‘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.

‘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.’