Taher met the man’s eyes but remained silent. The driver – Kadri – was Tunisian, nothing more than a hired thug, and he wasn’t there to ask questions. Taher had seen the way the man had caressed the assault rifle he’d used in the attack. It was as if the gun was a pet or a woman. Kadri was ex-military, knew how to handle himself, but the way he’d held the weapon suggested he derived pleasure from killing. For Taher the use of guns and explosives was only a means to an end; for Kadri it was something approaching a fetish. Still, Kadri had been employed because they needed a local guide for the mission. Taher and the others didn’t speak the language and, once you were away from the tourist areas, foreigners stuck out a mile. Kadri could mutter a few words, thrust out a handful of dinar or raise a fist, and trouble faded away. They’d never have been able to navigate the heaving streets of Tunis without him, never have found the route which had taken them south from the city into desolate, rolling hills populated with scrawny pine trees and little else. In short, the mission could not have succeeded had Taher been naive enough to believe he had all the answers.

Rely on others. Depend on no one.

His uncle had taught him the wisdom of the little phrase that made no sense, and Taher had always thought the sentiment it encapsulated was appropriate to his situation. Surrounded by those who venerated him and would die for him, he was nevertheless alone in the world. Aside from his uncle nobody knew the real Taher. He was a mystery, his name an alias. Perhaps, more correctly, a cipher. A jumble of letters that represented a man but had come to stand for something much more. His followers whispered his name with reverence and awe. Taher… the man behind Paris and London. Had he been in Berlin too? Barcelona? Sydney? Bangkok? Rumour had it he’d been a fleeting shadow in all those places and more. In truth the legend had grown larger than the man, and many attacks were linked to him even if he’d had no part in their planning, financing or execution. At first Taher had shied away from the notoriety, but he soon realised the legend was someone the security services chased in vain. When they shone a light into the dark, the shadow faded away, and the brighter the light, the quicker the shadow dissipated.