At the corner of the field I stopped to scan with the kite-sight. Nothing moved, and I’d just started again when my earpiece hissed twice.

‘Sasha?’

‘Da.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Same place.’

‘What happened?’

‘One man came after.’

‘Where’s he gone?’

‘I keell him.’

‘What about the dog?’

‘I keell dog also.’

‘OK. We’re closing on you now.’

‘Prinyato.’

‘The guys can come up,’ I told Pat. ‘There’s a cache here for the chutes.’

While the rest of the lads came up I moved on, and was right beside Sasha before I saw him, standing against the trunk of a big pine. The snow on the track beside him was spattered with black-looking stains, which I realised must be blood.

‘You OK?’

‘Sure.’

‘What happened?’

‘I am waiting here. The man comes past. I shoot him with knife gun.’

‘Where’s the body?’

‘Here.’ Sasha pointed behind him at a dark heap beside the tree.

‘And the dog?’

‘Same place. Knife also.’

‘Was it that German Shepherd that came along the perimeter wire last night?’

‘I think.’

I turned to Pat and said, ‘No point in trying to hide the bodies. We need to get in and out fast before anyone comes looking. But there’s a well here we can dump the chutes in.’

‘OK,’ said Pat. ‘Let’s go.’

We bundled the chutes down the old water tank, threw snow over the cover and hustled on.

I went as fast as I dared, trying to combine speed of advance with maximum alertness. The snow helped by deadening our footsteps, but all the way I was thinking that the surface of the field behind us must look as though a football match had taken place.

We came to the wire at the point where Sasha and I had lain to observe the barrier.

‘This is it,’ I told Pat. ‘Once we’re over, we’ll be on target in less than a minute.’

‘We need to tell base we’re on our objective,’ he whispered. ‘They’ll get the Chinooks airborne right away.’

‘OK.’

I waited as he quickly set up his Satcom and reported his position.

How long would it have taken for the sentry to make a normal circuit of the fence? How soon would his failure to return be noticed? We had a few minutes yet.

With the set back in Pat’s bergen, we went up to climb the wire. Over the fence and hidden in the trees again, we held a quick O-group.

‘Now that the device has gone,’ Pat began, ‘that’s knocked out one of our objectives. The summerhouse is no longer relevant. Forget that.

‘I’ve designated three parties. Party A to block the road, Party B to assault the villa, Party C to watch the helipad and prevent any take-off.

‘Our objective is to rescue the hostages. But no one else gets out of that building alive. OK?’