraine's crew had been poking around in the backgrounds of the others involved in the small group, including the wives and girlfriends.

Nothing untoward had come up on the Egyptian, Omar Hadad, although it appeared he was on the way to a stellar career in advanced computer engineering, or had been until now; Mustafa Abdul-Rahman had been born and grown up as Jimmy Cliff in Stepney and been disruptive at school but quite bright, completing an electrical apprenticeship before emigrating in his mid-twenties and converting to Islam, reasons unknown, eighteen months ago, becoming a prolific user of IS websites. Feysal, the other Somali, was still largely a mystery but there was a fairly strong possibility that he had known Samatar in Mogadishu and may even have had some sort of association with Osama bin Laden at the same time and place. On this day, though, something had finally turned up from a direction they hadn't really expected. Although Brendan had.

According to the CIA desk in Kuwait City, Qirfa Alsoswa wasn't entirely what she seemed. Far from being the devoted little wife and mother she liked everyone to think she was, she had a background that, now they knew about it, raised red flags everywhere. Born in Kuwait just before the First Gulf War to an Iraqi mother and an Iraqi-Yemeni father, her mother had been killed during the invasion and both sets of grand-parents had later been murdered by the regime of Saddam Hussein during the early 1990s. Her father, a petroleum engineer, had fled to relatives in Yemen – all members of the same ethnic Kindite clan as Osama bin Laden – after that, taking his two children with him, and then later spent some time in Saudi Arabia before returning to Sana'a but was currently living in Dubai with his second wife and a young second family. His eldest child, Qirfa's brother, had rejected everything about his background and was now living and working quietly in Canada but Qirfa had gone the other way, becoming extremely, puritanically devout during their time in Saudi. Shortly before the arrival of Samatar in Yemen she had, according to the CIA, become an active member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. As far as they knew, she still was. She had certainly had a vigorous on-line presence, albeit on the dark web under a number of obscure aliases, calling for revenge on the infidels of America and all of their lap-dogs for the usual reasons but, specifically, also for the death of her mother.

Lucas' stomach had dropped as he listened to Lorraine's matter-of-fact delivery. Brendan had said at the outset that there was something fishy about Samatar's wife and now it looked like his gut was right. He had wandered away from Hazel during the call and was now leaning on the railing at the far end of the deck, next to the steps, watching the last of the surfers coming in to shore before it got completely dark.

"Have you told Brendan?"

"Not yet. I thought you might want to."

"Okay."

The follow up call to the lad had been succinct. He hadn't sounded particularly surprised and had taken it in his stride, leaving Lucas a little worried, after they had finished the conversation, that Brendan wasn't fully aware of the implications and dangers. He needn't have been: back in his small unit in Newtown, Brendan dropped his phone on the coffee table in front of his beaten up, second hand sofa, leaned back in the seat and blew out his cheeks. Shit! He was sweating slightly and his heart was hammering as he processed the news that his initial suspicions were correct: Qirfa Alsoswa was the real power behind the group: she was the one with the genuine religious fervour and taste for personal revenge, the others were just along for the pleasure of terrorizing and killing. Shutting his eyes for a minute or two he concentrated on bringing his breathing back under control to calm his shaken nerves. It wouldn't do to have Uncle Joe or Aunty Ruby think he wasn't up to it. And he needed to prove to himself that he was up to this job. He had done it before so surely he could do it again?

At Siding Bay Lucas did something similar, quietly ending the call and taking a few moments to school his face so that Hazel wouldn't pick up on his worries. Turning around and returning to join her he sat down to find himself the subject of her dark, velvety, contemplative gaze. After a few seconds she said quietly,

"Have you got a copy of the Act on you?"

He blinked, disconcerted.

"Pardon?"

"The Official Secrets Act," she enunciated carefully, still holding his look. "Give it to me to sign, then you can talk. You're clearly worried about that phone call."

Nonplussed still, he didn't quite know how to answer. Although he had known her for a year – they had met when he had been sent to her physio and natural therapies practice for some work on a knee he had twisted badly when he had made an abortive attempt to learn how to surf – and they had been a solid item for six months or more she still surprised him with her acute assessments on a regular basis. Now she made another one.

