In the Reaper control room in Lincolnshire, the squadron leader got the message she was waiting for, via her headset: confirmation that the primary target was indeed inside the BMW.

She offered up a silent prayer of thanks: by now, the vehicle was almost out of the city and into the desert, and that greatly minimised the risk of collateral damage.

She leaned forward once again and spoke to the pilot.

‘Clear hot,’ she said.

‘Confirm clear hot,’ he replied.

As he spoke, he flicked the safety cover from the firing mechanism, and pressed the button.

Immediately, one of the aircraft’s Brimstone 2 missiles was released, its solid-fuel rocket propelling it forward and down.

‘Twenty seconds to impact,’ said the pilot, maintaining the cross hairs on the moving vehicle.

In the car below, Tariq looked at his uncle, nervously.

‘Where are we going, sir?’ he said.

But the uncle made no reply.

He wanted to get to the bottom of what had gone on a few days ago in the villa down in Houn – the new safe house that that fool Shaladi had arranged for those damned Chechens.

He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the events of that night were connected in some way to the man whom the imbecilic Tariq had brought to his door – the fellow from England who had said that he was the link-man between the Saudi money and the Chechens.

Something very bad had happened to the Chechens and their hired hands, and the uncle was concerned that it might end up back at his door.

They were unforgiving people, Chechens, and if their friends somehow found out that he himself had given the accursed fellow the address, just before the villa was hit…

He looked through the window again.

The lights of Sirte were falling behind.

They had reached the open country, and in a few minutes they would be at the abandoned oil storage depot, where he was going to make Tariq talk, and then beg, and finally squeal.

He shook his head, bitterly.

The mysterious man from England had insisted on going down to Houn alone, even though he’d willingly paid the extra $25,000 for Tariq to go along – which, now you thought about it, made no real sense.

And he had not been heard from since.

The more the uncle pondered it all, the less he liked it.

Partly, privately, he was cursing himself for being blinded by the dollars the man had handed over.

But mostly he was blaming Tariq.

He turned to his left, and looked at his fat, sweating nephew.

In the glow of the dash, he saw that Tariq’s lower lip was trembling, and he smiled.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he never got to speak the words, and Tariq never got to hear them, nor to give his answer, and he was never tortured and taken out and shot in the desert to the south.