Then he said, ‘We can take the entire back off it if you want, sir, but the hostages could be in living quarters directly underneath the rear deck for all we know. Meanwhile, the target will be inside Moroccan territorial waters in five minutes, I say again five minutes. Please advise whether we are free to pursue into Moroccan airspace. If not, please advise course of action, over.’

Again, he listened.

Then he turned to Jorge Fernández.

‘Fucking hell, Jorge,’ he shouted. ‘What a balls-up. The Moroccans have pulled back their ships and HQ can’t get any sense out of Rabat – it looks like they’re swerving it, they don’t want the blood of the hostages on their hands. And now HQ are swerving it, too. We’re cleared into Moroccan airspace, but the decision as to what to do is ours. Wankers.’

As Fernandez shook his head and smiled wearily, the captain keyed his mike again.

‘León, we are…’ he said.

But that was as far as he got.

‘What the…?’ he said. ‘Stand by, please.’

The helicopter had banked violently right, and out of the open door Ramos could see why.

Below them, the Lucky Lady had turned sharply inland.

The pilot came on the net. ‘Looks like he’s heading towards Ceuta,’ he said. ‘What do we do?’

Ramos, toying with the St Christopher’s medallion round his neck, thought for ten seconds – a long time to think, at times like this.

Then he said, ‘In the next few minutes, they’re going to have to make a decision about where they go ashore. We’re going to follow until they disembark. Maybe we can get a clear shot then. Any reason why that’s a shit plan, Jorge?’

‘No. I mean, it’s not a great plan, boss, but we are where we are.’

‘Do we put down?’ said the pilot, over the radio.

‘Not unless I say. Get us within range, but watch out for fucking MANPADs, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Oh, I will, don’t you fucking worry about that.’

Below them, the yacht ploughed on.

Capitán Ramon Ramos looked ahead.

The boat was heading directly for El Chorillo beach.

Crowded with sunbathers.

It was still doing close to fifty knots, and showing no sign of slowing

And Ramos suddenly realised what was happening.

‘Oh, fuck,’ he shouted. ‘Fuck!’

29.

THE FIRST TWO to die were swimmers who were run over and dismembered when the final terrorist – a short, stocky Moroccan called Khaled Benchakroun – deliberately ploughed through a bunch of people in the water.

The next two were a pair of teenaged girls, who were smeared like strawberry jam on the sand as he drove the 190-tonne boat ashore and straight over the top of them.

Six more people were killed when Benchakroun jumped from the stranded, heeling yacht and shot indiscriminately at horrified holidaymakers on the very beach on which he had spent his teenaged summers, selling T-shirts and trinkets to identical tourists.

The eleventh person to die was Benchakroun himself, his head blown half off by Jorge Fernández from the hovering helicopter three hundred metres offshore.