Or something even more unsettling. Nazim felt a cold shiver as he realised his greatest vulnerability was the cargo itself, the moment it was unloaded on the dock. If Segal had betrayed him, the place could be swarming with police by the time the ship came in.

Mind racing, he looked at his watch. 5.14 a.m. The vessel was still a long way out to sea. He still had time to avert absolute disaster, but the sand was running fast out of the hourglass. He must act immediately. He would catch up with the traitor Julien Segal soon enough.

Nazim turned to his men and said, ‘Stop what you’re doing, all of you, and get back in the vans. We’re aborting.’

Chapter 51

As the six vans sped away from Sandouville, heading back eastwards through the rainy, misty darkness towards Le Havre, a desperate new plan was fast coming together in Nazim’s mind. He made another phone call, this time to his accomplice Zahran Yasin on board the ship, whose role in all of this was about to take a dramatic new turn.

Abbud the Syrian was at the wheel of the lead van as Nazim, next to him in the front passenger seat, told Zahran what would be required of him. When the call was finished Abbud looked perplexed. ‘I don’t get it. We’re already headed for the docks, so why can’t we just hang around and wait for the ship ourselves? If Segal has betrayed us to the foreigner, we just kill them and take what’s ours, inshallah.’

Nazim replied calmly, ‘And if the foreigner has brought the GIGN and a thousand gendarmes with him, are you going to kill them and take what’s ours then?’

‘Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.’ Abbud was reciting from the official doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood, words that he’d venerated and repeated for most of his life.

‘I have no fear of death,’ Nazim said. ‘But this plan must succeed, Abbud. I won’t die having failed.’

Twenty minutes from Sandouville, just after 5.35 a.m., the van convoy arrived at the docks. The Port of Le Havre was a huge sprawl of industry with multiple terminals and wharves that could accommodate the largest cruise liners in the world, like vast light-spangled starships that glided on the waves. Its series of canals connected the sea estuary to the major shipping lane of the Seine River. Giant cranes stood tall against the pre-dawn sky and a million reflections were shimmering on the blackness of the water.

Using his smartphone to navigate, Nazim guided Abbud through the port’s complex road system to the marina where private shipping came and went 24/7 and over a thousand vessels of all shapes and sizes were moored.