THE BROTHERHOOD

by Steve Jovanoski

  ‘Well, there’s this technical bunch in the UK called Softbreach. They test all sorts of programs for possible weaknesses in programming codes, once claiming to have exploited a weakness in Oracle’s password protection system. I’ll have to get their report but it had something to do with the algorithm.’

  ‘Can you get your hands on it?’

  ‘Yeah, they publish all their findings on the internet so it shouldn’t be a problem. Any internet cafe will do.’

  ‘We’re leaving.’ Bill got up and grabbed his jacket. ‘Jimmy, can you come over here for a sec, mate?’

  ‘Yeah, what’s up?’ Jimmy came in, glad to be distracted from the needy Doreen.

  ‘We need the car to disappear. It sticks out like dogs’ balls and the cops would love to get their hands on it. We need an urgent replacement.’

  Jimmy shoved his hand in his pocket and took out a set of keys. ‘Here’s your ride,’ he said and handed them over.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Overwhelmed and embarrassed by his friend’s generosity, Bill looked at the Ford keyring. It was an old Falcon XY and discreet enough to get them around without being noticed.

  ‘I can do without it, mate,’ Jimmy said. ‘I hardly drive the thing anyway. Leave that sad excuse for a car of yours here. I’ll gladly get rid of it for ya.’ Knowing Jimmy, it would probably end up on the bottom of a lake and that was fine by Bill.

  ‘Thanks, Jimmy. I owe you one. Say goodbye to Doreen for me.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, get the fuck outta here and don’t come back black-eyed again. You’ll scare the kid.’

  Aazim thanked Jimmy again and they headed off to the car.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Aazim asked.

  ‘Shopping.’ Bill turned on the ignition and the old XY grunted into life.

  Chapter 16

  ‘The situation is most unsatisfactory!’ Sam slammed a folded newspaper on the bench between them without making eye contact or turning. It was a cool morning, and apart from the odd jogger they had the park to themselves.

  ‘I’m not bloody happy about it either,’ Barry snarled.

  ‘When I pay for a commission I expect it to be carried out.’

  ‘I’ll bury the maggots. This one’s on the house and it will be a pleasure.’

  ‘I have no interest in personal vendettas, Mr Donovan. You should’ve finished the job when you had them in custody. I need to know if you’re capable of handling the situation.’

  Sam’s men kept a close distance behind, vigilant and ready for action at his bidding, much to Barry’s discomfort.

  ‘As I said, they will be terminated,’ Barry replied through gritted teeth. He took off his hat and surveyed the surrounding area as if scanning for a kill, despising the subjugated position in which he found himself. He was usually the one dishing out the insults, but now Sam was returning the favour by making a point of his blunder. Underestimating Bill had been dangerous. Agents never stopped being agents even long after they hung up their spook coats; their training was ingrained and became part of their DNA.

  ‘How do you propose to do it?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Thanks to your brethren, we have a new provision in our anti-terror laws called shoot to kill.’ Barry smirked at the irony of talking about terrorists while sitting next to Sam. ‘As of today, every law-enforcement officer in the country will be on the lookout for two dangerous terrorists, responsible for the murder of ASIO agents.’

  ‘What if they flee the country?’

  ‘It’s a possibility and it wouldn’t be a problem for Bill to get fake passports, but a worldwide sanction is on his head, I made sure of it. No, he won’t run. I know Bill. He’ll try to get that data again. He knows it’s their only chance of staying alive.’

  ‘It won’t be possible for him to get it,’ Sam said, ‘because the building’s tightly secured. But I welcome the challenge.’

  ‘He’s a stubborn bastard. I wouldn’t be surprised if he does try something.’ Barry concluded the conversation with a snorting laugh, put on his hat and grabbed the newspaper, which contained a thick yellow envelope between the pages, and walked off. The money and information in the envelope was enough to keep him satisfied for now.

  From time to time Sam revealed to Barry insignificant terrorist cells that had a loose link with Australia, and in return Barry turned a blind eye to Sam’s local operation. As long as Sam didn’t finance terror attacks on Australian soil The Brotherhood for Justice had a safe base.

