‘OK,’ said Dan, inviting me into the discussion. ‘There’s not much civilian air traffic over this godforsaken area, but there is the occasional night flight coming up over Grozny from Baku, down here on the Caspian. Therefore our aim is to fly a normal civilian track. Your target’s Samashki, right?’

‘Yeah – we’re aiming for an opening in the forest three ks north-west of the village.’

‘Roger. The wind’s about five ks on two-four-zero, so if we tip you out ten ks west, you should be able to fly yourselves in.’

I nodded. ‘That’d be fine.’

‘Good. That’ll keep us well clear of Grozny. So . . .’ He stood up and stretched before running through a quick recap. ‘We go out on zero-eight-four and hold that heading till we cross the civilian track from Baku. Then we turn left on to two-eight-eight and head up between Grozny and Ordzhonikidze. Our marker point for the turn is this peak here, Dyltydag. It’s over four thousand metres and fairly isolated, so we should pick it out all right – but if we can’t, the computer will hack it.’

‘What height will we be flying at?’

‘Twenty-eight thousand. You’ll want plenty of clothes on.’

I nodded again, wondering at the sight of all those peaks on the map – a range running for two or three hundred miles, north-west to south-east, with numerous 15,000-footers among them . . . We were going to fly right over the whole lot. All I asked was, ‘How long will it take to get there?’

Alec did a few more calculations and came up with, ‘One hour five to the turn, then twenty-five minutes to the DZ overhead. It should be no problem to get you there. It’s not you that’s bugging us, though.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘The exfil. Two Chinooks are on their way from Cyprus, and we’re trying to work out a way of getting them through this bloody range of mountains. It’s a hell of a proposition, I can tell you. Even if we put extra fuel forward, right on the border, it’s still a fearsome distance to anyone going in low level.’

‘What about coming from the other side?’ I suggested.

‘From Russia?’

‘Yeah. Wouldn’t that be a better proposition? The intervening terrain doesn’t look nearly so high.’

‘We’re working on it. But we don’t have clearance from the Russians yet – from any direction.’

‘Call Anna.’

‘Anna?’

‘The woman who’s been doing our liaison in Moscow. She’s shit-hot. She’ll fix anything. Colonel Anna Gerasimova, FSB.’

‘Sorry, mate – what’s that?’

‘The Federal Security Bureau, part of the old KGB, hived off.’

I saw the guy giving me an odd look, so I said sharply, ‘Write her name down, and the number. She may not be in the barracks now, but she’ll be there first thing in the morning. You’ll get her on our Satcom link.’