THE BROTHERHOOD (22 page)

‘There it is.’ Aazim sighed in relief. A seemingly endless list of transaction records revealed names of businesses, companies, banks, financiers, phantom charity groups, miscellaneous Middle Eastern traders, and aliases for known terrorist organisations, along with the money deposited into their accounts and extracted without a trace. A trail that led all over the world, the bulk of it concentrated in regions known for corrupt governments and conflict zones.

‘Whoa … is this what I think it is?’

‘It isn’t anything, Lenni. Don’t mess around with it. Make those copies and we’re out of here,’ Bill ordered.

‘It’s all of it?’ Lenni raised his voice in excitement.

‘Yes, but you don’t have to print out all the data,’ Aazim said. ‘We just need enough to make a point. Convert the rest to word-processor format so we don’t have to use Oracle, then we can view it on any computer.’

Bill saw a shadow in the corner of his eye and reached into his jacket.

‘Stay right there, Bill.’

The nozzle of a gun came into view from a dark doorway and gradually the man holding it was revealed. They all stared at the heavyset figure pointing the gun in their direction, panic instantly gripping Aazim.

‘Do you have it?’ Barry said to Lenni.

‘Yes, all the databases are here,’ Lenni said as the printer aligned and jumped into action.

‘Oh, Lenni! What have you done?’ Bill exclaimed. ‘Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve told you?’

The boy couldn’t meet his eye. ‘Sorry, Bill, but it’s like you said, I should be a millionaire by now and this is worth a lot of money.’

‘You have no idea what you’ve done, you dumb fool.’

‘That’s enough, Bill.’ Barry was enjoying the moment and couldn’t keep the smile off his face, but he was in a hurry.

‘How did he get to you, Lenni?’ Bill asked.

‘I didn’t get to him, you arsehole,’ Barry sneered, ‘he came to me. Your little friend here is very clever. Why have you kept him to yourself all this time?’

‘I knew something big was up when you guys came so I –’ Lenni stammered.

‘You used the scanner again, didn’t you?’ Bill said.

‘No, I caught onto Barry’s mobile conversation to some guy by accident,’ Lenni replied, looking a little shamefaced.

‘I slacked off and used a mobile phone instead of encrypted lines,’ Barry said. ‘Just when you guys slipped out of my hands the light shone from the heavens and sent me a text message,’ he added smugly.

‘You’ve just killed us all, you idiot!’ Aazim yelled at the pale-faced Lenni.

‘It’s not like that! He promised me he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He just wants the databases.’

Barry chuckled loudly, relishing the fear he instilled by his presence. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes as he screwed a silencer on the gun and calmed himself. ‘You should’ve listened to your friends.’ He fired three shots and Lenni fell back, splattering blood and flesh across the wall.

Bill kicked the computer desk and the lamp fell to the floor, shattering on impact. Darkness enveloped the house and white flashes from the gunfire lit the room. It lasted only a few seconds when a heavy thud followed the deafening sound of Bill’s gun. The firefight ended and the room fell silent.

Aazim’s ears were ringing as he lay flat on the floor, eyes wide open in search of movement. There was a gurgling sound and feet shuffling on carpet but he couldn’t work out where it was coming from. A noise nearby caught his attention. He stared into the darkness and lay as still as a stunned rabbit hypnotised by headlights. With a flick of a switch the room lit up. Aazim’s eyes refocused and he saw Bill standing with a trained gun.

‘Are you okay?’ Bill asked.

Aazim gathered his bearings and got to his feet. ‘Yeah, I think so.’ He patted his body just to make sure.

The room was filled with the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder, and fragments of shattered debris were strewn across the floor. The gurgling sound came again and now Aazim could see the shuffling feet. Barry lay on the floor, his head against the wall, blood dribbling from his mouth and oozing out of two cavities in his chest. The bullets had penetrated his lungs and filled them with blood. Breathing was a struggle and he writhed in pain.

‘Check the printout and make a soft copy,’ Bill said.

Aazim moved to the computer desk and made a conscious effort not to look at Lenni’s lifeless body slumped in a heap on the fallen chair beside him. His fingers worked frantically on the keyboard and the printer continued spewing out paper.

