THEY DROVE ON, due south, McMullen concentrating hard on driving, Carr still looking for that possible follow-up.

And thinking.

He was working on a new exfil plan. It was going to have to be dynamic, and Nicholls probably wouldn’t like it, but the more he looked at it the more he realised they had no choice.

The original plan had called for the four men and the two rescued women to strike out north towards the coast and to lie up in the desert.

A privately owned heli, fitted with long range tanks, and flown by two ex-military pilots from a naval asset out in the Med, was then to come in under cover of darkness and take them out.

As plans go it had always been dicey, but there was no easy way of getting out of Libya, and it was a quicker and better and safer option than retracing their steps all the way back to the Tunisian border.

But now – with only three fighting hands instead of four, with the checkpoints and roving militia to the north, and with Houn almost certainly turning into a hornets’ nest… Now, dicey had become near-suicidal.

He finally directed McMullen to stop after another hour, fifty kilometres on.

The truck rolled into a deep depression which would give them cover from view to anyone who didn’t stumble right into them.

Carr got out, carrying his Diemaco, and climbed to the lip.

A moment later Geordie Skelton joined him with a Minimi, and together the two men scanned the dark desert through their night-sights.

The first fingers of pink dawn were appearing in the east, and they had excellent visibility over the flat, open terrain out to the horizon.

There was no-one in sight.

‘How they doing?’ said Carr.

‘The main bird’s fine,’ said Geordie. ‘The other’s away with the fucking fairies.’

Carr grimaced. ‘Poor little sod,’ he said. ‘She saw her husband shot on that beach.’

‘Aye,’ said Skelton. ‘I’d like to kill them wankers all over again.’ He turned south, scanning the horizon. ‘So what we doing?’ he said. ‘Losing Fred and having them fuckers to the north make it a bit complicated, eh?’

‘I’m not going north,’ said Carr.

‘I was hoping you’d say that, man,’ said Geordie.

‘That means the heli’s out,’ said Carr. ‘Too far, even with extra tanks.’

‘You’re not thinking of driving back to the border?’

‘No. I’m going to get us a plane.’

Skelton raised his eyebrows.

Carr had to be talking about an Airbus A400M ‘Atlas’, the recent replacement for the old C130 fleet. ‘Think they’ll risk one?’

It was a fair question: a special forces Atlas was a significant strategic asset. Throwing something like that onto the table was a big call.