They hadn't been able to turn this one down. I think they'd probably tried but the pressure had been too great and they'd been forced to set up the op. I'd only known it to happen twice before since I'd been at the Bureau and in each case the decision-making had been at Prime Minister level.

He wished to inform me personally that your mission is the key to a critical situation of the highest international proportions.

If he didn't talk like a bloody schoolmistress he could have put it rather more concisely.This one's shit-or-bust.

We call it a one-shot mission and it means if you don't pull it off the first time you don't get another go. You can refuse it if you like but if you accept it you've got to play it their way and put up with panic directives and dodgy communications and makeshift access lines and do what you can with what you've got and somehow get in there and do the job and bring back the goods. It means more than just the increased risk of your losing your life: it means that if you can't complete the mission it's the last chance anyone's going to get. There are various factors governing this but the most common one is time.

Time governed the Tango mission. In London they'd been pushed for time but they'd set it running as best they could and provided superlative access lines right into the target area: my final approach to the objective was being made invisibly and in perfect silence. The margin of error was deadly but if they'd narrowed it the invisibility and the silence would have had to go: we would have brought a powered aircraft and searched the area with flares and landing-lights and made a direct drop on to the target but I wouldn't have had five minutes to work in before the opposition arrived.

The margin of error had been unavoidable. That didn't make it any narrower: but it made it more acceptable.

Air spilling from the canopy. Its dark fabric was spread above me, filling the sky. I couldn't see the supply 'chute but I believed it was there, following me down, had to believe it was there because if it wasn't I would already have begun to die.

The senses were coming back and I had the impression that each swing was taking me more and more to one side: the canopy was restless and I could hear the rising sibilance of the airstream through the suspension lines. There was a lateral force operating and this must be the south wind, theGhibli, that Chirac said he hoped to find blowing when he made his attempt to reach the South 4 strip. It didn't feel very strong; I wished for him that it would be enough.

Warmth was touching my face and I looked down. The heat of the sands was rising and I reached for the lines and held them, waiting, seeing nothing but knowing that land was near.

Important to remain conscious.

The chances were that I'd hit sand and the impact would be cushioned but if Chirac's dead-reckoning had been accurate enough to bring me down on a radius of five hundred yards from the centre of the target area I could hit the rock outcrop and if a spur caught one of my shoulders I'd flake out again and that would be dangerous.

The canopy. above me had been blocking my view and when I hit ground and the nylon collapsed I must get an immediate visual fix on the supply 'chute. I would be able to see it while it was still airborne because when I'd baled out the airspeed had been 99 kph and Chirac was going to wait five seconds before he released and with a wind-factor common to both drops the supply 'chute would come down approximately a hundred and fifty metres from where I landed. But if I didn't see it before it struck ground and the canopy collapsed it would be hidden by the dunes: and I wouldn't know its direction.

With our bearing of 225° from the radio tower we'd flown with Pegasus directly ahead and I could see the constellation now but Chirac had made a right-hand bank when I'd jumped and I didn't know if he'd resumed his course before levelling up to make the second drop or if he'd simply pulled out of the turn and levelled at a tangent. If I didn't see where the supply 'chute came down it would mean a search in the dark among the dunes with no certainty of ever finding it.

Warm air against my skin.

The lines whispering: I could feel their fine vibration.

Sudden inundation of optical stimuli and the world filled with contrasts — the far horizon-line where the stars met the rim of the earth and the rising undulations of the dunes blotting it out as I pulled on the lines to break the impact and then went limp and rolled once on my shoulder with the harness wrenching, dragged the release and tried to get up, couldn't.

Everything kaleidoscopic and the pain like a furnace roaring in my bones, try to see where it is, most important, the high stars sliding down the wall of night and sand in my mouth,get up, not really important yesvery, spitting the sand out, a dark shape moving over there where there's nothing, nothing to mark it, the canopy lowering, lowering,yes got it, the roaring and the red of stars flying, fall this way then,this way, fall with your head towards it and remember, remember when you wake, yourhead is towards it, the black sand bursting against my face.

Pale fire.

Blue, pale blue fire before my eyes.

A ring of it, a rosary, an annulus of luminescent blue.

The two pointers at right-angles, their blue, it doesn't take, their blue light trisecting the ring of fire, take long for the brain to seize when it wakes on what it can find, familiar things to facilitate recall, twelve and three, the underside of my wrist lying turned towards my eyes, three o'clock.

Your head is towards it.

Over there. It came down over there.

Three o'clock and all's well, we have the means to survive.

Got up and it happened again and I became very frustrated and spat out the sand, hanging on all fours like a dog and thinking this won't do at all, where's your dignity, now get up and stay there anddon't turn.

Over there.

Note carefully. The high dune to the left, curving to the unequal sided V where it joins the next, the lower one, and the bright star five degrees above it to the right. Observe and absorb.

I had a reference. The gap in the dunes and a star. It was the only known shape here where I was a stranger: it was a kind of temporary home.

It took time to get there. Over an hour. It was more like three hundred metres instead of a hundred and fifty and the directional error was ten degrees and the dunes were dark. I took the parachute with me because later it would make extra shade and I couldn't leave it behind, the idea wasn't actually to litter the desert with landmarks, but it took a bit of dragging. I couldn't fold it and the sand kept getting in it but it did a good enough job wiping out my tracks.

There was a light wind blowing, blowing from Diphda in the south, is it enough for your needs,mon ami? It had blown sand already against the container on that side and the 'chute was almost covered. The desert hides things from you: beware.

A rip-string and I pulled it, opening the polyester like a sardine-tin, putting the lid on its back and scooping sand in before the wind could lift it. The 200 °CA was on top and I took it out and stood it on the lid and pulled up the telescopic aerial, not hurrying, just a routine movement of the hands and perfectly confident, Loman. was experienced and the only time he'd ever lost a base was in Bangkok and we weren't there when it was blown and besides she had a gun, the big Colt that Chirac had lent me, hold it with both hands if you want to and be ready for the recoil. And anyway I'd asked Loman not to leave base because one gun wouldn't be enough if she were alone and they raided the place, feet on the stairs and the door kicked open and the first one going down but after that she'd lose her head and just go on pumping the thing wild with her eyes shut and they'd reach her before the sixth.