‘I’m tired,’ said Walt, rubbing his forehead. ‘Tired of the manipulation, the games, the lies, the secrets. I’ve been tired of it all for a very long time. There are plenty like me. We flock together, you see. Men and women whose conscience has survived immersion in the swamp of politics and espionage. We see beyond the back and forth of East versus West. We see humanity. We see the real lives affected by the power struggles we seek to influence. We tidy up the mess left by political decision-making. We have grown tired of watching politicians feed the slavering masses the meat that they crave. Things that happen far away do not trouble the conscience of the masses. You, Cranham – you can advise the Foreign Office from your position of pragmatism because it is not your door that the death squads are coming to. You do not have to wake up in the middle of the night to see a gun in your face, your family members being raped, butchered, buried alive in a well.’

‘For God’s sake,’ muttered Cranham. ‘You’re every bit as insane as we feared! You ask why funding was cut and the Angels scheme mothballed? It’s because it was a nonsense, Walt. It was a sop to the Lefties – something Carter thought up to ease his troubled conscience. It was a place to put nuisances like you, letting you feel like you were saving the little people while the real diplomatic corps got on with changing the world. Good God, is this your grand hurrah? You’re going to slap our consciences and make us listen to two poor jungle-bunnies about how horrible it is to live as they live? Well, perhaps they shouldn’t shelter guerrillas, how about that?’

‘There are soldiers outside, right now,’ said Walt, without emotion. ‘They believe me to be one of the evangelists who props up their president. They believe they are on a mission of the highest national importance. It has been a lesson in tradecraft, manoeuvring them through airports, nations, their passports made up in the names of a whole rainbow of nations. And now they are here. A little rural community far from the goings-on of their national seat of power. This is a place where men and women and children sleep soundly and work hard. They will wake tonight to the sound of gunfire. They will be shepherded from their beds. Those who talk back or protest will face violence. And when the dust settles and they have slipped away into the night, I will ask you all whether or not you believe that the difficult decisions you have made, whether the men you have so pragmatically supported, I will ask you whether you might not wish to change your minds.’