Lauren stripped back down to socks and undies as Bruce found the weapons crate. Since UK- or NATO-issue weapons were off limits, James had sourced East European and Russian weaponry, while Tovah had ordered up a selection from Israeli intelligence’s arsenal.

‘There’s like thirty guns here,’ Bruce noted. ‘This is my kind of shopping. Oh man, there’s Galils in here! I love these babies.’

Bruce pulled the Israeli-made, ultra-compact assault rifle out of its foam packaging, aligned the sight and played around with it for a few seconds to familiarise himself. He then added two pistols, a silenced large-calibre and a tiny .22 that fitted in his shirt pocket. Bruce then clipped on grenades, smoke bombs, an extendable baton, a Taser, several knives and a half-metre-long machete.

‘Let’s go kill bad guys!’ Bruce shouted, as he expertly twirled the machete from hand to hand.

James laughed, but Tovah looked furious and faced Bruce off. ‘I was in the Israeli Defence Force,’ she said angrily. ‘Saw a lot of shit, and it was always boys who liked guns too much who’d end up getting killed. More importantly, some of ’em almost got me killed.’

Bruce was startled as Tovah wordlessly stripped his arsenal down and reminded everyone that it was best if they each used the same kind of rifle and handgun, to minimise the amount of ammunition and spares they’d need to carry.

The atmosphere stayed tense as everyone packed up with spare underwear, rations, first-aid gear, and distributed the various electronic items they’d need for the rescue operation. When everything was packed, the final stage was depersonalisation.

Jewellery, mobile phones, wallets and anything else that would enable their identities to be ascertained had to be abandoned. After that, James broke the seal on cheap Casio watches, Chinese in-ear radio equipment and bulky phones with combined cellular and satellite coverage.

‘Ten-day battery life, military-rugged, fully encrypted, for emergency use only,’ James explained. ‘Once you leave this room, you’re anonymous. You don’t call your girlfriend, check your e-mail or Facebook. And since this is a black mission, there’s nobody to call but each other. As far as the British and Israeli governments are concerned, they don’t know we’re here and this mission does not exist. There’s will be no SAS rescue team. No Apache helicopters dropping by to pluck us out of danger. If we die, we’re just six unidentifiable bodies in a desert. And if we live …’

James dramatically pulled a rack of pills from his pocket. ‘This is old-skool spy stuff,’ he announced. ‘Cyanide pill. Pop one in your mouth, bite it between your back teeth and you’ll be dead inside two minutes. It’s not pleasant, but neither is being captured, tortured and beheaded by Islamic State.’

Tovah shook her head firmly. Ryan looked anxiously at Kyle and Lauren. Bruce picked up the packet, but put it down without breaking off a pill.