It was the little things that could go wrong. At thirty thousand feet there was very little oxygen and the temperature was freezing. Any slight malfunction of the rig and you’d pass out. Problems like that you could predict and prepare for; others you couldn’t. During a high-altitude jump over the Syrian Desert, his mate had hit Sam’s rucksack from one side as they dived from the aircraft. The rucksack had shifted, changing Sam’s centre of balance. He’d started to spin; and once the spinning started, it didn’t stop. Freefalling at one hundred and fifty miles per hour it hadn’t taken him long to black out. He’d have been a goner if it weren’t for the HALO rig’s automatic opening device that kicked in at four thousand feet. When he regained consciousness, the capillaries in the whites of his eyes had burst, his inner ears were fucked and he was too dizzy even to walk, let alone continue the operation. He put that thought from his mind. Burst capillaries or not, nothing was going to stop him from completing what he had to do on this op. Nothing at all.

‘We need to talk.’

Mac had started walking alongside him. His friend put a firm hand on Sam’s arm and forced him to a halt, while the others carried on walking. Sam’s body tensed up.

‘What do you mean?’

Mac stared straight into his eyes. ‘You think I didn’t recognise him?’ he murmured.

Sam felt suddenly trapped.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he spat. But even as he spoke, he felt his hand move almost involuntarily to his weapon.

Mac glanced down at Sam’s gun hand. ‘Christ’s sake, mate,’ he hissed. ‘If I was going to stop you, do you think I’d have waited till now?’

The noise of the airfield around him retreated. In that moment there was only Sam and Mac.

‘I couldn’t tell you before, Sam. Not till we were here.’

‘Why the hell not?’ Sam was suddenly angry with his old friend. He didn’t know why. He just couldn’t control his emotions.

‘Think about it, Sam. Something about this whole operation stinks. The Regiment sent out to kill one of their own? And fuck knows what sort of surveillance we’re all under. You and me start having cosy little confabs, it’s going to send up warning signals for someone, isn’t it?’

Sam thought about that. He realised that of all the people he couldn’t trust, Mac was the most trustworthy.

‘I don’t think Five know he’s there,’ Sam said quietly. And then, in response to Mac’s sharp look, ‘Or whoever it is who’s behind this. If they did, they’d hardly be sending you and me on the op.’ He took a deep breath, quickly wondering whether he should tell Mac everything he’d learned – the letter, Clare, the red-light runners, what they were really being sent to Kazakhstan to do – and just as quickly deciding not to. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t change what he had to do. ‘I’m not going to let anyone kill him, Mac. I don’t care about the other targets, but I’m not going to let anyone kill my brother.’

‘And you think I am? Jesus, Sam, he was my friend. God knows what he’s got himself mixed up in, but…’

A shout from up ahead – Tyler, his Cockney voice rising above the noise of the airfield. ‘Havin’ a mass debate, you two?’ he barked lewdly.

Sam and Mac looked towards him, then started to follow the rest of the unit, but slowly.

‘Maybe we should tell the others?’

Mac shook his head. ‘You can’t, Sam. You’ll only get them all a stretch in the nick for disobeying orders. You know J. better than anyone – you think he’d want us to do that on his account?’

Mac was right. There was one thing Jacob had always insisted on, and that was fighting his own battles. ‘So how we going to play it?’ he demanded.

Mac walked silently for a moment. ‘When we get to the camp,’ he said finally, ‘We’ll need to make some noise, let J. know someone’s coming…’ He let the sentence trail off, clearly aware that it wasn’t much of a plan.

‘What if Jacob comes out shooting?’ Sam asked.

But Mac didn’t answer. They had caught up with the rest of the unit.

‘Nice of you to join us,’ Cullen said darkly.

Mac smiled at him. ‘Well,’ he said, his voice suddenly much brighter than it had been only seconds ago, ‘we didn’t really want to miss the party.’

There were two C-130 Hercules aircraft waiting for them up ahead; a refuelling lorry was just driving away. The two aircraft would fly in convoy over a commercial airline route until they reached the insertion point. Once the unit had jumped, one of the Hercules would refuel the other in midair before returning to base. The remaining plane, its fuel stores replenished, would circle at a high altitude until they received the radio signal from the guys on the ground that they were ready to be picked up.

But the moment when that was to happen, Sam thought – the planes’ engines roaring in his ears as the unit boarded their aircraft – seemed a very, very long way off. Mac’s sudden admission had been a shock; Sam didn’t know whether he felt better or worse.

They sat in the belly of the Hercules, four to a bench, facing each other. For now their rucksacks and helmets were on the floor in front of them, but when the time came to make the jump, that would change. Around them a loadie checked the plane’s apparatus and made it ready for flight. Sam sat opposite Mac. The two of them did their best not to catch each other’s eye, but it was difficult and every time it happened, Sam felt a little surge in his stomach. It wasn’t the usual pre-HALO butterflies. It was something else.

It was deafeningly loud in there, but Craven managed to make his voice heard above the noise. ‘Nothing like a nice quiet evening in,’ he shouted. A light-hearted comment, but delivered in a deadpan way. Craven clearly didn’t expect a response; nor did he get one.

At that moment the tailgate of the Hercules closed and the lights of the airfield disappeared from sight. A sudden lurch as the aircraft juddered into motion. Any minute now and they would be airborne.

And then?

Sam kept his breathing steady as he prepared for the ordeal ahead of him.

The telephone on Gabriel Bland’s desk rang three times before he picked it up.

‘Bland,’ he answered it shortly but not impolitely.

‘It’s me, sir. Toby. I’ve brought Nicola Ledbury in. Interview room three. Would you like me to start asking questions?’

‘Ah…’ Bland made a pretence of considering the suggestion. ‘Perhaps I’ll come down and lend a hand,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll be with you shortly.’

He replaced the phone on its cradle and left the room with a swiftness that belied his advancing years. He took the lift to the basement of the building and stepped briskly along a corridor until he found the room in question. It was sparse and unfurnished. Just a table and a two chairs. Toby was sitting in one of them, and opposite him a woman. She was pretty, with blonde hair and a long, smooth neck. But she looked frightened.

They always looked frightened.

Toby stood up the moment Bland walked into the room, immediately offering him his chair. ‘Thank you, Toby,’ he murmured before sitting down and smiling impassively at the woman in front of him. ‘Detective Inspecter Ledbury,’ he said calmly. ‘How kind of you to come and see us.’

The woman’s frightened eyes flickered up towards Toby and her lips grew a little thinner.

Bland feigned concern. ‘I do hope Toby wasn’t brusque with you.’

‘He was bloody brusque,’ she replied hotly. ‘I’m a police officer, you know…’

Gabriel Bland continued as if she hadn’t even spoken. ‘I wonder, Miss Ledbury, if I might just ask you a few questions.’ He paused briefly, waiting for a response that was not forthcoming, before continuing. ‘Two nights ago, you requested a billing address for a mobile phone number belonging to a Miss Clare Corbett. Am I right?’