Taher spent a year learning to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan and another in Iraq causing havoc alongside insurgents in Baghdad, but his talents were underused. He wasn’t a guerrilla soldier. It wasn’t that he lacked the bravery or skills, more he didn’t believe he was making much difference. As long as the war remained distant, the infidels could ignore it. Twenty-five dead on a Kabul street? Nobody cared. Fifty dead in a Baghdad market? The casualties barely registered. But half a dozen killed in Paris, or London, or Berlin? Such attacks resulted in front-page headlines, rolling news coverage and days of analysis. And yet, with a few notable exceptions, the attacks seemed to be low level, amateurish and carried out with little planning. Plus, the perpetrators were caught or chose martyrdom. Taher wasn’t afraid to die for a cause, but it seemed to him a waste of resources. In the desert they’d wasted nothing. Even an empty can of Coke could be used as a football.

Plenty of time.

‘There are people,’ his uncle said on one of Taher’s visits to the desert. ‘People who are sympathetic.’ His uncle indicated the patch of ground where Taher’s family home had stood. ‘You should know there are those who would be willing to provide you with the means to succeed. Not just to avenge the deaths of my brother – your father – but to ensure a different future. It has been done before and it can be done again.’

Taher nodded. 9/11. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had funded the operation and that sum was peanuts compared to the millions al-Qaeda had received in funding from benefactors across the Middle East.

‘Do you know these people?’ Taher wasn’t sure how his uncle, who lived a subsistence existence miles from anywhere, could possibly be acquainted with men who might have sufficient wealth to support an ongoing campaign. ‘And can I meet them?’

‘If you so wish.’

He did so wish.

Silva’s call to Fairchild had consisted of precisely three words: ‘I’ll do it,’ she’d said before hanging up and instantly wondering what the hell she was doing. Despite her reservations, she allowed Fairchild to set his plan in motion, and early on the tenth of August she found herself at Heathrow boarding a plane for Italy.

Three hours later the sparkling blue of the Adriatic filled the window to Silva’s left as the aircraft banked on its final approach to Brindisi. A hum came from the plane’s hydraulics as the pilot tightened the turn and then the blue sea turned to brown earth and grey concrete. Ground rush. The skid of wheels. A steward making an announcement. Local time is ten thirty. The temperature is twenty-eight degrees. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete standstill.

Itchy woke as the plane rolled to a stop and people stood and reached for the lockers.