  Sam allowed himself to briefly ponder the future. Soon he would conclude his relationship with Barry by supplying the Australian agent with details of all leading members of The Brotherhood. Their way of thinking was outdated, Sam believed, and they held no vision for the future. For his future. He was tired of being told his ideas were dangerous, and tired of being at their beck and call. Over the years his resentment towards them had escalated, and he believed the old fools did nothing but give ineffective orders. The Brotherhood he’d joined all those years ago was a shadow of its former past, no longer devising relevant impacts on the world stage. They had to be retired and Barry was Sam’s tool to achieve this.

  Once the leaders had been disposed of Sam would have the ultimate power to realise his long-held dream of reviving the khilafah, the Muslim caliphate. The world would be placed under a single ruler, and an Islamic superstate that hadn’t existed since the Ottoman Empire would come into being. The Muslim world would awaken from its slumber and re-establish its authority. Sam sighed with pleasure as he contemplated his destiny.

  When Bill asked for Aazim’s credit card to pay for their new clothes he had to explain his reasoning over Aazim’s protests. Not only did he want to replace their stale and sweaty apparel, more importantly he intended to leave a misleading trail behind them, and when they made the transaction the closer their proximity to Aust Global Fund the better. Barry’s men would pick up the trail and be diverted away from their real intentions: the Ballarat data centre. They made payment, changed into their new clothes and hastily drove out of the city, knowing it wouldn’t take long before agents got to the area.

  ‘Two more stops, Az, and we’re heading off to Ballarat. We’ll find you an internet cafe but first let’s visit Lenni.’

  ‘Who’s Lenni?’

  ‘Someone I arrested while on surveillance. He loves to play with technology, much like you actually.’

  ‘What, a computer geek?’

  ‘Nah, mate, technologically advanced.’

  ‘Very funny. Why did you arrest him?’

  ‘He bought himself a miniature camera on eBay and made “upskirt videos” to sell on the internet. He built the camera into his shoe and walked around the city looking for pretty young things with short skirts.’

  ‘A pervert? I didn’t think it was in your area of expertise.’

  ‘I came across him by chance when I was tracking a suspect. He was loitering and I had him arrested. Just a kid doing something dumb, so I scared him a bit and let him off with a warning.’

  What Bill didn’t tell Aazim was that Lenni’s knowledge of technology and mechanical devices was extraordinary. He could dismantle any device handed to him and reassemble it with remarkable precision. His skills made him valuable, so Bill kept him close – a secret he withheld from the agency. Any contraption the agency scientists couldn’t supply for Bill, Lenni could. Bill paid for his services but he loved what Lenni did and didn’t fuss about the money. These days he kept in touch to make sure he was up to date with his lock-picking tools.

  ‘Hello, Lenni, it’s your cousin here.’ Bill used coded language when dealing with Lenni over the phone. He told him it was to confuse anyone listening but he really did it to make the boy feel part of something important and secretive. He never discussed his job but Lenni always seemed to know too much for his own good. Sometimes Bill wondered if he had ASIO bugged.

  ‘Long time no hear, cuz. A lot of interesting people are looking for you,’ Lenni said. ‘It seems you’ve been kicked out of the clu
b and the manager’s on the prowl. I heard you messed up some of his bouncers too.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything you hear, cousin.’

  ‘That I don’t. Interested in anything new?’

  ‘Yes, something that’ll get me in and out of a box. The one I need to open doesn’t have a key and the owner isn’t available to provide the magic word. I need to open it myself.’

  Bill heard Lenni shuffling through some papers and the sound of opening and closing drawers.

  ‘I’ve got just the thing,’ Lenni said. ‘I’ll be interested to know how well it works.’

  Lenni rented a house close to a busy freeway. He told Bill he found the automotive sounds soothing, like waves breaking onto the shore. The house had no distinguishing features that set it apart from his neighbours. Its dull facade and worn-out veneer was a common sight in this suburban sprawl, but inside was another story. Mechanical devices clicked and clanked, and the walls were decorated with metal trinkets and other appliance parts. The guts of a microwave was spread on the dining table, plasma screens rested on a wall, a box of old motherboards crowded the kitchen table, and everywhere were screws, memory chips, hard disks, electrical motors, tools, clocks, locks and mobile phones. A grey cat meowed and rubbed past Bill’s leg as it made its way down the hall, the only companion Lenni had that wasn’t made out of wires and metal.

