‘I appreciate the invitation,’ Ben replied. ‘But as Jaden has explained to you, I have my own plans.’

‘Your friend the archaeology lady?’ Holt said.

‘She’s the reason I’m here. I can’t let her down.’

‘Even if she’s dead already.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ Ben said. ‘I won’t. Not until I know it for sure.’

Holt sighed and puffed his cheeks. ‘I hear you. And I admire your faith, man, believe me. But I can’t pretend I’m not disappointed that you want to go your own way. Because where we’re headed from here, it isn’t going to be a picnic.’

‘Where? Back to Kabul?’

‘Worse,’ Holt said.

‘Way worse,’ said Liebowitz.

‘Like into the fuckin’ jaws of death worse,’ said Baldacci, seeming to relish the thought.

Wolf said, ‘Show him, Chris.’

Holt shrugged. ‘Okay, for what it’s worth. We’re on our own out here, so I think we can risk a little light for a couple of minutes.’ He stood up from the rock he’d been sitting on and stepped towards the Humvee. From a kit bag on the front seat he took a small lantern and a map in a plastic sleeve. Setting the dim lantern on the Humvee’s bonnet with a cautionary glance around the horizon he said, ‘There’s a Christian mission orphanage about a hundred and thirty klicks northwest of here, right up in the hills. It’s been in operation for years, lasted out the Russians, even kept going through the civil war, and at the last report they had about forty kids there. Place is run by a Belgian woman called Francine Blanchet, a lay preacher who’s about seventy years old and is one of your old-fashioned saints, along with her brother Patrick. In a regime that forbids the education of young girls and where Christians have to keep their faith a deadly secret out of fear of execution, she’s gone on taking in little Afghan orphans and teaching them to read, write and do math. You don’t need me to tell you what the Taliban would do to these kids. If they don’t just shoot them dead out of hand they’ll shove them into forced marriages with their fighters. Some of these girls are less than twelve years old.’

‘And we can’t be having that, now can we?’ Scraggs said fiercely. ‘Not while we’re still living and breathing.’

Ben asked, ‘How did you come to hear about the orphanage?’