By the time he bounced back onto the tarmac he was already doing 80kph, and, with his foot to the floor, the tuned, three-litre turbo had them three kilometres down the road in no time.

Up ahead, in the distance, Carr saw that the road was partially blocked.

Kevin McMullen had seen it, too, and was slowing.

As they got closer, Carr saw a dozen oil barrels, painted red-and-white, and doubtless half-full of rubble and concrete, arranged across the tarmac in a rough chicane.

‘VCP two hundred metres ahead,’ he said, to Skelton and West. ‘Unmanned.’

‘Clowns,’ said Geordie. ‘Good for us, mind.’

‘Lights on,’ said Carr, as they drove through the checkpoint.

He wanted to look as normal as possible, now.

A minute later, they reached the outskirts of Houn.

There was a lot of people and traffic out and about in the town itself – North African countries tending to avoid the heat of the day and come alive after sundown – and Carr felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Almost all of the streetlights were out, but still, he squeezed the pistol grip of the Diemaco across his legs, and moved the safety catch to fire.

Up ahead of them, the cars slowed to a stop at a large traffic island, with some bombed-out office buildings to its right.

Through a gap in the taller buildings, they could see a tower and several white domes, lit up and rising into the sky.

‘There’s the old mosque,’ said Carr.

‘Seen,’ said McMullen.

To Carr’s right, a group of young men were sitting outside a run-down villa, passing round a hubble bubble.

One of them, a tall, thin guy in a Barcelona soccer shirt, was bouncing a football on the pavement.

He said something to the bloke next to him, and they both laughed.

The man with the pipe inhaled deeply, blew out some smoke and idly turned his head.

And looked straight at John Carr, who was faintly illuminated by a light outside the villa.

‘Is it on?’ said Kevin McMullen, straining with every fibre of his being to work his drills: look relaxed, don’t make eye contact, yawn, smile, scratch your arse – do anything, as long as you look like a man without a care in the world.

‘Nah, he’s just having a bit of a nose,’ said Carr. He smiled at the guy through the passenger window, and raised a hand in casual acknowledgment. ‘It’s dark, Kev, we’ve got beards and tans. We’re fine.’

And, sure enough, the guy smiled back at Carr, nodded politely, and turned to pass the pipe to the man next to him.

The traffic freed, and McMullen turned right, checking to make sure that Geordie and Fred were still there.

All four of them had memorised the route, which, fortunately, was simple.

‘One kilometre down here,’ said Carr. ‘Old town on the left.’

‘Roger,’ said McMullen.

‘Five hundred metres.’