No Man's Land

1

Three days later and nearly four thousand miles from Batak Island, the sharp beep beep of his phone jolted Carter awake, signaling the arrival of a text message.

He turned toward the sideboard. The large numbers on the digital clock radio read 5.40 a.m. It took him a few moments to register where he was — the living room of the serviced apartment they had rented in Sydney’s historic Rocks district. The Rosemount Apartments complex was on the edge of the CBD and a short walk from Sydney’s picturesque harbor, which made it the ideal platform from which to mount a response to Samudra’s expected attack.

According to a previous text from Djoran, who was somewhere in the city with Samudra’s team of mujaheddin, either the Sydney Harbour Bridge or the Sydney Opera House was the likely target.

Carter sat up in the fold-out sofa bed and stretched his arms above him. He and Erina had flown into Sydney from Jakarta on false passports at 10 p.m. the night before.

She was asleep in the main bedroom.

His phone beeped a second time and he grabbed it off the glass coffee table beside the sofa.

The caller ID was blocked; there was no number. The message read: Confirming 2nite. SH Bridge primary target. Details later. D

Carter wasn’t surprised. He and Erina had done their research and gone through various possible attack scenarios, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge seemed the most likely target.

The bridge was the focal point for the New Year’s Eve fireworks. Half a million people would gather on the harbor and its foreshore that evening to watch five million dollars’ worth of fireworks go up in smoke. It was high summer in Sydney, and the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations were bigger than those held in Paris, London, Berlin and New York. The images would be broadcast around the world.

It was hard to think how Samudra could pick a better target.

Carter reached for the file Erina had put together on the bridge. He was hoping Djoran would give him the exact location of the attack later that day, but they’d already started preparing themselves. The more information they had, the better.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was the tallest steel arch bridge in the world. Its highest point was more than four hundred feet above sea level and the arch spanned over one thousand six hundred feet. The total weight of the steelwork was over fifty thousand tons. The deck was about a hundred and fifty feet wide and carried rail, car, bicycle and foot traffic between the CBD and the north shore.

Carter tried to put himself into the mind of Samudra. He figured the most likely place to mount an attack would be from one of the bridge’s four pylons. The clan members could remain hidden in one of them and, from there, plant and detonate their explosives.

Two pylons stood at the northern and southern ends of the bridge and all were identical in design inside and out. The south-east pylon at the city end contained a museum and tourist center, with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree observation deck at the top. The south-west pylon, also at the city end, was run by the New South Wales Roads and Maritime Services and its CCTV cameras overlooked the bridge and surrounding roads. The pylons at the northern end incorporated venting chimneys used to extract traffic fumes from the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.

If he were Samudra, he’d choose the south-west pylon because of its access to surveillance cameras and proximity to the city — and because it was closed for business on New Year’s Eve, unlike the south-east pylon, which was open to the public until 5 p.m.

He lay back down on the sofa and stared at a Sidney Nolan print, a Ned Kelly, hanging on the wall above him, which he’d failed to notice the night before. The lonesome outlaw sat on a red horse with a shotgun slung over his shoulder, staring back at him.

It wasn’t enough simply to snuff out Samudra’s planned attack for that night. Samudra and his organization needed to be destroyed or they’d simply regroup and strike another day.

Having a specific target was a good start.

That evening provided the best opportunity they’d ever have to stop Samudra and the Sungkar clan in their tracks. The chance might not come again for a long time, if at all, and Carter meant to take it. It wouldn’t bring Wayan, Muklas and Jacko back, but it’d give their death meaning.

Maybe it’d do the same for his own life.

2

Carter pushed himself off the sofa bed and pulled on a pair of navy blue boxer shorts. His thoughts turned to Erina, still asleep in the bedroom. So close, yet so far away.

The night before, she’d made her position very clear, quoting the order’s unwritten principle: No emotional attachments on the job. He’d retreated to the sofa, knowing better than to push her.

He’d wait another hour or so before waking her, he decided. She could do with the rest. In the meantime he switched on the television, hit mute and scrolled through to the weather channel. A synoptic chart filled the screen. Digital data streamed across the bottom.

He turned the television off, then walked across the thick beige carpet toward the heavy curtains over the windows and drew them back. The floor-to-ceiling glazing revealed a spectacular view. The rising sun threw a pale pink and yellow dawn over the battleship-grey bridge and the glistening wavelike white sails of the Sydney Opera House.

As far as cities went, Sydney was close to his favorite. The beauty of the sparkling blue harbor and its emerald foreshores provided a soothing counterbalance to the close, crowded city with its cement, brick, concrete and sandstone.

As he looked out over the awakening harbor toward the open sea, footsteps padded behind him.

He turned.

Erina walked toward him from the bedroom wearing a long grey T-shirt and, from what he could see, little else. Her silky dark hair fell over her shoulders.

A rush of energy feathered up and down his spine.

“Any news from Djoran?” she asked.

He held the phone in front of her.

They stood in silence while Erina digested the information.

He forced his gaze from the swell of her breasts to the window and noticed three outside-broadcast vans parked under the bridge.

Sydney, eleven hours ahead of London and sixteen hours ahead of New York, was the first major city in the world to celebrate New Year’s Eve, and the party was televised live, globally. By midmorning a whole fleet of media vehicles would descend on the glittering harbor and set up their cameras to capture the explosive magic of the evening’s fireworks.

“So what’s first on the agenda?” Erina asked.

“You’re lining up the gear we need and I’ve got my meeting with Watto at 8.15 a.m.”

Last night he’d organized a meeting with John “Watto” Watson, an old friend from the Australian Federal Police. They needed backup, and Watto was one of the few government agents he trusted.

“You really want to involve the AFP?”

“I have to at least talk to him.”

“You know it’ll be their way or the highway.”

“We need a fallback position.”

“We’re not going to fail, Carter.”

“I agree. But to quote Djoran, I have faith in us and God, but it never hurts to hitch up the camel. You never know how things will play out.”

She looked at him but said nothing.

He turned to the window and watched a green and yellow ferry chug past the Opera House and gently dock at Circular Quay, the city’s bustling ferry terminal.

Erina moved to stand next to him, and their shoulders brushed.

After a few moments of silence she said, “Perhaps you’re right.”

He turned to face her. “About what? The camel?”

“You can never be sure how things will play out,” she said.

“True.”

After everything they’d been through in the last few days and the uncertainty of what lay ahead that evening, he’d never felt so drawn to another human being in his life. He sensed the same electric charge running through her. It was like an invisible force field drawing them together, the current becoming stronger with each passing moment.

But it wasn’t his place to make the first move.

She reached out her hand and caressed his bare shoulders. Her lips were moist and slightly parted.

“Remember what I said last night?” she asked.

“About what?”

“No emotional attachments on the job.”

She ran her hand over his chest, caressing the three-inch scar from an old knife wound above his right nipple.

“Well,” she said, “I’ve been thinking.”

He held his breath. “Uh huh.”

Her fingers slid down toward his stomach. “I’m beginning to see it as more of a guideline than a rule.”

3

Shortly after dawn Alex Botha, aka Abdul-Aleem, stood alone on the narrow open-air observation deck on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s south-west pylon, nearly three hundred feet above sea level. He was waiting for his phone to ring.

Inside the pylon he’d set up an electronic blocking device that jammed any telecommunications transmissions, ensuring there’d be no breaches of security. If Carter or anyone who came with him entered the pylon, they’d be unable to call for help. He’d turn the device off when he needed to contact Samudra.

The incoming call would confirm two things: whether Samudra was laying out the trap for Carter and Erina they’d agreed on, and whether Alex would have the bank check for the $250,000 owed to him when they met later that night on board Samudra’s boat.

He looked out across the harbor, feeling the excitement rise in his chest. The start of a hunt always stirred up his fighting juices. And this was personal, promising the sweetness of revenge.

Part of the reason he’d hung around Samudra for so long was his deep longing to see the order, and Carter and Thomas in particular, pay for their sins. He’d reached out to them for help in his darkest hour and they’d left him rotting in that stinking Indonesian prison, facing execution.

The order was full of self-righteous arseholes who’d used him and then discarded him, just because he’d needed to earn a little extra money to pay for his drugs. They’d cut him no slack whatsoever.

He patted down the dark grey T-shirt and black trousers he wore for the occasion. A jihadist cell with affiliations to the bikie gang Soldiers for Allah had supplied him and his men with the uniforms worn by the Australian Tactical Response Unit.

The uniform’s jacket and body armor were hanging in the storeroom behind him, where Putu and Zaheed, his two best men, were resting.

Three members of the bikie gang and a clan member living in Sydney had smuggled them in at midnight the previous evening. Their contacts within harbor security had proved invaluable.

He extracted a cigarette from his coat pocket, clicked his silver zippo lighter and inhaled, drawing the warm vapor deep into his lungs.

His idea of prayer and meditation.

A martyr’s death wouldn’t be his fate that day or any other. That dubious reward belonged to the Putus and Zaheeds of the world. Later that night they’d be wired with explosives, guarding the pylon with their lives until their scheduled date with oblivion at midnight. Theirs was a crucial role. When the explosives they wore were detonated, it would set off a chain reaction, triggering the charges they had laid on the bridge.

To Alex it seemed a complete waste of resources to expend such highly trained and experienced mujaheddin on a suicide bombing. They’d been blooded in the battlefields of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but now they were on a mission from which there’d be no return.

As far as Samudra was concerned, of course, there were a million more where they came from. And for the two fanatical mujaheddin, jihad would be the defining act of their lives.

Naive fools.

That anyone would want to kill themselves or anyone else in the name of God made no sense to him whatsoever.

Never had, never would.

Fortunately for him, as a westerner with elite training in the order, Samudra considered him too valuable to sacrifice or doublecross. Though his commitment to jihad had been nothing more than a means to escape execution and exact revenge on Carter and Thomas, there was only one Alex Botha, only one Abdul-Aleem, and even though Samudra despised him, he also recognized his great value to his cause.

The two of them would witness the results of their carefully prepared plan together, sharing the rewards of all the work they’d put in. At 11.30 p.m. he’d use the hang-glider already in position on the gun deck above him to join Samudra on his launch moored in the harbor, ten minutes away. They’d detonate the bombs from there on the stroke of midnight before making their escape. It’d be a sweet moment.

His phone vibrated in his trouser pocket.

Samudra’s familiar voice sounded over the line. “Is everything ready?”

“Of course,” Alex said. “We placed twenty-seven charges at the crucial structural points on the bridge late last night. That’s nearly ninety pounds of high explosive. I don’t know if it’ll bring the bridge down, but it’ll create an almighty mess.”

“Excellent. God is indeed great.”

“Has the truck for the tunnel been prepared for the secondary attack?”

“I said it will be done and so it shall.”

“What about the trap for Carter and Erina? Is that being laid as arranged?” Alex asked.

Alex knew Samudra hated being questioned, but he believed in checking and rechecking every detail. It was what would bring them success that night. He didn’t want to give Samudra any reason not to pay him.

“It shall come to pass,” Samudra said. “But remember, we kill our enemies to exact God’s vengeance, not our own. There is a difference between divine justice and man’s.”

“Of course,” Alex said, happy to let Samudra occupy the moral high ground.

“We’ll talk again in two hours,” Samudra told him.

There was a pause over the line.

“There’s one more thing,” Alex said. “You have my check as promised?”

“I said you shall receive what you are owed when the job is done. I am a man of my word. Allah akbar.”

Alex smiled. “Allah akbar.”

The phone went dead.

He flicked the remnants of his cigarette over the side of the pylon.

It was all proving too easy.

4

Carter strode down George Street in the early-morning sunshine, feeling rejuvenated and ready for what lay ahead.

After spending an hour in bed with Erina, it was like a missing piece of his soul had slotted back in place.

The lovemaking they shared was both tender and passionate, reconnecting their minds, bodies and spirits at the deepest level and bringing him to a place of inner stillness. Their union had left him with a sense of infinite possibility and rightness with the world, despite the craziness going on around him.

He weaved his way through a stream of human traffic, heading toward the cafe-lined foreshores of Sydney Harbour.

Most Australians were oblivious to the threat of a terrorist attack, thinking it could never happen on their own soil. It was in many ways a good thing, he supposed. Regular citizens didn’t need to know the danger hanging over them.

A quick glance at his watch told him it was 8.05 a.m. He was due to meet Watto at the Oyster Bar, an open-air cafe near the Opera House, in ten minutes.

He’d known Watto for twenty years and always found him to be a straight shooter, but getting him to provide backup without any hard evidence was going to be a hard sell.

He crossed George Street at the lights and approached Circular Quay. A green and yellow ferry tooted as it left the dock, causing a flock of seagulls to lift off the dappled water like a white wave.

Watto was a career man, married with two teenage daughters, and his default position was to play everything by the book. The AFP procedures were the Ten Commandments of the personal bible he lived by.

If Carter was up-front and honest with Watto, he’d most likely bring something positive to the table. Definitely worth a shot. But Carter would need to tread carefully. If he told Watto the specifics of Samudra’s proposed jihad, he’d feel compelled by his sense of duty to report the threat to his immediate superiors, triggering a series of events that would take the matter out of Carter’s hands.

He wasn’t prepared to let that happen, except as a last resort. He and Erina, operating off the grid, were the ones best equipped to stop the attack. Now they’d come together, part of him hated the thought of putting her in harm’s way and facing the risk of losing her. But he couldn’t afford to go there, even for a second.

Turning into the walkway that ran along the eastern side of the quay toward the Opera House, he checked his phone to see if there were any messages from Erina or Djoran.

Nothing.

He entered the cafe and stood a moment to look at the bridge towering over the harbor to his left. He sat at a corner table under an umbrella with his back to the water’s edge, giving him a clear view of the stream of pedestrian traffic.

A gentle breeze blew off the water that lapped against the wall of the concourse behind him.

He ordered a coffee and studied the crowd moving along the grey cobblestone promenade that ran between the harbor and the cafes and boutiques.

