Observing the traffic slowly pass through the checkpoint Ben is less interested in the contents of the vehicles, more in the faces of the drivers. Weeks have passed since the escape of Nazim al-Kassar, and Special Forces are on red alert to recapture him. A small group of SAS have been directed to assist the regular troops while identifying routes likely to be used by insurgents. This checkpoint near Karbala, about a hundred miles south of Baghdad, is one of those where their sources tell them they are most likely to intercept key personnel whose capture could potentially inform them of the whereabouts of the renegade JTJ commander or one of his lieutenants.

In other words, it’s a bloody wild goose chase and nobody really has a clue what’s going on. Ben feels his being here is a waste of time and a poor use of their resources. Apart from anything else, word will quickly have reached any of the militants who might have been considering using this route, and they will simply have altered their itinerary. There are plenty far more valuable things Ben could be doing to help find al-Kassar, but his orders have been clear.

Ben takes his cigarette pack and Zippo from a pouch of his tactical vest, leans against a low sandbag wall and lights up a smoke. He smiles to himself as one of the checkpoint soldiers has trouble hanging onto the camel’s lead rope while his colleague is patting down the animal’s owner. The army doesn’t offer camel handling as part of its basic training programme, but maybe it should. The comic relief over, the camel guy goes on his way. The soldiers circle a dusty pickup truck and begin their next search. This will go on all day, and then some.

From one of the low buildings in the distance comes a woman. Ben notices her from the corner of his eye and watches as she begins walking slowly towards the checkpoint. Like all the Muslim women who’ve passed through here today, she’s dressed in black, with the full hijab and niqab that cover all of her face except her eyes. From a distance it’s impossible to make out any details of her, but as she gets closer, it’s apparent that she’s heavily pregnant and canting her upper body back to counterbalance the weight she carries up front, with her left arm clutching her belly for support. She must be almost nine months gone.