"You do work for the security services, don't you? It's the only thing that makes sense: obscure phone calls, never anything specific mentioned about what you do or who you work with, mysterious background—" She suddenly stopped, took in his expression and reached out a hand to take his. "It's okay. Forget I mentioned it. It doesn't matter to me, you know that, I just thought it might help if you ever need to talk about things and if we intend to continue on together we might as well get it out of the way."

He was still struggling to take it in: either he was losing his touch, which he was willing to concede, or she knew more about his business than he would have expected, which begged the question of how? Continuing to look at her he absently noted yet again how much she reminded him not only of his first love, Maya, with her dark eyes and olive skin (although Hazel had a head of white hair, despite being the same age as he was: she had apparently gone completely grey in her early thirties, following a genetic quirk in her family) but also of his ex wife, Elizaveta, with her softness and acceptance of his foibles. He suddenly realized that he did want to continue on with her, to explore where they might go, and that if that was the case she would need to know, eventually, about the Greek tragedy that was his past. The expression on his face turned speculative; seeing it, the woman smiled again and added,

"You wouldn't be the first in the family, you know, so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with it all, or have problems with it."

Finally finding his voice, Lucas lifted her hand and kissed it.

"So who was the first in the family?"

"You know my grand-mother was Jewish, from the south of Belgium, and escaped as a teenager to England with her family just before the Germans invaded?" He nodded, remembering her mentioning it fairly early on. "What I haven't told you is that she was a member of the SOE during the war; spent the better part of three years with the Resistance in France, doing things that she never really talked about – for extremely good reasons – until near her end and even then she left out the worst of it. I will show you the book she wrote it all down in one day, that we didn't find until after she died, tucked away in a drawer along with her Légion d'Honneur citation and medal." They both cogitated on that for a moment and what it represented. "Then there's my uncle who's recently retired from another branch of the Attorney-General's Department—" her sudden grin was teasing "—whom I will tell you about after we've got the paperwork done!"

The sound of an approaching vehicle brought him back to the present. He had left the gate on auto open just in case his visitors arrived if he wasn't within earshot of the intercom and it appeared that he had judged correctly. The clock on the side cabinet chimed gently to tell him it was one o'clock: they were right on time.

Harry and Ruth arrived bearing several treats from the bakery in town as a nod to his sweet tooth; these were devoured, along with freshly brewed coffee and discussions about the beauty of their morning drive, after the simple but tasty lunch that their host had provided. The house tour had happened before the meal, as they were shown to their room for the night; after the meal they wandered outside to admire the view and ended up going for a walk down to the beach.

The clouds had largely disappeared by now and the day was lovely: still cool but with bright, warm sunlight and almost no breeze so the ocean within the protected confines of the bay was almost glassy, a liquid aquamarine that barely susurrused on the sandy shore. There were few people around – just an elderly man walking an equally elderly dog and a couple of disappointed grommets who were trudging back up towards the track and their bicycles, boogie boards under their arms and complaining volubly of the lack of waves, as the trio arrived – so they wandered at will, making their way to the far headland and back at an easy stroll. On the return Ruth went ahead to explore the rock pools on the wave-cut platform, leaving the two men to their own devices and they were now quietly splashing through the shallows. Out at sea a container ship was progressing slowly northwards towards Wollongong port; Lucas was half a dozen steps further on when he realized that Harry had stopped and was standing ankle-deep in the water, apparently watching the ship, face expressionless. There was something slightly odd about his stance – almost as though he was frozen to the spot – and Lucas frowned momentarily before walking back to join his former boss.

"So how are you, Laurence? Really. Has this trip achieved its purpose?"

Harry, who was miles away, took a moment to register his words.

