Jax moved forward and took the hand of Abbas Bashir, a self-appointed sheik with loose links to a Sydney mosque and the man suspected to have assumed leadership of the Terror Twelve now that Hammad was isolated in Supermax. Jax had been tasked with confirming this appointment, as well as identifying the role of every member of the cell.

‘As-salamu alaykum,’ Jax said as he shook Bashir’s hand. ‘Ah, damn it. I stuffed that up, right?’

‘Alaykum as-salam, my brother,’ Bashir replied. ‘No, not at all. The effort flatters me. Please call me Bashir.’

Bashir was wearing a white taqiyah, or skull cap. Not just any white taqiyah, Jax noted, but the one he had been gifted when he’d been anointed Chief Recruiter, Al-Qaeda, Southeast Asia Station. The small tear at the base and the red stain were a giveaway. Abu Bakar, Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, had personally placed the Islamic hat on Bashir’s head following a training camp in Malaysia, or so his ASIO file said.

Bashir turned to Khalil.

‘You make a fine teacher, my brother,’ Bashir said. ‘You have kept this talent hidden from us, no?’

Since being sentenced to serve twenty years in jail – the second-longest of the sentences dished out to the Terror Twelve – Bashir hadn’t altered his appearance. He still wore a long beard without a moustache and kept his hair, under the taqiyah, short. He studied Jax momentarily before continuing the conversation in Arabic, this time asking if he was fluent.

‘Uh?’ Jax replied. ‘You talking to me?’

Bashir looked at Khalil. ‘Maybe you are not so good a teacher?’ He laughed. ‘But “Peace be upon you” is a fine start.’

He smiled at Jax. ‘Sorry for making a joke.’ Please join us, habibi. Khalil has told us much about you. Any habib to Khalil is a habib to us all. Now meet all my habibis.’

Bashir took his eyes from Jax and looked towards Fasin Halim. Short and stocky, a powerful-looking man, Halim did not wear the skull cap or a beard like Bashir. ‘Good to meet you, mate,’ he said. Years of working on construction sites had made him sound as Aussie as a sausage sizzle. ‘Please let me know if you ever need anything.’

If only it were that simple.

Halim, Halim and Halim Construction Company (HHHCC) had an estimated wealth of $730 million. ASIO had seized almost $30 million worth of cash and assets when they’d arrested the Twelve, but the other $700 million remained unaccounted for. So ASIO had followed a trail, an elaborate network of shell companies and offshore accounts, all the way to Lebanon. But there it had stopped dead, at a company registered in Beirut, Kol Khara Ya Kalb. Which in English was: ‘Eat Shit You Dog’.