They adjourned to their rooms, de Payns bunking with Brent, Templar sharing with Thierry. They were good-sized rooms and very clean and comfortable for a mid-tier hotel. De Payns moved to the windows and squinted through the small crack between the heavy curtains. The room was on the second floor and the view was north-facing, taking in a park in front of the hotel and, in the distance, what looked like a very large water tower. He shifted his body to the side of the curtain gap and looked down onto a busy street. According to his map, this was Mall Road. He switched to the other side of the curtains and looked down on another angle of the street. No followers or watchers that he could detect. But that didn’t mean the hotel staff weren’t talking to the secret police. While de Payns checked the street, Brent checked the in-room phone, furniture and light fittings for electronic surveillance. He gave the thumbs-up after a few minutes. No surveillance.

They took the afternoon off and met the following morning at the hotel restaurant where they chatted over breakfast. The hotel was in Rawalpindi, the ancient side of the twin cities. Adjoining in the north-west was the capital Islamabad, which had been built to house government departments, embassies and grand hotels. Rawalpindi was more raffish and it suited the Alamut team.

They finished breakfast and walked onto the street just before 9 a.m. Templar waited at the kerb in a pale blue Nissan Maxima, rented from Hertz in cash, but with the rental papers in the name of Clement Vinier and Capital Films.

They drove south, Templar looking for tails in the mirror. It was an interesting city, with all the ancient buildings of Damascus or Amman, but with evidence of modern civil infrastructure—there were souks, but there were also bright storefronts that would not be out of place in Paris or Frankfurt.

Templar swung west and aimed for the MERC. They unpacked the camera and laptop and hooked the Canon to Brent’s Toshiba. He opened the scene folders; the pictures they wanted to use in their movie would be downloaded into the laptop. De Payns took the Lake Forgiveness script from his backpack along with a notebook and pen.

‘Take this and read me the beginning of scene seven,’ said de Payns, handing the bound screenplay to Thierry.