Again, he was forced to imagine the rest. The ruin and the rubble. The buried bodies. The honking horns and the hazmat suits.

Maybe he would have them set up a camera outside for the next one. For the last one. For the one that would bring Him back.

He smiled before turning off his phone.

Seven down.

CHAPTER 41

Goulburn Correctional Centre, Goulburn, NSW, Australia

THIS time, Clarke was not alone. Jax was not surprised. If the word going around in the wing was true, there’d been another terror attack on a church. Despite the fact that the last time Clarke had visited, he’d told Jax that the terror cell behind the church bombings were now under lock and key.

Somewhere along the line, someone had seriously stuffed up.

‘This is Special Agent Hudson Sami from the CIA,’ Clarke said, not looking up from his files as Jax entered the room. ‘Please take a seat. We have a lot to get through.’ Clarke looked briefly at the CIA agent. ‘Shall I start?’ he asked.

‘Shoot,’ the American replied.

Clarke turned his attention to Jax. ‘We were wrong,’ he said. ‘We now have reason to believe that the mastermind behind the church bombings is still at large. That he is still here. Still in this jail. And you now have twenty-nine days to help us work out who he is.’

‘What makes you think there’s still a link to this place?’ Jax asked. ‘Maybe it’s two cells, operating independently, and you’ve just shut the local cell down. Honestly, I did find it a stretch to think that a coordinated global attack could have been masterminded by that mob. They’re too busy bickering over their own pecking order to get something that big underway.’

Both men were silent.

‘It’s time we levelled with you,’ the American agent said. ‘It was a mistake not to do so sooner.’

Clarke looked as though he was about to react – argue or shout or put the CIA man in his place. But then he just shrugged and nodded. Then he put his hand on top of a thick blue file on the desk and pushed it towards Jax.

Jax silently opened the file and began reading. He spent the next fifteen minutes learning about the three dead Australian terrorists. Two had been killed in a botched attack in Mexico and one had been found butchered in a suitcase in St Petersburg. The file contained their complete histories: police records, court transcripts, school reports, employment histories, hobbies, political leanings, favourite foods – the lot.

Jax shoved the bundle aside when he was finished.

Clarke slid a second folder to him. ‘The attacks, everything we know,’ he said.

Jax spent almost two hours reading the documents in the second folder. Most of it was new to him. Finally, he had all details of the church bombings: where, when and how. He examined the facts more closely than the presumptions.