‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ Julie said. ‘He’s no idea what he’s doing.’

Kate drove gently ahead and Julie slumped back into the rear of the car.

Kate checked her mirrors. No one in front, no one behind, just the silence of the great forest. She wound down the windows. A steady breeze rustled the leaves of the trees all around them.

They came around a bend in the road and there, parked ahead, lights on, was the grey Audi. Kate stopped. She pulled out her phone again and tried calling Natasha, but there was still no answer.

‘This is a trap, Kate,’ Julie said.

‘Maybe.’ Kate glanced in her rear-view mirror again. ‘I think you’re right.’ She started to reverse on to the side of the road, so that she could turn around. Her phone rang.

It was Natasha. ‘I’m in the Audi. I’m sorry. I had to check you weren’t being followed. I think they suspect me. Park behind and get in.’

Kate ended the call. She peered closer to the mirror. It had started to spit with rain, so she switched on the windscreen wipers, but didn’t drive any closer.

Her phone rang again. ‘What are you waiting for? Come now, or I go.’

‘I’ve no back-up. This could be a trap. If you’re there alone, then you come to us.’

Natasha swore in Russian. The driver’s door was opened and she stepped out. She had a leather satchel over her shoulder. She pulled a scarf over her head to shield her carefully curled locks from the rain and began to close the gap between them. She got about twenty yards and Kate was just preparing to climb out to meet her when there was the roar of an engine as a black Mercedes van gunned around the corner.

Natasha froze.

The van hurtled past Kate and her team and screeched to a halt beside the Russian. Kate tried to get out, but she felt Julie’s hand on her shoulder.

Three men in balaclavas poured out of the back of the van. Natasha appeared to be reaching into her jacket for something – a gun perhaps – but the men were too swift. Kate saw the glint of the afternoon sunlight on the needle of a syringe as it was plunged into Natasha’s neck. She collapsed instantly and was bundled into the van.

Kate slammed her car into gear and accelerated towards them, intending to smash into the van and force it from the road, but the closest man turned calmly in her direction and opened fire with a Heckler & Koch MP7, peppering her tyres and the engine of the car, so that she skidded off the tarmac and into the undergrowth.

Natasha was bundled into the back of the Mercedes, the driver gunned the engine and they sped away.

Kate got out and ran towards the Audi, but Natasha must have slipped the keys into her pocket. She sprinted back to her car and swung it on to the road. They got only a few hundred yards before the tyres started to shred, but they’d reached the car park. Kate and Julie ran along the line of vehicles until they located one they could hot-wire. Julie smashed the driver’s window with a single tap in the corner – the weakest point – and was behind the wheel in seconds.