Behind and to the left of the main villa, against the wall, was a darker square, marked on the image as ‘Generator and fuel tank’.

That made sense, Carr thought: Libya’s electricity grid had been bombed back to the Middle Ages, but even at its best you’d want a back-up down there in the back of beyond.

On the opposite side of the compound, tucked away near the rear of the compound, was a small building, marked ‘Servants’ quarters’.

‘Looks good for a prison cell,’ said Carr. ‘Single door, one room, easier to watch them and easier to guard than the main house.’

Three vehicles were parked nearby, along the rear wall, and two men were visible, one inside and one outside the perimeter wall.

‘Sentries?’ said McMullen.

‘Aye,’ said Carr. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll all be inside watching telly.’

‘Any idea on their strength?’ said Skelton.

‘It’s out of the way,’ said Carr, ‘so Six haven’t been able to get too close. But they think ten or twelve.’

‘That’s light,’ said Skelton. ‘That Brummie twat said they had Chechens with them. Reckon they were the reinforcements he was on about?’

‘Maybe,’ said Carr. ‘And when they didn’t show…’

‘You think they know we’re on our way?’

Carr thought for a moment, and then shook his head.

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘If they thought for one second that their guys had been clipped, and that the people who did it were inbound, they’d already have fucked off.’

‘But the int says their current position is only temporary?’ said McMullen.

‘Makes sense,’ said Carr. ‘It’s what we’d do ourselves, isn’t it? Something goes wrong, you assume the enemy knows your plan. They can’t move every day, that would be logistically impossible, but if it was me I’d be there for three or four days, a week max, and then I’m moving again.’

‘Fair one,’ said Skelton.

‘So what do we do?’ said Kev McMullen.

‘Let’s have a look at the map,’ said Carr.

He spread it out on the bonnet of his Hilux, and they spent a few minutes studying it in the dusk.

Houn was a small town halfway between the similar-sized settlements of Sawknah and Waddan. All three had grown up over centuries because of the existence of the Jufra oasis, whose underground sweetwater springs bubbled up into the sands and turned this tiny sliver of the vast, barren Sahara green with olive and palm trees.

The target compound was at the very south of the town, just north of a sprawling range of ancient black basalt mountains.

Carr pointed at the highway which led straight down to Houn from Misrata on the coast.

‘Given the urgency and our location, this is the obvious way in,’ he said. ‘Join it fifteen klicks north, down into the top of town, skirt round on the ring road.’