Inside were three Armalite rifles and two handguns, along with several boxes of cartridges. There was a plastic-wrapped package labelled Semtex and a polythene bag containing detonators. The man slowly counted them. His eyes were used to the darkness and he could see enough to identify the contents. He had already memorised the list he’d been shown, the list of what the cache should contain, and he mentally crossed them off one at a time. Eventually, satisfied that nothing was missing, he packed up the munitions and put them back in the hole. He replaced the soil and then stamped up and down to flatten the earth before kneeling down and gently smoothing it over. He walked some distance away from the beech tree and gathered twigs and small branches and placed them haphazardly over the freshly dug soil. It would fool most casual observers and in a day or so it would have blended in perfectly with its surroundings. There was little chance of it being discovered. That’s why the hiding place had been chosen in the first place.

Nguyen came out of Charing Cross Tube station and walked to the Strand. He found the shop he wanted and stood looking through the window. It was packed with camping equipment, everything from compasses to water-bottles, a huge range of knives, racks of anoraks, sleeping-bags, dehydrated food in silver-foil packets, first-aid kits, crossbows and a range of martial arts equipment. It was all so different during the war, Nguyen thought. So very different. Equipment then was what you could beg or borrow, or take from a fallen comrade or steal from an enemy. And to think that now you could simply walk into a shop and buy it. If they had been able to get hold of equipment like this thirty years ago, then perhaps none of this would have happened and he and his family would be together in a free Vietnam. He shook his head, trying to disperse the thoughts, knowing that there was no point in dwelling on the past.

He walked into the shop and looked through the racks. A young man tried on an army-type pullover with reinforced patches on the shoulders and elbows as his blonde girlfriend looked on admiringly. A skinhead in a shiny green bomber jacket weighed a small throwing knife in his hand and then ran a finger along the blade. A father and son examined a two-man tent as an elderly shop assistant rolled it out along the floor for them. Nobody gave Nguyen a second look.

He picked a camouflage jacket from a rack and looked at it. It was made of nylon and he heard it rustle even as he held it up. Useless, he thought. You’d hear it hundreds of yards away. And the fasteners were made from the Velcro material that made a ripping noise every time you used it. It was for show, like the knife the skinhead was testing. Pretty to look at, but useless in the field. Just by looking at it Nguyen could tell that the knife had no weight, it would bounce off any live target. He took down another jacket, similar colour scheme of dark and light greens, reminiscent of the tiger-striped fatigues he used to wear in the jungle, made from a soft cotton material that probably wasn’t waterproof but which looked warm. He tried it on and the sleeves were about six inches too long, even over his jacket. He looked at the label. Medium it said. European medium, obviously, because Nguyen was not small for a Vietnamese.