"What? Yes, yes, everything is fine between us now. Thank you for asking." His attention moved back to the ship, leaving the younger man unsettled. He knew his friends had been through a rough patch about six months away: not long after their villa was finally finished and the farm was up and running Harry had found himself with considerably less to do and, with Ruth either at work or buried in her doctoral thesis and its associated concerns, he was at a loose end too often. Busying himself with his syndicated articles hadn't been enough and, slowly, some of his old demons had started to come back. Very specifically, Bill Crombie's horrifically disfigured body, now strangely mixed up with that of Helen Flynn and Zafar Younis and another chimaera composed of the destroyed remains of Adam, Connie and Ros had begun to haunt his dreams, both sleeping and waking and had revived something of the depression that had dogged him since the sudden death of his mother over forty years before.

Ruth had been aware of it and had spoken to Lucas once when he had called but had felt like she couldn't get through to her husband. Lucas, using his own issues as an ice-breaker, had then broached the subject during a call and had been slightly surprised when Harry had actually admitted not only to what was happening but to a creeping sense of guilt over the worry he was inflicting on his wife. They had talked once or twice more after that – it was amazing how much easier it was for both, this discussing of deeply private things at a vast distance to a disembodied voice and Harry had suddenly understood the attraction of the confessional box – but it was Ray Williams who had finally taken action. Having battled post-traumatic stress disorder since his return from Vietnam and spent many of the years since helping other veterans through the same process, he recognized it for what is was in his English friend and, brooking no argument, had packed up Harry and some camping gear and dragged him by the scruff of the neck to the remote, closed veteran's retreat Pandanus Park. Located at the southern end of Cape York but many, many kilometers east of Capricorn Downs, Ray had been involved in originally setting the place up with his former commanding officer and so had no trouble taking Harry, a military veteran anyway, there. They had been gone for two weeks but whatever occurred there had largely done the trick, for the moment at least, and things had returned to normal at home afterwards, albeit with both halves of the couple making a deliberate effort to not block each other out of their worries.

This driving trip had been the idea of Ray's wife and Ruth's co-worker, Marie, an opportunity for he and Ruth to get away from things for a while and rediscover each other as they had while they had initially been on the run in Europe. It had worked, too, but he was still prey to his megrims and one had just overtaken him again. Squeezing his eyes shut he glanced up at Lucas and, when the man didn't say any more, sighed.

"My apologies, Nathan. The past is impossible to leave behind, isn't it? It pops up when you least expect it, like now. For some reason that ship out there has just reminded me of Dimitri and Beth. God knows where she is now but I've heard through the grapevine that he has been seconded to Six and has gone back to the Middle East, under cover. Which probably means Syria and we both know what that means."

He did. Picking up a piece of glass, worn smooth and translucent by years in the water, he skipped it across the water and they watched, both silently counting, as it made it to four skips before sinking. In the silence that followed Lucas said,

"I bumped into her once, you know. Beth. When I was working in that area myself."

"Where?"

"In a bar in Marseilles. It was a dive but popular with the international mercenary community when they were in town. I was there one night, drowning my sorrows, and so was she, although I didn't recognize her at first, with dark hair."

Harry thought about the last time he had seen her, at her work station late in the evening the night he had been escorted off the Grid to his gardening leave, blue eyes wide with a prescient dread as she followed his path across the floor to the pods.

"She was okay?"

"Yes. As far as she could be – she really hadn't wanted to leave Five once you let her back in – but she gave me an absolute mouthful. All justified, I might add. She was also the one who told me you were dead."

His companion nodded, sadly.

"More lies. Necessary lies but lies nonetheless. That was Dimitri's idea, I believe, according to our inside source."

"Malcolm?" Lucas guessed, unable to think of anyone else it could be.

"No." Harry suddenly smiled. "Tariq! He stays in touch by circuitous means with Iona. As I do with Malcolm." His smile faded as his eyes were irresistibly drawn back to the ship. "So many lies. So much waste. But we need to accept the past and let it go. Or so I'm told." His attention turned to Ruth, absorbed in watching a blue-ringed octopus that she had spotted in one of the larger pools. "Is that how you cope? With Russia and everything before…and after?"