Two young children escaped from their parents and skipped toward the steel and concrete fence that ran along the edge of the harbor. They pointed in awe at a giant passenger liner docking on the western foreshore of the quay.

Carter’s gaze fell on a group of young women dressed stylishly in western clothes and traditional Muslim headscarfs, posing in front of the water as they took photographs of each other.

At the same time, two surfie-looking blokes in rubber thongs, matching board shorts and T-shirts walked past, carrying an esky between them. In their free hands they each held a longneck bottle of beer, most likely preparing for a big night in front of the fireworks.

Carter smiled to himself at their enthusiasm for the occasion. Nothing like getting an early start to a good time.

Behind them he spotted the tall, erect figure of Watto, power-walking through the crowd. He wore a buttoned-up charcoal suit, a crisp white shirt and dark tie.

Watto caught Carter’s eye, nodded and veered toward the cafe.

5

Watto walked toward Carter’s table and undid his middle coat button before dropping into the seat opposite.

“You’ve really stirred up a shit storm this time.”

“It’s good to see you too, Watto.”

Watto ran his fingers through his dark, close-cropped hair. “I checked the records. You’re not even supposed to be in the country, for Christ’s sake.”

Carter held up his hands, feigning surrender. “Where’s the trust? I had to take the odd short cut.”

A young waiter placed Carter’s coffee in front of him. Watto ordered a double-shot latte.

When they were alone, he leaned across the table and said in a hushed tone, “Seriously, mate, there’s a warrant out for your arrest.”

“Yeah?”

“A double murder and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Was that one of your short cuts?”

Carter glanced down at his coffee to gather his thoughts. Obviously, Samudra had told Woodforde to contact the police and accuse Carter and Erina of assaulting him and killing his two gate guards on his Boggabilla property.

This new information changed the equation, pushing him and Erina further outside the law, making it extremely difficult for him to enlist the help of someone like Watto.

“There was a good reason,” he said.

“You’ve been in Indonesia too long. You’re not on some remote island where you can do whatever you like and get away with all sorts of dubious shit. I should be dragging your sorry arse into custody.”

“There’s something big that needs to be stopped.”

“Have you got any hard evidence?” Watto asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Just some information from a confidential source, I’ll bet.”

“Something along those lines, but it’s rock-solid.”

“What exactly do you want?”

Carter saw no point prevaricating. He looked Watto in the eye. “I need a squad of half-a-dozen men at the ready, should I need to call them. No questions asked.”

Watto shook his head and opened his mouth to reply, but Carter didn’t give him a chance.

“I also need total freedom to move wherever I like in the city and authority to access all public venues around the harbor.”

Watto arched an eyebrow. “And when might you want all this?”

Carter took a slow sip of his coffee, let out a sigh and put it back on the saucer.

“Tonight.”

Watto shifted in his seat, clearly fighting to keep a lid on his growing irritation.

Though they respected each other, Watto came from a world with a different set of rules and values. He hated being asked to step outside the strict protocols he had followed all his working life.

He shook his head. “There’s no way on God’s earth I can help you unless you’re prepared to come downtown into the office, make an official statement and go through the proper channels.”

Carter understood where Watto was coming from, but it didn’t mean he liked it or accepted it.

“You’ve gotta think outside of that tight little box you live in,” Carter said, deliberately baiting him. “You can’t always cover your arse to protect your pension plan.”

“Hey, I’m doing you a favor. I should be arresting you. And the last time I rang you wanting help, you told me the surf was up.”

Watto had asked Carter to travel to Sumatra to interrogate a suspected member of a terrorist cell being held as an unofficial prisoner by Detachment 88. Watto desperately needed information about a rumored attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta and saw this as a valid reason to circumvent official channels.

“Mate, I’d retired,” Carter said. “I was living in Lennox. That was an unreasonable request.”

“And this isn’t? You call me out of the blue on New Year’s Eve wanting me to stick my neck out on nothing more than your word. All the while playing your cards close to your chest for fear the department I work for might interfere with your precious plans and do our job. Not going to happen.”

Carter drained his cup and pushed it to one side. “I wouldn’t be asking if this wasn’t serious.”

Watto shifted in his seat. “Not everyone can run around like an outlaw, following their own rules or making them up as they go. I work within the law. That’s what separates me from the scumbags I bring in. That’s the basis of a just society, in case you were wondering.”

“Gee, Watto, you sound like you’re giving an orientation speech to new recruits at the police academy.”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“And don’t patronize me. What I’m talking about is serious. We both know you’re prepared to circumvent the law when it suits you. And you know that I’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. But it has to be my way.”

“Haven’t you heard a single word I’m saying? You’ve killed people, left the country and re-entered illegally. Now you’re asking me to break the law after you’ve taken it into your own—”

The waiter put Watto’s latte down in front of him, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Carter leaned back in the chair and folded his arms. He’d known it’d be tough to get Watto to stick his neck out, even when everything had been straightforward and above board. With a warrant out for his arrest — a warrant for murder — the odds approached zero.

Watto was basically telling him he’d have to hand over the operation to the AFP or work outside the law on his own.

He thought of Ned Kelly on his red horse, shotgun slung over his shoulder. Maybe the maverick bushranger had been trying to tell him something.

“You heard about the bombing in Kuta?” he asked.

Watto shook a packet of artificial sweetener into his coffee. “Of course. But a terrorist attack on a foreign tourist destination doesn’t mean Sydney is under threat, which I presume is what you’re insinuating.”

“Jacko was killed in the blast. It was meant for me and Erina as well.”

Watto looked straight at Carter.

“We were trying to rescue Thomas — he’d been abducted by an Indonesian clan, along with another of our operatives. Thomas is badly injured and the other guy was murdered.”

Watto placed his spoon into the saucer. “So some serious shit, huh?”

Carter nodded.

“Why haven’t you contacted Trident?” Watto asked. “They have far greater discretionary powers than we do and they’re who you’re supposed to report to.”

“We believe Callaghan’s been compromised. His daughter’s missing and we suspect she’s being held hostage.”

“Shit.”

Carter leaned toward him. “Look, all I need is until 11.15 p.m. and then I’ll give you everything I’ve got. Promise. For now, all I need is some backup.”

Watto folded his arms. “Mate, I’m telling you this as a friend. The smart thing for you to do here is to come down to headquarters, make a full statement and go through the proper channels. There are people trained and equipped to deal with situations like this, and if you do things by the book, we can call them in and use their full resources. I’ll back you every step of the way.”

“You know as well as I do that the first thing they’ll do is throw me in a cell and ask questions later. When the truth comes out about this, there’ll be winners and losers in the official ranks. You need to decide what’s right and who you’re going to back.”

“You’re confident you can get the job done?”

“Absolutely. I’m just asking for free rein until 11.15 p.m. and then it’s all yours.”

Watto took a long sip of coffee and looked across the harbor toward the overseas passenger terminal, thinking over what he’d heard. When the federal officer turned back to face him, Carter knew what he was going to say.

“You’re a clever bastard. You’ve painted me into a corner.”

Carter remained silent.

“All right,” Watto said, finishing his coffee and standing up. “Here’s what I can do.”

He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a white card, wrote a number on it and pushed it across the table toward Carter.

“This is my new direct line. I’ll put myself on duty until midnight. The moment you produce some rock-solid evidence I can act on, call me. I’ll be ready with a squad of men. And I’ll get you Callaghan’s address and phone number. You should pay him a visit. That’s the best I can do.”

Carter picked up the card and put it in his pocket. “Thanks, mate.”

Watto walked toward the cashier.

“Watto.”

He turned and faced him.

“Coffee’s on me.”

6

Carter sat on the leather couch in the living room of their apartment and watched Erina make tea in the kitchenette with the same reverence Thomas reserved for the task. He’d just told her about his meeting with Watto and was waiting for her response.

She walked into the room carrying two steaming cups of fresh green tea.

“Having backup is good,” she said, “but you’re right, handing this over to the Federal Police isn’t an option. Even if they manage to stop Samudra blowing up the bridge, we both know that’s not enough. If he survives New Year’s, he’ll strike another day.”

“Exactly. We need to cut the threat off at the head. That means taking down Samudra tonight.”

She handed him a cup and sat down. “Tracking down ruthless arseholes like him is what we do better than anyone else.”

Carter took a sip of hot tea and nodded, waiting. He knew she wasn’t finished.

“But there is one thing that concerns me,” she said. “It only takes one person with a vest packed with explosives to walk into a crowd of people and do untold damage. He might have more than one target.”

“True.”

“And what if he’s counting on us thinking the bridge is the target while he’s actually plotting something else?”

Carter, who had thought through the same possibilities himself, put his cup down on the table. “You can never be sure of anything,” he said. “But we need to be prepared and ready for the most likely scenario.”

She leaned back in her chair, cradling her cup of tea. “I’m listening.”

“There’re a lot of ifs and maybes,” he said. “And we’re relying heavily on Djoran’s intel. But I trust the guy — he’s putting his life on the line. We have to make sure we’re prepared when he delivers and also be ready for when Samudra makes a mistake.”

“Guys like him always do. And I have to admit I was wrong about Djoran.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

She smiled but didn’t respond. “Have you figured out the best way of getting onto the bridge undetected?”

Carter looked out the window. The bridge seemed to be looking over his shoulder, beckoning him, wherever he went in the city.

He leaned back into the soft lounge. “I’ve got a few ideas.”

“And they are?”

“I reckon we need to mount our assault via the water. It’ll give us the best shot at reaching the pylon without being spotted and we won’t have to deal with any of the security or crowds around the foreshore—”

The phone started vibrating in his thigh pocket. He took it out and checked the screen. The number was blocked. He put the phone on speaker and held it out.

“Carter here.”

“It’s Watto. Got a pen?”

Erina got up from the lounge and grabbed a pen and notepad from the writing desk.

“Fire away,” Carter said.

Watto read out Callaghan’s address and cell-phone number and Erina wrote them down.

“Thanks, mate,” Carter said.

“One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“We didn’t have this conversation.”

The line went dead.

“What now?” Erina asked.

“I need to pay Callaghan a visit.”

“You want me to come?”

He shook his head. “You need to go shopping. We’ll discuss the details of the plan later.”

7

Carter drove a rented white Toyota Hiace van away from the center of the city along New South Head Road toward the up-market harbor-side suburb of Vaucluse, where Callaghan lived. He needed to extract any information he could from him about Samudra’s plans.

He parked outside a large house under the shade of a leafy plane tree, just opposite Callaghan’s place, and scoped the deserted street.

The only parked cars were a silver Mercedes convertible and a black BMW four-wheel drive. Considering the upper-middle-class surrounds, neither looked suspicious.

He stepped out of the van and locked the door. In this peaceful neighborhood it barely felt necessary. The sleepy suburb was one of the wealthiest in Sydney and had one of the lowest crime rates. There was a complete absence of litter. All the gardens were neat and the lawns freshly mowed.

He crossed the street and followed a sandstone path through Callaghan’s manicured front garden toward his spacious home. The sweet fragrance of frangipanis drifted through the air, adding to the feeling that nothing bad could ever happen in a suburb like this.

To his surprise a large stone buddha sat beside the door, greeting him with a warm smile. He pressed a buzzer and heard rhythmic chimes.

No answer.

Carter took a step back and looked up and down the front of the house, searching for an open window.

He pulled out his phone and dialed the number Watto had given him.

A musical ringtone sounded inside.

It stopped.

He knocked hard three times on the door and waited.

Shuffling footsteps approached.

There was a long moment of heavy silence, as if whoever stood on the other side of the door was making up their mind.

A gruff voice said, “Who is it?”

“Russell Carter. We need to talk.”

A dog barked in the distance.

The door opened slowly, revealing a large man in his mid-sixties. He had a full head of silver hair and was only a couple of inches shorter than Carter. He would have been an imposing physical presence, except that his spirit appeared crushed.

Earl Callaghan wore a grey T-shirt and loose-fitting black Reebok tracksuit pants. His feet were bare. He had a solid three-day growth, his eyes were bloodshot and his skin an unhealthy grey.

The look of a man who’d come to hate himself.

He nodded at Carter. “You better come in.”

It almost seemed like he was expecting him.

8

Callaghan led Carter down a gloomy tiled hallway and into a large modern kitchen. The blinds were drawn, shutting out the view and the outside world. The mustiness of the air suggested the windows hadn’t been opened for at least a week.

Dirty dishes stacked high filled the sink and an open box of crackers lay scattered across the marble bench next to a block of yellow cheese. Callaghan stared at the chrome fridge like he was being confronted with a major dilemma.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“No thanks,” Carter said.

“I need one.”

“Go ahead.”

Carter sat opposite Callaghan at a grubby white dining table. Toast crumbs littered the surface and tiny flies swarmed over a rotting bowl of fruit. A faint smell of cat urine hung over the house.

Callaghan lifted a steaming cup of instant coffee to his lips with both hands and took a tentative sip. He was in a bad way, yet appeared relieved to have Carter there, probably ready and willing to unburden himself to someone.

Anyone.

A man could only hold dark secrets in for so long.

“You look like shit,” Carter said.

“I feel like it.”

Callaghan swallowed a large mouthful of coffee and stared at the table, looking like he wanted to throw up.

“What happened?” Carter asked.

They sat for a few moments in silence, interrupted only by the whine of a leaf blower a few doors down the street.

“Look at me,” Carter said.

Callaghan raised his head with great effort. Any arrogance he might once have possessed had been overtaken by a deep sense of shame and embarrassment.

“Start at the beginning.”

“Okay … the beginning.”

He rubbed his eyes like he was trying to focus his addled mind.

Carter remained silent, giving him space to ready himself. When interviewing someone, he liked to let the subject talk, keeping his questions to a minimum until they’d had their say.

“I got a series of margin calls during the financial crisis,” Callaghan said without looking at Carter directly. “I was going to lose my house and have to pull my daughter, Vivienne, out of boarding school. It started out as a few harmless favors for a lot of money. Samudra just wanted my advice on a number of matters and asked me to give an IT consultant cousin of his some work. I thought I could control the situation. If he got out of line, I thought I could just shut him down.”

