We seemed to have two options. One was to call in an RAF aircraft and lift the whole team out, taking Orange with us, on the grounds that the situation was too dangerous to stay. That definitely went against the grain: it would be unprofessional and would smell of panic. If we quit, we’d have failed in one of our main objectives.

The second option was to carry out our task and get Orange into place as soon as possible – after which we could assess the position again, and decide whether to carry on with the training course or leave immediately.

To reach a decision we held a Chinese parliament out in the open, in the middle of the assault course, well away from any bugs. Toad, as usual, remained silent, but the rest of the lads were emphatically for Option Two. The only disagreement was about what we should do once we’d buried Orange in the old air-raid shelter.

Whinger, croaking through his laryngitis, was all for playing it straight. ‘We might as well see the course through. Nobody’s going to push any button. They wouldn’t fucking well dare.’

Johnny and Pavarotti agreed with him. But Mal, who’d done a two-year tour attached to the US Marines, had a low opinion of American decision-taking in general, and reckoned somebody in a key position in Washington might easily lose his cool under pressure. Dusty and Pete tended to go along with that, and so did I. That meant that three of us were for remaining on the team task, and four for opting out: the narrowest possible majority. In the end we agreed to debate the matter again once Orange had gone down.

Our plan for the second device was perfectly simple. Whinger and I had already decided we couldn’t start digging on the site before we were ready to insert: otherwise somebody might see the spoil. Therefore, we’d fetch the components from the Embassy that evening, bring them to the camp, stash them temporarily, and take them out to the shelter the next night, starting and finishing the insertion in one shift.

Or so we thought.

For this next run we adopted the same tactics as before: using both cars and keeping well apart, in radio contact. We left Balashika at 8.00 p.m., and reached the Embassy at 8.55. Taking our normal precautions, Whinger put in a drive-past with the grey Volga; he had Johnny riding passenger with him, and when they reported all clear, Pavarotti, Toad and I went in with the black vehicle to load the components. We’d done what we could to make the Volgas more roadworthy, getting them both a service and replacing three of the worst tyres.

As we drove along the embankment and over the line of the tunnel, I got a peculiar fizzing sensation in my stomach.