Under Ramos’ instructions, the helicopter then landed a hundred metres from the Lucky Lady.

Half of his men were sent to clear away those few people who had not run off the beach, and the other half began to approach the yacht, to engage the remaining terrorists, whom they had every reason to believe were still aboard, and to free the hostages.

But as they got within ten metres of the boat, a twenty-kilogram ball of Semtex was ignited by a timed detonator, initiated by Benchakroun in his last act before leaving the vessel, and five marines were killed, Jorge Fernández and Ramon Ramos among them.

30.

BY NOW, JUSTIN Nicholls was alone in his office, on the fifth floor of the SIS HQ at Vauxhall, digesting the news from the explosion on the beach at Ceuta and casting his eye over casualty reports.

The numbers would change – they always did – but the best current estimate was eighty-nine Britons killed aboard the MS Windsor Castle, out of a total of 104 dead, and seventeen dead on the beach, out of a total of seventy-one.

It could have been worse, he supposed – but then, if you lost more than a hundred of your own and still found yourself looking on the bright side, that was a very bad day.

His phone buzzed, quietly.

It was his assistant, Hugo.

‘Alec Palmer from the Spanish desk, sir,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Hugo,’ said Nicholls.

He heard a click and said, ‘Alec?’

Palmer sounded breathless.

‘The three female hostages taken from Marbella, Justin?’ he said. ‘We’re pretty sure that one of them is the Prime Minister’s oldest daughter, Charlotte.’

Justin Nicholls was a very intelligent man, with a double first in mathematics from Cambridge and over two decades in the SIS behind him; it was rare that he was lost for words.

This was one of those times.

He and his wife were family friends of the PM, Penelope Morgan, and he’d seen Charlotte Morgan grow up from a shy teenager to a confident young woman in the early stages of what was sure to be a glittering career at the Bar.

He shuddered at the thought of her being taken by those evil people, and blown apart on some foreign shore…

‘Justin?’ said Alec Palmer.

‘Yes. Sorry. Christ. Charlotte? When did you hear this? How?’

‘We’ve just put it together. She was on holiday with a group of friends. One couple had a row and went back to their hotel – luckily for them, as it turns out. That couple contacted the consulate an hour or so ago to say that their friends hadn’t returned, and that they couldn’t raise them on their phones. They’ve just identified the other three males in the temporary morgue in Marbella, but there’s no sign of the three females. We’ve had a look at their phones. Nothing since about 1 p.m., which was roughly when they went onto the beach. So we’re assuming…’

‘Shit,’ breathed Nicholls. ‘Shit. Did she not have RaSP with her?’