There was no time to socialise or piss about. I said hello to a few of the guys, then quickly sought out the OC of the stand-by squadron, Bill Chandler, who’d got himself an office of sorts in a cabin at one end of the big shed. A scalie had already got his Satcom set up, and Bill was talking to Hereford.

As I approached, he looked up at me, gave a grin and said into the phone, ‘Yes. He’s here. He’s made it.’

When he came off the air, my first question was, ‘How do we stand on security inside the squadron? I mean, how many of the lads know about Orange?’

‘Nobody yet,’ was his answer. ‘It’s on a need-to-know basis. Obviously the HALO team are going to have to know. It’s them and the Chinook crews who’ll have to exfil the damn thing. I’m going to tell them at their final briefing. As far as everyone else is concerned, it’s purely a hostage rescue mission.’

‘That’s fine.’ I nodded. ‘Just remember that Sasha, my Russian partner, doesn’t know about Orange either.’

‘Christ! This is getting complicated. He’s going to find out sooner or later.’

‘Not necessarily. If he does, I’ll square him. But I’m doing my best to keep him in the dark.’

‘That’s your problem,’ said Bill. ‘Meanwhile, can you tell me what Orange looks like? You’re the only person here who’s seen it.’

‘Three components,’ I told him. ‘Two identical black steel cases, roughly three foot by two foot by one. One box about eighteen inches cubed.’

‘Weight?’

‘The big components eighty kilos each, the small one forty.’

‘OK, thanks.’ Bill made some notes.

‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘When Sasha and I go in, if I get eyes on Orange and have to refer to it over the Satcom, I’ll call it “three heavy cases”. All right?’

‘Three heavy cases,’ Bill confirmed. ‘The latest satellite imagery suggests that they, or it, are in some outlying building to the east of the house.’

‘Then that’ll be the summerhouse.’

‘The summerhouse,’ he repeated, scribbling again. ‘We’re still waiting for confirmation of exfil by Chinook. As soon as we get it we’ll pass it through.’ Then he said, ‘You and your pal had better brief the air crew. The captain wants to be on his way by ten.’

The RAF had set up a temporary base in what was obviously a training wing – a classroom of sorts, with a blackboard, tables and chairs of tubular metal, and garish, incomprehensible Turkish posters round the walls. The only member of the crew I’d met was Alec, the co-pilot, who introduced me to his captain, a solid, fair-haired Scot called Dan. They had maps spread out over two of the tables pushed together, and were using rulers and compasses to mark them up, punching figures into a lap-top.