  ‘Please, take a seat,’ Lenni offered jokingly. There was no room for them to move let alone find a spot for their rear ends. He had dark rings around his eyes like those of a shift worker. Shy and practised at avoiding eye contact, he was constantly fidgeting and seemed uneasy in the presence of other human beings.

  ‘That’s okay, buddy, we’ll be quick,’ Bill said.

  ‘What kind of a security system is it?’

  ‘A high-grade electronic keypad entry.’

  Lenni excused himself and left the room.

  While they waited, Aazim inspected the house and its intricacies. He couldn’t even make out what some devices resembled. Lenni came back in holding something yellow in his hands. Half the device, which looked like a plastic torch, consisted of a round grip handle with buttons, and on the other half was a smooth rectangular box displaying a miniature video screen. At the tip of the device was a lens like that of a video camera, about twenty-five centimetres in length. The handle was five centimetres in diameter and the box twice that.

  ‘This is a portable micro-bolometer thermal-imaging camera. It displays an uncooled picture of a key code entry,’ Lenni said. Seeing the blank faces, he elaborated. ‘Say a person enters a security code into a keypad and heat transfers from that human contact onto the individual keys. That contact is significant enough to leave a thermal imprint on those keys and remain there long enough for it to be captured.’

  ‘Is that the display screen?’ Bill looked closer at the imaging screen.

  ‘Yep.’ Lenni switched it on and the screen lit up, picking up thermal images in front of it. ‘A split-second contact is enough. You can capture and freeze the data up to ten metres away, or hover over the pad after the person leaves. It’ll still pick up the heat signatures.’

  ‘How will you know the sequence of digits?’ Aazim asked.

  ‘As heat dissipates the imprints get fainter – the ones with lower heat reading are pressed earlier than others.’ Lenni asked Bill to point the camera at the safe while he entered a four-digit code in the keypad. Each imprint was clearly visible and each key displayed a different level of heat dissipation to the other. It allowed Bill to enter the correct sequence and the safe door snapped open. It was impressive; the safe was industrial grade with rubber keys.

  ‘How much?’ Bill asked, examining the thermogram on the screen displaying temperature, distance and other measurements he couldn’t make sense of.

  ‘Commercially available for ten grand, but you can have it for five. The return on investment can potentially be enormous, don’t you think?’

  Bill took a wad of cash from his jacket. ‘You can count it if you want.’

  Aazim’s mouth gaped at the sight of the cash.

  ‘If I can’t trust my own cousin then who can I trust?’ Lenni said, his eyes gleaming.

  Once they were back in the car, Aazim let Bill have it. ‘You had all that cash and you made me use my credit card to buy all those clothes?’

  ‘As I explained to you, we had to use it. They have to think we’re still in the city.’

  Aazim smirked at Bill. ‘Where did you get it anyway? You don’t exactly look like the businessman of the year.’

  ‘Compliments of your boss. He paid me twenty grand upfront and I stashed it in the car. Safer than my office.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It is if you know where to put it and only I could start that clunker. Now let’s find the internet.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘Assalamu alaikum, Saeed.’ It had been a while since Sam had returned to the mosque as urgent matters were demanding his attention.

  ‘Alaikum assalam, brother. Let us find ourselves a more comfortable seating.’ Sam greeted the old man and they entered the mosque’s private room where they sat on the floor cross-legged.

  ‘I always enjoy coming to Australia but the flight is rather tiresome,’ the old man said, smiling politely.

  Sam had expected a new messenger but instead he’d been greeted by an old cleric, the one The Brotherhood sent to smooth over delicate situations. ‘What brings you here, brother?’ Sam asked. The visit was unexpected and had taken him by surprise.

  ‘I wanted to see how things are progressing and if there’s anything you need. Recent developments have caused concern amongst The Brotherhood and we feel we have somewhat neglected your needs.’

