And then he remembered where it had all gone wrong, and suddenly he woke up completely.

‘Shit,’ he muttered.

He could hear the fear and dread in his own voice.

Porter was strapped to a chair, and the chair itself appeared to be nailed into the floor. There were ropes around his chest, his arms and his legs, making it impossible for him to do more than twitch a few muscles. They must have come in during the night to strap me up, he told himself grimly. To make sure that I couldn’t cause any trouble when I came round from the beating.

But why?

A few pale glimmers of light were sneaking through the tiny window of the cell. It must be morning, Porter told himself, although he had no way of knowing for sure what time it was or even which day.

The door started to creak open. Porter followed it with his eyes, and found it impossible to suppress a glimmer of hope that it might be Hassad. Disappointment, he knew, was inevitable. As the door swung completely open, the same fat bastard who had whipped him into unconsciousness last night stepped slowly into the room. Same black clothes. Same pudgy face. And the same streak of pure violence running through his eyes.

Porter looked straight at him, and he could feel every muscle in his body tensing in anger, but he resolved to remain silent.

The man took two paces forward, so that his imposing bulk was just five feet away from the chair to which Porter was strapped.

‘I haven’t killed any Zionist, imperialist scum for more than a week,’ he said. The words were pronounced in whiny, heavily accented English. ‘So I think I’m going to enjoy this.’

It takes character to listen to your own death sentence in silence, thought Porter. But maybe when you don’t care any more it doesn’t feel so bad.

‘It is ten o’clock now,’ the man continued. ‘The beheading – your beheading – is scheduled for one hour.’

Porter flinched. It was an involuntary instinctive twitching of the muscles, one that he couldn’t control, and he felt instantly ashamed of himself. Take this like a soldier, he told himself. It is the last shred of dignity left to you.

‘Before then, we offer you the chance to make your peace with Allah.’

‘I’ll make peace with my own God, thank you,’ Porter spat contemptuously.

The man smiled. ‘You will die in accordance with the teaching of the Koran,’ he said. ‘That is our way, and if you attempt to resist us, you will only make things worse for yourself. You will be led from here, and taken to a courtyard, where you will be allowed to face Mecca. You will be allowed to kneel, and whether you wear a blindfold or not is up to you.’ The man’s face creased up in another pudgy smile. ‘The blade will be sharp, but of course you are a strong man, with a thick neck, and as I am sure you can imagine, it is hard for even the most skilful swordsman to sever a neck in one blow. I have watched several beheadings and the head nearly always comes away from the neck on the third or fourth strike of the sword.’