‘Roger that,’ Wolf said. ‘Makes sense to me. So are we to assume that Holt’s not in command of this unit any more? You always did rise to the top when things looked set to warm up.’

Ben made no reply to that. ‘Come on. We’ve got more work to do.’

Chapter 44

Back down at the orphanage, Ben put his plan to the rest of the men. He’d expected some resistance from Holt, but the American seemed too downcast to protest the idea of relocating their base to the caves. The reason for his glum mood was explained when he broke the news that Liebowitz had run into more problems with the repair of the sat phone.

‘The damage was worse than we thought. He’s got a bunch of fine soldering work to do, and it’s touch and go whether we can fix it after all. Best case scenario, it’s gonna take him a few more hours.’

Not all the news was bad. By now Hank Schulz and the two of the prince’s men who’d been assigned to the job of butchering the goats had managed to reduce the first pair of carcasses to a glistening red heap of fine cuts ready for the skewer. In an ideal world you might have wanted to hang them up for a while for tenderness – but this was far from an ideal world, and a great many empty bellies were waiting to be filled.

While the meat was sizzling on skewers over the freshly dug fire pit, giving off a mouth-watering aroma and driving the embittered Schulz almost to the point of madness, they started moving all their kit and weaponry up to their new base. When at last the meat was ready, it was rationed out into thinly sliced strips so that everyone would get a share, and Ramin and Aziz helped Ben carry it up to be distributed among the children.

The hungry kids came flooding from the cave mouth into the sunshine to grab their portions, which some carried excitedly back inside and others ate outside, sitting on rocks and munching away with expressions of sheer delight.

Sometimes Ben had to remind himself that this wasn’t all some kind of strange dream. He’d started his journey from Kabul as one man alone. Now, in a blindingly short succession of events that seemed to have crept up on him out of nowhere, he suddenly found himself taking charge of the responsibility for the lives of more than eighty people. And he was going to have to find a way out of this for all of them.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Madison and Father Bugnolio emerging from the cave. ‘There he is,’ Father Bugnolio said. ‘Come and eat,’ Madison said. ‘We’ve hardly seen you these last few hours.’