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the home she shared with theman he’d cuckolded, a man who could by definition be no friend of his, a man high up in MI6 who had the power to decide that a spy whose cover was blown in Iraq should be left to rot there.
    â€˜Stupid,’ he mouthed to himself. ‘Fucking stupid.’
    Despair engulfed him. He was utterly alone – and he felt it.
    It was hot in the back of the truck and getting hotter. He would have given anything for some more of that water, despite its unpleasant taste, but if the bottle was there, his pinioned arms were preventing him getting to it. An irresistible drowsiness began to creep over him.
    When he came to, his head throbbed and he had no idea how much more time had passed. The truck had stopped. A cool draught of air blowing over him told him that the canvas flap had been lifted and it was night. How could he have slept so long? He tried to snap awake, but his mind was a fog. Suddenly it occurred to him that the water he’d drunk could have been drugged.
    Minutes passed. He listened but heard nothing that would tell him where he was. Then through the rough fabric of the hood he saw a light being shone on him. Thick rubber soles thumped up onto the truck’s steel floor. He had company. Someone who reeked of sweat. The sleeve of his shirt was pulled up, fingers tapping on his veins.
    â€˜What the fuck . . .?’
    Terror hit him. Sheer, blind terror.
    â€˜What’re you doing?’
    He strained at the ties binding him to the stretcher. A needle jabbed in and a flush of coolness spread up his arm.
    â€˜Oh no.
No!
’
    Not like that. Not so soon. Not when he wasn’t ready.

3
Amman, Jordan
    THE AIRBUS TURBOFANS whimpered into silence and the dozen business-class passengers began to unclip their belts. Cabin staff delved into hanging spaces for jackets, their eyes betraying an eagerness to be rid of their passengers. It had been a long flight.
    Towards the back of the cabin an English woman in her mid-thirties, whose red-brown hair fell in wisps across her forehead, had given the appearance of being asleep through most of the flight. Now she sat up straight and made a bleary-eyed check that nothing had fallen from her handbag. Then she stood up to extricate her small suitcase from the overhead locker.
    â€˜Let me.’
    A steward reached up for her and lowered the bag to the floor.
    â€˜Thanks.’
    She flashed him her warmest of looks and noted the interest in his eyes. At least one of them wasn’t gay.
    â€˜Hope we’ll see you again soon, Mrs Taylor.’
    â€˜Thank you. I hope so too.’
    A stewardess held out a cream linen jacket for her.
    â€˜Thanks. I’m glad half of me won’t look creased,’ she said, brushing her lap in an attempt to smooth thewrinkles of the matching skirt. ‘I’d have done better wearing jeans.’ She slipped the jacket on. ‘What did they say the temperature was outside?’
    â€˜Not sure, madam. Twenty-four Celsius, I think. But it’ll drop at this time of year. Nights in Amman should be pleasantly cool at the end of September.’
    The woman made liberal use of a perfume spray while the dark-suited, dapper little Arab, who’d been seated three rows in front of her smoking like a chimney during the flight, brushed past, heading for the exit. His face, she noticed, was still puckered with anger and disappointment at being expelled from Britain. She stepped quickly into the aisle to be right behind him, flinching at the acid whiff of his perspiration. The aircraft’s main door was open but the stairs had yet to be wheeled into place. Beyond the galley in the crowded tourist section of the plane she saw passengers queuing impatiently to get off.
    When the steps finally arrived, she stuck right behind the man she’d been shadowing as he descended to the tarmac. There was a fifty-metre walk to the terminal. She glanced up at its roof. Half-lit faces watching for