Roth had watched enough. He tossed the phone back to Ben. ‘That’s our boy, all right. One hundred per cent, no question. Where was this footage taken?’

‘Tripoli,’ Ben said. ‘Just days ago.’

‘Small world,’ Roth said. He was referring to one of the high points in his Delta career, the takedown of the al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi.

‘His last known sighting was Paris. As far as I know, he’s still in France, but I have no way to find him.’

‘And you thought I could help?’

‘I’m on my own here, Tyler.’

Roth nodded. ‘All right. I can tell you that not everyone on the Delta team was confident of making a positive ID on the remains. Personally, I’d figured on fifty-fifty, tops, that it was our guy.’

‘Not too solid a basis for the White House to issue a formal confirmation.’

Roth gave a shrug. ‘I wasn’t totally comfortable with the official story. Now I’m even less so, for obvious reasons. But certain people high up wouldn’t want to lose face by admitting claims of his demise were exaggerated.’

‘They might not have a choice.’

Roth pointed at the phone in Ben’s hand. ‘Tell me about the other asshole. The guy on the right.’

Ben told Roth what he knew about Julien Segal’s involvement. He described what had happened to Romy, Thierry’s efforts to extract some meaning from the video soundtrack, his meeting with Françoise Schell and the attack on the café, and how the search for Segal had so far come to a dead end.

Roth was hanging onto every word of Ben’s story. ‘You think they’ve got the wife?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it for four thousand miles. My guess is, al-Kassar and his people are holding her to use as leverage against Julien Segal. Whatever they’re up to, it’s something big and they’re obviously cagey about trusting him, after what happened with his assistant. And I’d say the feeling must be mutual. He’s probably just as terrified of them as Romy was. Especially now they’re threatening his wife.’

‘Makes sense,’ Roth agreed. ‘Which suggests that he still has some role to play in all of this. He makes one false move, tries to cut and run, the hostage gets it. Classic ISIL tactics. But the big question is, what the hell are they planning? Something that scared the shit out of that poor woman. So it all hangs on your guy, what’s his name, Thierry? Because if we could hear what these pricks are talking about …’

‘I’m not optimistic,’ Ben said. ‘He’s getting nowhere.’

‘And you’re running out of options. If he screws up or there’s nothing there to begin with, you’ve got squat. Which is why you came here. But what exactly did you think I could bring to the deal?’