Carr laughed. ‘That’s your problem, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I would suggest you get all the weapons systems into Tunisia in diplomatic bags, separate out our personal kit, and just get local drivers to ferry everything down and across. If they’re operating a couple of hours in advance of us, they won’t have to wait too long. It’s a fucking empty stretch of land there, they should be fine, but if someone compromises them at least it’s not Britons, eh?’

Nicholls frowned. Then he said, ‘Yes, that sounds doable.’

‘So we collect the vehicles, and off we go,’ said Carr. ‘Fortyeight hours to be in position, eyes-on target, all being well. Worst case, seventy-two hours. Then we proceed accordingly.’

‘As easy as that?’

‘You taking the piss?’ said Carr. ‘I am not saying it’s easy. It’s very fucking difficult. You’re talking a lot of planning, the right vehicles, the right equipment, the right team. But deep penetration, cross-border, behind-enemy-lines mobility was my speciality, and I’ve done it plenty of times. Iraq springs to mind, in ’91 and ’03, and back then there were half a million Iraqi soldiers looking for me each time. And I’ve navigated across much worse terrain than the Libyan desert. It’s difficult, but it can be done, that’s all I’m saying.’

Nicholls’ mind went back to Mark Topham’s words to Penelope Morgan: Using a small team presents issues of its own… You get bumped, you don’t have the firepower…

It was followed by an image: four men, stripped, bloodied and mutilated, being dragged across the world’s TV screens.

‘What about…’ he hesitated.

He felt guilty asking the next question, but he had a duty to protect his friend, the Prime Minister, and the country.

‘What if you’re caught?’

‘That whole deniability piece?’ said Carr. ‘Listen, we both know that’s bollocks. But if we commit to this, it’s all or nothing. Getting captured is not an option, and we wouldn’t let ourselves get into that position. I assure you that, if I go, I’ll be coming back. But if it does all go wrong somehow…’ He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t be taken alive, let’s leave it at that. And I understand that you’d need nice clean corpses, to give yourselves as much breathing space as possible. I’d make sure we were sanitised before leaving the UK – no driving licences, credit cards, pictures of girlfriends or boyfriends et cetera. You’d need someone to take our passports from us in Tunis.’

Nicholls said nothing.

‘I take it you’d support us?’ said Carr.

‘Whatever you need.’