From the right side of the desk, the Foreign Office’s James Middleton looked up. A thin man, with a balding head, and a shirt that seemed at least one collar size too small for him, he had remained silent throughout the entire meeting so far. ‘It’s a reference to the Society of Muslim Brothers, Sir Angus,’ he said. ‘They are the most extreme and secretive of fundamentalist Muslim sects. They were set up in Egypt in 1928, and its offshoots include Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the whole bloody lot of them. But the Society is where it all started – and many people think it still controls the entire Muslim fundamentalist movement. Evidently Hassad is a member, and when he referred to it to Porter all those years ago he was acknowledging the extent of his debt to him. Just to mention the name of the Society to a Westerner is a mark of extraordinary respect, and places the speaker under an obligation that he can never break.’

Porter smiled, reserving his widest grin for Collinson, still fuming at Sir Angus’s side. ‘Looks like I’ve got honorary membership,’ he says. ‘Praise be to sodding Allah.’

SEVEN

The doctor was young, no more than thirty, dressed in a white coat, with closely cropped black hair, and eyes that suggested he didn’t like being disagreed with. His name was Simon, according to the tag on his jacket. ‘Basically, you’re in terrible shape,’ he said. ‘But I guess you already knew that.’

Porter nodded. The last time he’d seen a doctor had been more than ten years ago, before Diana had thrown him out. He’d gone to see him because Diana was driving him crazy, nagging him about his drinking. He’d dragged himself off to see the local GP in Nottingham, a kindly woman in her mid-thirties who offered to refer him for some counselling. Porter thanked her, and took the number of the therapist, but never made the call. What was the point? he thought at the time. He drank because it was the only way he could live with himself, knowing that he’d screwed up the only job he ever wanted, and carelessly thrown away the lives of three good men. No therapist could go back in time and change that. So what was the point in even talking about it?

‘You want the good news or the bad news?’ said Simon.

After leaving the conference room, Layla had taken Porter straight back to the elevator, and down to the operations room on the second floor of the building. A flight was already being arranged to get him to Beirut for Thursday morning. It was Tuesday afternoon now, which left them thirty-six hours to prepare him for the mission, and to resolve what kind of tactics he should deploy once he was confronted by Hassad. We’ll take you to the medical centre first, Layla had told him. They had to find out what kind of shape he was in before they could do anything else.