What caught my eye was an oblong open space in the forest, about two ks to the north-west. From its regular shape, it looked like a man-made field. ‘Here!’ I said to Sasha. ‘This looks ideal as a place to drop into. A good opening in the trees, and far enough from the target.’

‘We land there?’

‘That’s right – and walk in.’

So much was visible on the satellite shots. The telephoto picture showed that the pine-covered hillside was steep, with outcrops of rock among the trees.

When I invited Whinger to make an independent assessment, he came up with the same plan as I had.

‘Bugger the fence,’ he said. ‘They’d have a job to electrify something that long – and where’s the power coming from, anyway? It doesn’t even look as if it’s finished. You could cut throught that, or climb it, no bother. Drop on this football field, or whatever it is, and tab it in. Piece of cake. There may be a patrol on the fence, but I doubt it. The defenders are going to be here, at the bottom, guarding the approach road. There’s no other way any vehicle can get near the house.’

‘I reckon you’re right,’ I agreed. ‘And when the time comes, the same drill for the QRF: drop on the field, walk in, surround the house and cut it off from its defence force. A couple of guys with gympis and a 66 should be enough to suppress anyone trying to come up the road. Look at these bends in the track – it’s quite some climb.’

With the basic plan in place, I was naturally on fire to get going. Whinger and the rest of the lads went off to run the course. Sasha had disappeared to organise our flight, so Anna went with the guys, to interpret, and I was left manning the phones with Terry, the signaller. The sensible thing would have been to get a couple of hours’ kip, but although I lay on the bed, my adrenalin was pumping too fast for me to drop off.

At 11.00 a.m. Allway came through from the Embassy, asking if there was anything he could do. I thanked him but said that we were fine, and I gave him an outline of the plan, keeping details of places and timings deliberately vague. When I asked about the international situation, he described it as ‘stabilising’.

The next time he called, half an hour later, it was a different story. He said that the Chechens had surfaced, through their representative in London. They claimed they were holding two SAS men hostage, and in return for handing them over, they were demanding not only a ransom of ten million dollars, but also the release of the Mafia players arrested in Britain.

The news made my stomach churn. In making their demand, had the Chechens said anything about Orange? I couldn’t ask directly, but had to fence round the subject.