"There's not much else you can do. The shrinks are right: you have to forgive yourself, ultimately. I'm nowhere near there yet and never will be, after…Dakar." The word stuck in his throat but he forced it out anyway. That was all part of facing up to his past and trying to build a future that he could live in. "But I will spend the rest of my life trying to get there."

A pair of seagulls, squabbling over something while on the wing, dropped over their heads, causing them both to start and then laugh as they began walking again. Ruth looked towards them and called something not quite audible, eyes glowing even at this distance and looking all of about sixteen in the late afternoon light. Harry's heart leapt as he acknowledged for the first time in too long how fortunate he was to have her, for them to still be together and happy despite all their problems and the best efforts of the Fates in the past to keep them apart while Lucas, watching the couple's subliminal communication, was equally suddenly subject to a mixture of envy and yearning. Envy at what they had and yearning to achieve something similar one day. Despite his past record he knew now it was possible: not only did he have the example in front of him but also that of Ilian and Meg and even Wynne and Hope. He might get there with Hazel, he might not, but he would give it a damned good try.

Dinner was casual: a barbeque on the deck with its spectacular ocean views where the colours were fading from the brightness of the afternoon to the cooler pastels of the evening. Afterwards, as the temperature dropped sharply when the sun finally went down, they moved inside where the conversation turned, almost inevitably, to the events in Paris of only a few days before at the Charlie Hebdo offices and elsewhere in Paris. They all feared what it presaged, for Europe and the rest of the world; Harry, bluntly, stated what they were all thinking and that he had been saying in his columns for months.

"Things will get worse – a lot worse – before they get better. If they get better. It's going to be a long, bloody war and at this stage the outcome is anybody's guess. If I am being honest I'm glad to be out of it. The level of violence and barbarity these people exhibit haven't been seen in Europe since the Dark Ages and at my age I'm not sure I would be up to the fight." He suddenly leaned forward, grabbed the wine bottle and topped up their glasses. "This is far too dark a topic for so lovely an evening. Let us talk of other things. Tell us about your philanthropic trust, Nathan: where are you up to with that?"

As it turned out he was progressing, but still slowly. He was happily giving plenty of support for small issues – he had developed a particular appreciation of the work done by volunteer bush fire brigades and surf lifesaving clubs around the country and enjoyed anonymously donating to their causes – but at the larger scale he was still working out what, how and where. He had an idea revolving around setting up something to help survivors of torture and terrorist attacks, particularly bombings ('yes, I have taken up your suggestion and yes, I am trying to assuage my guilt,' he had said before anyone else could), and had discussed it with Ilian, his shrinks and, last week, Wynne and Hope. They all thought it was a good idea so next month he was going to catch up with Meg in her legal capacity as she had promised to introduce him to some specialists in the appropriate fields to see what was going to be required. None of it was going to happen in a hurry but he was happy that at least things had begun to move. Beyond that he hadn't thought. Hope had quoted him some Lao Tzu the other day, when they had been talking about it:

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

He liked the concept and had taken it as his guiding light, for this project and the rest of his life. One step at a time, always moving forward, and he would get there.

That led them back to work, or his work anyway. Harry was open about his concern that the torture survival training would be having a negative effect on his former Section Chief's psychological balance but Lucas was equally open and adamant that, initially under the supervision of his medical professionals but now mostly without them, it was actually achieving the opposite. He still had his nightmares occasionally but in the passing on of everything he had learned, both from within himself and from others, such as Hamet, during his time inside the Russian prison system he found both catharsis for his own ghosts and quiet satisfaction that what he was doing would hopefully save some lives, a life, one day.

In a natural progression they turned to the immediate future and specifically whatever was being planned for him to be doing with Wynne. More of the same but at a much more intense level for the special forces troops but there was going to be more to it than that. Ilian had long been tapping into the knowledge that Lucas had gained working inside Hamet Fasli's organization as well as those others he had subcontracted to by way of Hamet's contacts; now, they were going to be building on that knowledge and similar available from others as part of a major rewrite of the training manual for the security services. He had smiled at that point, a little slyly.

