Sami, who had swept his files from his desk when no one was looking and returned them to his bag, stood up. ‘And how about the recruiters?’ he asked. ‘Do you have an idea of who is behind all of this?’

‘Yes,’ Clarke said. ‘Give me a sec . . .’ He grabbed his remote and started flicking through the slides. He stopped when he found the picture of Ali Hammad. ‘This fifty-two-year-old man is the leader of an ISIS-trained cell that has been operating in Australia,’ he said. ‘He and another eleven men would have blown up a nuclear reactor in Sydney had we not caught them. Hammad is currently serving a life sentence in isolation in Supermax, within Goulburn jail. The other eleven are also in Goulburn jail, serving a range of sentences from two to twenty-five years.’

‘Two years for trying to blow up a nuclear reactor?’ Maverick blurted out. ‘Are you shitting me? They all should have got the needle.’

‘Welcome to Australia, Special Agent Smith,’ Clarke said. ‘A country renowned for surf, sun and soft sentencing. We haven’t strung anyone up for at least fifty years.’

Sami interrupted. ‘So, this Ali Hammad, is he our guy?’

‘We have no direct evidence to suggest he or any of the others are involved in the Church Bombings,’ Clarke answered. ‘But until two days ago we weren’t looking for it. While we have no hard evidence yet, there is plenty to go on.’

Clarke then revealed that eight of the twelve men had served time in Goulburn jail before their current sentence. Of those eight, at least four were radicalised during that period of incarceration. ‘And all three of the dead bombers would have served time with at least one of the twelve,’ Clarke said.

He then went on to explain that the Goulburn group had both the means and the skills to orchestrate such an attack. ‘They’ve had the training, they have the knowledge, they have the motivation and they have the financial clout,’ Clarke continued. ‘If ISIS isn’t directly involved, it is certainly the inspiration.’

Clarke clicked to a picture of Fasin Halim. ‘This is the man we suspect is financing the operation. He and his two younger brothers, also part of the twelve, have an estimated combined worth of more than $700 million. We were only able to locate a portion of their wealth when we arrested them.’

He clicked his remote again. ‘Abbas Bashir provides religious counsel to the group and is an expert when it comes to radicalisation. They call him the Sheik.’

Another click. ‘Mahmud Elias. He was already in custody when the twelve were arrested and was not officially part of the reactor plot. But an asset recently flagged that he is associated with the twelve, and that information has proven particularly valuable: Mahmud served time with all three of the Church Bombers who have been identified. He once shared a cell with Mike Evans.’