Not quite Miss Moneypenny. Still, the familiar environment offered a shred of comfort. I had been here years ago, crafting the Bohren cover in the first, optimistic flush of the Arab Spring.

You have experience with revolutions.

How’s your Arabic?

Up to speed with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Rolling coverage on, courtesy of Al Jazeera; me, fresh from Ukraine, still filled with ideas of extending the colour revolutions to Russia itself. Why not? But the Middle East was where the story was happening: freedom blossoming, a chance to remake the world. That seemed a very long time ago. I allowed myself a flicker of nostalgia as I climbed the rickety stairs, breathing the same country air. I remembered the view of low hills and forest. A landscape for deer hunting, I had thought at the time. Tudor country: Thomas Wyatt, Kit Marlowe – men entranced by the power they served, who thought they could borrow some of its glory.

My debrief took place in a large room, a mesh of grey conducting material over the walls rendering it a secure communications facility, but giving the air of dust sheets and decline. Three people got to their feet when I entered: Alastair Undercroft, head of the Global Issues Controllerate; Martina Lansdown, Section Chief: Libya, Syria and Yemen; finally Douglas Mitchell, an adviser to the Foreign Office, though not one you’d come across very often. Undercroft was first to shake my hand.

‘Good to see you, Elliot.’ The pink ridges of his bald head looked raw under the lights.

‘Welcome back,’ Lansdown said. Her suit was the olive-green of military fatigues. Mitchell offered his hand but didn’t smile. He sported five o’clock shadow and black hair gleaming with whatever kept it scrupulously parted. The walnut desk in the centre of the room bore two laptops sitting on their secure cases of nickel and silver-plated nylon, plus a Panasonic Toughbook showing satellite imagery. Beside this was a tray of sandwiches, untouched.