‘What did they say about releasing our guys? Where’s the exchange supposed to take place?’

‘We have no information on that.’

‘Who did they make the offer to?’

‘The FCO.’

‘Who’s their representative in Britain?’

‘He calls himself the Consul.’

My questions brought me no nearer the subject of the bomb. But surely, if the ransom demand had mentioned it, Allway would have told me.

Once again I had to contain my impatience and anxiety.

Around 11.30 I suddenly realised I was starving. I’d been up most of the night and had no breakfast, so I routed out some onions, fried them up, threw in a load of garam masala and turned a tin of beef stew into a power curry. We still had plenty of the rice we’d brought out from UK, so I boiled up some of that, and gave myself a solid meal.

I was in the middle of eating it when Sasha reappeared, all smiles.

‘Mmmmmm!’ He gave an exaggerated sniff ‘Smells good!’

‘Have some.’

‘No – you need it. We have long journey to make.’

The Turks had come on side, he said, and we had permission to fly. Better still, he’d fixed an aircraft – a P33, a ten-seat executive jet used by senior military commanders. Take-off would be from the military side of Vnukovo airport at 2.30 Moscow time. We couldn’t fly direct, but were to stage through Krasnodar, in the north of the Caucasus, so that the plane could refuel before the final hop of the flight and not have to take on Turkish fuel at the far end.

That meant leaving Balashika at 1.00 – and suddenly time for planning, which had seemed endless, had almost run out.

At 12.30 I put in one last call to Tony, even though I knew it was 4.30 a.m. in the States. He was asleep, but his stand-in, Cyrus, was fully briefed. He confirmed that Orange was stationary on the same site, and that the weather in the region was likely to remain unchanged for the next thirty-six hours.

‘You got a big high centred over the west coast of the Caspian, extending all the way to the Black Sea,’ he said. ‘Predicted wind speeds, three to five knots on 260 degrees. Moon’s three-quarter full. Moonrise 1900 local, moonset 0600. Looks like you’ll have God’s own view of the Caucasus range as you drop in there.’

‘Thanks for your help,’ I went. ‘Tell Tony I’ll call him from Kars.’

‘OK. And take some warm clothes with you. That place is six thousand feet above sea level.’

Chapter Fourteen

FOURTEEN

The P33 was noisy and cramped, with little headroom and hard, uncomfortable seats, but it did the job. There were two regular army officers on board, hitching a lift to Krasnodar, but otherwise Sasha and I had the cabin to ourselves. The seats were arranged in pairs facing each other, and for much of the flight we kept a map of the Grozny area open on our knees, discussing the terrain.