‘Yeah?’ he said. Cool. He didn’t want to give anything away.

A crackly kind of pause.

‘Hello?’ Jamie bellowed in the way only people talking into mobiles can. Briefly he considered hanging up, but at that moment a voice spoke.

‘Jamie Spillane?’ it asked.

Jamie couldn’t place the voice. ‘Who’s this?’ he demanded.

Another pause. ‘You know who it is.’

Jamie blinked. The checkout girl had scanned his items and was looking up at him with a bored, impatient expression. ‘Four pounds eighty-six,’ she said, a bit too loudly, as though she were saying it for a second time. Jamie hardly heard her. He left his lunch languishing by the plastic bags and hurried away from the checkout and out the shop.

‘I thought you’d forgotten I existed,’ he said under his breath. Silence. He was on the street now. The traffic was noisy. ‘Hello?’

‘You knew it could be some time.’ The more the voice spoke, the more Jamie recognised it. ‘The company is activating you.’

The company. Jamie knew what that meant. He knew that nobody would ever use the phrase ‘MI5’.

‘I’m listening,’ he replied. He had a finger shoved into his other ear to keep out the noise and it crossed his mind that this wasn’t quite how he had imagined things would happen. ‘Are you there?’ he asked when there was no reply.

‘I’m here.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

Again a pause.

‘Have you told anyone, Jamie?’

He was glad nobody was there to see his face. ‘Of course not,’ he replied. No hint of a lie in his voice. A bus had come to a halt just in front of him. Passengers spilled out and one of them caught his eye. Jamie started walking, speaking as he went. ‘Don’t worry about it, mate. It’s all cool.’

He carried on walking. His mouth felt dry. Jamie was frightened of the man at the other end of the phone. But he had to keep silent. He didn’t want to get Kelly involved in this stuff.

Silence. He continued to walk briskly. Randomly. He was getting a bit out of breath now – through exercise or excitement, he wasn’t quite sure which – so he came to a halt on the corner of a residential street. It was quieter here.

‘So,’ he said. ‘What do I need to do? What’s the job?’

He held his breath as he waited for the answer.

‘The job,’ the voice replied, ‘is difficult. But it’s important, Jamie. Lives depend on it. We’re asking you because you showed more aptitude than the others. Can we count on you?’

Jamie’s face twitched. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, you can.’

‘Good. You need to listen carefully, Jamie. If you don’t understand something, ask me to repeat it. Do you understand?’

Jamie looked around. The residential street was practically deserted; certainly nobody was paying him any attention. That was good. He pulled himself up to his full height. All of a sudden, he felt tall again. Excited. Useful. The row with Kelly, the shitty bedsit – all that disappeared from his mind.

‘Yeah,’ he announced into the receiver. ‘I understand. Go ahead. I’m listening…’

Sam’s dream had stayed with him, a shadow that haunted him for the rest of the day, just as it had haunted his night. Other things haunted him too. Clare’s story; the anonymous package. Who had given it to him? No matter how hard he thought about it, he just couldn’t make things add up. Driving back from London he could barely keep his car straight, let alone his thoughts. But as he approached the outskirts of Hereford, he realised he had come to a decision. And if he was going to pull it off, he had to pretend that everything was normal.

He headed straight for Credenhill. There were things that needed to be done before the op. The last thing Sam wanted to do at the moment was see any of the guys, but he had to make sure he was prepared. Pretend nothing’s wrong, he told himself. Pretend it’s just an ordinary op. If he didn’t put in an appearance, people might start to ask questions.

It was midday by the time he approached the weapons store and it was with relief, as he stepped inside, that he saw it was just him and the armourer. He was a tall man with short, spiky hair. Sam didn’t know his name. He hoped there’d be no wisecracks from him, no inappropriate questions about what use the weapons he dished out were going to be put to.

‘Didn’t think I’d be seeing your lot so soon,’ he observed drily.

A little voice in Sam’s head told him to act naturally. If you can’t keep it up in the armoury, he told himself, you’ll have no chance in the field. ‘Gluttons for fucking punishment,’ he replied before flashing a forced, rueful smile.

‘Diemaco?’

Sam nodded. ‘And the Sig.’

Each man’s weapon was particular to him. The rifle and handgun that Sam would be taking to Kazakhstan were the same ones that had kept him alive in Helmand Province; the same ones that had claimed more Taliban scalps in the previous few weeks than Sam could frankly remember. The armourer kept the weapons separate, safe and ordered in this locked, secure building. But it was up to Sam to test fire his guns on the range in preparation for the op, to make sure that they were still zeroed in to his eye. It took the armourer less than a minute silently to locate his Diemaco C8 and place it carefully on the counter along with a small box of 45 mm rounds. The Sig followed, a P226 with a 9 mm chamber and an extended twenty-round magazine. A box of rounds for the handgun and Sam was good to go. The armourer listed what Sam was checking out, then handed over the slip of paper for him to sign. He scrawled his illegible signature at the bottom of the paper, nodded curtly at the armourer and gathered up his weapons.

There were two guys at the range already, both from Sam’s troop. Jack Craven and Luke Tyler had been out with him in the Stan. Good lads. Young. Up for it. The sort of troopers who would be down the range whether there was an operation in the offing or not. Sam stood back and watched their practice rounds. They were both firing their Diemacos and their aims were both true. By the time they had finished shooting, the body-shaped targets at the end of the range were punctured in all the right places. They lowered their weapons, then turned round.

‘What you gawking at, Granddad?’ Craven called good-naturedly. He was a Geordie and thought that gave him a licence to take the piss out of everyone.

Sam winked it at him, then turned to look through the window of the small hut that overlooked the range. He couldn’t quite see who was in charge, but whoever it was gave him a thumbs up. Sam sniffed and approached one of the firing alleys. He carefully laid the Sig on the ground behind him, before loading the Diemaco, pressing the butt of the weapon into his shoulder and taking aim.

He had lost count of the number of times he had stood at this range, firing the same weapon at the same target. It was routine. Comfortable. The sort of thing he could do in his sleep. But as Sam stood there, the two younger troopers looking on, he found himself shaking. Anger, he realised. And frustration. His lips were curled, his face set; and as he lined up the sights to the target, he noticed that it felt good to have this gun in his fist. It made him feel in control. He discharged the weapon in a single, brutal burst. His aim was perfect: each round thundered into the head of his target; by the time he had finished, his cardboard enemy was fully decapitated. Swapping one weapon for the other, he loaded the Sig and, discharging it at arm’s length, gave the target a bellyful of lead. And with each shot he felt better. Not less angry. Just better. The cloak-and-dagger letters, the spooks with secret agendas – they weren’t what Sam was built for. This was. It felt good to be a soldier again.

He lowered his weapon, then turned back to the other two. They were watching him, arms folded and with grins of appreciation on their faces. ‘Like fish in a fuckin’ barrel!’ Craven shouted as Sam walked up to join them. The younger man clapped a big hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘Shame it weren’t our bearded mates from Now Zad at the end of the alley.’