The pattern of corruption never worked any differently. The favors usually started out small and insignificant but gradually snowballed. It was the first compromise that did the damage.

“Then?” Carter asked.

Callaghan pointed at a framed picture on the kitchen wall. A young girl of about sixteen with long black hair wore a somber expression and a grey school uniform. She stared at the camera with an air of defiant rebellion.

“Vivienne’s seventeen now. Her stepmother walked out on us a few years ago, before that photo was taken. I wasn’t a great husband — or father. I see that now.”

Callaghan paused and took another long swallow of coffee, looking like he was digesting what he’d just said for the first time.

Carter remained silent.

“Anyway,” Callaghan continued, “Vivienne is a handful. Blames me for everything that’s happened to the family. But I’d do anything for her.”

“Where is she now?”

“I never should’ve let her go to Bali after she finished her Higher School Certificate a few weeks ago. I can’t say no to her. She’s all I’ve got.”

Carter knew where this was heading. An intelligent and capable man had been sucked into a vortex from which there was no easy way out.

“Samudra grabbed her?” he asked.

Callaghan nodded.

“I’m presuming she’s still alive?”

“Samudra’s smart. Insisted I speak to her every day. Said if I didn’t do exactly as he asked, he’d have her gang-raped and then killed. It tore me apart. Still does.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Carter read the pain and torment in his face, but as much as he empathized, Callaghan needed to see the pain his actions had inflicted on members of Carter’s tribe. He’d given information to Samudra’s clan that had directly resulted in Thomas’s abduction and the deaths of Jacko, Muklas and Wayan.

“You think you and your daughter are the only ones suffering? Thomas and Wayan were kidnapped.”

“I heard,” Callaghan said, wiping his eyes with the back of his fingers. “Are they all right?”

“Wayan’s dead. So’s Jacko MacDonald.”

Callaghan’s head dropped.

“Six members of the order are in a hospital in Ubud.”

“And Thomas?”

“Badly hurt.”

Callaghan threw his head back, ran his hands over his face and muttered, “Good God, what have I done?”

Carter let him sit quietly for a moment. He was surprised to find he felt nothing but empathy for this broken shell of a man, despite the choices he had made.

“Listen to me,” Carter said. “What’s done is done. All that matters is what you do now.”

“I’ll do whatever I humanly can to make this right.”

“Tell me what you did for Samudra.”

Callaghan let out a slow breath. “He said if I gave his consultant access to all our network passwords and email accounts, he’d release Viv on 2 January, unharmed.”

“So that’s how they found us.”

“The consultant has been in there for two months,” Callaghan said. “He has all our codes and has had full access to the Trident servers. God only knows what information they’ve siphoned off by now.”

“Do you know what Samudra is planning?”

“No. He never told me a thing. But my gut says it’s big.”

“Your gut’s right. Something Sydney’s never seen before, and if our intel is correct, and we believe it is, it’s happening tonight.”

“Fucking hell.”

Callaghan looked into Carter’s eyes for the first time. “What do you need from me?”

“Let me handle this without any interference from Trident.”

Callaghan nodded. “You won’t get any meddling from my end unless you ask for it.”

“And I need two official photo IDs from the water police, giving me free movement around the harbor.”

“You got it. Email me the photos and tell me where you want them delivered.”

Carter paused a beat. There was another thing he required and he knew it wouldn’t be easy for Callaghan to deliver.

“There’s one more thing I need you to do,” he said.

“Anything in my power.”

“The bridge is closed to traffic from 11 p.m.”

“Correct.”

“I need it shut by 9 p.m.”

“What?”

“No traffic on the deck of the bridge after nine o’clock.”

“Jesus Christ,” Callaghan said. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“You have to. Even if you have to put a gun to someone’s head.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“No, get it done. I don’t care how. It’s not just Vivienne’s life at stake. The lives of hundreds or possibly even thousands are at risk and their death will be on you.”

Carter waited long enough to make sure his message had struck home.

“I’ll get it done,” Callaghan said. “I swear to God I will.”

Carter looked into his eyes and knew Callaghan meant what he said. He took a small notepad and pen out of his pocket and wrote down his cell-phone number.

He slid it across the table to Callaghan and said, “Call me as soon as you can confirm.”

Callaghan took the paper and nodded.

Carter got to his feet. There was nothing more to be accomplished here.

He followed Callaghan to the front door. They stood outside on the porch. Some color had returned to Callaghan’s face. His eyes shone brighter.

“Thank you, Carter.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You have.”

They shook hands.

“I’ll bring your daughter back,” Carter said. “That’s a promise.”

“I believe you will.”

Carter turned and walked down the garden path and across the road to his van without looking back. To his left he noticed a black mini-van fifty yards behind where he was parked.

He climbed into the Toyota, fired up the ignition and then slowly pulled out and drove west toward the city skyline. He glanced in the rear-view mirror.

The mini-van pulled out from the curb.

Carter accelerated down the wide street.

So did the dark van.

9

Djoran had spent the last twenty-four hours on board a run-down thirty-two-foot motor-launch, provided to the clan by a large cell from the outer Sydney suburb of Lakemba, which he’d discovered had a large Muslim community.

It lay at anchor two hundred yards from a wealthy-looking harbor-side suburb. He could see the magnificent bridge and Opera House in the distance. Apart from that, he remained ignorant of where he was. He’d never been to Sydney before.

Samudra had called their third meeting of the day for 3.30 p.m., on the deck, and had just revealed the exact location of the planned attack on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He’d sent Djoran below to make some tea, leaving himself, Jamal and Akeem, the two recruits from Aceh, sitting in the stern.

Djoran walked down the narrow stairs into the cramped galley, which reeked of diesel, spicy food and body odor. He put the blackened kettle on the stove and stared at a set of silver keys sitting on top of a rusty fridge.

One would open the rear cabin, where he knew Samudra had locked their cell phones. He only needed one minute to send a message to Carter with the precise details of tonight’s attack. About the time it’d take the kettle to boil.

Outside a loud toot caught his attention.

He glanced through the cabin window. A two-masted yacht packed with passengers cruised down the harbor, which was already filling with pleasure craft taking up their vantage points for the evening’s spectacle.

His heart went out to the innocent souls on board, many of whom might die that night should he fail to contact Carter.

The launch listed and rolled in the yacht’s wake. He put his hand against the cabin wall to steady himself.

He looked back at the keys sliding back and forth across the fridge, under no illusion as to what would happen to him should Samudra discover his betrayal.

Deep in his heart he knew that, in the grand scheme of God’s universe, his physical existence meant very little.

Of supreme importance, though, was his ability to follow the dictates of his conscience. That meant doing everything in his power to stop Samudra from killing innocent people in the name of Allah.

He placed his hand on his thumping heart.

The time to cling to safety had passed. There was a time to let things happen and a time to make them happen. He might not get a better opportunity to contact Carter.

A man had the power to act, but only God knew the outcome of a man’s actions.

He picked up the keys.

The third key he tried slid into the lock easily.

A tremor of fear ran down his spine.

He ignored it.

Fear represented a man’s distance from God.

He turned the handle, opened the door and went inside.

10

The afternoon sun had begun its descent toward the top of the bridge and Sydney’s western skyline.

Carter and Erina walked up George Street toward the Rosemount Apartments at a brisk pace, blending in with the constant stream of pedestrian traffic.

“Did you manage to get everything on the list?” Carter asked.

“Of course. How did you go?”

He recapped his encounter with Callaghan and then outlined what’d happened after leaving Vaucluse.

The black van had tailed him into the city. He’d turned off Liverpool Street into Chinatown, jumped a red light, gone the wrong way up a one-way street, turned left into a dark lane beside the Happy Chef Restaurant and hidden there for ten minutes.

When confident he’d evaded the pursuing vehicle, he drove to a nearby parking lot and left the Hiace there, then headed toward Kent Street on foot to Paddy Pallin Adventure Equipment. When he’d returned to the parking lot, there was no sign of the dark van.

“How would they have known you’d be at Callaghan’s?” she asked.

“Alex probably had someone keeping an eye on him.”

“So the clan know we’re in Sydney and onto them.”

It was a statement rather than a question and something he’d already taken into account.

Before he had a chance to say anything more, his phone beeped in his thigh pocket — another text.

They moved to the side of the busy sidewalk and stood in front of the display window of a jewelry store. He read the text and then held the phone out for her.

2 men, maybe more + AA. SW pylon. Strike at midnight. Will detonate if threatened. B careful. D

Erina frowned. “There’s a good chance Djoran’s been found out and they’re using his phone to lure us into a trap.”

“It doesn’t change a thing,” he said. “Everything’s a calculated gamble at this point.”

Carter stood next to Erina in the elevator leading up to their serviced apartment. It came to a stop on the sixth floor. Carter’s cell phone started vibrating in his pocket.

They both stepped out into a deserted hallway. Erina entered the apartment, leaving the door ajar. Carter stayed where he was and answered on the fourth ring.

“Carter, it’s Callaghan.”

“I’m listening.”

“It cost me, but I got it done.”

“Good job.”

“God bless you, Carter.”

Carter didn’t know how to respond to that. He just said goodbye, hung up and stepped into the apartment, satisfied the last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

He closed the front door and stood just inside it.

“Was that Callaghan?” Erina asked.

“Yep, he came through.”

“Thank God for that. At least the bridge will be clear if things go pear-shaped.”

Carter turned and studied the living room. It resembled an army surplus store. Erina had arranged everything in neat rows on the carpeted floor.

She stretched out her hand as if presenting Carter with a feast and said, “The banquet is laid.”

There were two Glock 18s, a SIG SG550, four throwing knives, three black cylinders containing C4 plastic explosives, a black pouch with acid in a small bottle, a roll of duct tape, detonators, two lightweight wetsuits, two pairs of Vibram five-finger shoes, climbing hooks attached to thirty feet of nylon rope, one waterproof flashlight and a pair of wire-cutters.

Carter admired the four hira shuriken or five-point star knives, a favorite weapon of the Japanese ninja, lined up on a hotel pillow. Shuriken literally meant “sword hidden in the hand.”

He picked one up and ran his fingers over the smooth surface. Thanks to hundreds of hours of training, he could fling three star knives in under a second and strike a target the size of a tennis ball at twenty paces.

His attention shifted to two items leaning against the side wall: two body harnesses and an Armaguard Magnogun-TX 7, an apparatus that looked like a high-powered spear gun with a flat head connected to a compact vacuum cleaner.

The Magnogun was designed to propel a magnetized metal head up to three hundred feet through the air. Once it struck metal, a powerful electromagnet was triggered, locking it fast. The section that looked like the dust-collection unit of a vacuum cleaner housed three hundred feet of cord and an electric motor.

“So fill me in on the plan,” she said. “I need details.”

He had already told her how, after leaving the city parking lot, he’d driven to Dawes Point Park on the edge of the harbor near the Rocks to study the bridge and the two southern pylons. Now that they had a precise target, he was able to form a clear picture in his mind of the route they needed to take.

“The Hiace is parked downstairs with a double-seated kayak strapped to its roof,” he said. “At 8.30 p.m. we’ll set off from Rushcutters Bay and paddle for Fort Denison.”

Fort Denison had been built in the nineteenth century to protect the harbor from invaders. It was approximately half a mile from the bridge and would shelter them from the full brunt of the building southerly.

“I’ve got hold of a couple of water police IDs courtesy of Callaghan, which will allow us to move freely around the harbor. Once the 9 p.m. fireworks finish, we paddle under the bridge and make for what looks like a maintenance walkway that runs from east to west below the bridge’s deck. It’s a separate structure that hangs several foot underneath.”

“So the walkway crosses the width of the bridge — it doesn’t run along the length?”

“That’s right.”

“Where exactly is it in relation to the pylon?”

“About forty yards north of it, I’d say, out over the water.”

“So that’s where the Magnogun comes into play?”

“Yeah, it’ll get us to the bottom of the walkway.”

“And I’m presuming the walkway is enclosed in some sort of security fence?”

“Yeah, it looks about five foot high, but it’s quite open — lots of foot and handholds from what I could see. We just have to climb up over it and jump down onto the walkway. From there, it should be easy enough to climb onto the bridge.”

“Yeah, if you’re a monkey.”

“We’ll do our best imitation.”

“I’d forgotten how much you like to do things the hard way.”

“Whatever it takes.”

11

Djoran lay on his back strapped to the galley table, stripped naked, staring wide-eyed at the wooden ceiling, awaiting his inevitable fate.

Almost as soon as he’d sent the text message to Carter, Samudra had caught him in the rear cabin, still holding the cell phone.

The keys and tea had been a trap.

Sweat trickled down his armpits. His breath came in short, sharp bursts and he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

He looked out the window at a bank of grey clouds floating high in the pale blue sky. Like them, his life would soon blow away and dissolve when his fleeting time on earth was over.

His training as a Sufi had taught him to recognize that a man was not his body. The body was merely a vessel for the soul. Whatever happened on the physical plane, his spirit would live on for eternity.

Above all else, he needed to remain true to the values and principles of his god. This was the core of his religion and the fundamental belief underpinning his life.

His spiritual practice and principles were about to face the ultimate test.

Death, he knew, was not far away.

He recognized three sets of footsteps treading down the stairs.

Samudra, Jamal and Akeem assembled around him, exuding the clinical calm of zealots who believed in the righteousness of their cause.

He swallowed hard and repeated his mantra over and over in his mind.

I am not my body.

Samudra leaned over him, so close he could smell his bitter breath.

“For the final time, will you admit the error of your ways, confess everything you have done and beg forgiveness for your sins?”

Djoran said nothing.

Samudra lifted himself up to his full height. “I am very disappointed in you. I’d hoped with all my heart that you were one of us, a true believer. But your spirit has been corrupted.”

