ETHNICITY: White Caucasian

BORN: Riverview Hospital, NSW

HEIGHT: 174 cm

WEIGHT: 78 kg

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: No known tattoos or scars.

Charged with destruction of property.

Charged with vandalism.

Charge with assault.

Sentenced to serve two years in the Minda Juvenile Justice Centre.

Charged with robbery.

Sentenced to serve 14 months in Goulburn Correctional Centre.

Failed to report for parole at Bankstown Police Station.

Arrest warrant issued for breach of parole.

Location of suspect still unknown.

Two Australians. Both of them former inmates, sharing both a juvenile prison and a maximum-security one, by the look of the rap sheets. Both of them failing to report for parole in the same month. Both of them then going missing – until now. One shot dead in a church and the other blown to bits, identified by half an arm.

Sami logged onto the CIA database, deciding to try his luck. He ran a couple of searches, sifting through the names of all Australian individuals involved in crimes outside Australia and in the locations of the Church Bombings since the first blast.

Bingo.

He read the file. ‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ he said to himself, the CCTV footage from outside the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg coming back to him. ‘That’s why there was only one of ’em . . .’

On the day after the St Petersburg attack, a Russian CIB officer had found a suitcase washed up on the shore of the Neva River. Inside were the remains of an Australian, Timothy Jenkins. He’d spent time in the same correction facility as the pair of suicide bombers who’d hit the Mexican church. Jenkins’ body didn’t fit the profile – he had hair on his head and his eyebrows and lashes were intact – but his teeth had been smashed out, and the other identifiers matched up: age, nationality, rap sheet and failure to report for parole.

Sami picked up his phone and called Maverick.

‘I hear the weather’s nice in Australia this time of year,’ he said.

CHAPTER 31

Goulburn Correctional Centre, Goulburn, NSW, Australia

‘HEY, Riley,’ Khalil shouted across the yard, ‘over here. Yalla, yalla.’

Jax pretended to look surprised as the invitation he had spent every minute of every day working towards finally arrived.

‘Yeah, come on, bro,’ Khalil called out again. ‘It’s all sweet. Come and meet ’em.’

Jax had played the part of the ready-to-be-radicalised man perfectly. Appearing anxious and alienated, insecure and impressionable, dependent and dejected, he’d gradually and systematically put on show all the personality traits that terrorists look for in a recruit. He’d read the textbook, and ensured he was a textbook target.

‘Hey, man,’ Khalil said as Jax neared. ‘Come meet my brothers. This is the Sheik.’