Ben said that with a face devoid of all expression. It made him look as hard and cold as a stone. It was a look that could chill the most confident adversary. And it was a look that Jack Buchanan, for all his habitual tough-guy swagger, couldn’t return. He broke eye contact and said nothing.

Ben said, ‘Now step aside and let me pass.’

Buchanan hesitated a moment longer. Then with a sigh, he stepped aside and let Ben pass.

Ben said, ‘Thank you.’

‘Are we allowed to ask when you’ll be back?’ Buchanan asked sarcastically.

‘You’ll know when I’m back,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll be walking in the door.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘Or maybe I won’t come back at all,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe I’m sick of your screwed-up mission and that idiot Goffin. And frankly, I’m not that interested in finding Spartan.’

‘Or maybe you’ll get your silly fucking head blown off,’ said Cale.

‘Not before you do,’ Ben told him.

On his way out he passed by the second bedroom to grab a C8 carbine and an extra magazine. Saleem and his boys were quite mellow by now, and one of them offered him a toke of hashish. Then he left the apartment. He paused a moment in the empty stairwell to stick on the false beard. It fastened on with tape and was just about the stupidest piece of kit he’d ever been saddled with, but it served its purpose. He swaddled the head covering over his hair and part of his face and tied it in a knot behind his neck.

Not too convincing a disguise for anyone who might look at him twice, but in a frightened city like Kabul where the citizens scurried around with their eyes to the ground, the chances were that nobody would. Except for the Taliban, maybe, with their habit of making challenging eye contact with the conquered civilians. But Ben intended to steer clear of those guys as much as possible. He’d always had an excellent sense of direction, and by now he had a pretty good sense of where the checkpoints were, forming a route on his mental map of the city that would help avoid having to run the gauntlet. If it couldn’t be avoided and things got interesting … well, that was what the C8 carbine was for.

He exited the building and walked out into the deserted street to where the vans were parked. The keys he’d grabbed were for the battered silver one. He got in, lit a Gauloise and took off down the street with a roar, and minutes later he was cutting east back across towards the heart of Kabul.

Ben Hope, driving through the city totally alone and surrounded by a hundred thousand fundamentalist crazies who wanted him nailed to a cross.

Chapter 14