Bill turned to face the man who’d cursed his life, the shadowy figure pulling strings from behind closed doors who was now sprawled on a cold bare floor. A puppet whose strings had been cut, now lying damaged and discarded. Aazim was yelling something but Bill didn’t register the words. His entire being was focused on Barry, their eyes locked in an exchange of hatred. Bill’s knuckles were turning white from his grip on the gun, and his hands were shaking as he tried to stop himself from pulling the trigger .

‘You don’t have the balls,’ Bill wheezed. ‘I was right about you in Jakarta and I’m right about you now.’ Blood rose from his throat to choke him, but he continued regardless. ‘You’ll manage to stuff up again.’

Bill stared at his nemesis and finally answered, ‘We’ll get to that in a minute. First tell me what Sam’s up to.’ Enforcing his point, he pressed the nozzle of the gun against Barry’s forehead. ‘Where is Saeed?’ Bill raised his foot and found a new resting spot on Barry’s chest, prompting a coughing fit. ‘What’s his role in The Brotherhood?’

Barry clenched his jaw. ‘You shit, you’re a dead man.’

‘Not from where I’m standing.’ Bill pressed harder on the bloodied chest, and he realised that, ironically, Barry’s thick layers of fat served to clog the bleeding, saving his life.

‘He’s their money man, you stupid bastard,’ Barry spat, breaking under the unbearable pain. ‘When they build a cell he’s sent in to organise their finances.’

‘Sam’s the accountant who builds them a private bank,’ Bill said, thinking aloud.

‘You have no idea how big this is. His clients trade in commodities like in a stock exchange and money is a means to manpower. It all happens on the backbone of SWIFT. Aust Global Fund is just a filter plugged into it: dirty money goes in and clean money comes out.’

‘His customers pay a fee, The Brotherhood gets their money, and crime syndicates get their laundry cleaned.’

‘There’ll always be crime, Bill, and there’ll always be terrorists,’ Barry muttered. ‘Controlling them is better than shutting them down. So what if a dollar trickled my way? These people don’t even care about money. They’re so obsessed with religious crap they’ll stone their own mothers in the name of Allah.’ A crooked smile exposed his red-stained gums.

‘The Brotherhood invests in blood and someone always pays. You’re working for them, Barry – what did it take to sell your oath and spit on the ground you swore to protect?’

‘You self-righteous bastard. I’ve seen your record so don’t play the pious one,’ Barry snarled.

‘You and I switched teams a long time ago. Where is Sam? I’m not asking you again.’

‘How the fuck should I know? I left him at the mosque. I don’t work for him, I control him. I
control
him, Bill.’

‘You dumb bastard. Do you really believe that?’

‘I know everything that goes on,
everything
. They can have their cell but no Australian citizen is to be targeted. We had to compromise, it’s in our interest.’

‘No, it’s in
your
interest, just like it was in Jakarta. You’ve given them absolute freedom to set up an entire financial system. They have endless funds to tap into across the globe and you think you have the power to control something that big? You think you’re controlling them because no bombs have exploded in Australia?’ Bill laughed blackly, anger tightening his body like a screw.

‘I have you to thank for this, Bill.’

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘The Brotherhood report you did a few years ago …’ Barry took small breaths and continued. ‘Oh, you remember. It nearly ended up in the trash before I read it.’

‘You made contact with Sam and the bombing in Jakarta was all your doing, wasn’t it?’ Bill’s body slumped in response to what he’d just figured out. He’d always suspected Barry had been withholding vital information on the Jakarta bombing but never to this extent. In some way he felt relieved. Finally it was in the open.

‘The Indonesian officer was crooked. An arms dealer selling weapons to Jemaah Islamiyah, for fuck’s sake. They killed eighty-eight Australians in Bali, remember? Sam wanted the competition eliminated and we got rid of a threat.’

‘You used ASIO illegally to glorify your success, advance your career and receive funds from a known terrorist.’ Cold sweat ran down Bill’s face, his eyes stony.

‘You have no evidence of that,’ Barry grunted.

Bill took his foot off the big man’s chest and cocked the trigger.

‘Bill, take a look at this.’ Aazim was finished with the printout and hurried to the other side of the room, oblivious to what was about to happen. He handed Bill a page of the printout. ‘Look at this account right here and check the date,’ he said, pointing to a recent deposit.

