‘That’s right. Not seen him in ages though. Thanks for meeting at such short notice.’

‘You caught me on a good day.’

Purvis signed me in, gave me a pass. We entered the land of Saracen, past a relief map of the world with coloured lights for oilfields, under ornate ceilings where the raised hammers and sickles showed through new paint, to the GL5 compound at the back.

‘Know Jim from Libya?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Ever take you to Mama Tawas?’

‘Once. The only brothel I’ve ever walked straight out of.’

Purvis laughed. ‘Jim’s one of the finest soldiers I know, but he’s a dog.’

We crossed a broad expanse of concrete, past a helipad with a Sikorsky S-70, past a small heating and power plant. There were two hangars and a fuel storage area, then long prefabricated accommodation blocks.

The private security contractors that I could see were heavily kitted out, if not visibly armed, most heading to and from the canteen.

‘They fly in here, get trained, go out to the rigs, drill sites, fields,’ Purvis explained. ‘Every few weeks they’ll come back for some R&R. The kind of places we operate aren’t exactly rich with leisure activities.’

The canteen was large, with breeze-block walls beneath arched corrugated metal. Electric bar heaters glowed. Men in various combinations of uniform and civvies sat at long trestle tables. Liverpool played Chelsea on multiple TV screens. A sign at the bar said dollars accepted, and there were plenty around. Pre-9/11, private security contractors all seemed to be South Africans with rotten teeth. The men here were smart, steroid-pumped, with 200-dollar Oakleys protecting their eyes from the neon light. It was a multi-billion-pound industry now. Of the 21 billion dollars assigned for Iraqi reconstruction, over 30 per cent went on commercial security. Contractors came in to defend oilfields, and within a few months they were running aerial surveillance, searching for roadside bombs and staffing quick reaction forces. Politicians found they preferred their coffins without flags on them. The original teams had been built from the best: men from the SAS and US Marines. But you’re not going to get 20,000 of those. GL5 swallowed smaller companies, picked up thousands of new personnel each time, then they turned to Peru, Columbia, South Africa, Eastern Europe – anywhere with a recent history of well-trained violence.

It looked like a lot of them had come off night shifts. Most were watching the game, yawning, smoking, drinking towards daytime sleep. I had never liked these places: the willed ignorance about the surrounding country, the bubble of boredom curdling. But they could be useful. Where there were guns there was a sense of invulnerability, which bred an openness to all sorts of schemes.