Porter was surveying the territory as he walked, making sure he knew every inch of the ground, and committed every face to his memory. The same two guards had still been standing mute outside Katie’s door, but he reckoned there must be a shift change, probably three times a day: in any well-organised army, eight hours was the maximum sentry duty you could expect a man to perform before he started getting tired and careless, and Hassad’s mob looked pretty professional to Porter. He made a mental note to see if he could figure out the time of the shift change: there might be a few seconds in which there was a chance to sneak into Katie’s room unnoticed. As they walked into the main meeting point of the tunnels, Porter took note of another pair of heavily armed men standing guard at the bottom of the staircase. In total, Porter reckoned he had seen between fifteen and twenty different guys since they had arrived here, including the blokes they’d driven with in the Mercedes. As a rough rule of thumb, he calculated there could well be double that: some men would be sleeping, some would just be in different parts of the mine, some would up on guard duty above ground. That meant there could be anything up to forty Hezbollah fighters down here.

Forty to one, thought Porter grimly. That’s just suicide.

Hassad steered him towards the third tunnel leading away from the main meeting place. Like the corridor in which Katie was incarcerated, it stretched back about thirty yards, except at the end this one dropped into what looked like a deep crevice the mining company must have cut into the rock. This must be where some of the men kip down, Porter reckoned. There were a few small rooms leading off the corridor, each one with three or four straw beds on the damp ground. Electric lamps illuminated part of the way, but some of them had been turned off, probably to save power. He saw a few men sitting around in each room. Some of them were cleaning their guns, or repacking the ammunition in their belts. One or two were reading or writing letters. The rest were just staring into space. Same as soldiers anywhere, thought Porter. They were trying to get as much rest as they could before the next firestorm kicked off.

‘This will be your room,’ said Hassad. ‘So long as you are our guest, then you can stay here.’

How long are they expecting me to stay here? Porter wondered. Their plan is to kill Katie tomorrow evening. Maybe I’m the next hostage after they’ve finished with her.

He pushed open the door. It was no more than a cave: a space where the miners had blasted into the rock years ago. It was four metres deep and about three metres wide. Hassad knelt down to switch on an electric lamp, which filled the space with a pale, golden light. There was a straw bed and a bucket in the corner with some water in it. From the smell of the place, some men had been kipping down here pretty recently, but they seemed to have cleared out. ‘Wash,’ said Hassad. ‘We will eat in twenty minutes, and then we will get some rest.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Tomorrow, after all, is a pretty big day for us.’