Eritas went on, ‘Now, gentlemen, before we proceed any further I’m afraid I must ask you to submit to a couple of basic security measures. Please remove your jackets, shoes, belts and watches, turn out your pockets for anything metallic, as well as your mobile phones, and place your items in the boxes provided.’ As he spoke, a wall panel opened to reveal a compartment with a shelf on which rested two plastic crates.

Ben and Wolf had no choice but to go along with his wishes. Ben reluctantly placed his steel Omega diver’s watch, his burner phone and his green bag containing Abbott’s laptop into a crate. He unlaced his boots and unbuckled his belt and put those in, too. It was like being admitted to a maximum-security prison.

The wall panel closed. Eritas said, ‘Thank you. Your items will of course be returned to you before you leave. Now if you would please step through the metal detector, one at a time?’

Ben said, ‘You don’t have to worry about us being armed. We’ve just stepped off a commercial aircraft. In any case, we’ve come to trade information, nothing more.’

‘Indulge me, please,’ said the voice from the speaker. ‘I hope you understand that I’m compelled to be extra careful, for my own protection.’

‘Does he think we were going to strangle him with our effing shoelaces?’ Wolf grumbled.

‘I’m sure a fellow of your skills could probably snap my neck with your little finger,’ Eritas said. ‘I’m a man of thoughts and intellect, not of action. Now, please, the metal detector.’

Ben went first. The detector remained silent. When Wolf passed under the archway, a high-pitched alarm sounded. Wolf patted himself down for the camera to show he wasn’t armed, and pointed to his mouth. ‘It’s my teeth.’

‘Then I must ask you to remove those also,’ Eritas said. ‘It’s the only way I can be sure that you’re not carrying a gun or a knife.’

Wolf didn’t like it, but he removed the gold and titanium denture, wrapped it in a handkerchief and tossed it to Ben on the other side of the arch. Then he stepped through, and this time he didn’t trigger the alarm. Ben handed him the denture and Wolf unwrapped it and reinserted it into his mouth. ‘Satisfied now?’

As if in reply, the third door suddenly unlocked itself and glided open. ‘I’d say that’s a yes,’ Wolf said.

Shoeless, they stepped out of the chamber and now found themselves in a wider, longer passage whose walls were burnished steel. They might have been entering the International Space Station. At the end of the passage was yet another doorway, which opened as they walked towards it.

And standing in the doorway was Vincent Eritas himself.