Djoran turned his head to the right and looked through the window at a lush emerald headland. A soothing calmness descended upon him.

Samudra sighed. “So you are going to be stubborn.”

He heard the click, click, click of a cheap cigarette lighter and breathed in the acrid smell of tobacco smoke.

Rough hands held his forehead.

Samudra placed electrical tape over his mouth, forcing him to breathe through his nostrils.

Jamal and Akeem stood back.

Djoran thought he detected excitement in their eyes, which saddened him. When he’d first met them, they were simple villagers with good hearts.

He closed his eyes. He knew what was coming and prayed to Allah for strength and compassion.

12

Dusk was fast approaching when Carter settled behind Erina in the black double sea kayak moored in a protected cove at Rushcutters Bay, about a hundred and fifty feet from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.

He ran his fingers over the aluminum paddle lying across his lap. A gentle swell rocked them up and down. It was 8.37 p.m. They planned to begin their half-mile sprint to Fort Denison at 8.40 p.m. before the first round of fireworks blasted off at 9 p.m.

Both wore lightweight black wetsuits, neoprene skullcaps and snug Vibram shoes. Water police IDs hung on lanyards around their necks. The IDs enabled them to move freely along the foreshore and through a barricade blocking an entrance to the harbor.

The water around them was calm, protected by the imposing Darling Point headland, where crowds were gathering to watch the fireworks. Out in the middle of the harbor, however, foaming whitecaps suggested that the predicted strong southerly change was well on its way.

The intermittent tinkle of loose rigging sounded through the still air, underscoring the distant murmur of the crowd. The lights from the tall masts of the hundred or so moored yachts shone across the smooth surface of the water, creating a pale yellow glow.

Erina brushed her right hand through the water alongside the kayak, then twisted her neck from side to side and stretched her arms out wide. Since they’d left the apartment an hour ago, she’d barely uttered a word. Like Carter, she preferred a period of introspection to focus her mind before starting out.

He scanned the waters and shoreline of the enclosed cove. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary.

He squeezed his knees together against the SIG and the Magnogun resting between his legs, covered by a dark blue beach towel. Then he reached behind and patted his daypack, sitting in the scooped-out locker. It contained the Glocks, night-vision binoculars, gaffer tape, a bottle of acid, a lighter, the star knives, wire-cutters, throwing knives, C4 explosives and detonator caps. The thirty-foot nylon climbing cord with attached hook was wrapped over his left shoulder.

His gaze shifted toward the expanse of the harbor, where the bridge and Opera House sat remote and aloof, dominating the darkening skyline.

It was 8.39 p.m.

The countdown before setting off created a small adrenalin rush. He felt like a foot soldier in the trenches, preparing to fix his bayonet and charge across the foreboding terrain between enemy lines.

He leaned in close to Erina’s ear. “Ready?”

She nodded.

He dug his aluminum paddle into the murky water and pulled back hard. She did the same and they glided toward the winking lights of the fleet gathered on the harbor in front of the bridge.

As always, it felt good to get started.

13

Just under nine minutes later the kayak drew level with the tip of Fort Denison. Carter steered into the lee of the island, giving them some protection from the wind whistling overhead.

The kayak bobbed up and down, smack bang in the center of thousands of pleasure craft of all shapes and sizes, ranging from luxury yachts to stand-up paddleboards. They’d arrived in the middle of a floating carnival.

Carter laid the paddle in his lap. Neither of them uttered a word, using the last few minutes before the final countdown to tune into their surroundings, bringing themselves fully into the moment, ready for whatever came their way.

Ragtime jazz, occasional bursts of laughter and a constant stream of chatter drifted across the water from a party being hosted on Fort Denison.

The expectant buzz of the surrounding crowd reminded Carter of how little New Year’s Eve usually meant to him. He’d never been one for public celebrations. New Year’s had always been just another day.

He promised himself that next year, if there was a next year for him, he’d dive into the New Year’s festivities and find out what all the fuss was about. He might, with a bit of luck, share it with Erina.

He pushed all thoughts of the future and what might or might not happen to the back of his mind. It was 8.56 p.m. and the clock was counting down.

Several spitting drops of rain landed on his face, followed by a sudden downpour. Concentric circles rippled across the surface of the water, radiating outward.

Then, just as suddenly as it’d begun, the rain stopped. He sensed this was the prelude to a full-blown southerly buster.

At 8.59 p.m. the music and party noises began to peter out and an expectant hush fell over the harbor.

Erina turned and they exchanged a nod. They were both set.

He closed his eyes.

The crowd took up the ritualistic chant.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four …

Carter’s blood pumped faster.

Three, two, one …

A series of ear-piercing bangs ripped through the night as the first fireworks whooshed and then exploded overhead.

The crowd responded to the massive choreographed dance of color and light with a symphony of oohs, aahs, cheers and squeals as millions of dollars went up in smoke.

Carter rocked back and forth in his seat, stretching his legs, arms and shoulders, enjoying the energy building up in his muscles.

The aerial explosions continued one after the other, as they would for the next eight minutes. The smell of gunpowder filled the air. He ran his left palm over the kayak’s smooth deck as if calming a horse, his eyes still closed tight.

He felt neither cocky nor afraid.

Just ready.

14

A series of loud explosions jolted Djoran back into full consciousness on the galley table, back into a world of physical pain.

What sounded like a rocket whistled through the air and exploded in the distance. Bright colored light streamed through the windows.

For a moment he thought Samudra had succeeded in blowing up the bridge, but he soon realized it was just fireworks and gave thanks.

Warm blood flowed down his face into his right eye and his mouth.

Samudra had twisted and broken two of his fingers and smashed a fist into his nose. It felt like it’d been both splattered across his face and driven into his tortured skull, stabbing into his brain. Samudra had also crushed burning cigarettes into his chest, cheek and genitals.

Thanks to a power greater than himself, he’d remained silent throughout this violent torture and revealed no knowledge of the exact whereabouts or intentions of Carter and Erina. Nor had he renounced his steadfast faith in a loving God.

A feeling of humility and gratitude flowed through him. An unseen presence had protected his spirit and helped him tap reservoirs of courage he never knew he possessed.

Thanks to the divine strength bestowed upon him, he could return to his maker, join his beautiful wife and the spirit of his unborn child and rest in peace for eternity.

Stopping Samudra was now beyond his control. It rested with Carter, Erina and ultimately almighty God to determine the outcome.

He’d only met Carter and Erina briefly but had been struck by their presence and strong characters. If anyone could stop Samudra, they could, God willing.

He blinked the blood out of his eye, turned his head, stared out the window and recalled two of his most cherished lines from the work of his favorite poet, Rumi.

Again, the familiar footsteps trod down the stairs toward him.

Flanked by Jamal and Akeem, Samudra stood over him holding a silver knife in his right hand.

Djoran knew his death was only moments away.

Strangely he felt nothing but love and pity for the three men who were soon to be his executioners. As the great prophet Jesus had said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

He closed his eyes, not wishing to look upon their faces again before he passed through the veil of death to the hereafter.

The sharp knife struck his throat. A moment of intense pain was followed by a feeling of drowning in his own blood.

He gagged and his body started to shake.

He took one final breath, and on the exhalation, a peace that surpassed all human understanding flowed through every fiber of his being.

Like the mystics of old had written, a man could transcend the suffering of the physical world and enter the world of spiritual ecstasy and eternal peace.

Allah akbar.

15

Eight minutes after the first rocket exploded, the noise from the fireworks ceased.

The sweet sounds of silence descended over the harbor.

After a few seconds a collective sigh was breathed and the harbor erupted into a symphony of raucous clapping and cheering. The crowds thronging the foreshore whooped and shouted, and the boats packing the water tooted their horns.

Carter’s eyes snapped open.

Two lightning bolts ripped through the night air, illuminating the bridge’s arch like a scene from a horror movie, followed by a violent double clap of thunder that silenced the crowd.

It struck Carter that nothing human beings conjured up could match the power, majesty and violence of the natural world.

Then, the sky opened.

Sheets of rain bucketed down, providing the perfect cloak for their run to the bridge — like the heavens had their backs covered.

Another bolt of lightning ripped across the sky, followed by a dark clap of thunder.

Erina turned to face him. Her eyes shone like twin flames, lit from within.

She was ready.

In perfect unison they dug their paddles deep into the choppy waters and pulled back hard.

Small orange lights lit up both ends of the walkway they were heading for, providing a beacon through the driving wind and rain that lashed them from behind.

“Stop paddling! ” Carter yelled to be heard above the raging elements.

The kayak glided into the deep shadow of the massive bridge, directly underneath the maintenance walkway. The bridge’s dark underbelly protected them from the torrential rain, but the driving wind, which had been at their back coming down the harbor, now buffeted them from the south-east, pushing them in a westerly direction beneath the bridge.

Carter dug his paddle into the water and executed a perfect J stroke. The bow swung a hundred and eighty degrees to face the Opera House and the teeth of the howling gale.

He needed to stall the kayak long enough to fire the Magnogun accurately, so that the magnetic pad would attach itself to the bottom of the three-foot-wide walkway.

Erina swiveled around in her seat at the bow and faced him. They both dropped their legs over the side to stabilize the craft.

It reminded him of being in the surf at Lennox when the wind blew strongly onshore and only the most desperate surfers ventured out.

“You think Alex might’ve planted snipers underneath the bridge?” Erina asked, almost shouting to be heard over the wind.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” he yelled.

He reached into his bag, grabbed a harness and handed it to her. She slipped it over her shoulders and buckled it up. He lay back and stretched his torso along the sleek deck of the kayak.

Once settled, he placed the stock of the Magnogun to his shoulder, lined up a metal panel on the bottom of the walkway roughly a hundred and fifty feet above them, and pulled the trigger.

The recoil jammed the butt into his shoulder, pushing his end of the craft into the water. The metal pad flew through the darkness toward its target, the nylon cord uncoiling behind it.

The Magnogun-TX 7 was designed to propel the pad with tremendous force, allowing it to cut through the most turbulent weather.

After counting to ten, Carter sat up and pulled down on the cord, hard, hoping the first shot had stuck. The sooner they got onto the bridge, the better.

The Magnogun held firm.

He laid the gun on the kayak deck and took the climbing cord and hook off his shoulder and handed it to Erina. She put it over her head so that it hung diagonally across her body and secured it off with a rubber tie so it wouldn’t unravel.

While she got herself organized, he clipped on his harness, slung his daypack on his back and fastened it tight.

The stern faced west, the most likely direction for a sniper. That meant his back created a human shield protecting Erina.

He handed her a phone in its waterproof case. “If anything happens to me, call Watto. The number is preset. Just press 1.”

She strapped the phone onto her arm. “Will do.”

Without needing to say anything, they shuffled toward each other, still sitting, until their knees touched in the midsection of the kayak.

They clipped their harnesses onto either side of the Magnogun.

He double-checked everything was secure and gave the cord a final pull. “All set?”

She nodded. “Beam us up, Scotty.”

He shouldered the SIG and pushed the green button on the side of the Magnogun, activating its internal drive.

The cord tightened and pulled them closer together. They each held it in one hand to steady themselves.

Slowly, the device lifted them into a standing position before pulling them off the kayak and upward into the night.

16

Samudra looked through the water-streaked cabin window toward the bridge and smiled. He was sitting in the galley of the launch he commanded, moored off Watsons Bay, not far from Sydney Heads, rocking back and forth in the wind.

Rain lashed the deck above, reminding him of the many tears the heathens of Sydney would shed in the morning and the days, weeks, months and years ahead.

God was indeed great.

Everything was in place.

The two men who had been with him on the boat, Jamal and Akeem, were on their way to the second target, the Sydney Opera House foreshore, with C4 explosives packed into the vests hidden under their shirts. No one would give them a second thought among the packed crowds in the foul weather.

A truck packed with explosives — a chariot of destruction — was heading for the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.

Ubal, a member of the Lakemba cell, would join Samudra on the motor-launch shortly.

Abdul-Aleem would not be coming on board as he presumed, or collecting his $250,000. This would be his last job for the clan. His usefulness had come to an end.

The men under his command, Zaheed and Putu, had been instructed by Samudra to shoot Abdul-Aleem when he attempted to leave the pylon on his hang-glider shortly before midnight.

In future only true believers would be allowed into the clan’s inner circle.

His mind turned to the midnight explosions. The sound of God’s vengeance would reverberate around Sydney and then the world.

By 12.10 a.m. all of the brave mujaheddin who’d come with him to Sydney would be dead, only to be resurrected as heroes enjoying the magnificent fruits of paradise they so richly deserved for their noble acts of courage and devotion.

That was not his fate. God had even greater plans for him.

Following the climactic moment where his jihad became reality, he’d use the launch’s dinghy to land at Watsons Bay. He’d then travel to a safe house in Lakemba with Ubal, who’d made all the arrangements. In the morning he’d leave this accursed country and return home to the loving arms of his wife and family.

His thoughts turned to the traitor Djoran, for whom he’d once held such high hopes, and now felt such bitter disappointment.

To his credit, the man had demonstrated great courage at the end of his life. Samudra had to admire him for that, even if he was deeply misguided and would spend eternity in hell.

The cell phone vibrated in his breast pocket. He took it out and looked at the number. It was Abdul-Aleem.

He held it to his ear. “Yes?”

“Carter and Erina have been spotted coming onto the bridge from the water as I predicted.”

“That is indeed good news. Proceed as planned.”

“Yes, sir.”

Samudra clicked off.

He gently stroked the keypad of the phone with his forefinger. To unleash the wrath of God on Sydney, all he needed to do was dial a number and hit send.

The phones would vibrate simultaneously around the harbor, detonating the explosives his men wore on the bridge, near the Opera House and inside the truck. If anyone tried to tamper with the bombs, they’d explode instantly.

The men would die as heroes and enter paradise, as was their wish.

A bolt of energy shot through him. He’d never felt so close to God.

17

Carter and Erina dangled from the nylon cord with the gusting southerly buster blowing them back and forth in an arc.

