‘How the fuck did you get up here so fast, Novak?’ Aleks said.

Tom sank his head back into the carpeted floor but did not reply, already entering resistance-to-interrogation mode following the shock of capture. He had completed a very unpleasant course in this when with the SRR; all the instructors had been SAS members who had taken their job very seriously. The main lesson of the course had been how to turn into the ‘grey man’: not being aggressive, playing up the seriousness of your injuries, and biding your time.

Despite the communications device that was being monitored, Tom said nothing.

‘Answer me, pig!’ one of them yelled, fury in his voice, and a kick was delivered to the side of his torso. Pain exploded in his already-shocked ribcage.

Tom coughed and spat out blood on the carpet; he’d bitten his tongue when he was shot. He feigned confusion greater than he was feeling. More than anything, he needed his captors to underestimate him.

‘Search him,’ said a voice he didn’t recognise: presumably grey-hair.

Tom felt one of the men begin to go through his pockets, retrieving the weapons, ammunition, and communications device. The lifesaving body armour was torn from him.

‘Jesus, he’s got a radio,’ said Luka. ‘Who is listening?’

‘No one. You’re holding the transmit button and you’ve ripped off the microphone,’ Tom replied. He had to get them to believe that no one was coming to the farmhouse or they would cut their losses and kill all of them.

‘How did you get up here? Who is helping you?’ he was asked again.

‘I hitched a lift on a private jet from Northolt that was coming up here. A buddy works there, and he sorted it out.’

‘What about the guns? Where did you get those?’ asked Luka.

‘Police armoury: a mate of mine is in charge and I persuaded him to give them to me.’ He didn’t know if that was believable, but he had no choice.

‘We’d better call Papa,’ said Aleks.

‘I’ll do it,’ said the grey-haired man, and he walked out of the room.

Aleks and Luka were very nervous, panic seeming close to the surface. Their lack of experience was evident, and that concerned Tom; he could imagine them starting to shoot just out of fright.

Tom turned slightly onto his side, giving him a better view of the room. Aleks still had the Glock pointed at him, but he was looking at the corpse of Danilo rather than him.

Grey-hair walked back into the room clutching a mobile phone in his hand.

‘The boss wants to speak to you,’ he growled, holding the phone to Tom’s ear.

‘What have you fucking done, pig? You’ve killed my friend, and that’s going to get your parents killed too.’

‘Branko, no. There’s a way out of this. No one else has to die. You still want the SD card, right?’