The fact that the British Government was in a panic came as no surprise. When the Chinooks had put us down at Krasnodar in the northern Caucasus, we were amazed to find an RAF Tristar sitting on the airfield, waiting to fly us home. So desperate had the situation become that our normal means of transport, a Here, had been deemed too slow, and the big jet had been diverted from Cyprus to get us back at twice the speed. The result was one of those disorientating flights which end at practically the same time as they start. We’d taken off at 2200, and three and a quarter hours later we’d landed at 2215 local.

During our brief stopover at Krasnodar I’d spoken to Whinger on the Satcom. Naturally he was frantic to know what had happened, and I brought him up to speed. At his end, he said, the team job was staggering on.

‘I was hoping to come straight back and rejoin you,’ I told him, ‘but I’m off to the UK for a debrief first. Nobody’s sure where the Chechens have taken Orange. London looks the most likely. As soon as the dust settles, I’ll get my arse back to Balashika as fast as I can.’

‘Speak to you soon,’ replied Whinger laconically.

Back in England, scene after scene played through my mind as we headed westwards through the night: the chutes of the free-fallers coming in like bats out of the starry sky; the Chechens humping away the components of Orange during the snowstorm; Akula floating face-down in his own pool; the blaze from the villa lighting up the snow on the mountainside with a huge, ruddy glow.

My trouble in the debrief was that I’d already exhausted my small store of information. Talking to the CO in Hereford via Satcom from the Tristar, I’d already given all the details I could, and now, repeating my conversation with Shark for the benefit of the guys from the Firm, I felt as if the record had got stuck in the same groove.

I sat in the back of the car with one man beside me; the other, in the front, kept screwing round to talk. I could only suppose that the driver had full security clearance.

‘Go through it again,’ said the guy next to me.

‘The whole meeting only lasted a couple of minutes,’ I said. ‘Akula just said, “You’d better send a message to the British Government.”’

‘And?’

‘That if we didn’t release the Chechens who’d been arrested, London would be sorry.’

‘Was that all?’

‘“London will regret.” Those were his words exactly.’

‘From which you assumed he was sending Orange to London and planning to detonate it there.’

‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘Couldn’t the Yanks track the plane?’