The harness dug into Carter’s chest. He held onto the ascending cord with his left hand and the trigger guard of the SIG with his right, aware of how exposed and vulnerable they were.

Time, always elastic, slowed. All of his senses were heightened, enabling him to take in every detail of the world around him.

He looked up. The bridge’s underbelly loomed cold and malevolent, casting an ominous shadow of energy that sent a tingle down Carter’s spine. It was as if the bridge knew it was under threat.

Its crisscrossing steel girders and metal beams formed an intricate pattern of interlocking angles, all providing myriad potential hiding spots. If a sniper was concealed on one of the metal struts, there was nothing he and Erina could do to defend themselves.

He shook off these counterproductive thoughts and looked to the south, toward the city, seeking inspiration. Thousands of bright lights shone through the slanting rain, homes and offices to hundreds of thousands of people ignorant of the threat facing their city.

His gaze swept a hundred and eighty degrees over the twinkling nightscape of Sydney’s harbor suburbs, stopping at Luna Park. The huge lit-up clown face grinned at him as if amused by the folly of their endeavor and wishing to share the cosmic joke of human existence.

The Magnogun pulled them steadily toward the base of the walkway, now less than fifty feet away.

A strong gust of wind blasted them. He gripped the cord tighter. Erina’s cold wet cheek brushed against his. He looked into her eyes and saw no sign of fear, only alert anticipation.

Without thinking, he stroked the small of her back with his left hand. She gave his right shoulder a gentle squeeze. The shared touch was one of the most intimate connections he’d ever felt.

The Magnogun clicked to a jolting stop. They hung in the center of the three-foot-wide walkway, buffeted by the wind.

Carter pushed the SIG back into its holster and said, “Time for some monkey business.”

“Okay, you big ape,” Erina said, “show us what you’ve got.”

A steel bar ran along both sides of the base of the walkway, suspended about six inches below it.

He reached out with one hand, grasped the cold wet metal bar closest to him and hung from it by one arm. Then he unclipped his harness and swung his body around, reaching out to grab hold of the bar with his free hand. He hung there at full stretch, facing Erina, who was still attached to the Magnogun.

“Nice move,” she said.

The bar was slippery from the rain, making it hard for him to gain a firm hold.

“I’m going to need a leg up,” he told her.

“No kidding.”

He tightened his grip on the bar and raised his right leg toward her until his foot found her cupped hands.

She held his foot firmly. He pulled himself up as if doing a chin-up and pushed off her hand as she gave him a final shove. The combined force thrust his body up into the air and he grabbed onto the metal bars of the security fence above with his left hand and then his right. Clinging tightly, he scrambled one foot, then the other, onto the bar he’d just been hanging from, and pulled himself up into a standing position.

He yelled down to Erina, “Your turn.”

Erina repeated his maneuver and hung from the metal bar to the right of where he was now standing. This was the riskiest part. He needed to get a firm hold of Erina to pull her up.

He gripped onto the security fence hard with his left hand and then leaned out and down toward her, bending his knees until he could reach her with his right hand.

Their hands locked on each other’s wrists and he pulled her up next to him.

They took a moment, standing beside each other, holding onto the rungs of the side of the metal walkway, giving their arms and hands a chance to recover.

The southerly buster whistled through the struts and rigging, and the walkway shook and shuddered. Looking over their shoulders, they peered down at the dark waters of the harbor a hundred and fifty feet below.

“No point hanging about here admiring the view,” Erina said.

“I guess not,” Carter replied.

He stretched his right hand upward and started climbing the fence, using the crisscrossing metal bars as footholds. On reaching the top, he jumped over and dropped onto the three-foot-wide metal floor below. Erina followed closely behind, leaped down and squatted next to him.

He studied the creaking dark shadows of the metal structures above them.

“See anything?” Erina asked.

“Nothing — but I have a creepy sense of being watched.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s go.”

Carter led Erina across the walkway toward the western side of the bridge, holding the SIG in his right hand. The thin soles of his Vibram shoes made him feel light on his feet, connected to and part of the cold metal structure underneath.

They moved at a steady, even pace, the wind pushing them as if urging them forward.

His gaze flicked from left to right, but he saw nothing suspicious.

A semi-enclosed metal cage made of galvanized steel grating was attached to the end of the walkway, connecting it to the deck of the bridge above. They passed through its rectangular entrance, stopped in the center and looked up. A metal lid sealed what looked like an access point leading up the inside of the cage onto the deck.

“An internal ladder would’ve been nice,” Erina said.

“So would a hot coffee.”

Carter stretched upward and pushed hard against the metal cover. It didn’t budge. There was no way round or through it. As he’d always suspected, they’d need to climb up the outside of the cage.

There was a rectangular opening at the end of the cage, almost like a window, giving a view out over the water, and they moved toward it. Carter leaned out over the top of the chest-high security railing, turned his head and looked up.

He liked what he saw. The front of the cage, about five feet wide, ran approximately thirty feet up the outside of the bridge, stretching all the way to the top of the security fence on the main deck.

A flat metal grid formed its roof. Once they’d climbed up the outside of the cage and onto its roof, they’d be able to jump over the barbed-wire security fence that ran south to north along the side of the bridge, and land on the bridge’s deck on the bicycle lane. There was no need to utter a word. Both understood that climbing the cage and getting onto the bridge was the easy part.

The hard part would come if a squad of Alex’s men were in position above, armed with automatic rifles, waiting for them.

But they could only deal with one problem at a time. Carter had a motto in situations like this: If in doubt, keep moving forward. Waiting any longer would change nothing.

Erina pulled the climbing cord over her head, untied it and handed it to Carter. He slung it over his right shoulder and pulled himself up onto the open metal ledge of the cage. He stood facing Erina, holding a bar above him with his left hand for support.

His daypack hugged his back and the SIG hung over his left shoulder. He shrugged the climbing cord off his shoulder into his free hand, then uncoiled six feet and dropped one end toward Erina.

She took hold of it with both hands.

If he discovered the way forward was clear when he reached the bridge’s deck, he’d pull the rope twice to signal for her to come up and join him.

He leaned away from the cage and balanced outside over the water. He let six feet of the top end of the rope drop below him and began twirling the hook in the air.

After half-a-dozen spins, it had gained enough momentum. He hurled it upward toward the top of the cage, releasing the rest of the cord as the hook flew through the air.

The hook landed on the flat top of the cage. He pulled the cord hard to make sure the hook had caught and turned to Erina.

It felt like that instant before taking off on a giant wave, where everything hung in the balance. He had no idea what was waiting for him up there on the bridge’s deck.

Alex and his men had probably been on the bridge for over twenty-four hours, and once he pulled his head above the line of sight, he’d be totally exposed.

“If I don’t signal you within three minutes,” he said, “call Watto.”

“Carter?”

Erina let the word hang in the air.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He started climbing.

18

By 10.04 p.m. Erina and Carter had reached their target, the entrance to the south-west pylon on the main deck of the bridge. Footlights bathed the pylon in a golden glow, making them both easy targets, but there was nothing they could do. Shooting out the lights would only draw attention to their position.

Erina was working on the lock of the thick grey metal door with acid and picking keys while Carter covered her back, swinging his SIG in an arc, scanning the deck.

It looked like an urban wasteland from an end-of-the-world disaster movie. Wind and rain swirled over the concrete and steel structures. Street lamps lit up the bike path, two railroad tracks and the eight empty traffic lanes. All four pylons were illuminated.

So far everything had gone to plan. They’d worked together like dancers in a ballet, each anticipating the other’s moves. They’d jumped down onto the bike lane from the top of the cage without incident. Erina had picked a lock that opened a gate in the security fence that separated the bike lane from the train tracks and the pylon. They then climbed down a four-rung yellow ladder onto the tracks, ran to their right along the sleepers and finally pulled themselves up onto a wooden deck right by the entrance to the south-west pylon.

Carter kept a keen lookout as Erina worked. There was still no sign of human activity, but once they passed through the pylon door, they’d be in territory controlled by the clan. It all depended on when Alex chose to make his move against them.

Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese military strategist, would’ve approved of the clan’s strategy.

The clan had chosen the location of the battle well. They’d arrived first, occupied the high ground and were numerically superior. They’d be watching and waiting for their enemy from a position of safety and had given themselves plenty of time to prepare and execute an ambush in an enclosed space. Once inside the pylon, Carter and Erina would have nowhere to run, making escape almost impossible. The odds were all in Alex and his men’s favor.

Yet Carter knew that in any fight there was always something you couldn’t plan for. And that something invariably made all the difference.

Their job was to find it.

“We’re in,” Erina said.

He turned around. The door was slightly ajar and the lock was smoking.

“Cover me,” he said.

She stepped away from the door, gripping her Glock in both hands and holding it out in front of her. Carter pushed the door open, his SIG pointing forward, cocked and ready.

He moved into a small, gloomy stairwell, barely illuminated by light coming from above. He counted twelve metal steps, three feet wide, leading to a small landing, from which a second set of steps led upward to another landing, then another.

According to their research there were three levels above the main deck: the second floor, a third floor, and then a rooftop level, partially covered, but with an open-air balcony. They would have to climb sixteen staircases and nearly two hundred steps to reach the lookout that surrounded the roof of the pylon.

Erina closed the door and forced a throwing knife into the lock, twisting and breaking it so that it jammed. She then slid two more throwing knives under the door and pushed them forward so they formed a tight wedge.

She gave the door a good shake. It appeared to hold firm. It wouldn’t deter a determined force, but at least they’d hear anyone coming in.

Carter gripped the SIG lightly and started walking up the metal steps on the sides of his rubber shoes, not making a sound.

Erina followed one step behind.

19

A hundred and thirty feet above Erina and Carter, Alex once again stood on the narrow, open lookout on top of the pylon. He was looking west down the harbor toward the waterside suburb of East Balmain, waiting.

Zaheed and Putu stood on either side of him, wearing full Australian Tactical Response Unit uniforms concealing vests stuffed with C4 explosives. One carried a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, the other a Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun.

Alex ran his fingers along the smooth scabbard of his beloved samurai sword, the Drying Pole. The beautiful two-handed sword, made famous by the master samurai Sasaki Kojiro, was roughly five feet long and designed to hang from the waist. According to legend the blade embodied the soul of the warrior who possessed it.

With studied reverence he unsheathed the weapon with his right hand. Spots of rain glistened off the polished blade. He held it in front of his face and pointed it upright, the top of the handle level with his chin, searching for his image on the naked blade, but the angle of the light made it impossible.

Taking great care, he placed the sword on top of the low ledge that encircled the balcony. The ledge was chest-height, and was the only barrier against a fall of nearly three hundred feet to the ground below. On the south-east pylon, whose rooftop lookout was open to the public, there was a clear plastic shield to protect visitors, but no such protection was offered here.

He’d use the ledge later that night to good effect, when he met Carter and Erina face to face.

Reaching into the thigh pocket of his trousers, he extracted a tablet computer. During the day he’d run a cable up to the lookout and connected it to a router, allowing him to link his tablet wirelessly to the pylon’s security cameras.

He checked the screen and pressed Camera B.

Sure enough, the shadowy images of Carter and Erina filled the screen. They were climbing the stairs from the deck of the bridge to level one. Carter held an automatic weapon and Erina a handgun.

He picked up his phone and dialed the number of Hazeem, the leader of his second unit. The group of three were in position on the bridge, waiting behind the south-east pylon for his signal.

They’d trained on Batak Island with Samudra and himself for eight months and had been working with the Sydney cell based in Lakemba.

“The targets have made their entrance,” Alex said. “Move the men into position in two minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alex clicked off.

The endgame, when he had his target helpless and cornered, ready for the kill, was always his favorite part of the hunt.

His thoughts turned to the men from the Sydney cell. Unlike Zaheed and Putu they had no combat experience. Under normal circumstances they’d be no match for the likes of Carter and Erina.

But this wasn’t going to be anything like a fair fight. More like shooting blind barracudas in a concrete pond.

So long as they delivered Carter and Erina, he didn’t care what happened to them.

He picked up the Drying Pole and held the blade in front of him, pointing it south-east toward the city lights. The sword was thirsty.

A thin smile spread across his face.

20

When they reached the second floor, dimly lit by overhead halogen lights, Carter motioned for Erina to check the two large rooms to their right while he covered the stairway. She reappeared a minute later and whispered, “All clear. Just a lot of stored equipment.”

They started up the stairs to the third floor, Carter leading the way, but after just a few steps, he raised his hand and stopped.

Two bodies wearing fluorescent lime-green jackets lay facedown in pools of blood on the metal landing above them. They had been shot in the back of the head, execution style.

Carter continued up the stairs, knelt beside the bodies and gently turned them over. They were men, Caucasian, in their early thirties. Their jackets carried the New South Wales Roads and Maritime Services logo. Just a couple of government workers unlucky enough to be rostered on for New Year’s Eve.

More than anything else Carter hated seeing innocent people murdered because they’d inadvertently got in some madman’s way.

He was sure Alex had used their deaths to send a message. He was waiting for them above and he wanted them to know it.

Erina stood next to him and said under her breath, “Fucking bastard.”

Carter stood up, raised the SIG to shoulder height and carried on up the stairs one deliberate step at a time, Erina’s soft tread coming half a pace behind his.

Just before they reached the third floor, he signaled for her to stop again. He leaned against the metal railing and listened, holding the SIG in front of him.

He heard nothing.

He crept up the last few stairs and then, holding his gun out in front and keeping his finger lightly on the trigger, he scanned the room.

In the center were more stairs, leading up to the lookout on the roof.

Old CCTV camera equipment, extension cords, cardboard boxes of fireworks and a pile of lime-green security jackets were heaped against the south wall.

None of that held his attention.

What did, though, were the two large sliding doors on the eastern and western sides of the room. Both were painted black. He filed the information away and kept looking around the room.

