‘Hard to tell. Looks pretty ancient, the way some of these Afghan guys can. I’d say he’s in his seventies.’

  ‘I might have to get rough with him. You got a problem with that?’

  ‘What do you think I am, some kind of fucking snowflake?’

  ‘No, but if he’s an old fella—’

  ‘Listen, if he’s thick with Al-Zafawi, he deserves everything he gets. The things those Taliban guys do to women and children? One of his hits in Pakistan killed a hundred kids. Do what you have to do. If it turns your stomach, ask me and I’ll do it for you.’

  ‘You’ve got the layout of the mosque’s exterior in your head?’ she said.

  ‘Remind me,’ Danny said. It had been dark that morning and he’d been preoccupied with locating Caitlin.

  ‘The front is a low, single-storey building with a concrete dome and an arched entrance. No good for us – men only – but that’s where most of the guys will be going in and out for prayers. No women, of course. Adjoining that, at the rear, there’s a two-storey building. Shuttered windows on three sides, but I’ve never seen them open. The back of that building was damaged several years ago. Reconstruction has stalled so it’s a building site out back. There’s a single exit. If we want to get into the mosque, that’s the one to use.’

  ‘Is it locked?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Any suitable OP?’

  ‘Sure. About thirty metres from the building site out back there’s the shell of an old armoured lorry. It’s been completely stripped down and it’s not going anywhere without a pickup. The riverbed is about twenty metres beyond it, but it’s set at an angle – we’d be out of sight of the compounds on the western side of the river, and it’ll give us eyes on the rear of the mosque.’

  ‘Not both of us,’ Danny said. ‘One of us needs to keep eyes on the front, in case he leaves that way.’

  ‘That’s your call,’ Caitlin said. ‘But I’ve been watching him for the past couple of days. I’ve never seen him use that front entrance. It’s quicker for him to use the rear entrance to get across the river and back to his family compound. I suggest we either put in surveillance from the rear of the old lorry, or we enter the mosque from the back.’

  Danny gave that a moment’s consideration. Caitlin knew the ground. He should listen to her. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Surveillance first. If it doesn’t look like he’s coming out, we’ll move in. When it happens, we want him on his own. I don’t want this to be noisy, and I don’t want to leave a string of bodies that will make anyone looking for me start sniffing around here. If he’s got company, we hold off. Wait till he’s alone. Got it?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Danny took up position by the door and waited. They stood in silence for ten minutes. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

  Danny lowered his head and hunched his shoulders to make himself look less imposing as Caitlin led the way out of the dwelling, down the stone steps and into the street. It was insanely hot. Within seconds, the cloth of Danny’s robes was scorching his skin. They walked side by side towards the top of the main street. It was practically deserted: the handful of people Danny saw seemed to be hurrying to get out of the heat. He scanned left and right as they headed south towards the mosque. Here, a few Afghan men were leaving by the arched front entrance. The men paid Danny and Caitlin no attention as they turned right to skirt along the side of the mosque towards the rear of the building.

  A heat haze shimmered from the unmade breeze blocks piled up around the unreconstructed area around the back of the mosque. A black bird of some description sat on one of these piles, silently watching them as they passed. Thirty metres up ahead, Danny saw the derelict armoured lorry Caitlin had mentioned. He looked around to check they weren’t being observed. There was nobody in the vicinity and the shutters of the mosque’s first floor windows were closed, just as Caitlin had predicted. They advanced swiftly towards the vehicle.

  It truly was a husk. The tyres had been removed, the windows were long gone and the metal panels of the chassis were corroded. But it afforded good cover, especially now that the sun was high and their shadows short. Danny crouched behind the front end of the lorry. The open desert around him was a featureless expanse of shimmering brown earth meeting piercing blue sky, with a mountain range off to Danny’s ten o’clock. There was no cover in that direction: anyone approaching would be visible from miles off. Turning towards the village, he peered round the corner of the lorry and had direct line of sight over the thirty metres of open ground, the rubble at the back of the mosque, and the rear entrance that also shimmered in the heat haze. Caitlin took up position at the opposite end of the vehicle.

  ‘Eyes on?’ Danny asked.

  ‘You bet.’

  Time check: 12.23 hours. Danny kept a constant watch on the back of the mosque – not only the entrance, but also the shuttered windows on the first floor, checking for movement or any other indication of counter-surveillance. The movement of a shutter. The glint of an optical device. There was none. If anybody had seen two apparently female robed figures setting up an OP, and were watching them, they were making a good job of not being seen.

  ‘Hey, Danny,’ Caitlin said after they’d been watching for a couple of minutes. ‘Tony mention me at all?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve still got your sights on him.’

  ‘Give me a break,’ Caitlin said, her voice contemptuous. ‘I’m just curious is all.’

  ‘He didn’t mention you.’

  A pause.

  ‘Good,’ Caitlin said. ‘I prefer it that—’

  ‘Movement,’ Danny cut in.

