Further subliminal messaging and a push from an army careers adviser – who was in fact another undercover agent – smoothed the way.

Undertaking a counterterrorism degree was their idea too. Not only that, it was also their degree. The Bachelor of Counterterrorism, Security and Intelligence, which Jax had earned by correspondence with the University of New South Wales, was in fact an ASIO course, tailor-made for one student only. Clarke had even had agents pose as other online students for a group task.

Clarke thought the army would rid Jax of his empathy. The video games, subliminal messages and prearranged bullying had failed to do so. But Clarke was confident the army would fix that and turn Jax into the killer he needed to be. And show him the true worth of a human life: nothing.

Clarke was wrong. While Jax didn’t shy away from taking a shot when they sent him to Afghanistan, he did not take a life. Not one. And while that was plausible for a bad marksman, Jax was a crack shot. He had proved himself to be as good as any sniper on the range, but he only ever hit legs, shoulders, maybe a hand, never a heart or head. This, of course, proved how good a marksman he was. And that he was no killer.

Clarke had saved Project Mnemonist by coming up with the prison plan. While finding a body had been easy, convincing his superiors to send a teenager to jail was not. They only agreed on the condition of plausible deniability. It would be his arse and his alone. But that was okay because Clarke would not fail. He never failed.

Still, he resisted gloating after Jax had killed the paedophile, knowing how much there was yet to do. And while the bombing had been another breakthrough, Jax was still far from field-ready. Clarke hadn’t destroyed Jax yet. While he may have broken him, Clarke wanted him in a thousand pieces before he began the long, meticulous, precisely planned process of putting him back together.

Project Mnemonist was not due to go operational for another five years. But then twelve terrorists had tried to turn Sydney into Chernobyl. Broken would have to do.

JAX’S cell in Goulburn was bigger than the one in Long Bay, but otherwise much the same. What was significantly different was that he had a cellmate: Khalil Khadir, the youngest member of the Terror Twelve, and the inmate identified by ASIO as most likely to befriend Jax. After weeks of briefing with Clarke back at Long Bay, Jax was pretty sure he knew Khalil Khadir better than the man knew himself.

That night, Jax closed his eyes and pretended to doze off while he waited for Khalil to fall asleep. Once Khalil’s breathing deepened, Jax trod softly across the cell to the young man’s bunk. Rather than poking him to check he was in a deep sleep, he simply listened.