Silva shouted out an acknowledgement and got up and washed. Nasim had packed breakfast in a basket and they ate as they cruised out of the town and onto a dirt road. The town sat on the edge of a desert plain, and as they left the last house behind the sun slipped over the horizon, illuminating a landscape of reddish-brown rock and low hills, a sea of sand dunes in the distance.

‘One hour.’ Nasim held up a single finger. ‘Then we there.’

Silva recalled Itchy’s words of the previous night: This bloody stinks. He was right. They had no idea where they were going, no idea of the terrain or the distance or anything. All they knew was Hope was supposed to be at their destination. She prayed that part was true and this time she could put an end to it all.

Nasim was as good as his word; at six they edged along a track that rose up the side of a stony hill. He stopped the Land Cruiser before they reached the top, wrenched on the handbrake, turned and nodded. No words were necessary. They were here.

Silva and Itchy climbed out and moved up the track towards the summit where a rocky outcrop cast a long shadow in the low morning sun. Over the crest the ground fell away to a deep ravine and on the far side of the chasm lay something like an oasis: a grove of ancient olive trees surrounding a number of buildings. Beyond the buildings a vast plateau spread into the distance and more olive trees marched in rows to the horizon.

They crouched next to a boulder and Silva noted the sun would swing round to their right, but never get behind them. She looked at the ground nearby where a few pieces of greenery sprouted from dry soil. She could lie there but they might need to rig some kind of camouflage screen. She peered through the low glare to the farm. Several buildings sat together but the biggest was obviously the farmhouse. There was a large white van and a yellow SUV parked on one side of the walled complex. She turned to Itchy.

‘Three fifty.’ Itchy stretched out his hand and raised his thumb. ‘Tops.’

She’d guessed the same. Depending on exactly where Hope appeared, the shot was an easy one.

‘Let’s do it,’ Silva said.

An hour later and they were set. Itchy had the spotting scope out and had ranged the distance to be three hundred and thirty nine metres to the front of the farmhouse. The rifle was lying on a mat and they’d arranged a desert cammo net on a couple of poles in front of their position. Through her binoculars Silva could see a veranda to one side of the house. A couple of tables sat beneath a billowing canvas awning. She pointed it out to Itchy.