Aubrac nodded. ‘Keep the development and testing teams separate. That’s smart.’

Avoiding eye contact with his friend, Amin stood. Aubrac appeared to hesitate. Amin thought the Frenchman was on the verge of asking if everything was okay, but he merely said, ‘Well, I guess it’s goodbye, Amin.’

‘Yes, my friend,’ said Amin, emotion welling up.

‘I’ll see you at the Paris conference?’

Amin nodded and then he grabbed the Frenchman’s hand in a double grip. ‘Farewell, Marcus.’

They parted with a smile but after two heavy strides, Amin stopped and turned. ‘Adieu, my friend,’ he said to a person who’d been privy to his deepest fears and ambitions and yet had never revealed his own name. The two men looked at each other for a moment longer than was normal, then Amin wheeled his suitcase out into the Singapore sunshine.

The flight landed at Islamabad International Airport just after 2 a.m. Amin collected his suitcase and headed for the taxi stand, a strange nausea gripping his stomach. He’d brooded on the flight, wondering about Mina, his mother-in-law, and what could have stricken her. There was a lengthy queue outside the bustling airport terminal, and as he took his place behind a sweating businessman, a black Nissan Maxima pulled up in the taxi zone. A man alighted from the passenger seat, large and athletic. Amin knew him as Johnny—one of the Colonel’s staffers.

His stance was threatening but he smiled. ‘The Colonel sent us to pick you up,’ he said, reaching for Amin’s suitcase. ‘Let’s go.’

The driver leaned across and opened the rear door, and Johnny leaped in the back with Amin after depositing the suitcase in the boot. They accelerated into the traffic, the smell of American aftershave thick in the car.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Amin as they left the terminal building. ‘The hospital?’

‘Later,’ said Johnny, lighting a cigarette and cracking his window. ‘The Colonel wants a chat first.’

They motored east, presumably towards Noor Khan, the Pakistan Air Force base that was home to the missile research program and the Colonel’s office. As they closed on the west of Rawalpindi, the driver took an off-ramp and circled under the freeway so they were travelling south and around the outskirts of the sprawling city.

‘I thought we were going to see the Colonel,’ said Amin. ‘He’s not at Noor Khan tonight?’

Johnny shrugged and lit another cigarette. They veered off the main road onto a street with little lighting and a high security fence to the left. The only vehicles visible seemed to be security.