‘Nah,’ he said, with a finality in his voice. ‘Four’s the right number – any more and you attract too much attention. But the rest of that is shite. For starters, Sharm’s fucking miles from Sirte. Way south of Cairo, and Suez is in the way. If you were going through Egypt, the launch point would have to be Cairo.’

‘Okay,’ said Nicholls. ‘Go on?’

‘But Egypt’s a no-no all round,’ said Carr. ‘I’ve worked out there before – a long time ago, with Mubarak’s secret police. Never mind the regime change, and the Arab Spring, and all that bollocks, those guys are born survivors. You can bet they’re still around, and they were good. Okay, they might not put two-and-two together, so you get out of Cairo. But you still have the problem of crossing the border. For obvious reasons, that border is very well patrolled by the Egyptians. They’re mostly looking for people coming the other way, because almost no fucker is stupid enough to try to get into Libya, but they have military and police patrols, overflights, intelligence operatives… The risk of compromise before we start is too high. So Egypt’s a non-starter.’

‘A boat, then?’ said Nicholls. ‘A mothership – a trawler, with back-up on board – twenty kilometres off the Libyan coast? A couple of rigid inflatables, get onto the beach somewhere west of Sirte and…’

‘Jesus,’ said Carr, draining his scotch. ‘I thought the “I” in MI6 stood for intelligence?’

‘This is why I’m here,’ said Nicholls, with a wry smile.

Carr laughed. ‘Fair one,’ he said. ‘No, you’re still way off. At least you’re not suggesting we parachute in. Unless that’s option three?’

Nicholls shook his head.

There was no point in rubbing it in, Carr thought. He was no fan of spooks, but this one came recommended by Guy de Vere. Maybe he ought to go easy on him.

‘Look, the boat option’s no good,’ he said. ‘Like you say, you’d have to have a mothership offshore to launch from. Okay, you can probably arrange that. But we’re not going to coxswain ourselves up onto the beach, are we? That means bringing more guys in to hide and guard the boats, and more guys attracts more attention. That shore’s well-patrolled by various people. Big risk of compromise. Locals might be able to talk their way out of it, but a bunch of white blokes? Not to mention, more people also expands the circle of knowledge.’

He let that sink in for a moment.

Then he said, ‘Even if we get ashore unseen, you’re now on foot and – what? Tabbing inland? I can tell you now that you do not want to be tabbing about the place out there.’

He dropped another ice cube into his tumbler, poured himself another Macallan, and showed Nicholls the bottle.

Nicholls shook his head.