  The door at the rear of the mosque had opened. Danny squinted, trying to see through the heat haze. Three people were exiting. As they picked their way through the building site at the back of the mosque, Danny identified their features. Two of them were young men, probably in their twenties. They looked almost identical: short-cropped hair and long black beards. Plain Afghan robes. One of them had a rucksack slung over his right shoulder. The third man was much older. His beard was grey but short-cropped, his shoulders somewhat stooped. His face was very dark and deeply lined, but to Danny’s eye he looked surprisingly like an Afghan Jeremy Corbyn.

  ‘Is that our guy?’ Danny said quietly.

  ‘That’s our guy,’ Caitlin replied.

  The Imam held his hands behind his back and was talking as he walked. The two younger men listened intently. When they reached the edge of the building site, the older man stopped talking. He reached inside his robes, looked around to check he wasn’t being observed, then removed a handgun. He looked at it, nodded approvingly, and handed it to the young man who dropped it rather carelessly into his rucksack. He and his companion nodded respectfully at the Imam, then turned and walked along the side of the mosque, back towards the main street. The Imam watched them go.

  He suddenly turned and stared directly towards the lorry, squinting. Danny froze. He knew that the slightest movement from either of them would reveal their location. The Imam kept his gaze on the vehicle for almost ten seconds, before shaking his head, turning and, still stooped, walking back towards the mosque’s rear entrance.

  ‘You reckon he was giving those two lads spiritual guidance as well as live firearms?’ Danny asked.

  ‘I guess there’s only one way to find out. If Spearpoint saw that little exchange, I don’t reckon they’d feel so bad about knocking the old boy around a bit.’

  Danny watched him disappear through the door. Scanned the surrounding area again. The two younger men were out of sight. There was nobody around to see them. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  They crossed the open ground between the lorry and the mosque side by side, heads bowed. When they reached the building site, Danny checked their surroundings again. Nothing, so they picked their way across the building rubble towards the old wooden door set in the back wall of the building.

  The mortar on the wall surrounding the door was coming away in large patches. Danny also picked out a line of bullet marks forming an arc a couple of metres above the door. There was a heavy iron latch, which he lifted. The door creaked open. A blast of cooler air emerged, but it was dark inside and Danny’s visibility was less than a metre.

  He stepped inside, followed by Caitlin. They gave themselves a moment to adjust to the relative interior darkness. They were in an almost empty back room. There were robes hanging on hooks along one wall, and another door opposite them. This one looked sturdier, but only a little. They approached it quickly and quietly. Danny listened at the door frame. Silence at first. Then –

  ‘Footsteps,’ Danny breathed. ‘Step back from the door.’

  Caitlin positioned herself three metres from the door while Danny stood with his back to the wall, a metre from the door frame. He removed his handgun and raised it.

  Breathed slowly as he waited.

  The door clicked open. A dusty light from inside the mosque flooded out. The Imam appeared in the doorway. He stopped, his eyes fixed on the robed and hooded figure of Caitlin standing in the darkness in front of him. The old man started – he was clearly nervous about something – then his expression changed from one of surprise to one of annoyance. He started to speak. Danny didn’t understand his words but he sure understood the harsh nature of them as he reprimanded Caitlin in an aggressive and patronising way.

  But he fell silent a few seconds later when he felt the barrel of Danny’s handgun hard against the side of his skull.

  ‘Next time you speak without my permission,’ Danny said, ‘I’ll kill you. If you understand, nod.’

  The Imam nodded.

  ‘Is there anybody else in the mosque? Say yes or no.’

  ‘This is an outrage!’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You understand that if you’re lying, you’ll be dead within a minute? Say yes or no.’

  The Imam looked like he was going to argue, but thought better of it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take three steps forward, then get to your knees.’

  The Imam did as he was told. Danny moved forward with him. He jutted his chin out at Danny, refusing to kneel. So Danny put his gun to the old man’s head. That got him to the ground. He looked up at Caitlin. ‘Check it,’ he said.

  Caitlin entered the mosque without speaking.

  ‘Many people will come,’ the Imam said. ‘In one minute, they will be here.’

  Danny said nothing.

  ‘They will drag you into the village and shoot you.’

  Danny’s continued silence had the desired effect: the Imam started to tremble, and his trembling got worse, quickly. By the time Caitlin returned, a minute later, Danny was pretty sure from a waft of urine that the old boy had pissed himself.

  ‘It’s clear,’ Caitlin said. ‘Front entrance is locked from the inside.’

  Danny bent down and pulled the Imam up by the scruff of his robes. The old man wriggled vigorously. Danny kept his grip and pushed him through the door back into the mosque. Only then did he remove his headdress so the Imam could see his face. The old man looked at him like he was looking at the devil. That was fine by Danny. He wanted his target to think the very worst of him. He looked around the interior of the mosque. It was plain. No frills. The room itself was square, twenty metres by twenty. To Danny’s right there was a raised area, like a plain altar, where he assumed the Imam would ordinarily stand. Against the front wall was the arched door Danny had identified from outside. To either side of it were wooden racks for shoes. The walls were covered in brushed Arabic script, although the plaster on which it had been painted was crumbling away in places. Along one wall was a bookcase with perhaps twenty or thirty old books. And in the far left corner there was a circular stone font, about three metres in diameter, surrounded by a couple of wooden benches. Danny pointed towards it. ‘What’s that?’ he asked Caitlin.

