He was afraid, he didn’t mind admitting that. When he was a soldier he knew he might die, but that was in a firefight, with a weapon in his hand, when he would at least have had a chance to defend himself. This was different: a cold and premeditated death at the hands of a bunch of religious psychopaths and gangsters. Of all the ways to go, Porter reckoned, being murdered was the worst, for the simple reason that some bastard was getting the better of you.

And it made it worse to die without knowing who was killing you or why they wanted you dead so badly?

He peered into the darkness. His arms were still straining against the ropes binding him to the chair, but he knew it was useless: the wrestling with the bindings was just the instinctive desperate reaction of a condemned man, like a person who has been accidentally buried alive clawing hopelessly at the lid of their own coffin.

Hassad wasn’t here, he told himself. Or at least, if he was, he had no intention of showing himself. If it had been a trick all along, just to lure me out here to my death, then I don’t suppose he is about to change his mind now. But maybe it isn’t a trick? Perhaps someone back at the Firm betrayed me. Maybe someone who wants Katie Dartmouth to die, perhaps so the government will fall? After all, someone already tried to kill me back in London. Who’s to say they aren’t trying again out here? And this time, they look like making a better job of it.

I can wrestle with the riddle. But unless the bastard chooses to tell me in the last seconds before the sword cuts into the back of my neck, I will never know the answer.

Porter tried to calm himself. He knew he had to keep himself together if he was to walk out of here and face his execution. Avoiding humiliation was the only shred of control he had left over what remained of his life, and he was determined not to squander that now: for all he knew, the beheading might be broadcast on television or the Internet. The minutes were ticking by, although without a watch he had no sure way of knowing how much time was left to him. Half an hour maybe? It could even be less.

What’s the bloody point of the last hour? he asked himself bitterly. If they were going to kill me why didn’t they just do it in the back of the car last night?

Just then, a noise echoed down through the tiny slit window.

Gunfire.

Porter froze. He felt certain of it.

The noise he had just heard was gunfire.

He tried to turn round but it was impossible. The ropes binding him to the chair lashed him in place. All he could rely upon were his ears. And they were telling him the place was under attack.