In the right-hand corner on the eastern side two open laptops sat on a wooden desk. On the floor next to it two large cardboard boxes were stacked one on top of the other. One was labelled INFUSION CRYSTAL FOUNTAINS, the other PEGASUS SKYROCKETS.

In the corner opposite the desk, on the western side, was a hooded figure sitting on a chair.

Erina moved up behind Carter. He pointed forward and signaled for her to cover his back. He wondered if the hooded figure could be a booby trap. But there was no way of knowing.

He walked to the back of the stairs and stopped a few feet from the figure. It wore black pants, a loose-fitting black jacket and dark green thongs. An executioner’s hood hung over its head. Both arms were secured behind its back around a steel pole that ran up the wall.

On closer inspection Carter noted that the feet were delicate and their toenails painted a shiny blue. He was almost certain he knew who it was.

“Vivienne?” he whispered.

The figure jerked and the hooded head nodded.

“My name’s Carter. I’m here to help. Are you wired?”

The captive shook her head.

“She could be a plant,” Erina whispered behind him.

He moved toward the girl cautiously, then reached out and felt around the hood for any detonation devices. Finding none, he peeled the hood off slowly, revealing a slightly older and edgier version of the young woman he’d seen on the wall of Callaghan’s kitchen.

She now had spiky short black hair and silver nose and eyebrow rings, but her intense dark eyes were unmistakably the same, blazing with an equal mixture of fear and defiance.

Grey electrical tape with a slit in the middle covered her mouth.

“I’m going to take the tape off,” Carter whispered. “I’ll try to be gentle, but it might sting. It’s important you remain very quiet.”

He grabbed the corner of the tape. “On the count of three.”

She nodded.

“One, two …”

He tore the tape off in one sharp movement.

“For fuck sake,” she whispered, her eyes welling from the pain. “You nearly ripped my piercing out.”

He noted a small amount of blood around a ring in her lower lip. “Sorry,” he said. “You okay otherwise?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Where’s the rest of the rescue team?”

Carter glanced over his shoulder at Erina. “We’re it.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Listen, I need you to answer some questions.”

“Aren’t you going to untie me first?”

“Be quiet and listen.”

“No way am I telling you anything until you untie me first — I’m freaking out here.”

Carter didn’t have time to waste and knew when he was beaten. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Okay. Just stay calm.”

She nodded.

He reached into his daypack and used a throwing knife to slice through the ties binding her wrists and ankles.

As she shook her arms and legs, he asked, “Do you know how many men Samudra has on the bridge?”

“Six. A South African — a real arsehole — and the two Indonesians who dragged me up here. They all had guns. Three more came an hour or so ago and left. I never saw their faces.”

“Are they on the top level?”

“I think so. People have been going up and down the stairs all night.”

“What else can you tell us?” Erina asked.

Vivienne motioned her head in the direction of the desk. “The computer on the right is linked to the surveillance cameras. The arsehole was in here for over an hour this afternoon setting it all up. You might want to check it out.”

21

Erina sat in the chair behind the computer screen. Carter stood at her shoulder with his SIG at the ready.

She hit some keys and the screen came to life. Five icons appeared — Entrance, Level One, Level Two, Outside/Bridge Deck and Lookout. Each was linked to a video-surveillance feed.

She clicked Entrance.

Clear.

Next she clicked the icon Outside/Bridge Deck.

Carter leaned forward. The screen showed murky images of three armed men dressed in uniforms moving across the train tracks toward the pylon.

One carried a pump-action shotgun, the other two automatic rifles. Each weapon was fitted with a high-tech night scope. They had enough firepower to wipe out two football teams in three seconds flat.

Carter studied the men. Though they wore body armor and heavy boots, none possessed Alex’s imposing physique.

Erina clicked on the Lookout icon.

The screen was black, as if someone had placed tape over the camera lens.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, almost certain that Alex and his men had stationed themselves on the lookout one floor above. “Time to call in the cavalry.”

“What the fuck’s going on?” Vivienne asked.

“Hold tight and stay put,” Erina said and handed Carter the phone.

He pressed 1, hit dial and put it to his ear.

The phone rang twice.

An automated female voice came on the line. “Your service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”

The phone clicked off.

“What is it?” Erina asked.

He handed her the phone and said, “No service. I’ll bet they’ve got a blocking device covering the inside of the pylon.”

Before she had a chance to respond, the lights went out, plunging them into total darkness.

A loud thump echoed somewhere beneath them.

“Fuuuck,” Vivienne said. “What was that?”

“Sounds like we have visitors,” Carter said. “Keep quiet and come over here by us.”

He guided her into a crouch next to Erina, who’d dropped to the floor. Erina shone the light of the phone screen onto the cardboard boxes stacked near the computers.

From below, another loud crash reverberated through the pylon.

Carter counted three sets of footsteps. The men had broken through the door and were inside, tramping up the first set of metal stairs, not caring who heard them. They sounded as if they were pumped full of arrogance and bravado, suggesting they were relative amateurs.

He turned toward Erina, who was ripping open the carton marked PEGASUS SKYROCKETS.

“Are you planning on putting on a private fireworks display?” Vivienne asked her, sounding incredulous.

“Something like that,” Erina said. “Here.” She handed Vivienne the phone. “Make yourself useful and give us some light.”

Vivienne held it in her right hand. Carter could tell she was trying to control her nervous shaking.

Erina extracted four rockets from the open box and then took five INFUSION CRYSTAL FOUNTAINS from the other one.

“What exactly have you got in mind?” Carter asked.

“I’m going to take Vivienne up the stairs toward the roof and stay with her,” she said. “I’ll set up the fountains and rockets along the way. We want to give the late arrivals a bright welcome.”

Carter knew exactly what she meant and said, “You’re quite the hostess.”

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

He opened his daypack and laid it on the floor. Vivienne shone the light over it while he extracted a plastic lighter and a roll of grey duct tape. He handed them to Erina.

She grabbed Vivienne’s hand and hurried up the stairs. Carter stuffed the phone back in the daypack and took out his Glock. He then threw the pack under the wooden desk and slid in after it, facedown.

His shoulder, hip and left leg pressed flush against the wall. He held the SIG near his right shoulder with his finger on the trigger and placed his Glock by his left hip within easy reach. He had a feeling he’d need all the firepower he could gather.

He remained still, breathing softly and listening to the steady thump of footsteps moving toward him. The three men had already reached level two and were heading for the third floor. The beat of their boots had changed — they were cautious now, moving more slowly.

Carter imagined himself in their position. They’d be pumped full of adrenalin, holding their rifles to their shoulders, peering through their night scopes, seeing the world as a series of glowing green shadows.

The sounds of the marching boots changed again.

They’d stepped onto the third level. They were just a few feet away, moving much more slowly now.

He heard Erina above him, lighting the fireworks.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, placed his hands firmly over his ears and started counting.

One, two …

He never got to three.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

22

Carter lay perfectly still under the table.

The four rockets detonated one by one, like a cluster of small bombs exploding. Then, with his ears ringing, he heard the whooshing sound of the crystal fountains.

Each whoosh heralded a shower of bright colored lights that’d make the night scopes useless and disorient the three men hunting him.

An automatic rifle barked.

Rat tat tat tat …

A split second later another joined in, followed by the double BOOM BOOM of the shotgun.

The three guys were spooked, shooting blind — but that didn’t make their bullets any less deadly.

Lead smashed into steel and brick, echoing around the enclosed chamber. The acrid smell of gunpowder and smoke filled the air.

Then the firing ceased.

Above him the sound of the fountains swirled.

He heard a high-pitched voice nearby shout in Indonesian, “You see him?”

They’d still be blinded by Erina’s lightshow.

“Diam.” Shut up.

Carter opened his eyes.

From the floor under the table he saw three sets of black trouser legs and boots near the top of the stairs, forming a tight triangle.

Bad move. They should’ve spread out.

He picked up the Glock and threw it across the room.

There was a moment of silence followed by a loud clatter as it bounced against the opposite wall.

The boots turned toward the sound.

A burst of gunfire from the automatic rifles sprayed the far wall.

The shotgun boomed.

Carter slid in a smooth movement from under the table, holding the SIG. There was still enough light from the fireworks to see his targets.

He rose to his feet, raised the SIG to his shoulder, took aim and squeezed off three shots.

The first shot hit the closest man in the side of the neck. The second got the next man between the back of his helmet and the top of his body armor. Carter shot the last guy in the throat when he turned toward him.

The three men collapsed to the ground.

The last of the fireworks gave a final splutter and died.

Carter started moving toward the stairs in the silent darkness.

Then stopped.

Somewhere above him, a door opened and closed.

A set of heavy footsteps came racing down the metal stairs.

He looked up into the darkness.

Erina’s loud scream echoed around the pylon. “CAAAAAARTEEER!”

A chilling dread cut through him.

Something dropped on the floor.

It bounced once … twice …

23

Carter ran back toward the desk and dived under it.

He threw it on its side, sending the computers flying, using the front surface as a shield. He then curled himself into the fetal position and covered his head with his arms.

Time froze.

Erina’s scream still echoed in his mind.

He held his breath and braced himself for what he expected was a grenade.

There was nothing he could do but wait.

He had to hand it to Alex. He’d thought through every scenario in detail and had kept one step ahead.

BOOM.

An ear-splitting explosion ripped through the pylon.

A hail of shrapnel whistled through the air, bouncing off the cement walls and drumming against the tabletop.

For the briefest of moments he thought he’d defied the odds and avoided being hit. Then a wave of intense pain hit him in the back.

It started just below his right shoulder and shot up his neck to the base of his skull, like he’d been jabbed from the inside with a red-hot poker.

He flinched, tensing his back muscles, and lay still. If a ligament or muscle had been severed or a bone broken, he was in trouble.

There wasn’t a moment to lose. Alex might send someone down to finish him off.

But this was no time to rush, either. He forced himself to sit upright, unzipped his wetsuit and peeled the top off his shoulders.

Another wave of searing pain made him clench his jaw.

He breathed into the pain and worked his forefinger into the wound, probing deep into his flesh.

The tip of his finger touched two pieces of rounded metal the size of cherry pips — shrapnel from a frag grenade.

The two bearings were lodged just below his right shoulder joint. They must have bounced off a wall or the stairs before slamming into him. He hadn’t exactly won the lottery, but a direct hit would’ve shattered his shoulder, making a tough situation close to impossible.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, relaxed his back muscles and dug in again, probing even deeper.

It took all his focus to counter the shooting pain.

Just when he thought he could take no more, the two smooth bearings popped out and rolled on the floor like a couple of loose marbles. He let out a jagged sigh.

Getting the shrapnel out of his body was a good start.

He pushed himself to his feet one-handed, walked over to one of the dead guys, knelt down and tore a long strip off his shirt. He stood up, wound it round his shoulder and tied it off.

The crude dressing would stem the bleeding and support his shoulder joint for a while at least.

He rotated his shoulder back, then forward.

Good enough.

Slowly, he worked his arm back into the wetsuit and zipped it up with his left hand.

He felt for his daypack in the dark, then found the table and righted it. Squatting beneath it, he would be hidden from Alex’s surveillance cameras — at least he hoped he would be.

Carter opened the daypack, shone the phone light inside and took out three drug-tipped darts and two star knives.

He stuck the darts under his tongue and slipped the ultra-slim star knives into two velcro pockets in each arm of his wetsuit, just above the inside of his wrist. It’d take an extremely thorough search to detect them.

The phone read 11.06 p.m. He turned it to full volume, set the alarm for 11.15 p.m., and stepped back out onto the third floor.

Without warning the overhead lights burst back on.

Alex’s voice boomed through overhead speakers. “If you want to see Erina and the girl again, you’ll come up the stairs to the lookout, unarmed. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

24

Carter started up the stairs toward the top level of the pylon. Perhaps Alex had planned to separate him and Erina all along, knowing it was always easier to pick off two individuals than a team.

He’d seen a map of the south-east pylon, which was open to the public. The top level was a single room known as the “indoor lookout,” which provided tourists with a view of the harbor when the weather was inclement. It had a door opening onto a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree open-air lookout deck that wrapped around the room’s four walls. The layout of the south-west pylon was the same, but the indoor room was used as a storeroom. On top of the storeroom’s roof was a gun deck, which could be reached by a pull-down metal ladder. During the Second World War the four pylons had been taken over by the military, and gun parapets were built and used as anti-aircraft posts, which were never removed.

He mounted the final set of steps, half expecting to be greeted by armed clansmen. But he saw no sign of anyone. Just a cluttered rectangular room filled with cardboard boxes of electrical equipment, more disused CCTV cameras, aluminum stepladders and cleaning equipment.

One feature stood out. The eight smallish windows that surrounded the room had been painted black, like the sliding doors on the floor below.

The door to the outdoor lookout was closed. He pushed the throbbing pain in his shoulder out of his mind and breathed in. His body might be wounded but his mind and spirit were strong and ready.

From the other side of the door he could feel the energy of Alex and his men. They’d be wielding automatic rifles, whereas he was armed with a phone, three darts and a couple of ninja star knives.

To an outsider his position would appear hopeless.

But he knew better.

In a life-and-death battle the rules were different. It took far more than mere numerical superiority and firepower. Such moments tested a man to the core, stripped him bare of everything that was false, revealing his true self and enabling him to perceive more than could be seen with the naked eye.

He glanced at the phone.

11.08 p.m.

So long as Alex resisted the urge to simply shoot him on sight the instant he stepped onto the rooftop balcony, he was in with a chance.

Knowing Alex as well as he did, he figured he’d take a perverse pleasure in tormenting him before the final execution.

Carter turned the handle and pulled the door open a crack.

“I’m coming out,” he said. “Unarmed.”

He raised his arms high and used his elbow to shove the door open.

The balcony was narrow — it was just five feet from where he stood to the chest-high ledge that surrounded the lookout — but it ran the full length of the western side of the pylon, about twenty-five yards, before disappearing around the corner at each end. He stepped through the door onto the rain-soaked floor, placing him in the dead center of the western lookout deck.

