Hitting speeds of over Mach 2 at any altitude that suited the pilot was a rarity and he recalled the adrenaline pumping as he was cleared for landing at Dijon and had to taxi into the ‘armed’ area before being pushed backwards into the bomb-proof hangars. Live air-to-air missiles were attached to the Mirage’s underwings while the single engine was still running. The pilots were required to remain in their seats. It wasn’t until de Payns’ mechanic climbed the mobile ladder to deactivate his ejector seat that de Payns got to ask what the hell was going on.

‘New York is under attack,’ said the mechanic, the stress visible on his face. ‘The World Trade Center is on fire. It’s World War Three.’

De Payns remembered sitting in the cockpit and hearing the news, thinking that not only was there no better place to be seated for the beginning of a world war than in a combat-armed Mirage at Dijon, but that this war wouldn’t be like the others and that intelligence would be the key to winning it.

The technicians reset the Mirages to activate the Magic II infrared guidance systems and MICA EM ‘fire-and-forget’ targeting systems which aided the twin 30mm cannons and the missiles. The radios were set to half quick and the switch from normal TOD comms to QOD—which changed frequency a thousand times per second—was locked in. The squadron was switched to a ‘two-minute posture’, which meant from the first scramble alert the pilots had to be wheels-up in at least two minutes—war footing. To achieve a two-minute posture the pilots had to remain seated in their planes at the end of the runway for hours, waiting for the scream of the scramble alert. Headings and orders would be given when the planes were in the air.

De Payns could still feel remnants of the stress and excitement surging through his body as he watched Lafont and Briffaut move into the building. He recalled the subsequent missions over Afghanistan and Iraq and the fatigue reignited inside him as if it had been sitting in his bones all these years. He shook it off and walked through the door, interested to see what Afghanistan had sent his way in his new career.

The intelligence section had its own hospital as well as its own prison, sleeping quarters and restaurant. The hospital looked 1970s American, down to the scalloped-glass partitions and the water-dispenser nooks along the linoleum-floored corridor. De Payns, Lafont and Briffaut followed a large male intelligence staffer to a private hospital room where Anthony Frasier stood over a bed, a white mask covering most of his face.

Frasier nodded at the staffer, who handed out face masks to the new arrivals and left the room.

‘They’re calling him Fazel’ said Frasier, pointing to a man lying in the bed. ‘Arrived an hour ago.’