‘Hush, my friend,’ whispered the Chechen, putting the pistol to Malik’s forehead. ‘I give you the gift of paradise.’

The single report from the pistol sent the old man on his way into eternity.

Shishani took a knife and stabbed the inflated rubber panels of the boat in several places. As the air hissed out, he pushed the foundering RIB out into the Mediterranean.

Then he walked back up the beach.

Abdullah el Haloui met him halfway, a sardonic smile playing on his lips.

‘Did you have to do that, zaeim?’ he said, his hands relaxing on the AK, which was slung from his neck across his chest.

‘I’m afraid so,’ said the Chechen. ‘I couldn’t risk him talking. And he is a martyr now. He should be grateful.’

‘I guess so,’ said the young Moroccan, with a chuckle. ‘But how do you know I won’t talk?’

‘I don’t,’ said Shishani, raising the FNP to other man’s chest.

The smile dropped off el Haloui’s lips in an instant.

He went for the pistol grip of his AK, but it was a futile move and the last thing he would ever consciously do.

Shishani fired two rounds, point-blank, into him.

The first clipped the top of his heart, and took his legs away. The second hit him in the throat as he dropped, smashing through his larynx and exiting the back of his neck, taking a chunk of his spinal cord with it.

The body hit the ground with a dead thud; this time, there was no need for any coup de grâce.

It was a moment or two before the Chechen could bring himself to look down at the fallen man.

Abdullah had played an invaluable role in the operation, from the moment when he had tailed the Morgan girl and her friends from the airport at Málaga to their hotel, to his glorious actions on the Spanish beach earlier this very day.

But this was no time for sentiment. If they were to succeed, then their mission had to be sealed off from the outside world.

Hermetically.

Not to mention, Abdullah was a true believer, utterly pure in spirit, and might well have caused trouble later.

‘I am sorry, brother,’ said Shishani, with genuine regret. ‘But I cannot bury you.’

He glanced up into the trees.

All three women were still lying face down, not daring to look around.

He bent down, pulled el Haloui’s weapon from his dead grasp, and walked back up the slope, looking at his watch.

Soon, soon.

‘Get up,’ he said. ‘We must walk. And if any of you does not do as I say she will die here and now.’

The three women stood up and walked into the forest along a sandy path, the heady scent of cypress filling their nostrils.

35.

AS THE MOROCCAN night darkened, the headlights appeared.

Five minutes later, two Toyota Land Cruisers rolled and swayed along the undulating dirt road, and stopped.

A man got out – a giant, dressed in a grubby, blue gandora thobe and sandals, with a bushy, greying beard.