State of Fear

by Tim Ayliffe

  Dexter touched Noora on the arm and they sat together on the sofa.

  ‘You too, mate.’ Bailey sat on the two-seater opposite, patting the cushion beside him.

  Hassan Saleh stood in the corner, watching on.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Omar didn’t move. ‘Has Tariq been hurt?’

  Bailey looked over at Dexter, waiting for her to respond.

  ‘If you could just sit down, Omar. I’ll tell –’

  ‘Is he dead? Is my son dead? Just tell me what you know!’

  ‘We think he’s still alive, Omar.’ Bailey ignored the blunt stare coming his way from Dexter. He knew she wanted to run things, but Omar was getting more wound up by the second.

  ‘You think? How do you think?’

  Bailey went to speak again but Dexter cut him off. ‘Because we found the house where he was staying and a witness who said he was there.

  ‘We also found evidence of terrorist activities,’ Dexter said. ‘We are worried about him. Worried that he might be about to do something stupid.’

  ‘Terrorism? Not my son,’ Noora said, shaking her head. ‘That’s not Tariq. He wouldn’t. Not my boy.’

  It never is, thought Bailey. Right up until the moment they pull the trigger, detonate the bomb, drive the car into a crowd of innocent people. The transition from beloved son to violent killer could happen in a millisecond.

  ‘Have you heard from him?’ Dexter said.

  ‘Of course we haven’t heard from him!’ Omar said. ‘If we had, he would be sitting here with us!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Omar,’ Dexter said. ‘We need to ask these questions if we’re going to find Tariq.’

  Omar’s cheeks and forehead had turned red and he started pacing his lounge room, clenching his fists, shaking his head.

  ‘Just, just get out.’ He walked over to the front door and opened it. ‘Get out of my house and go find my son.’

  ‘I know this is hard, mate,’ Bailey said. ‘Detective Dexter’s just doing her job.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Dexter said. ‘I’ve got to get moving anyway.’

  She stood up, her jacket popping open to reveal the Glock pistol holstered to her side. Police weapons had progressed since the Smith and Wesson revolvers that were standard issue back in the eighties. Bailey didn’t know much about the new ones. But he could tell you a few stories about those old six-shooters, not least the one about the day a bent copper called Bob Brickhouse had rested the cool barrel against his forehead and threatened to pull the trigger.

  ‘Bailey?’

  Dexter was standing over him, trying to get his attention.

  He looked over at Noora, gently sobbing on the sofa, and then at Omar, standing by the open front door waiting for them to leave.

  ‘I was just saying.’ Dexter tapped him on the shin with her foot. ‘We’re leaving.’

  Dexter was in a hurry and Bailey knew why. She had two terrorist suspects in custody, waiting to be questioned. Police interrogation rooms were no place for journalists. Bailey was staying put. He had more questions for Omar and he wanted to know more about Hassan Saleh. Why he was there.

  ‘I might just hang about for a bit longer,’ he said. ‘You go on ahead, I’ve got my own transport.’

  Dexter leaned forward so that only Bailey could hear. ‘You find out anything more, I want to know.’

  The sound of Dexter’s car had disappeared up the street before Bailey decided to speak.

  ‘She’s a good cop, you know. One of the best.’

  ‘Then why hasn’t she found our son?’ Omar said.

  ‘We’re all trying, mate.’

  Bailey wanted to say that it’s especially hard to find people when they don’t want to be found, although he didn’t want to risk upsetting the Haneefs any more than they already had.

  ‘Trying? Really?’ Noora’s cheeks were flushed. ‘How hard are you trying?’

  ‘Noora,’ Omar said. ‘Noora, don’t –’

  ‘The police aren’t interested in finding our son, Mr Bailey,’ she said. ‘Why do you think Omar came to you in the first place? The police don’t care about us out here.’

  ‘Noora, Noora, stop.’ Omar touched his wife on the shoulder and she brushed his hand away.

