ONE OF THE golden rules of E and E – escape and evasion – Luke knew all too well was that your best chance of getting away, your best ‘window of escape’, was during the early minutes of captivity. That was before your captors secured your bindings and moved you to a more permanent location. After that, your odds of a successful escape fell off rapidly. Luke knew he’d missed an opportunity – the moment when Hugo Squires spotted him. He wouldn’t have made it, but he couldn’t let another chance like that go. He silently cursed himself. It seemed all that training had come to nothing now and his immediate future was looking very grim indeed.

Luke knew he had only a few minutes before they came for him and he doubted he could work his hands free in time. He needed to focus, to think like a professional, to assess the situation calmly despite everything. These people may be fanatical sociopaths, but they wouldn’t be so stupid as to fire up a blowtorch next to the canisters of deadly agent. They’ll have to untie me before they can move me, he thought. And that may be my one and only window. He needed a weapon, something to even up the odds. He looked around for something, anything, he could use. Nothing. The floor was bare. And then there it was: a glimmer of metal protruding over the edge of the workbench. It looked like a wrench or a spanner and it would have to do. Now all he had to do was get to it in time.

And then the door opened. There were three of them. First through the door was Niamh, followed by two heavily built men he hadn’t seen before. Shaven skulls, beards, black leather jackets, one carrying a knife, the other a length of cord. Luke braced himself. This was about to get very ugly.

Niamh squatted in front of him and regarded him coldly for several seconds before she spoke. He could see nothing human in those eyes: they looked completely dead to him. And that, for the first time, left him seriously scared.