"That's where you come into it, Laurence. As we agreed at Christmas, we will be drawing on your experience to review what we're doing, make sure we cover everything."

Harry looked surprised – he hadn't taken the suggestion seriously – but Ruth just laughed quietly because she knew it would be right up his alley.

"I thought you were joking," he objected weakly but Lucas just shook his head. "But surely anything I could bring to the process would be well out of date for modern times? I'm old-school, as you well know! Iona would be of more use – at least she's not a technological luddite."

"I'll disagree with that," the woman responded, still smiling. "You like to make out you're a luddite but you're not and you know it."

"On the contrary, you were the hacker. You still are, when you're chasing something you need for university!"

"Before this descends into a domestic tiff," the younger man broke in, "I'm going to point out that this is exactly why we want you on board. Because you're old-school. You've done the lot, you know all the old ways as well as the new and, more importantly, you know what works and what doesn't. Despite modern technology, none of that has really changed – sometimes the old ways are the best. They've worked for centuries, after all. And actually, now you've mentioned it, we might just get you—" he nodded towards Ruth "—to run your eyes over the electronic intelligence gathering part, after all your years at GCHQ and then on the Grid. We've got someone from the Signals Directorate doing the rewrite but it won't hurt to have someone external we can trust to look over it. If you're agreeable."

She was, and said so, muttering something only semi-audible about "being better than dealing with academic idiots in ivory towers". At that point Harry had regaled Lucas with what Ruth felt was a vastly exaggerated tale of how excited she had been when they had visited the Tidbinbilla deep space tracking facility outside of Canberra just before Christmas and how her eyes had shone like beacons at the sight of the dishes pointing skywards. She protested; he denied that he was inflating her response (which he actually wasn't) and Lucas just grinned, knowing perfectly well that Ruth would have been like a kid in a lolly shop. She might not miss the people at Cheltenham but she certainly did love, and miss, the technology involved.

"Anyway, to get back to the subject, there's money in it for you and you wouldn't have to come down here, you could both stay on the farm and do your bit. It might be more useful that way anyway because Major Williams, who wrote a large part of the training manuals back in the 1970s, will also be involved so you can get your grizzled heads together over a few beers…"

Ruth and Harry glanced at each other – they should have guessed that Ray would have a hand in it – then Harry sniffed and raised an eyebrow at Lucas.

"Cut it out with the ageist comments, you young whipper-snapper. Hang on, how old are you these days? Make that middle-aged whipper-snapper!"

They all grinned at that and Lucas got up to retrieve a bottle of port and some glasses from his side cabinet. Returning and pouring the drinks, as he handed them around he added, very quietly,

"Of course there is more to what we're doing that what we've already talked about." His blue eyes stopped dancing. "This is very, very sub rosa at the moment. It came from Ilian originally, after she'd been in a few high level meetings of all the security services, the police and a few others and Hope is getting us to look into it. We are to attempt to develop a framework for a program to de-redicalise non-Muslim young people who are getting sucked into ISIS. Ilian thinks I might have some additional insight due to what happened to me. What I did in Dakar."

The older couple were not quite sure what to say, it had come out so matter-of-factly. Initially surprised, it only took a moment for them to realize that Ilian was, in fact, spot on. Of all of them, Lucas was in a unique position to at least partially understand the thought processes and attractions that were drawing young men into the vacuum of eternal darkness from all over the world, including advanced western nations such as those they were now living in and also to now have the experience and the willingness to look into his past, objectively. Ruth was the first to respond, softly.

"She may well be right, Nathan. If you can stand the digging into that part of your psyche that it would require. If you can identify what drew you in you may be able to provide some guidance for what might short-circuit the process. For some, at least."

He nodded, slowly.

"I know. I believe I can now stand the digging; the eidetic memory hasn't let me forget a single thing anyway so I might as well turn it to some good—" A ringing phone interrupted him and he glanced over to the recharge station, slightly startled. It was the work phone; at this hour of the evening that meant either bad news or Brendan. "Sorry, I have to answer that."

