Heavy attack.

With RPGs and machine guns.

‘Move the fuck up against the wall.’

Porter sat bolt upright, the ropes cutting into his skin as he did so. It was an English voice, he could have sworn it. It was carried on the breeze and drifted down through the slit window at the back of the cell. It was little more than a murmur by the time it reached Porter’s ears. He had to strain his ears to catch it above the din of Arabic and the rattle of gunfire. It was enough to give him hope, however.

Maybe the Firm were tracking me? Maybe Katie Dartmouth is holed up in one of these cells and they’ve sent some boys in to break us both out.

A condemned man will grab hold of just about any straw, he reminded himself. But it could just be true.

He listened harder, aware of the adrenalin surging through him. There was the sound of gunfire, and a couple of mighty explosions as RPG rounds smashed into concrete walls. He could hear shouting above the din, all of it in Arabic, and he started to think he’d just imagined the English voice. The battle had been raging for three or four minutes now, and showed no signs of abating: the flow of noise rocked from side to side, as the two opposing forces unleashed lethal firepower.

Whatever’s going on up there, he thought, it’s a hell of a firefight.

The bolt.

Porter’s eyes shot to the door.

He could hear the bolt being slammed back, then the key turning in the lock.

Who is it now? he asked himself.

As the door opened, Porter briefly hoped it might be a Regiment guy, dressed in the olive-grey uniform he’d once been so proud to wear himself: if the Firm was breaking them out, there was only one unit of soldiers who would get the job. But the figure who stepped through the door was dressed in a long black robe, and had dark skin and a thick black beard. He was at least six feet tall, with thick, muscled forearms.

‘I hope you have read those verses,’ he said, leaving the door open to the corridor behind him. ‘Because within a few seconds you will have to explain yourself to Allah.’

In his right hand, he was holding a long, curved, stainless-steel sword. From one end to the other, it must have measured five feet, Porter reckoned, and with its finely chiselled brass handle it couldn’t have weighed less than fifty pounds. It might be a medieval piece of technology but that didn’t mean it wasn’t one of the most deadly weapons ever created. In the right hands, it could do as much damage as a tank. And the thick, stout hands of the man who had just walked into the room looked as if they knew exactly what to do with it.

Porter could feel his neck numbing with fear. ‘I thought you were taking me to the courtyard,’ he said.