  ‘No, Omar! Terrorism is a plague on all of our society – we’re not to blame. The police treat us all like criminals. They won’t help us, they won’t. They . . .’

  Noora stormed out of the room without finishing her sentence, sobbing and shaking her head. Hassan Saleh followed after her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Omar suddenly seemed like the calm one. ‘I really do think you should go.’

  ‘Just a couple more questions, please, Omar?’

  Omar stood in silence for a moment, contemplating what to do. ‘Give me a minute.’

  Bailey could hear Omar trying to comfort his wife in the kitchen, telling her that everything would be all right. They were lies, for now. Reassuring, nonetheless.

  Noticing the photographs on the sideboard, Bailey walked over to get a better look. There must have been a dozen photos in gold and silver frames. Most of the pictures were of the family together, charting the passing years for the children and their parents. Friends too. At home. At a mosque. In a park. Family and community was the beating heart of this house.

  ‘They struggle with trust, you know.’

  Bailey hadn’t heard Hassan Saleh return from the kitchen.

  ‘There are many disenchanted people out here. Distrusting of authorities.’

  Bailey turned around, noticing the prayer beads turning in his hand.

  ‘Omar and I go back,’ Bailey said. ‘He knows he can trust me.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re a good man, Mr Bailey.’ Hassan stepped closer, taking the photograph from Bailey’s hand and replacing it on the sideboard. ‘Now prove it. Help find his son.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we’re trying to do.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ Hassan patted Bailey on the shoulder, taking a step towards the door. ‘Now Omar has asked me to show you out.’

  Bailey brushed his hand away. ‘You’re the family’s spokesman now?’

  ‘It’s time for you to leave.’

  Bailey stopped at the door, his mind drifting back to the photographs on the sideboard. ‘Just one question before I do.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Where’s Omar’s daughter? Where’s Sara?’

  ‘At university.’

  Bailey couldn’t quite explain why he’d asked the question but something about Sara was bothering him. Her brother had been missing for more than a week and she was attending class – getting on with her life – like normal. Bailey wasn’t sure what else someone her age should be doing, but it didn’t seem right. Not to him, anyway.

  ‘We’re trying to keep things as normal as possible for her.’ Hassan leaned past Bailey, opening the door. ‘This is a difficult time.’

  ‘Omar knows how to reach me.’

  Bailey had his phone out before he reached the car.

  A six-word message for Dexter.

  You need to find Sara Haneef

  CHAPTER 24

  The hot temperatures were hanging around this autumn and the western suburbs had been bearing the brunt of it.

  It was even hotter in Bailey’s car because the air-conditioning didn’t work. He wound down the window, chasing a cool breeze. Any breeze. It barely made a difference. The humidity was clinging to his skin like honey and the traffic was moving so slowly that the already heavy air was being weighed down by fumes, making it difficult to breathe.

  Bailey was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to process the facts and everything in between.

  Tariq had been missing for a week. His parents said they hadn’t heard from him and it was becoming clear that they had trust issues with the police. Tariq’s school friends were also none the wiser. The house raid. The explosive materials. The possibility of two bombs on the street. Bailey’s phone conversation with Mustafa.
/>   Bailey was even more confused about Tariq than when he’d left home that morning on the way to Roselands. His brain wasn’t working properly. He needed to eat something. He pulled the car over and stopped outside a kebab shop on Old Canterbury Road. He was halfway through winding up the car window when he was interrupted by the vibrating of his phone. He looked down at the screen. Dexter.

  Bailey answered the call with a question. ‘How’d you go with the guys you arrested at the house?’

  ‘That’s why I’m calling,’ Dexter said, sharply. ‘Ever heard of a guy called Sammy Raymond?’

  Sounded familiar, but Bailey couldn’t pin it. ‘Should I have?’

  ‘Probably. Your newspaper has done enough stories about him over the years.’

  Sammy Raymond. Sammy Raymond. Sammy . . .

