All we had to do now was wait for the target to reappear. We didn't know his name. All we knew was that he was a member of the militant Jemaah Islamiyar [JI] group, and active in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand – all countries in the region that weren't seeking to establish a Muslim fundamentalist state.

Jemaah Islamiyar means 'Islamic group' in Indonesian. Over many years they had attacked US and western targets all over South East Asia. George and the Yes Man weren't the only ones who suspected that JI was a wholly owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda. Others argued that they weren't too closely linked, and that JI's original goals didn't fully dovetail with the global aspirations of Osama's boys. Whatever, it was only after the Bali nightclub bombing in October 2002 that the US finally designated them a foreign terrorist organization – something Malaysia had been wanting for years.

Indonesia had been the principal obstacle: the overwhelming majority of its 231 million population were Muslim – the largest Muslim population on the planet – and it hadn't been willing to alienate its own people until JI had been caught planning simultaneous truck-bomb attacks against US embassies in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, even Cambodia.

My eyes were still on the mosque, but my ears were with the tableful of Brits knocking back the Tiger beer. They'd just been watching a government commercial during half-time, warning that if you were caught using a pirate satellite card you were liable to a fine of up to the equivalent of five thousand pounds, ten years' imprisonment, and a whipping. 'Shit,' Suzy muttered, 'you don't want to mess with Murdoch, do you? It's almost safer being a drug-dealer.'

The call to prayer stopped and the electric organ sparked up again, this time announcing the appearance of the Phantom of the Opera.