There was no room to move or hide.

The door slammed shut behind him.

He turned his head to his left.

Fifteen feet from him a clan member dressed in a Tactical Response uniform pointed an MP5 directly at his head. The butt of the weapon was pressed into the man’s shoulder and, though clearly tense and nervous, he appeared to know what he was doing.

Carter slowly turned his head to the right, keeping his hands high.

Twenty-five feet away, toward the northern end of the balcony, another clan member stood flush against the western wall. He was dressed identically to his mate and held the blade of a six-inch kris dagger against Erina’s throat.

Her eyes flicked toward him. Silver gaffer tape covered her mouth. She appeared to be unharmed apart from bruising around her right eye and a small cut on her forehead from which blood trickled down.

Vivienne was about ten feet behind Erina, tucked away in the north-west corner. She sat upright on a metal bench attached to the balcony wall with her mouth taped, hands and feet tied and her dark eyes wide open, staring at him.

Carter noticed something glint on the ledge about five feet in front of Erina — a samurai sword. He recognized the blade at once as the Drying Pole, which Alex had stolen from him. He intended to get it back.

Alex emerged from around the corner of the northern wall and stood just in front of where Vivienne sat, speaking softly into the mike of a bluetooth headset. He placed what looked like a GPS tracking device in his thigh pocket and stared at Carter with the cold-hearted intensity of a hungry predator.

The group stood frozen, as if Alex had pressed the pause button and they were waiting for him to hit play.

25

“Drop the phone,” Alex said in a calm, almost sympathetic voice. “You won’t be making any calls.”

Carter let go of it and put his foot out to break its fall. It slid across the wet floor to the cement wall opposite him.

“Zaheed,” Alex said, speaking in Indonesian. “You know what to do.”

The clansman to Carter’s left strode toward him and pushed him hard against the closed door.

Carter kept his arms raised with his hands extended high above his head.

Zaheed glared at him and jammed the MP5 muzzle into Carter’s stomach.

He then ran his hands over his torso, patting the outside of his arms and his legs, pressing his shoulder wound for good measure and sending a sharp stab of pain up his arm. But Carter didn’t care. He’d missed the star knives.

“He’s clean,” Zaheed said in Indonesian.

“Check his mouth.”

Zaheed dropped his rifle level with Carter’s crotch.

“Open wide,” Alex said. “Or he’ll blow your balls off.”

Carter opened his mouth.

Zaheed’s calloused index finger probed Carter’s gums and forced its way under his tongue.

He extracted the three darts and held them up in the light, grinning.

“Kerja baik,” Alex said. Good work.

Zaheed threw the darts against the ledge wall, where they scattered.

A sloppy move. They might prove useful later if Carter got his hands on them.

Zaheed resumed his position fifteen feet to Carter’s left, pointing the MP5 at his head.

Carter stayed silent.

Alex swaggered past Erina like an alpha lion about to pounce on an old and weakened enemy.

Carter turned to face him, bracing himself for a physical assault.

Alex stopped a few feet in front of him and looked into Carter’s eyes.

“You’ve always been a lying, doublecrossing arsehole. And for some reason unfathomable to me, you think your shit doesn’t stink.”

He pulled his right fist back under his armpit.

Carter tensed his abdomen.

With a grunt Alex let fly, putting his whole body and spirit into the blow. His fist slammed into Carter’s solar plexus like a sledgehammer, bruising the stomach muscles and knocking the wind out of him.

“That’s for leaving me to rot in prison,” he said.

Carter bent forward, drawing in lungfuls of air, straining to keep his hands high with his palms facing Alex. He needed to maintain his poise and let the clock tick down.

“Stand up straight,” Alex said. “And keep your hands in the air.”

Carter did as he was told.

Alex again pulled his fist back and threw his whole body behind a second punch. His fist found its mark, striking Carter in the center of his rib cage with terrific force.

Carter tried to roll with the savage blow and keep his hands up but he heard a distinct crack on impact and felt a fierce pain shooting through his side.

Alex had either broken a rib or torn the cartilage away from the bone.

Beads of sweat rolled down Carter’s face. He breathed into the hurt, reminding himself that pain was just a state of mind.

Alex snarled and said, “And that’s just for being you, a fucking arsehole.”

His fist flew through the air again, aiming for the bridge of Carter’s nose.

Carter rolled his head and turned it side-on. The vicious punch struck his cheekbone, causing waves of searing pain to pulsate through his skull.

His head rang from the blow to the jaw as tears welled in his eyes. He tasted blood in his mouth. A right molar had come loose.

Alex turned and picked up the Drying Pole from the ledge. He held the sword by his side with the blade pointing down.

Carter knew what was coming.

Alex intended to prove his superiority and savor his victory, which he saw as a foregone conclusion.

He’d want to delay the deathblow as long as possible, using Carter’s old sword to complete the job.

Carter took a slow, deliberate breath. He couldn’t afford to let Alex keep playing his sadistic game and incur any further injuries.

He needed to engage him.

He looked past Alex, caught Erina’s eye and gave her a tight nod.

They weren’t beaten yet.

26

Carter clenched and unclenched his left fist and spread his weight evenly on the balls of his feet. The fight was approaching its climax and as yet he hadn’t even looked like landing a blow. But he knew it was the final shot that counted.

Another long slow breath helped push the pain in his shoulder, ribs and jaw from the forefront of his mind and lock it away.

He needed to buy a few more precious moments. Any one-on-one battle must first be fought with the eyes, then from the heart and finally through the body.

“What happened to you, Alex?” he asked. “To cause you to hate so much?”

“What do you think, man? The order was my family. Thomas was my father. You were my brother. But you used me as a pawn for all those years and when I was no longer of any use, you and Thomas deserted me when I needed you most. Now you’re going to pay for it. Face it, Carter, it’s over for you — and the order.”

“Don’t you even care that these lunatics plan to kill and injure God knows how many innocent people? It’s not too late to save them.”

Alex gave a tiny shake of the head. “You’ve never understood me, Carter. My belief is that most people are mindless sheep, barely alive. Their death doesn’t concern me one way or the other.”

Carter motioned his head toward the two clan members. “At least these two believe in something bigger than themselves. All you care about is yourself.”

“Someone has to,” Alex said.

Carter’s gaze flicked toward the clansman holding Erina. He didn’t move a muscle.

Alex took a step toward Carter. He raised the sword with two hands, drew it up behind his head and then swept the blade down, creating a swishing sound through the air.

The tip of the sword stopped half an inch from Carter’s throat.

Carter didn’t blink.

Alex motioned for Carter to move backward, south along the lookout deck.

Again, he did what he was told and began walking, one cautious step at a time. Adrenalin surged through his body, giving him a feeling of mental clarity. Alex kept pace with him, holding the sword at the side of his throat, a self-satisfied smile etched across his face.

Carter kept moving backward until the top of his calves hit a metal bench attached to the ledge. The end of the line. It wouldn’t be long now.

He glanced to his right. Zaheed had moved and now stood about fifteen feet from him, halfway down the southern lookout deck, out of the others’ line of sight. His MP5 remained trained on Carter’s head.

Alex adjusted the Drying Pole so that the tip of the blade pointed at Carter’s heart, now beating fast. Another surge of adrenalin pumped through his veins, causing him to tighten and then relax his muscles.

Some adrenalin was good. Too much drained your focus.

“Get onto the ledge,” Alex said.

Carter needed to play the game out as long as possible, so he continued to do as he was told.

Turning his back on Alex wasn’t an option, though. Carter placed his left foot on the metal bench and then his right, keeping his movements slow and deliberate.

At the northern end of the lookout Vivienne was slumped forward. Her body bent over her lap as though she couldn’t bear to watch.

His gaze searched out Erina.

She stood rigid. The other clansman still held the dagger at her throat. For the first time he read fear and doubt in her eyes.

Alex frowned and said, “I won’t tell you again.” He still held the point of the sword at Carter’s heart.

Carter used his hands to lift himself onto the nine-inch-wide ledge and sat there for a moment, thinking.

The storeroom no longer protected him from the gusting southerly wind. He was now at the mercy of the elements. He looked over his left shoulder at the three-hundred-foot drop to the ground. There was no escape that way. He turned back to Alex.

The smile had returned to his face. “Get on with it,” Alex said. “There’s no point trying to delay the inevitable.”

Carter took a slow breath, embracing the pain that ran through his body. He pulled his feet up onto the ledge and then slowly stood up, keeping his knees bent and his arms loose by his side.

“Lift them,” Alex said.

Carter raised his arms to shoulder height, making his position even more vulnerable.

He adjusted his right foot back, maintaining his balance, like he was riding a surfboard on a steep wave.

The sound of plastic flapping caused him to look up at the gun deck above the storeroom.

He couldn’t see directly onto it, but he glimpsed the black wings of what could only be a hang-glider. It explained how Alex intended to get off the pylon, save himself and most likely meet Samudra before the midnight fireworks.

Carter pulled himself up to his full height.

Alex held the Drying Pole in two hands pointing up at him.

Carter stared across the top of the polished sword into Alex’s dark brown eyes.

The clock in his head entered the final countdown.

Ten, nine, eight …

He took a slow breath in.

Alex moved one foot slightly backward, adjusted the angle of his sword and squared his shoulders. He swept the Drying Pole back with a dramatic flourish, gripping the handle tight.

His gaze dropped, signaling his intention.

He planned to cut Carter’s legs off at the knees.

Three, two, one.

The chorus from the Rolling Stones song “Street Fighting Man,” an anthem from Carter’s youth, blared at full volume from the phone lying on the deck.

His mother had played it when he was a kid. He’d always loved the lines about the sound of marching, charging feet and how the time was right for fighting in the street.

Alex’s eyes swung to the phone.

Carter was already in motion.

27

The “Street Fighting Man” chorus created the split-second opening Carter sought.

His thought processes accelerated and the world around him slowed. He felt a pure and total clarity.

He grabbed the star knife from under his left wetsuit sleeve and flung it at Zaheed to his right.

The Indonesian’s MP5 clattered on the ground. He clutched his right eye and collapsed backward.

Carter had already moved on.

As he whipped the other star knife from his right sleeve, he looked to his left and saw Erina stabbing the second clansman’s throat with his own dagger.

It had all happened in less than a second.

The chorus was still blaring as Alex swung back to face Carter, pulling his sword back behind his head in one swift, fluid motion, poised to strike at Carter’s legs.

Carter threw his arms forward, pushed off hard with his legs and leaped high over Alex’s head, tucking his knees underneath his chest.

The Drying Pole’s blade flashed close beneath his heels.

Carter hit the cement floor a few feet behind Alex, landing sideways and breaking the impact with his good arm before rolling onto his feet, a molten sea of agony surging through his battered body.

Alex spun around and faced him with the sword raised high over his head.

He started his forward strike.

But Carter was quicker.

He’d already flung the second star knife toward Alex.

The knife struck its target. One of the five blades buried itself in Alex’s exposed throat.

The Drying Pole and then Alex dropped to the ground.

Carter stood still, his breath coming hard and fast.

Alex lay on his back, holding his throat in an effort to stem the bleeding. He stared at Carter in a state of shock. His arrogance had given way to a look of bewildered disbelief.

The phone sounded another round of the “Street Fighting Man” chorus.

Carter picked up the Drying Pole, keeping his attention on Alex, and held the sword by his side. It felt light in his hand.

Behind him the phone went silent.

He looked around and saw Erina freeing Vivienne.

The clansman who’d been holding the dagger at her throat lay motionless on his back, almost certainly dead.

Carter moved to the southern end of the walkway and looked down to where Zaheed lay on his back, not moving. The life had drained out of his body. Carter checked for a pulse but was careful not to disturb Zaheed’s clothing. He and his mate were no doubt wired with explosives. This wasn’t over yet. Carter needed to get off the bridge and find Samudra before he could trigger the detonators.

He returned to Alex and knelt down beside his head. A pool of blood had spread out around his shoulders onto the wet cement.

Carter removed the star knife from his throat, then placed his hand over the jagged wound and applied downward pressure. He needed to find out where Samudra was.

Two sets of soft footsteps approached. Erina and Vivienne stopped at Alex’s feet.

Alex looked up at Carter and whispered, “You know I’ve been thinking about killing you every day for the last two years.”

“That was a waste of time,” Carter said.

“It kept me going.”

“Tell me where Samudra is.”

Blood dribbled from Alex’s mouth, which had twisted into a sneer. “You think I’d betray him to you? At least I have the satisfaction of knowing you failed and will be forced to live with the consequences.”

“Don’t worry,” Vivienne said to Carter. “I know where Samudra is and how to find him. I heard them talking on the phone downstairs. Alex has a GPS device on him with the coordinates set.”

Erina looked down at Alex. “You should be more careful when you talk on the phone. You never know who’s listening.”

“Fuck you,” Alex said.

His head dropped to one side but his dead eyes remained open, staring into the night as if trying to figure out where it had all gone wrong.

28

Erina, Vivienne and Carter stood over Alex’s body. They all needed a moment to gather themselves before facing what lay ahead.

Thanks to the adrenalin pumping through his veins, Carter barely registered any pain.

He had retrieved the palm GPS navigation device from Alex’s trouser pocket and held it in his left hand; the still thirsty Drying Pole, now returned to its scabbard, was in his right.

The sword would serve as a powerful reminder of what he’d been through and learned. He remembered the words of Miyamoto Musashi, the great samurai who had defeated the sword’s original owner, Sasaki Kojiro, in a famous bout between the two men on an island off Japan. Musashi had said the only difference between himself and Kojiro was that he used his sword not to conquer the world but rather to advance his spirit. Musashi had used his fighting skills only to perfect his craft and serve others.

Carter looked up into the dark sky. Alex’s blade had passed a hair’s breadth from his body. It could so easily have been him lying on the cold, wet cement, or broken and twisted at the foot of the pylon.

He didn’t necessarily believe in fate or destiny, but he acknowledged the karmic logic of the universe, of cause and effect. Now the fight was over, Alex’s death appeared inevitable.

