“She’s twelve years old. Her mother was killed by Duffy’s men. Her brother was detained and passed to the police. They’re going to execute him in six hours. They’ve already built the gallows. She doesn’t have anyone else, Pope. It’s me or nothing.”

“We don’t have any influence in Basra anymore, Beatrix. I’m not going to be able to put any pressure on, especially not in six hours.”

“I don’t need you to put pressure on. Even if you could, there wouldn’t be time.”

“So?”

“Just listen. I’m going to go in and get him out.”

“What?”

“Listen. I’ve scouted it. The security is weak. It’s easily breached. Getting him out isn’t the problem; it’s what happens next. He won’t be able to stay in Basra. They know where he lives. They’ll just come and get him again. I need you to arrange for him and his sister to get out of Iraq. They have family in Kuwait. You need to get them over the border.”

There was a pause.

“Pope?”

“Yes,” he said. “That might be possible. We have assets in theatre. I can get them to the border.”

“Fine. Good. Get it sorted. Do it now. Just tell Faulkner where you need us to bring them. We’ll do the rest.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Wake up.”

Faik was not asleep.

There was a window in the cell they used for condemned men. It was small, barred and set high in the wall, but he was able to look out into a small parcel of sky. The city was enduring one of its daily brownouts, and most of the lights in the prison were out. As a result, it looked especially dark. There were clouds, too, oil-coloured clouds that rolled over the lightening sky like a slick. A storm was coming.

Faik opened his eyes. There was a sudden, discordant clatter as the guard dragged a metal mug back and forth across the bars of the cell. The nine other prisoners made no noise. There was no muttering and grumbling. Faik doubted whether any of them had slept, either. The truth of the day that they had dreaded was impressed onto them indelibly. They could not forget it, not even for a moment.

He had been moved from isolation last night. There were ten men in this cell. Faik was lying tight between two of them. There was only just enough space for them all to lie down together, and not enough for it to be possible to negotiate a path to the open cesspit without treading on hands and feet and waking the others. It was irrelevant, really. He opened his eyes now to aches in his body from tiredness and from lying on the bare concrete floor, and his thoughts were sluggish.

“Wake up, you dogs. A big day for you all today.”