Ben’s anger hadn’t subsided a great deal by the time they arrived back at the safehouse. Having been forced to shoot the guy in the apartment was one thing. Ben had taken down plenty of armed opponents in the past and he wouldn’t have to lose sleep over this one. But the dead kid was something else. This was the first time in all Ben’s operational experience that he’d been mixed up in a friendly fire incident involving a civilian bystander, and he was deeply upset by it. What the hell was he doing here, he asked himself again. He knew the answer, of course, but right now Madison Cahill seemed a very long way away.

He headed for the shower, where he spent a few minutes blasting himself with cold water to wash off the dead kid’s blood and try to cool off his rage. By the time he emerged, Saleem and his guys had disappeared into the second bedroom to smoke hashish, whose acrid aroma Ben could smell in the passage. Meanwhile the rest of the team had congregated in the living room, where someone had produced a bottle of spirits and they were sharing it out in tin mess mugs. Meadows offered one to Ben, but he waved it away. He was too disgusted to even look at Buchanan. Instead he walked over to Goffin, who was slouched on his sofa looking downcast.

‘Who the hell is feeding you this duff intel, Goffin?’ Ben demanded. ‘Your guy was supposed to be there but looks like the enemy was already onto him. For all we know they’ve got him by now. And you’d better hope he didn’t have information about your precious Spartan, because if he did they’ll have tortured it out of him.’

‘How the hell do you figure they’re onto him?’

‘Because of the white high-top trainers the guy we shot was wearing,’ Ben said. ‘Have you ever bothered to take notice of the Taliban’s signature choice of footwear? Not to mention the gun he nearly shot you with was US army issue. Brand new, straight out of the armourer’s store, probably never been fired before. Details, Goffin. I thought they mattered to intelligence agents. So either your man Faazel is one of them, which I doubt, or they’d have laid out more of a welcome for us, or else he’s got his own cover blown and the guy we shot was sniffing around his place for more clues.’

Ben could see agreement on the face of Meadows, Dixon and a couple of the others. Cale, not so much. Buchanan was looking unhappy too. Goffin shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, how was I supposed to know? I’m not a fucking soothsayer.’