‘Are you in contact with the outside?’ Francine asked. It was a very pertinent question, because as Ben knew perfectly well, the prospect of organising such a large-scale escape over the border without some kind of outside connections was extremely poor.

Holt shook his head. ‘I’m sorry to say we were, but then our sat phone was damaged.’

She nodded. ‘Ah, yes. Modern technology is a wonderful thing, until it stops working. I, too, have a sat phone. That’s how I was able to call dear Hassan and put out the call for help that God has now answered. But one of the girls knocked it by accident and it fell quite hard against a rock, and now it seems to be broken. I have been carrying it around with me in the hopes that it would start working again. To no avail, sadly.’ She reached into the folds of her tunic and took the phone out to show them. ‘Quite dead, you see? Something must be broken inside.’

At the sight of it, Holt went bolt rigid with amazement, his eyebrows flew up and his jaw dropped open. ‘Holy motherfucking shit!’ he burst out.

Some of the kids obviously understood a few words of English; their stunned looks quickly gave way to tittering delight. Both Francine and Father Bugnolio turned on Holt with heavy frowns of disapproval. ‘Please!’ Francine hissed, furious. ‘Such language to use in front of the children! Where do you think you are, in a sewer?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Holt stammered, turning scarlet and pointing at the phone in her hands. ‘It’s just that that’s an Iridium 9555. The same model that we have.’

‘And so?’ she said icily.

Ben remembered Liebowitz saying that if by some miracle they could find a spare motherboard for their Iridium, he might be able to get it up and running again. This might be the miracle they’d been waiting for.

Holt explained, ‘And so it’s possible one of my guys back down the hillside could switch out the parts and put together a working phone.’

Francine shrugged, still not quite ready to forgive him. ‘Well, that sounds promising. Take it, by all means. But let us hear no more of these disgraceful vulgar profanities, if you please.’

It was a quietly excited, if thoroughly chastised and penitent, Chris Holt who soon afterwards accompanied Ben, Wolf and Baldacci back the way they’d come through the cave, leaving Madison, Father Bugnolio and the prince with Francine and the children. ‘This could really save our asses,’ Holt said, clutching the sat phone as they emerged from the cave mouth and started hurrying down the rocky slope. ‘If we can find a way to make it as far west as the Iranian border, there are people I might be able to get to meet us there. Then south and across the Persian Gulf into UAE, and we’d be home and dry.’