‘We may have hit a bit of a jackpot, Justin,’ said Kate Carver. ‘I’ll put his file on the feed in a few minutes. His name’s Khasmohmad Kadyrov. Born in internal exile in Kazakhstan, now aged around fifty to fifty-five. Originally part of the Vedensky set-up, down in the south-east. Small role in the First Chechen War, but he first came to the attention of the Russians when fighting in Grozny in 1996. Heavily involved in the Second Chechen War, he fought alongside Shamil Basayev and the 055 at Mazar-e Sharif, and then turned international jihadi around the time of Basayev’s death. In Afghanistan between 2008 and 2011, and in Iraq before that. Last heard of in Libya with ISIS, and then he disappeared. He was presumed KIA, though Amaq never said anything to that effect. Now we see why.’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholls.

‘That’s not all,’ said Carver. ‘Did you see the update from Luke Walsh and Ruth Hall on the Pakistan desk earlier on this evening?’

‘Not yet,’ said Nicholls.

‘Non-specific warning of threats against UK interests,’ said Carver. ‘So far, so standard.’

Nicholls nodded. Such threats came in thick and fast, and were rarely drawn to his attention.

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Apparently, the ISI recently came across a new jihadi source up in Balochistan,’ said Carver. ‘This source provided the ISI with computers with a whole bunch of names on them. Mostly Yemenis, Saudis, a few locals, an American. But here’s the thing: Kadyrov’s name was among them.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Nicholls.

‘It’s more than interesting,’ said Carver. ‘The same source links a million dollars from Saudi, channelled to a middleman in Egypt. The middleman then transfers a hundred thousand dollars on to another man in Sirte, northern Libya. And listen to this: the guy in Sirte has supposedly been involved in planning what the source described as a major attack on a UK target.’

‘Charlotte Morgan.’

‘You’d have to assume so.’

‘Who’s the guy in Sirte?’

‘We don’t know that, unfortunately.’

‘But we’re working with the ISI on it?’

‘I just spoke to Ruth on the Pakistan desk,’ said Kate Carver. She paused, choosing her words carefully. ‘Unfortunately, the ISI are unwilling or unable to go back to their source to get any more.’

‘Bugger,’ said Nicholls.

‘We’ll keep working on it.’

Nicholls was silent for a moment, as his mind raced to process this information. The whole of Libya was crawling with clans and warlords involved in everything from people trafficking and smuggling to facilitating terrorism, and Sirte was a particular hotbed.

It was a lawless, dangerous place, scene of some of the most brutal fighting in the Libyan civil war, and currently off limits even to what passed for the authorities in that country.

And that made it the perfect place to hide a couple of kidnapped Westerners.