  Bailey remembered. Raymond was believed to have fought alongside Islamic Nation in Syria. He came back to Australia, via Turkey, a few years back. One of hundreds of foreign fighters who’d returned home, most of whom couldn’t be locked up by authorities because there was no concrete evidence that they’d ever picked up a weapon in the Middle East.

  ‘I know who he is. Why’re you asking?’

  ‘The guys are talking, ready to cut a deal. They say Sammy Raymond is behind what’s happening, that he’s the contact with Mustafa al-Baghdadi.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Dexter had been busy. ‘What about Tariq?’

  ‘The kid knows everything, but he’s not part of it –’

  ‘Part of what?’

  ‘How about you just listen for a minute, while I tell you what’s what?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’ll start with the guys from the house. The Salma brothers. George and Alex are in custody. Their kid brother, Benji, was the one who got killed. They’ve done it all. Drugs, theft, standover stuff. Now terrorism.

  ‘Sammy had been working for the Salmas on one of their father’s construction sites. That’s how he got them involved. He sourced the materials, they made the bombs. They were planning to hit targets all over the city. Until it went to custard this morning.’

  ‘Permission to speak?’

  Dexter sighed into the phone. ‘Yes, Bailey.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me how Tariq’s connected.’

  ‘The Salmas said they were told to pick him up and keep him locked away until this was all over. Orders from Sammy Raymond. They said that’s all they know. They don’t know the targets. They don’t know any other names.’

  ‘How could they not know?’ It sounded to Bailey like the Salmas were either getting in quickly for a plea deal, or they were passing on misinformation to confuse the cops. ‘And you believe them?’

  ‘They say that they were given their part to play without knowing the rest. It’s how Sammy has kept it under the radar, how he has stopped people from talking. There’s got to be more people involved, we just don’t know who.’

  Bailey thought of someone.

  ‘What about Sara Haneef?’

  ‘I saw your message. What makes you think she’s involved?’

  Bailey didn’t know how to answer the question. A hunch. A gut feeling. It wasn’t enough.

  ‘Bailey?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know. I just don’t get how she can keep going to her classes at university knowing that her brother’s out there, missing.’

  ‘Yeah. I agree with you.’

  Bailey felt relieved, like he wasn’t crazy.

  ‘At the moment, any lead will do. She and I are due for another chat, although she’s not answering her phone, so I sent a car to the university to bring her in. I also dropped her name with the Salma brothers. Neither of them flinched.’

  ‘So, what do you know about the targets?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘And what do I do with this information?’

  Bailey wanted to know what he could write about. At some point, people needed to know, especially if there were bombs out there.

  ‘Nothing about the explosives. You can publish Sammy Raymond’s photograph and say that counter-terrorism police are wanting to speak with him. We just hit his house and, not surprisingly, he’s not there. A public ID is a good option at the moment. Same goes for Tariq Haneef – a person of interest.’

  ‘And the Salmas?’

  ‘Being questioned by police. Keep it loose. You can name them, including the dead one. I’ve emailed you their photographs.’

  Bailey wasn’t expecting that much. He had a story, all right. He’d need half the front page. ‘Still on the record, anything more from the house?’

  ‘We’ve seized laptop computers, a bunch of phones and a tablet. Who knows what else we’ll find. We’ve got people scraping them right now. That’s all I’ve got.’ Dexter stopped talking, waiting to see if Bailey had any further questions. ‘Okay. Got to go.’

  She hung up.

  Bailey thumbed through his phone until he found the next name that he needed to call.

  Gerald.

  ‘Mate. Are you in the office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  With the upheaval in management and redundancies being worked through, Bailey wasn’t surprised.

  ‘Got a front page for you.’ Bailey got straight to it. ‘The terrorist threat. It’s real. I’ve got names of suspects, details.’

  ‘When can you get it done?’ Gerald’s voice sharpened.

  ‘I’m sending photographs and IDs.’ Bailey climbed out of his car balancing his computer in one hand and phone in the other, closing the door with his knee. ‘I’m going to write the story now. You’ll have it within the hour.’

  ‘When can we publish?’ Gerald said.