It was Brendan. He had just got out of the planning meeting where it had taken every ounce of self control he had, and then some, to maintain his façade. They had finished with prayers and then, yet again, he had had to put up with Wanawangul's sickening fascination with the gory details of the latest death-porn videos to pop up on his favourite web-sites on the train ride home. Brendan was certain that several of his co-conspirators got hard-ons from watching the stuff…

Now, he had got home, locked the door behind him, checked all the windows, gone into his tiny bathroom and turned on both the tap and the shower as he had made the call to Uncle Joe. He had been seriously spooked by what had finally been revealed and was desperate to talk to his handler about it but without the possibility of being overheard. Not that they had actually named targets, beyond it being the city centre, but they had confirmed that it was going to be Australia Day and that they were out to wreak the most havoc they could in the shortest possible time. At the moment all he knew was that it involved the Egyptian computer expert, Omar Hadad and a drone, along with guns and other weapons that would be handed out on the day and, finally, at least one bomb. Everyone would be acting independently once they got to the location. As far as scale was concerned Brendan knew it wasn't a patch on what had been planned by Agustina Shinwari and Hamzah Rashid from Capricorn Downs but if it went ahead it would still be the biggest event of its kind to happen on this continent. And he was scared.

Lucas wandered away from his guests during the phone call but was less worried about them overhearing anything so had stayed in the large, open plan room, gazing out through the plate glass windows to the darkness beyond, lit only by a few solar lights scattered around the perimeter, as he talked. The couple had moved to the other end, into the kitchen, to make a pot of tea and give him a bit more space but they could still hear him calming the other person down. One comment caught their attention.

"What do you mean you think they don't entirely trust you?"

That didn't auger well for whomever it was he was talking to and they could both hear the undertone of worry in his voice.

The tea was brewed by the time Lucas finished talking and Ruth wordlessly poured him a cup as he returned to join them.

"That sounded intense," Harry commented, stirring sugar into his drink. "Are you back in the field again?"

The other man ran a hand over his face before reaching for his tea.

"No, not really. But I've got a protégée who is and that was him." He took a sip, leaned back in his seat and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "Do you remember Brendan? The young indigenous boy from the cattle station?" They both nodded. "That was him. He's infiltrated a small group affiliated with Islamic State and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. They're about to stage an attack in the middle of Sydney somewhere, next week on Australia Day and he's both worried and scared. Worried about what he's going to be involved in and scared because he thinks they're suspicious of him: they're being cagey still about the exact details around him but he thinks some of the others know more. You probably heard me telling him that that's perfectly normal and doesn't necessarily mean anything but still… I'm going to have to ring Ilian in a minute but I want a chance to think first." He finally lowered his eyes and looked at them both. "This is worse than being in the field myself: being responsible for someone else yet unable to be out there to protect them."

A strange expression swept across Harry's face, so much more expressive now than it had ever been on the Grid. Ruth could figure out what it was about but not so Lucas.

"What's that about?"

The older man returned the question with the dark, penetrating gaze that Lucas knew so well from the past.

"Perhaps now you are beginning to understand what I went through every day. Constantly on the edge of my seat, worried sick, but never able to show the slightest sign to anyone. Not to my team, for fear of infecting them with my trepidation, not to my so-called superiors in case they used it against all of us. And yes, it is much harder than actually being out there yourself. That is one part of the job that I really do not miss."

Harking back to their earlier conversation on the beach Lucas asked,

"How did you cope with that for all those years?"

Harry shrugged.

"Training. Practice. Genuinely delegating and trusting people to be as capable as you think they are." He suddenly flashed a smile. "And whiskey. A good single malt does wonders!" He drained his cup and exchanged a glance with Ruth. "You can only do so much, Nathan. If it's any help the boy is in good hands. Now, you need to call Ilian and it's getting late so we might leave you to it."

They got up, gathered together the tea cups and now-empty pot and took them back to the kitchen while Lucas stretched and thought about what had been said. Harry was right, he knew that, but it didn't make the situation any easier. The couple were saying good-night; suddenly gripped by unease he stood up and said,

"If you're still in Sydney next week be careful. Please."