‘And if I die trying?’

‘Then at least you’ll have been well paid.’

‘Someone tried to kill me,’ said Porter, as Sir Angus got up to leave.

‘Just wait until you get out to the bloody Lebanon, man,’ said Sir Angus. ‘Everyone will want to kill you out there.’

‘I’m not joking,’ snapped Porter. ‘A guy tried to run me over.’

‘We’re investigating,’ said Layla.

‘And what have you found out?’

Layla hesitated. There was a flicker of indecision in her expression, and for a moment Porter suspected she was holding something back from him.

‘So far, not much,’ she said, tossing a lock of hair away from her face.

‘There’s a mole,’ said Porter. ‘Someone in this organisation knows what I’m doing and wants to stop it.’

‘A Hezbollah spy within the Firm?’ said Sir Angus. ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous, man.’

Porter got up. ‘I’m telling you, it’s true,’ he growled.

Sir Angus turned and started walking from the room. ‘You just concentrate on doing your job,’ he said. ‘There are no spies in this organisation.’

TWELVE

Porter adjusted the sound on the TV set. Sky News was sticking to its round-the-clock coverage of the Katie Dartmouth story, and so were CNN and BBC News. He flicked through the other channels: there was a celebrity show on ITV, a detective programme on BBC, and a rerun of Friends on Channel 4, but it was so long now since Porter had had a TV set he no longer had much idea what was on, or what he liked to watch.

He propped his head back on the pillow, and went back to Sky. There wasn’t much new for them to say. It was Wednesday evening now, and Katie had been captured late on Sunday night. There was some fresh footage that had been released of her captivity. All you could see was a woman tied to a stake. Her arms and legs were both bound, and there were three hooded and armed men standing behind her. As the camera zoomed in closer, you could see the cuts and bruises on her cheeks. A gag was stuffed crudely into her mouth, but her eyes were exposed. And as the camera tracked towards them, you could see the despair that had overwhelmed her.

‘Shit,’ muttered Porter. In less than twenty-four hours I’m going to be there as well.

On the news, the Liberal Democrat leader had called today for troops to be brought home from Iraq, and even the Conservatives were calling for a debate. Sky switched to some footage from Prime Minister’s Questions at the House of Commons earlier that day. The PM had looked rattled as he repeated his earlier line that everything humanly possible was being done to secure Katie Dartmouth’s release, but that they could not negotiate directly on the kidnappers’ main demand. ‘All I say to people is this,’ he repeated, the strain showing in his face. ‘There can be no turning back, nor can there be any surrendering to the forces of terror.’ The words, however, were met by a stony silence from his own side of the house, and by barracking from the opposition.