  ‘The second it lands.’

  Bailey ordered himself a lamb kebab and found a table at the back of the restaurant where he sat down and started crafting his story.

  The article was on The Journal’s web page by the time Bailey was parking his car outside his house in Paddington. It was almost 9 pm and just as he was killing the lights a call came through. An unknown number. He answered it.

  ‘Bailey.’

  No answer.

  ‘Hello?’

  After a few more beeps he could hear someone on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Big day, John Bailey.’

  Mustafa al-Baghdadi. The last person in the world he wanted to talk to. And the first.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What do I want?’

  Bailey flipped his phone over and scrolled through until he found the app that let him record conversations.

  ‘Are you going to repeat everything I say?’

  ‘That police detective friend of yours must be thinking that she’s had a good day today, would she not?’

  Bailey’s throat tightened, struck by a sudden pang of fear.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Dexter. The head of the Joint Counter Terrorism Team,’ Mustafa continued.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  Bailey could hear the rhythm of Mustafa’s calm breathing down the line. ‘Killing one of my soldiers. There are many more, you know. So many I’ve lost count.’

  ‘You seem well informed for someone who’s supposed to be hiding in a cave.’

  ‘Benji Salma. Shot dead by police in western Sydney. His two brothers are in custody. I have people everywhere. An army of warriors. Tens of thousands, all over the world.’

  Bailey looked over his shoulder, up and down the street. He couldn’t help feeling he was being watched.

  ‘Petty criminals, I hear. Dumb as doornails, ripe for being brainwashed by a psychopath like you.’

  Bailey was trying to get a rise out of him.

  ‘You never did want to learn about me, did you?’ Mustafa said. ‘You’re as ignorant as everybody else.’

  ‘You might be right, I don’t know much. But one thing I do know – you’re losing your war.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ Mustafa’s voice tightened, defensively.

&
nbsp; ‘Yeah?’ Bailey was getting angry now, remembering what Mustafa’s men had done to him during the months he was moved from one hot, filthy room to the next, starved and beaten. ‘I know that you’ve lost all the territory you had in Iraq, most of it in Syria too. Afghanistan’s not going to happen. I know there’s a growing list of people who want to see you dead. Muslims all over the world think you’re a sadistic madman who’s betrayed his own religion.’

  ‘Enough!’

  ‘You tell me, Mustafa?’ Bailey was in the man’s head and he wanted to stay there. ‘What’s the end game?’

  Mustafa went quiet on the other end of the phone. Bailey could tell that he was still there by the heavy breathing down the line. He could hear other sounds, too. Traffic, a faint beeping noise. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what they were. They could be anything. Anywhere.

  ‘You’re no journalist, John Bailey,’ Mustafa said, his voice calm again. ‘You’re just like the others.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘The Americans. The CIA. Your friend, Ronald Johnson. I’ve read all about it. The things you told them about me.’

  ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Bailey kept fishing. ‘What did you read?’

  ‘Eye for an eye, John Bailey.’

  The phone went dead.

  Eye for an eye?

  Bailey had no idea what Mustafa was playing at. Was it a threat?

  He clicked play on the recording on his phone to make sure that he’d got it all. He had. Now he had to figure out what to do with it.

  CHAPTER 25

  ‘Ronnie!’

  Bailey almost tripped over the dead fern by the front door as he hurried down the hallway.

  ‘Are you here? Ronnie!’

  A cloud of smoke was hovering above Ronnie’s head in the lounge room where he was seated on the sofa watching American college football on the television.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t smoke those things inside, mate. They’re stinking up the place.’

  ‘Hold on a second, bubba.’ Ronnie held up his hand without looking at Bailey. ‘Big play for the Sooners coming up.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  Bailey knew nothing about American football. Ronnie had been sleeping in his spare room long enough for Bailey to know that the Oklahoma Sooners had won this year’s Sugar Bowl. Ronnie was an OU alumnus and he’d played on the team back in the day. He must have watched the game five times already.