If he were in Clarke’s position, Jax told himself, he would have anticipated such a threat and already developed a sound and convincing explanation for the situation. And Clarke would have done that too.

So Jax said nothing. He listened, nodded and then did what needed to be done.

Now, with all the phones delivered, the listening device installed, and his head on his pillow, he could feel himself bracing for impact. He didn’t know what was coming, but he knew it was coming. And soon.

CHAPTER 38

Goulburn Correctional Centre, Goulburn, NSW, Australia

‘GO,’ Clarke barked into his two-way radio.

And with that they stormed in.

Dressed from head to toe in black, wearing body armour and balaclavas, the ASIO attack dogs were let off their leash. Divided into ‘bricks’ – groups of two for this mission – the unit of eight powered its way into the darkness. As their night-vision googles, or NVGs, turned the wing into fifty shades of fluorescent green, the first brick peeled off from the unit and darted left.

‘Brick One in position,’ said the soldier standing on the left-hand side of the door. The soldier on the right said nothing: mouth shut and finger on the trigger.

‘Affirmative,’ said the leader of Brick Two, not breaking step or changing speed as he became the new leader of the rolling train.

Clarke sat in a blacked-out van monitoring an array of LCD screens covering every inch of internal space inside the stripped-out Ford Transit. His eyes darted from one live feed to the next, taking in the eight individual feeds coming from the helmet cameras on top of the soldiers’ heads.

‘Brick Two in position,’ came the next transmission, the former leader now standing in front of another cell door with his partner.

‘Affirmative,’ said the leader of Brick Three.

His Colt M4A1 assault rifle swaying from left to right as he charged, the new leader kept his finger on the trigger, even though the slightest press would send fifteen rounds into the dark.

He pressed on, his NVG lighting the way. Just. Despite the public perception – movies and video games were to blame – NVGs were still a terrible piece of kit. Even with cutting-edge military technology – at least ten years away from being copied by the Chinese and sold on eBay for forty bucks – the world through NVG still looked like a rave: a green laser pulsing through a smoke machine.

And the goggles were useless without a light source. Thankfully, that was not an issue here, the wing’s glass ceiling allowing enough moonlight through for the NGVs to do their job.

‘Brick Three in position,’ he said a moment later when he and his partner reached the cell door.

‘Affirmative,’ said the leader of Brick Four.

Six of his screens now still, Clarke focused on the movement. His final brick.

‘Brick Four in position,’ came the call.