‘Then you’ve got it,’ she replied. ‘Not like I can leave a one-armed man to fend for himself, is it?’

She took a deep breath and held out her hand.

‘But if we’re doing this together, you’ve got to stop calling me Agent Grace. My friends call me Eden.’

Dempsey smiled and took Grace’s hand in his only good one.

‘Nice to meet you, Eden. People just call me Dempsey.’

Ten minutes later both Dempsey and Grace were set to leave.

The plan was to drive Ali’s car the short distance to the private entrance at LaGuardia that was reserved for diplomats, politicians, United Nations personnel and other VIPs. Kirk had assured Dempsey that there would be no security stop and no search at the perimeter, and had arranged a private jet to fly them to Montreal. Once in Canada, they would change planes for the long flight to Kabul.

Dempsey had spent the time checking, reloading and re-securing his pistols, safe in the knowledge that he could take them on board the two private flights. Grace had done the same. She still had her SIG Sauer P229, plus the Glock 26 Dempsey had given her back at The Stratford. Now he gave her the other two spare magazines, and one of the two pilot’s knives he had strapped to his forearms before he had left his apartment.

They would have access to guns and ammunition at the other end, Dempsey knew. But he felt safer knowing that they were both well-armed from the start. Caution and care. Two reasons he had lived this long.

Satisfied with the weaponry, he finally turned to his last resource. The leather envelope. It was his emergency preparedness kit, containing tens of thousands in cash in four major currencies; officially authorised passports from five different countries, none of which contained any mention of a ‘Joe Dempsey’; driving licences corresponding to each passport; four sets of safety deposit keys, each with a home in one of four major world cities; and a single bank card that provided access to a single account, unconnected and unconnectable to either his real identity or to any of the five for which he carried a passport.

It was everything he could need to disappear. Plus one other item.

He pushed the passports aside as he looked for it. Using his fingertips, he felt to the bottom of the envelope. For an anxious moment he could not find it, until he felt the reassuring cold of a small gold medal. He moved it to the palm of his hand and removed it from the envelope.

St Christopher. Patron saint of travellers.

It was Dempsey’s most cherished possession. Capable of reassuring him – of calming him – whenever he touched it. This moment was no different.

‘Are you OK?’

He dropped the medal back into the envelope and turned to face Grace.

‘Yes. Yeah. I’m fine.’

Grace looked at him with suspicion, but Dempsey was telling the truth. Satisfied that he had everything he could need – practically and emotionally – he was now thinking as clearly as he ever had.