He could almost feel the CCTV cameras burning into him as he walked.

Chapter 63.

63.

AS MAHSOUD WALKED out of the room at Heathrow, Carr and the three members of his team were still sitting at Geordie Skelton’s enormous kitchen table, drinking tea, and talking across a large scale military map of Libya.

Carr had laid out his thoughts, a few suggestions had been made, and it had been refined to the point where they all thought it was workable.

Essentially, it was as he had suggested to Justin Nicholls – fly to Tunisia, transport to the south of that country, tab across the border with small arms, collect vehicles and heavier weapons on the Libyan side, and then head across country to Sirte once MI6 had supplied the exact location of the hostages.

A lot would depend on the strength and disposition of the enemy forces, but they were confident that, with speed, aggression and surprise, they could overwhelm a reasonable number of men – many times in their Regiment careers, they had taken on forces ten times their strength and won.

And if they got there and found that the job was literally impossible, they would at least be able to act as eyes on the ground and report back.

As for extraction, Carr had planned for them to drive back out.

But Geordie Skelton had balked at that, on the basis that a two-day drive across the Sahara, with two very valuable passengers, was too risky.

‘We might have woken up half of fucking Libya, man,’ he’d said. ‘They could all be out looking for us. Sooner we’re off the ground, the better.’

So, after some discussion, they had settled on a plan to head south of Sirte, out into the empty desert, before doubling back north to a point halfway to the coast, for extraction by air.

Given the UK government’s difficulty in acting, this would have to be via a civilian helicopter, fitted with long range tanks, and flown by ex-RAF pilots.

But Carr knew a couple of men whom he thought would be up for the job, as long as the money was right. It all added significantly to the cost, but that wasn’t his concern.

Finally, they started drawing up their kit list.

‘Vehicles?’ Carr said, turning to Fred West.

‘Can’t beat a Hilux, mate,’ said West. ‘There’s a reason every fucker out there drives them. I’d go with twin cabs – three-litre diesels, manual gearbox, uprated suspensions, tuned engines. Full recovery kit, spare fuel, winches, two spare tyres each. Basically everything for a desert trip.’