‘People like you make me sick,’ Madison snapped at him. ‘Tell me, smartass, what kind of a world is it where not shooting a twelve-year-old kid in the back is the wrong thing to do?’

‘Maybe not your world, lady,’ Baldacci said. ‘Taking care of business ain’t always nice.’

Ben had been brooding over the incident since their hurried return to the caves. Maybe he should have pulled the trigger. Others would have done it, not just Gino Baldacci. Some soldiers he’d known had been forced into similar situations, acted on them and spent the rest of their lives tortured by remorse. Ben had always been thankful that in all his years of service he’d never had to face such a tough decision. His luck had held out until now; and it was painful weighing up the outcome of his choice. On the one hand, if he’d killed the boy, then whoever sent him would have got suspicious when he didn’t return; but by the same token there would have been no witness to report back where their quarry were hiding.

He had to believe he’d done the right thing by letting the kid run. But at what cost?

‘I’ve been through every possible radio channel they might be using,’ Wolf said. ‘Zilch. Nada. Not so much as a budgie fart. If they’re close by, they’re keeping absolute comms silence in order to sneak up on us by surprise.’

‘Or else they’re not there at all,’ Holt said. ‘We could be jumping the gun here. Why assume this young boy was any kind of scout? Could have been just some local kid, foraging about.’

‘Then where’d he come from, mate?’ Nobby Scraggs asked Holt. ‘If there was another village anywhere within miles of this place, surely we’d have seen some sign of it on the way here.’

‘There are still nomadic tribes, the Kochi people,’ Ramin said, breaking his anxious silence. ‘They’ve always stayed neutral and don’t get involved in political divisions, moving from place to place, living in tents, carrying on the same traditional life they’ve lived for centuries. This boy could belong to one of them.’ Turning to Ben and Madison, he added, ‘And just because he ran from you, doesn’t have to mean he was spying. He could have been drawn to the ruins out of curiosity, and you scared him. So, maybe this whole thing has a perfectly innocent explanation and we’re getting ourselves worried over nothing.’

‘Wishful thinking, bro,’ Baldacci muttered, shaking his head.