From the intact state of Doc Levy’s dressings it didn’t look like the bullet wound in my left shoulder had been properly investigated. If I could convince this Russian doctor that my lung was punctured and collapsing, he’d be forced to take action. It didn’t have to be perfect. Even the mere possibility that I had a tension pneumothorax would, for any doctor worth their salt, elevate me immediately to the category of medical emergency.

He produced a stethoscope from inside his bag and hooked it into his ears. At arm’s length he pressed the diaphragm to my chest. On cue I breathed rapid laboured breaths – forcing my heart rate up as high as I could manage. He moved the diaphragm, listened to my heart for a further fifteen seconds and then unhooked the stethoscope’s eartips. The noise of the engines reverberating through the metal cavern was so loud I doubted he could make out anything at all.

‘Can you hear me?’ He spoke in faultless English.

He turned immediately to his chaperones.

‘Privedite kapitana,’ he ordered. No one moved to fetch the captain. ‘Nemedlenno!’ he yelled at them in Russian. Now!

One of the men backed out of the metal tunnel, swallowed by the glare of the halogen. I heard his boots break into a sprint. The other guard walked towards us.

‘Idioty,’ the doctor said under his breath as he produced a blood pressure meter from the portmanteau. I took a deep breath, shut my mouth and blew out as hard as I could against my lips, straining as forcefully as possible. My heart rate fell. Moving quickly now, my examiner stood and fixed the rubber cuff around my grazed bicep and began pumping the bulb in his fist.

I felt the bladder contract around my muscle. I kept trying to drop my heart rate. Forty beats per minute was the lowest I could manage. That wasn’t unusually low – but I hoped he’d think the sudden change was serious enough to take action. I couldn’t see him. Most likely he was checking the gauge. Then he slipped the stethoscope’s diaphragm under the tight cuff and listened again. The bladder deflated.

‘Snimite ego!’ Get him down.

‘Vrach …’ The guard began to remonstrate. The rope contracted. I saw the doctor straighten up and square off at him.

‘Listen to me very carefully. His lung is collapsing. And the reason his lung is collapsing is because you and your mudak colleague hung him upside down.’

‘If he escapes, we’re all dead men.’

‘He has minutes. Seconds, maybe, before he goes into cardiac arrest.’ The doctor turned his palms out towards me. ‘And if he dies, you’re going to wish you were dead, too.’

‘But our orders were to keep the prisoner secure.’

‘I am in command of this operation now, soldier. Your orders are to get him down. Immediately.’