  ‘I assure you there’s nothing to be concerned about. I have matters under control and the two will be disposed of …’

  ‘Inshallah. We don’t doubt you, Sam, but this is a matter concerning one of our brothers.’

  ‘Please continue.’

  ‘We know you’re looking for him in Lebanon, are you not? It’s unfortunate you haven’t told The Brotherhood.’

  ‘I assure you, I work in the best interests of The Brotherhood.’ Sam was getting annoyed. ‘Besides, it’s a small matter and I didn’t think it necessary to bother you with it.’

  ‘Please, brother Saeed, don’t take it the wrong way. You are one of our most proficient soldiers. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Unfortunately, no. My informants haven’t been able to locate him.’ His admission felt humiliating and he couldn’t work out where the cleric’s uncomfortable probing was heading. He had to be careful.

  With a sigh the cleric continued, looking aggrieved. ‘We believe he is no longer in Lebanon. He has been sighted in Cairo.’

  ‘La afham.’ I don’t understand. ‘Why has The Brotherhood taken such an interest in him?’

  ‘We are concerned he may try to …’ – the cleric chose his words carefully – ‘confront the teacher and cause him harm.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Discreetly observing the worshippers around him, Sam felt exposed.

  ‘Well, as you know, when the teacher came here he spent some time with our Muslim brother. Their days in Lebanon had made them close.’

  ‘Yes, I vaguely recall one such meeting.’ He remembered it quite well: a private congregation had been organised between the two and Sam had been snubbed.

  ‘They had some disagreements, as you know, and the teacher tried to convince him not to leave The Brotherhood. He was about to do the unthinkable, but you cannot abandon a way of life.’ The cleric was getting upset and took a moment to calm himself. ‘A short time later a very unfortunate incident took place. His wife was killed in a car accident.’

  ‘Yes, that was unfortunate,’ Sam agreed sombrely.

  ‘Indeed, he blames us for it and seeks revenge.’ The cleric’s eyes were pools of worry. ‘The teacher forbade anyone to harm him or any member of his family. It is not our way; that is how e
nemies are made.’

  ‘He is a wise and forgiving man.’

  ‘Indeed he is. Forgive me if I seem insolent by what I am about to ask you, brother. Did you have anything to do with it?’

  ‘His wife’s death? I assure you I did not, brother. Allah is my witness and may thunder strike me where I stand if I am lying.’ Sam was stunned by the cleric’s bluntness. The Brotherhood’s attention was a revelation and the directness of the question greatly concerned him. A subtle warning was being delivered: he was being noticed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Saeed, but I had to ask. The teacher wants a clear conscience if he has to condemn a grieving man to his fate.’ The old cleric stood up and said goodbye. ‘Ma’assalama.’

  ‘Fi aman Allah,’ said Sam.

  Old men and hypocrites, he thought as he watched the cleric waddle out of the room with his minders. He took their stance on non-violence with a grain of salt, surprised they hadn’t asked him to dispose of Ilias. He had to be vigilant. They were a shrewd bunch and could become a real problem if the slightest of suspicion was raised in his work.

  Bill purposely chose the Click and Surf internet cafe just off the Western Freeway so they wouldn’t waste any time getting to Ballarat. Aazim hopped on one of the computers to search for the Softbreach report while Bill scanned the patrons around them. He figured a backpacker hostel was nearby – a couple of rugged Europeans with dreadlocks were speaking in broken English to the waitress. They held a map and asked for directions while arguing with each other in Dutch. Postcards on the walls from around the world added to the colourful decor and an array of foreign currency was displayed beneath a glass bar-top.

  Aazim was quickly immersed in a Google search, opening page after page of technical jargon. It was his territory and it felt good to be doing something he knew.

  ‘Found anything yet?’ Bill hung over him impatiently.

  ‘Nope, I’m still looking.’

  ‘I’ll get us a coffee.’

  Time seemed to drag and Bill got restless. ‘Any progress?’

  ‘Bill, I need time. I don’t even know some of the terminology I’m reading. I have to learn it as I go and it’s not easy with you distracting me.’