‘Hard to be certain from this range,’ Ben replied. ‘But we can’t afford to assume it isn’t. And it won’t be long before they get here. I’d give it about twenty-five minutes, allowing for the terrain.’

‘I’d say that’s optimistic, buddy,’ Holt said. ‘Twenty, max.’

‘If they can make it up the slope in those trucks,’ Wolf said. ‘They might skirt around the foot of the mountain and keep moving on.’

‘I doubt that,’ Holt replied. ‘They look like they mean business, whoever they are.’

‘Are they looking for us?’ Madison asked, the binoculars pressed to her eyes, steadily tracking the approaching lights. ‘How’d they know we were here?’

‘We can stick around and ask them that ourselves,’ Holt said. ‘Or we can get the hell out of here before they turn up.’

‘We could hide,’ Madison said.

‘You want to take that chance, lady?’ Holt replied tersely. ‘There could be a hundred fighters down there. They find your camp, they’ll know we were here and they’ll spread out everywhere hunting for us.’

The wind was rising rapidly as they spoke, and now there were dark clouds scudding ominously across the sky from the north and drawing a black curtain over the moon and stars. Some heavy weather was rolling in, one of those unpredictable Afghan mountain storms that had once pinned Ben and Wolf’s SAS unit down for three straight days. But the weather was the least of their concerns. Now, as the four of them went on intently watching the convoy, the line of lights appeared to come to a halt.

‘Why are they stopping?’ Madison wondered out loud.

Ben had been asking himself the same thing. Carefully scanning the dark valley with his powerful binoculars he made out the reason. ‘They’ve found Aziz’s Jeep.’ Almost as soon as he’d said it, they were moving on again, still heading straight for the watchers.

‘I don’t like it,’ Wolf said. ‘I don’t like it at all. I’d say it’s time to make tracks, people. And fast.’

‘Ben?’ Madison asked, glancing at him.

‘You know what I think,’ Ben replied. ‘It was never safe here. And it just became a lot less so.’ He lowered his binocs and turned to look back at her. Her eyes were wide and questioning in the moonlight. He could see the mixed emotions there: anxiety, disappointment, hope, defiance. ‘I know how you feel, Madison,’ he said, more softly. ‘But Chris and Jaden are right. Please don’t make this difficult.’

‘We got about eighteen minutes, people,’ Holt said. ‘How about we keep on debating this until this whole mountain is covered in enemy fighters?’

Madison said nothing but her whole body radiated extreme frustration. She went back to watching the lights for a moment. Then put down her binocs and heaved a painfully reluctant sigh. ‘Okay. Screw it. Let’s roll.’