‘That wasn’t hard to explain – they were expanding at that point, in need of good people. And I think I understood that I would be seen as valuable. I lived in Beirut and might be called westernized, had been in the United States, was a photographer. More or less openly homosexual, something I had to tone down with the Islamists. Although they knew, and that was one of the reasons they wanted me. It made me less suspicious, if you know what I mean? Why would a gay guy be working for ISIS? Gregorij had other infiltrators in Baghdadi’s outer circle. There were people who could vouch for me and pave my way. I started as a courier for small stuff, driving cars, carrying small items and messages between Tripoli and Aleppo. Slowly I worked my way up and in. They started to trust me and in the end I became a courier for Emni. And through it all I reported to Gregorij. Often, I didn’t know what was in the messages I was sending. But I could tell who they were sent between, and where their leaders were located. My work yielded results. The Russians were able to map out the leadership, how they communicated, and I got closer to the core of the terror machine itself. But then Paris started to be planned, and this plan we’re in the middle of right now.’

‘Did you know about Paris?’ Jacob whispers. ‘Did you know it was going to happen?’

It’s as if the air in the car is suddenly too heavy to breathe, there is so much hanging in that question.

‘I knew something was going to happen in Paris that week,’ Yassim says. ‘I knew who was planning it and who was carrying the information. I even knew who would be receiving the information in Brussels, because that’s where they met the courier.’

‘But why didn’t you say anything?’ Jacob asks. ‘Why did you let it happen?’

Yassim stares at him intensely. ‘I told all of that to Gregorij,’ he says. ‘And I told him it was something on a whole new level. Several independent cells. Concurrent attacks. I told him everything, and I can prove it. I recorded all our meetings with that phone and saved them.’

‘Then why did it happen?’ George interrupts. ‘If they knew everything except the exact date? Why didn’t they grab the courier or his contact in Brussels? This story doesn’t really feel like it adds—’

Yassim turns to George, with cold indifference in his eyes, and George’s eyes return to the dark road in front of him.