‘You may have heard of the Beslan school siege in 2004. It was a similar situation. Armed Chechen militants took over a school in the Russian town of Beslan. It lasted three days. There were more than a thousand hostages. In the end, Russian forces stormed the school. They were unprepared and heavy-handed. More than three hundred people were killed during the rescue, many of them children. It will be unacceptable for that to be repeated here in the UK.’

The recruits all stared at Hector in horror. He paused again before continuing.

‘Professional hostage negotiators are on site, but the terrorists are currently refusing to engage with them. That means they don’t want a compromise. They want the eyes of the world to be on them and to understand their protest against the Russians. It means things could turn very ugly. The SAS counter-terrorist team are on their way. They are the best-trained, best-prepared counter-terrorist team in the world. But they have one big problem.’ He looked at each of the recruits in turn. ‘They’re adults.’

Hector let that sink in for a moment. There was a little turbulence. Nobody seemed to notice it. They were all staring at the Watcher.

‘If the SAS go in blind,’ Hector continued, ‘we can’t predict the outcome. We cannot risk the death of a hostage – and especially a child hostage – as a result of our rescue mission. We need eyes and ears on the ground. That is to say, inside the school. That’s where you lot come in. We want to put you inside the school so you can relay information about the terrorists’ numbers, actions and positions to our SAS counter-terrorist team.’ He looked at them all in turn. ‘It is very, very dangerous. This is a live situation. If the terrorists realise who you are and what you are doing, they will most likely start killing people. No prizes for guessing who will be top of their list.’

There was a silence. The Chinook shook with another burst of turbulence. Hector took a deep breath. He looked around the recruits again.

‘You are untrained,’ he said. ‘Raw. You are wet behind the ears. Frankly, none of you knows what you are doing. It may be that by the time we land, the hostage negotiators will have done their job and the situation will be over. But the chances of that happening are vanishingly small. I’m going to be honest with you. If this was my call, I wouldn’t be sending you in. The risk to you and to the operation is too great. But I’ve been overruled. You’ll find that it happens quite a lot. None of you will ever meet the people I take my orders from. They like it that way, because it means they don’t develop any personal feelings towards any of you. And that means they are more likely to send you into dangerous situations.’