They laughed and chatted, letting the service station owner see that they were a noisy film crew with nothing to hide. The T-junction started filling fast, the Peugeot’s place quickly filled by a Nissan Pulsar, a VW Golf and then a white Toyota RAV4. All the cars looked newish and they all turned to the north.

Within a few minutes, traffic built up at the T-junction as a dozen cars from the MERC queued to get onto the main road, all of them turning north and driving through the small section of shops.

‘We’re catching IMSIs,’ said Thierry quietly as he watched his laptop. ‘It’s working.’

Near the rear of the line-up de Payns noticed a black late-model Mercedes sedan and, right behind it, a black LandCruiser with heavily tinted windows. All the vehicles turned north, and the Alamut team slowly got back into the car.

‘Well, we’ve got our time,’ said de Payns as Templar accelerated into the southbound lane and headed back to the hotel. ‘Let’s get something to eat and play up the legend for the hotel workers.’

‘I researched the film industry,’ said Thierry. ‘They drink a lot.’

‘I researched Pakistan,’ said de Payns. ‘They’ll let us drink but they don’t accept public intoxication.’

‘Shit, these people,’ said Templar, shaking his head and reaching for a cigarette. ‘Why do they want to live in France if booze annoys them so much?’

De Payns looked out of the window, saw the sun getting low in the sky as they headed for the hotel. ‘We’ll drink like a French film crew, but with a great deal of care.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

The next day was a Tuesday—their third day in Pakistan and the chance to make progress given they now had the leaving time and they knew how the roads and traffic worked. The team concentrated on the south of the twin cities, capturing images that would fit with the film’s soccer-playing scenes. The hero had a sporting aspect, so they cruised some of the football fields and made a big deal of taking photographs and scribbling notes. It was a chance to interact with locals and have a friendly chat with shop owners, a legend-building exercise in itself. Templar and de Payns even discovered that the smoking bans were not strict outside the centre of the city and they could smoke with their coffees.

They ate an early evening meal at the hotel, letting the staff see them in one happy group, and just before 5.30 p.m. they exited separately. When they met up in the street, they headed west in the Nissan. They tanked at the service station with the yellow awning at 6 p.m., with the car aimed north, and waited for the parade of cars which started queuing at the T-junction at 6.06. Templar drove past the T-junction, giving them a look at the cars.