Four thousand miles away, Gordon Carstairs answered the phone on the second ring. He sounded weary and morose, as might have been expected from a man charged with a vitally important assignment that had utterly failed, marking not just the lowest point of his career but a disaster for the nation.

‘Hello, Colonel.’

Carstairs’ voice filled with a mixture of relief and bewilderment at the sound of Ben’s voice. ‘Benedict! I thought you were—’

‘Dead,’ Ben said. ‘Funny, I thought that myself. As I’m sure you must know by now, the operation was a washout. The others aren’t coming home.’

‘But … you are?’

‘Apparently so,’ Ben replied. ‘And I won’t be alone. I have Spartan.’

Carstairs was incredulous, quite speechless, and it took him a long moment to get over his shock. ‘W-where is he?’

‘Standing here right next to me,’ Ben said. ‘You want to speak to him, to verify that I’m not bullshitting you?’

Richard took the phone. ‘This is me. Yes, yes, it’s really me and for Christ’s sake stop calling me Your Highness,’ he said irritably after listening for a moment. ‘I’m just Richard, okay? Now I’m going to hand this call back over to Ben, because frankly I don’t want to talk to you people.’

Ben took the phone. For a dried-out, implacable old vulture of a man, Carstairs was able to produce an outpouring of joy and gratitude that sounded almost human. ‘All right, Carstairs,’ Ben said when he’d heard enough of his waffle. ‘Here’s the deal. If you want him, you’re going to have to come and get him at this location, along with sixty-four orphaned children and their guardian for whom I require safe transport out of the country, together with two Afghan citizens, several foreign nationals including a US citizen and a wounded SAS veteran, and a number of our dead who have to be returned to their families.’

‘I can’t possibly manage all that,’ Carstairs blurted, wasting no time in reverting back to his officious manner. ‘You’re going to have to get to the same drop zone near the eastern border. That’s the only way I can hope to get the authority for a pick-up. Have you any idea what kind of major international incident we risk sparking off otherwise, flying deep over Taliban airspace?’

‘I thought you already had a major international incident on your hands,’ Ben told him. ‘Don’t fuss over details, Colonel. You can spoil a good thing by over-thinking it.’

Madison smiled.

‘It’s my job to think,’ Carstairs said defensively.

‘Are you thinking now?’ Ben asked him.

‘Of course I bloody am.’

‘Then think about how else I’m supposed to transport sixty young kids all the way back beyond Kabul, with no motor vehicles and troops all over the place. And trust me, after today they’re going to be fairly well stirred up.’