He walked slowly on into Via Buia, hemmed in by fading plaster walls dotted with jewellery stores, boutiques and opticians’ shops with windows full of €300 frames by Gucci and Ted Baker.

Limping slightly, he felt the familiar ache in his leg, where that shell fragment had taken a chunk out of his calf and broken his tibia and fibula at Mazar-e Sharif.

It was a wound from many years ago which served both to remind him of the past and to strengthen his commitment to the future.

He had driven all thought of his ignominious escape from the compound at Houn from his mind.

On still, into Piazza del Salvatore, where young drinkers sat under red parasols and stared at the marble statue of a bare-breasted woman, standing over a stone bathtub into which water spouted from a lion’s mouth.

Near the second table of drinkers, he finished his Marlboro Light.

‘Scusami,’ he said, flashing them his most charming smile, and leaning over to grind the butt out in an ashtray.

‘Prego,’ said one of them, a young woman.

He smiled again, and moved on, enjoying the warm evening air, down into Via Santa Giustina, where he had rented an apartment in an old townhouse.

Two policemen were wandering idly in the opposite direction, deep in conversation.

The dolts ignored him as he passed them, the wolf moving unseen amongst their flock.

A few steps on, he stopped, in front of a large brown door.

From habit more than anything, he paused and looked around himself, for signs that he had been noticed – men standing in the shadows, cars parked in odd places.

But he saw none of this, and he smiled to himself.

He took a small set of keys out of the pocket of his white Armani jeans, turned one of them in the lock, and pushed the door open.

Inside, the cool hallway smelled musty.

He climbed the grey marble steps to the first floor and unlocked the door to his apartment.

Whistling tunelessly to himself, he pushed open the door and paused for a moment.

He listened for any noise from within and then, happy that all was as it should be, he walked inside.

He walked to the little desk against one wall of the yellow-painted living room, put his iPhone and keys on the wooden top, and draped his burgundy Ermenegildo Zegna leather jacket over the back of the old chair.

Sat at the desk, flipped open his laptop, and entered his lengthy password.

And then…

Was that a noise?

He stopped, hands poised over the keyboard, head cocked to one side.

Listening.

No, nothing.

He turned.

No-one there.

Getting paranoid, Argun.

He opened an encrypted email account.

Just check for any update from the Syrians.

As he waited for the email to load, he walked into the kitchen for a drink of water.

The glass chinked, the tap hissed.

He raised it to his mouth, and then he froze.