‘Looking for an easy life. Why else would he get together with the likes of us, on a one-way ticket into a bloody death trap? Anyway, there’s Nobby, and then there’s Gino and Hank, Doug, Mike and Chris. He’s in charge of the gang.’

‘Seven men.’

‘But maybe not all that magnificent,’ Wolf said with a grin.

‘You’re going to have to explain to me what this is all about,’ Ben said.

‘And I will, mate, I will. But first …’ Wolf set down his rifle, sat on a rock next to Ben’s dead fire and pointed at the remains of the spit-roasted ibex. ‘I’m famished, and if that tastes half as good as it smells from half a mile away, I wouldn’t mind a bite.’

‘Help yourself,’ Ben said, still deeply mystified about what his old friend was doing here.

‘Then we should really move on. Some silly bastard’s been drawing all kinds of attention by lighting barbecues and letting off gunshots. Luckily it was little old me who showed up to check things out. But you never know who else might come snooping. Our Taliban friends have a lot of patrols in this area. Saw three of them yesterday.’

Ben watched as Wolf pulled out a combat knife, carved a slice of meat off the carcass and ate greedily. ‘Delicious,’ Wolf said, smacking his lips. ‘Bit goaty, needs seasoning. But not bad at all.’

As Wolf carved himself another slice and gobbled it down, Ben quickly filled him in on the reason for his own presence here. ‘Christ,’ Wolf mumbled through a mouthful of meat. ‘Is that Colonel Carstairs still alive? He must be ninety.’ He chewed reflectively and listened as Ben went on. ‘Spartan, eh? And you’ve no idea who the guy is?’

‘None.’

‘Bloody intelligence spooks. Never could stand ’em.’ Wolf munched some more, then as Ben reached the end of the story he shook his head sadly. ‘I remember Steve Cale. Bit of a tit, but he was all right. Bad deal. Very bad deal. We’ve had a few tangles with the Talib ourselves, nothing so hot. They were hard enough to deal with back in the day, when all they had was a few old bangers and worn-out hardware left over from the Ruskies. Thanks to the bloody Yanks for tooling the bastards up beyond their wildest dreams with all that spanking new state-of-the-art military hardware. And there are so many of them now they’re back in control. They’re not just your scattered guerrilla army any more. So you came out here for a damsel in distress, did you? How romantic.’

‘It’s not like that.’

Wolf smiled. ‘No, of course not. I’m sure she’s old and fat, with eighteen kids and a wooden leg.’

‘Madison’s just a friend.’

‘Yeah, well it sounds like your “friend” has landed herself in a spot of trouble.’

‘You might say that.’