Finally, at 18.20 Eastern Time, they were back in the air. Ben had a window seat and watched as New Jersey, framed in the porthole window, grew smaller and hazier beneath them. They were in the clouds before they reached the Atlantic coast. Roth’s stroll around the airport had obviously helped him work out his tensions. His newfound relaxation marked a sharp contrast with his earlier state, and he was content to doze off with a little smile on his face. Ben soon lost interest in both Roth and the view from the window, and thought only about Nazim al-Kassar.

Just over eight hours after takeoff from Newark Liberty, the plane hit the runway at Charles de Gaulle. Two-thirty a.m. Eastern Time was half past seven in the morning, Central European Time, making it a short night. Ben and Roth disembarked, went through security separately and met up again outside. By the time Roth appeared, Ben had already tried Thierry again twice. Still no reply. His worry was growing.

‘Hot wheels, man,’ Roth commented of the Alpina as Ben led him across the car park. ‘I had an SRT Challenger that was faster than a goddamned Hydra rocket. Never could hit two hundred miles an hour, though. I’ll bet this baby’s good for it.’

‘I drive like a girl,’ Ben said. ‘It keeps the insurance premiums down.’

‘I’ll bet. So what’s our first port of call in the City of Light?’

Ben had already decided on that. He took off towards Paris, driving like a girl, and carved his way through the morning traffic to the safehouse.

When they got there, Ben’s darkest fears were half realised. Worst case scenario, he’d imagined that either the Corsicans or Nazim’s people had somehow managed to trace the address and Thierry and his friend Pierrot would be lying dead in pools of blood. But that wasn’t the sight waiting to greet them.

Instead, the safehouse was empty. The two men were gone. No Thierry. No Pierrot. And no laptop containing the video clip, either, because it had been removed from the table where it had been sitting before. Nothing else was missing or disturbed. The hidden guns were still where Ben had left them. He took one for himself and tossed another to Roth.

‘I’m feeling at home already,’ Roth said, loading up his pistol. ‘I take it these things aren’t available to civilians here, right?’

‘Only if they’re criminals,’ Ben said. ‘Welcome to Europe, land of the free.’