Carter glanced at Erina, then at Vivienne, both lost in their own thoughts.

He looked down and saw the scowl on Alex’s lifeless face. It revealed the bitter fruit of such an existence — a hollow life and a lonely death.

Alex had abandoned the principles of the order and become driven by ego and the fulfilment of desire, his decline hastened by his use of heavy drugs. Carter had seen the man unravel bit by bit, his soul corrupted by a life of hedonism and the pursuit of his own interest at the expense of others.

Carter recognized the parallels with his own life.

He had allowed his desire for Erina to consume him until he sought to control her, and had been frustrated when she denied him that control. He’d shown Thomas not the love and respect he deserved but pride and anger, rejecting his authority not because it was unjust, but because Thomas asked him to put the order’s interests ahead of his own.

He’d walked away from the problems confronting him rather than facing them.

He’d abandoned the people who loved him and relied on him and instead pursued his own selfish ends.

He’d given up his spiritual beliefs and practices and sought oblivion in physical sensation.

He knew now that he had made the wrong decision. His world had become narrower since leaving the order, and he’d suffered a deep and unshakable unease, almost a sickness, that had only ever been momentarily appeased by the surf.

He was caught in the turbulence of the spiritual no man’s land created by his ego, and eventually he would drown. If he wanted to avoid Alex’s fate, the only way out was to return to the order. By submitting, by allowing himself to be guided by its principles, he could transcend the chaotic waves of the material world and reach calm water. He could know peace.

A surprising wave of compassion for Alex washed through him.

He leaned forward and closed Alex’s eyes.

29

Five minutes later Carter stood on the gun deck, strapped into the harness of Alex’s hang-glider, facing the wind. The flexible black wings fluttered above his head, pulling at him as if an unseen force was impatient to pluck him from the earth.

Vivienne and Erina stood on either side of the glider. They held the struts in place against the wind, ensuring Carter remained earthbound long enough to make a final check of everything before lifting off.

He’d taped two high-powered bombs made up of C4 explosives from his pack to its nose, turning the simple hang-glider into a flying kamikaze missile.

The C4 consisted of explosive chemicals and a plastic binder substance; he’d molded it into a couple of oval balls the size of a small bread roll and then embedded a detonator cap in their hearts. The jury-rigged bombs would detonate on impact.

Erina held Alex’s GPS device in front of him at eye level.

A blinking red light flashed on the screen, marking a point off Watsons Bay near Sydney Heads, roughly four miles from the bridge.

That’s where he expected to find Samudra.

“The light hasn’t moved,” Erina said.

“Good.”

She stuck the palm computer into a side pocket of his daypack and zipped it up.

“You’ll call Watto?” he said.

“You don’t need to worry about things at this end,” she told him. “Vivienne and I will take care of it. You take care of Samudra.”

He pressed the button on the side of Alex’s bluetooth earpiece and heard a dial tone. The earpiece and Alex’s phone were now synced, and tucked into the neck of his wetsuit. Samudra would, he suspected, call at any minute to check in with Alex.

As a final preparation Carter made sure the night-vision binoculars hanging around his neck were secure. Then he pulled the daypack tight against his body and clasped the roll of duct tape in the side pocket to make sure it was still there.

A fresh gust of wind surged in his face.

It was 11.40 p.m.

“All set,” Erina said. “Now get this done.”

“Will do. See you next year. You know where I’ll be.”

She reached out her free hand, still holding onto the strut with the other, and squeezed his shoulder. “That’s a date.”

He nodded at Vivienne, who smiled for the first time and said, “Take the motherfucker down, Carter.”

Still holding onto the controls with his left hand, he gave them a thumbs up with his right.

Time to go.

Vivienne and Erina released the struts.

The strong southerly lifted the wings.

He gripped the steering bar as tightly as he could, held his breath and clenched his stomach muscles to counter the waves of pain stabbing through his ribs.

Then he took three steps forward and leaped into the abyss.

The hang-glider surged high above the pylon. Two seagulls, lit up by the lights from the bridge, hovered alongside, appearing to take a sympathetic interest in him.

He leaned forward on the controls, pointing the hang-glider’s nose toward the dark waters below. His injured arm hung by his side.

For half a second the man-made apparatus quivered in the air as if making up its mind what to do. Then it lurched forward and plunged down, a black flying ghost.

He didn’t look back.

30

Roughly three hundred and fifty feet below Carter, twenty-three-year-old Youssef bin Hassan, dressed in green overalls and wearing a Lakers baseball cap, drove the diesel truck marked Rapid Transfer into the underground Sydney Harbour Tunnel, heading toward the city’s northern suburbs.

His boyhood friend Faisel Aman sat in the passenger seat wearing matching overalls and cap. They travelled in silence.

They’d joined the Lakemba cell a year ago. This was their first and last important assignment. They’d been told to wait in the truck until midnight, when the bombs inside would detonate.

Death held no fear for Youssef.

He and Faisel would die as heroes for Allah, bringing honor to their families. They’d receive their reward in the afterlife and spend eternity enjoying the fruits of paradise.

On reaching the first breakdown bay, Youssef pulled over to the left as instructed and turned the hazard lights on. They stepped out of the truck and placed seven orange witch’s hats around the vehicle at regular intervals.

They got back into the front seat. Youssef typed a text into his phone: Have reached target.

He pressed send.

The reply came back a minute later from Samudra. Good work. Allah akbar.

31

Carter stalled the glider so that it hovered about three hundred feet from Watsons Bay, toward the far eastern end of Sydney Harbour, close to Sydney Heads and the open sea. The wind blew into his face from the south-east.

He looked down at the dark waters a hundred and fifty feet below and then over his shoulder at the bright lights of Sydney. The only sound was the vibration of the wings.

For a moment he wondered how many people would be awake, sitting in front of their television sets waiting for the midnight fireworks, hoping it would signal the beginning of better things for the new year.

He shrugged the thought off, hooked his wounded arm under the steering bar and extracted Alex’s palm computer from the daypack with his other hand.

The blinking light was in the same spot, marking a point halfway between the Watsons Bay shoreline and South Head, where he could see a fleet of around fifty pleasure craft gathered in the lee of a headland reserve.

He returned the computer to its pocket in his daypack, brought the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the fleet.

Samudra would choose a position on the edge of the other boats, most likely the closest to Sydney Heads, to facilitate an easy getaway.

The furthest boat to the north of the fleet was a shabby-looking cabin cruiser rolling with the gentle swell.

He focused the high-powered binoculars on two men standing in the bow.

Bingo.

They were Indonesian. One of them was Samudra, dialing a number on a cell phone.

If Samudra stuck to his schedule, he wouldn’t be detonating the bombs until midnight.

However, if Alex or his men had failed to meet a prearranged reporting deadline, it might spook him into striking prematurely — making whatever Carter did too late to stop him.

Samudra put the phone to his ear.

Alex’s cell phone started vibrating under the wetsuit against Carter’s chest, just below his neck.

He checked the time.

Ten minutes to midnight.

He ignored it. He wanted to hold off making contact until he was in his final dive.

After four more rings it fell silent.

Carter lined up the midsection of Samudra’s launch with the armed nose of the glider, pointing the man-made bird toward the ugly craft at a forty-five-degree angle. The hang-glider quivered for a moment in the darkness and then dropped into its final dive.

A bolt of energy surged from the center of his hara and he let out a deep “haah,” his version of a battle cry.

He grabbed the roll of duct tape and lashed the controls into place with one arm, breaking the tape off with his teeth.

Satisfied the hang-glider was locked onto its target, he lifted the binoculars to his eyes for the final time.

An enlarged image of Samudra’s normally smiling face stared straight at him. A nasty scowl twisted his features, but there was no look of recognition — not yet.

He’d probably seen the glider, expecting Alex. When the phone failed to answer, he’d most likely suspected something was amiss.

Carter saw Samudra take the phone out of his pocket and dial once more.

Alex’s phone vibrated against his chest again.

Carter took out the phone and pressed answer on the third ring, keeping the binoculars trained on Samudra.

“Abdul-Aleem,” Samudra barked. “What’s going on?”

Carter said nothing.

“Are you there?” Samudra said, his voice urgent. “Is that you on the hang-glider?”

Silence hung over the phone line. A drop of rain spat in Carter’s face.

“Alex is dead,” he said.

“What? Who is this?”

“Carter.”

“It can’t be.”

“Afraid so.” Carter paused to let the information sink in. “Don’t even think about hanging up and dialing the number,” he said. “I’m on the hang-glider and you’re lined up in the night scope of my sniper rifle.”

Samudra lifted his head and stared at the glider.

“I can see you clearly,” Carter said. “You just lifted your head. Make one wrong move and you’re dead. So is the man next to you.”

He saw Samudra peer into the night, holding the phone in his left hand. It was too dark for him to make out whether Carter carried a rifle.

“You start dialing, I start shooting,” Carter said. “Drop the phone. I don’t miss.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Try me.”

A gust of wind caused the glider to accelerate.

The nose of the makeshift missile was perfectly lined up with the midsection of the launch, less than twenty yards away.

Would Samudra choose self-preservation over jihad? Carter would have to wait to find out. He unclipped the harness and pushed himself away from the struts, letting himself drop toward the water. Whatever was meant to happen would happen. He’d done all he could.

32

Carter plunged into the cool water and kicked and stroked to propel himself toward the bottom of the harbor.

After a few seconds the water shook and churned violently.

Carter had no idea how Samudra had responded to the dilemma he had posed. Had he dialed the number to detonate the explosives or dived over the side to save himself?

He’d bet on the latter.

A giant watery hand grabbed hold of him and thrust him even deeper underwater.

He relaxed and went with it.

There was no use fighting.

Less than four seconds later the water stopped moving.

Carter stroked and kicked upward until his head burst through the surface.

Sucking in a lungful of air, he stared at where the launch had been.

The hang-glider had made a direct hit. All that remained on the surface were fragments of floating plastic and wood.

A couple of the other boats in the fleet had capsized and several more had rammed into each other.

People were yelling and waving their arms. Some were inexplicably cheering. Thankfully no one appeared to be seriously injured.

Fifty feet away he spotted a lone figure swimming toward shore using a cross between a frantic freestyle and a dog paddle.

Samudra.

He’d opted to jump overboard rather than dial the number, choosing to save himself rather than die a martyr’s death. His rhetoric had proved hollow when put to the ultimate test.

Carter started swimming toward him, his gaze never leaving the back of his head.

Samudra was no swimmer. He thrashed his arms and made slow progress. Even one-armed, Carter caught him in a dozen strokes.

Samudra turned and faced him, defiant. Treading water seemed an effort for him; his arms splashed about as he struggled to keep his head above water.

“You cannot harm me,” he said. “You have no idea of my power. If you lift a finger against me, God will strike you dead.”

“Let’s put that theory to the test, shall we?”

“If it’s money you want, I’ll give you whatever you ask. Name your price.”

“I don’t have a price.”

Carter kicked hard and strong, propelling his torso out of the water, reaching out with his arm and putting his hand on the crown of Samudra’s head.

A look of alarm and indignation crossed Samudra’s face. He swung one arm in the air, trying to swat Carter’s hand away, with no effect.

Carter gripped his hair and held him at arm’s length.

“I’m warning you in the name of Allah,” Samudra said. “No matter how hard you try, you cannot defy the will of God. Djoran tried to do that and for his efforts I slit his miserable throat.”

“You fucking arsehole.”

Carter allowed grief and anger to well up inside him, allowed himself to feel them.

“You cannot defy God’s will,” Samudra said.

“No man can know what God’s will is,” Carter said. “But I know what it’s not.”

He kicked his legs harder, pushing his torso further out of the water, and forced Samudra’s head under, holding him down using every ounce of his weight.

Samudra kicked and thrashed, trying to grab Carter’s arm and break his grip, but Carter was far too strong.

Forty seconds passed.

The thrashing subsided, growing weaker, and then finally stopped.

From down the harbor Carter heard the distant roar of the crowd counting down the new year.

Four, three, two …

Horns and whistles sounded.

Carter held his breath. Samudra might’ve dialed the number before he jumped.

He still held the man’s head underwater.

A distant explosion rocked the night.

He looked down the harbor toward the bridge.

A dazzling spiral of white light flashed above it.

Then, after a brief pause, another set of explosions erupted.

The skyline was flooded with every color of the rainbow, throwing myriad multicoloured reflections on the water.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge stood firm.

Amid the mayhem people were clapping and cheering.

He heard the opening line of “Auld Lang Syne”: “Should old acquaintance be forgot …”

He thought of his friend Jacko, of Muklas, Wayan and Djoran.

They’d all shown ultimate courage in playing their role. Any success he’d had that night was founded on their sacrifice.

The ugly truth was not everyone made it home.

Another explosion rocked the night.

The Harbour Bridge erupted with showers of dazzling pink, green, purple, red and orange.

Waves of sparkling silver stars shot into the night, exploding with bursts of color.

A moment of quiet darkness followed. Then, as if out of nowhere, two bright pink hearts burst in front of the bridge, surrounded by an orb of golden light.

Blue lights spelt out one word.

LOVE.

He released Samudra’s head, and his lifeless body floated to the surface and drifted away.

33

Carter trod water, watching the spotlight from the police launch speed across the harbor toward him.

Erina stood in the bow, composed but smiling.

The launch swerved and slowed to a halt, sending a bow wave of broken water toward him, lifting him up and then dropping him down gently.

Erina, still dressed in her wetsuit, climbed onto the gunnels and dived into the harbor.

She disappeared under the water and surfaced a few feet from him, pushing the hair out of her eyes.

He swam toward her and, with one arm, gathered her around the waist.

They bobbed up and down with the gentle swell, locked in each other’s embrace and cocooned in their own private world.

She kissed him gently on the lips. “We got it done.”

“At a cost.”

“It’s who we are.”

“I know.”

He held her tight.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too, Russell Carter.”