The Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 777 landed at Islamabad International just after 2 p.m. and taxied to the air bridge. It was a fine, warm afternoon but de Payns felt frosty cool, a habit he’d developed from his first field operations—start the operation with the attitude you intend to strike for the duration; get in character, be the legend, stay alive and return with the goods. In the back of his mind was a life-saving night at the Sorbonne’s Grand Hall, paying homage to his wife as she received her PhD. Patrick and Oliver on either side of him, his parents-in-law to his left, he felt blessed and proud and almost at peace in that amazing building. When the speeches started he’d glanced up to the vaulted ceilings and saw the twin spirits of the Université de Paris, looking down on the gathering. They were the marble statues of Archimedes and Homer, representing the sciences and the arts, coming together in one place. There was little academic instinct in de Payns, but seeing his wife glowing in the pride showed by her parents when they went to dinner, was something that moved him deeply. When Romy grabbed his hand and whispered thank you in his ear, he almost cried.

As the Boeing reached the gate, de Payns thought about the two spirits inhabiting his own body—the manipulating spy and the proud husband and father. Romy had been right about him—he did leverage families, he did use them where he could. And the look on her face—disgust—was a normal human reaction. He wondered what it meant that he needed the respect of his wife more than he needed self-respect.

The seatbelt sign was switched off and he snapped into tourist chatter with Brent and Thierry, who had been seated beside him for the almost-eight-hour flight. He reached into the overhead locker and retrieved his backpack, which contained a Canon 6D camera and zoom lens. It was a professional’s camera but didn’t have the size of the upscale models, meaning it attracted less attention from customs people and police. Yet it could still be operated manually to achieve high ISOs and long fields of focus, which was crucial in reconnaissance photography.

They moved through the passport gates with no problems, wheeling their cabin luggage straight to the taxi stands outside the new terminal building. A little under fifty minutes later and they were at the Pearl Continental Hotel, waiting at the reception desk as the clerk photocopied their passports. Templar arrived as they stood there and made a show of greeting his fellow tourists and filmmakers, talking excitedly about the sights around the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, expressing his eagerness to get on the road and scout some shooting locations, especially for scenes seven and thirteen.