Bill moved slowly and read the dates. Without blinking he turned to Barry, knelt down on one knee and searched Barry’s pockets while still holding the gun to his forehead. He pulled out car keys and a spare magazine for his Beretta. ‘Let’s go, we’re done here.’

‘I knew you couldn’t do it,’ Barry mocked, knowing how close he’d come to being executed.

‘You have Janelle to answer for and I’ve got you now.’

‘You’ve got nothing,’ Barry moaned.

‘Sam kept a well-organised record of all his payoffs and it seems he made plenty to this account.’ Bill turned a page and showed Barry one of the printouts, tracing a section with his finger. ‘One here made on the same day as the Jakarta bombing.’

‘So?’

‘The account is in your name,’ Bill said, before motioning to Aazim and heading for the door.

It was freezing out in the open but escaping the house was a relief. Bill raised his hand high in the air and repeatedly pressed the remote to Barry’s car. He waved it around in all directions until headlights flashed a few hundred yards down the street where the car was parked in the driveway of a house. Clever, he thought.

They got in the car, and Bill reversed and drove away.

Chapter 21

Seconds later headlights lit up in a side street on the opposite end of the road and a dark van drove towards Lenni’s house. Sam’s men jumped out, looking around for signs of movement before taking out their guns and attaching silencers. They entered the unlocked house and into the obvious aftermath of a gunfight. One of its casualties lay in front of them. Barry had crawled halfway across the floor in a desperate attempt to reach the phone. At the sound of the men, he turned on his back and looked up in surprise. ‘What are you doing here? Don’t stand gawking – get me an ambulance!’

‘Where did the other two go?’ one of the men asked in a heavy accent.

‘Did you follow me here? I don’t bloody know! Probably after your boss. Now do as I say or I’ll have your arses deported.’ Barry’s eyes searched the floor in vain for the gun; Bill had kicked it under a couch and well out of reach. The two exchanged glances and aimed their guns.

‘Fucking Arabs,’ Barry muttered in disgust before the bullets ripped into his chest.

‘What’s that?’ Bill indicated the yellow envelope Aazim had found on the passenger seat.

‘I’m not sure but I think it has something to do with The Brotherhood.’ Aazim looked through a file that included a list with dates and a number of photos. All the men looked to be Middle Eastern; some were dressed in traditional robes with long beards but most were clean-cut and wore business attire.

‘Show me.’ Bill took the file while at the same time keeping an eye on the road. ‘Jesus, these must be Brotherhood leaders,’ he exclaimed, turning the pages. ‘Sam’s the only one who could get this kind of information.’

‘How do you figure that?’ Aazim asked.

‘The Brotherhood operates in a cell-like system. Each cell’s independent of the other and members of one cell don’t know the identity of the others – much like how al-Qaeda operates but only tighter.’

‘So how would Sam know who they are?’

‘Think about it. Sam’s the treasurer and he distributes funds to The Brotherhood. He has to know at least one member from each cell he can authorise money to. And who’s the best person for that?’

‘The one in charge,’ Aazim replied.

‘Correct. But why is he willing to expose the leadership? What’s he up to?’

‘Have we got enough evidence to implicate them all?’ Aazim was unable to hide his excitement. He was close to getting his life back and all those responsible would be locked up. Thoughts of his father once again floated into his mind.

‘Sam controls the money, which gives him a lot of power. In all that chaos he’ll simply step in and take charge. This will make him more dangerous than ever.’

Bill was thinking out loud and missed Aazim’s question. One of the men looked strangely familiar. He tried to read the name and swerved dangerously to the other side of the road. Fighting fatigue and trying to concentrate, he brought it under control. He removed the picture from the file and handed it to Aazim.

‘Can you explain this?’ he said.

Aazim stared at the man in the photo. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, blood draining from his face. ‘This is my father. What’s a photo of my father doing here, Bill?’ It must be some mistake, he thought. He couldn’t bear to think his father had some kind of involvement with these criminals. Even so, deep inside a feeling of dread stirred. There was much he didn’t know about his father’s past but he hardly expected anything on this level.

Bill shrugged, as if indicating that he was about to give up trying to figure things out. ‘Do you know why he went to Lebanon?’

Aazim’s face registered only confusion. He didn’t respond to Bill’s question; he seemed to be asking himself the very same thing.