Clarke said nothing, responding with only a cold stare. Jax took a moment to think. Was he being unreasonable? Could he get this done? No. Not a chance. He had to build a cover story. How he’d got them and from who. That took time.

Clarke spoke. Finally. Firmly. ‘I am not going to demonstrate, but a standard-size male rectum will quite comfortably accommodate two of these bags. So it would be quite plausible to say that you already had one phone and that your supplier will bring in two a week for the next three weeks. I’ll give you twenty-one days.’

Stress. Clarke had hidden it well until now. ‘I’ll take that as a yes then,’ Clarke said. ‘Seven mobile phones delivered to seven men in twenty-one days.’

Seven phones delivered to seven men?

Jax had assumed one of the phones was for him, as there were seven phones and only six targets in his wing. He thought Clarke might have made a mistake, but he knew men like Clarke didn’t make mistakes.

‘Seriously?’ Jax exclaimed when Clarke told him that the seventh phone was to be delivered to Hammad. ‘How am I meant to get into Supermax?’

Clarke told him how. Then he pulled out another item, something he was not intending to give Jax, but a standard bit of kit he always carried.

Jax furled his brow. ‘This wasn’t part of the plan,’ he protested.

And it hadn’t been. Not until Jax had told Clarke about the weekly meetings.

Jax was now certain something was going on. Clarke had always been cautious and methodical. They had meticulously mapped out the operation. Spent months working on scenarios, probabilities and outcomes. Yet now all of that appeared to have been thrown out the window. Someone had hit fast-forward. Pressed ‘panic’.

‘Clarke,’ Jax said sternly. ‘What’s going on? What do you know? Has something happened? Is something going to happen?’

‘No.’

CHAPTER 34

Canberra, ACT, Australia

CLARKE’s eyes darted between the road and the police scanner as he changed the channel. Again. There was nothing worth listening to. Only petty crime and misdemeanours. He moved onto the encrypted channel and began listening to an undercover surveillance operation after failing to find a raid.

He was about forty kilometres away from Goulburn, hurtling towards Canberra, when he switched the scanner off. Usually he never switched the scanner off. He then switched the radio on and found some music. He never listened to music. But Clarke needed to clear his head.