  ‘It’s where they wash before prayers,’ Caitlin said. She removed her headdress. The Imam looked outraged at the sight of a woman speaking to a man in his prayer room. His expression changed quickly to one of recognition – he clearly knew who Caitlin was.

  ‘You!’ he said. ‘A woman?’

  ‘Count the tits, darling,’ Caitlin said. She pointed back the way they came. ‘I’ll watch the exit.’

  Danny nodded.

  ‘Hey,’ Caitlin said. ‘If there’s any chance of anyone seeing him, he needs to be intact.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Danny said. He turned to the Imam. ‘Why don’t you have a little wash,’ he said.

  He used his weapon to prod the old man in the direction of the font. The Imam had bare feet, so he made no noise as he stumbled towards it. Danny’s booted footsteps echoed around the prayer room as he followed close behind. When they reached the font, Danny saw that the water inside was about five inches deep, and stagnant. Deep enough for his purposes, and its cleanliness didn’t matter.

  Danny swapped his gun over to his bad hand, then grabbed the Imam by the back of the neck and, ignoring a sudden sharp pain from his wound, forced him to bend over the edge of the font. Danny plunged the old man’s face into the shallow water. The Imam flailed his bony arms and kicked his feet. But he wasn’t a strong man. Danny easily kept his face in the water with one arm. The Imam tried to shout under the water, but there was just a muted, gurgling protestation. Danny kept him under.

  He counted to twenty, then pulled the Imam out of the font. The Iman inhaled deeply and noisily, his beard dripping wet and his eyes wild. Danny thrust his face back into the water even before he’d finished inhaling. He held it there for another twenty seconds, then pulled him out again.

  This time he let the old man recover his breath. But he still held him by the neck, and he pressed the handgun into his forehead in case he should be tempted to cry out. ‘Are you listening to me?’ he said.

  The Imam nodded desperately.

  ‘I’ve got some good news for you,’ Danny said. ‘I’m going to let you live. But only if you give me some information. Do you understand?’

  Another nod.

  ‘There is a man called Mohammed Al-Zafawi. You know him?’

  This time the Imam shook his head.

  Danny smiled. ‘That’s a shame,’ he said. And he plunged the old man’s face back into the water.

  This time he held him down for thirty seconds. He paid close attention to the flailing of the man’s arms. Only when the strength started to leave him did Danny pull him back out. ‘You know him?’ he repeated, his voice quiet and twice as dangerous.

  The old man’s eyes were rolling as he gasped desperately for a lungful of air. He coughed up a mouthful of stagnant water, then nodded.

  ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Danny said. ‘Your English is pretty good. You used to live in the UK?’

  The Imam nodded again.

  ‘That where you met him? You were the one who radicalised him?’

  ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions, pal. You’re not just here to pray with him. You’re not just a provincial Imam. He’s put you in this village for a reason. To distribute weapons to your Taliban cronies?’

  The Imam didn’t have to answer. Danny could tell from the Imam’s expression that he was on the money. ‘Okay, pal. Sorted. Now listen carefully: the next words that leave your mouth are going to be Al-Zafawi’s location.’

  The Imam made a harsh, hacking sound in the back of his throat. He drew breath again. Then he spoke. ‘I would rather die,’ he whispered.

  ‘Well in that case, my friend, you’re talking to the right person.’ And for a fourth time, he thrust the old man’s head under the water.

  Danny knew he was playing a dangerous game. Experience of field interrogation told him that no matter how brave the Imam’s words, he would likely change his mind when the prospect of death became an immediate reality. He needed the Imam to be sufficiently convinced that Danny was on the verge of killing him, but cogent enough to provide the intel and to be moved if necessary. He watched his target’s fist carefully. It was clenched, the nails digging into the palm. But after another thirty seconds of drowning, the fingers gradually loosened as the Imam started to lose control of himself. That was Danny’s sign to pull him out again.

  For a moment he thought he’d gone too far. The old man was limp, his eyes closed. Danny thumped him between the shoulder blades. Another substantial volume of water spewed out and when the Imam inhaled this time, it was with a much more sinister hoarseness. He was on the edge.

  ‘Where is Al-Zafawi?’ Danny demanded.

  The Imam gabbled something in Pashto. Danny pressed his weapon into his damp cheek. ‘English,’ he said.

  ‘The cave . . .’

  ‘Which cave? Where is it?’

  ‘The cave . . .’ the Imam repeated. His eyes rolled again and he reverted to jabbering Pashto. Danny started to push him back down to the water. ‘North-east!’ the Imam gasped. ‘In the mountains range. I can take you there.’ He went almost completely limp again. ‘I can take you there,’ he repeated. ‘Thirty kilometres . . .’

  Danny knew he had pushed the old man far enough. He let go of his neck and let him fall to his knees next to the font. He marched across the prayer room to the exit where Caitlin was standing, Sig in hand, facing outside.

  ‘What took you so damn long?’ she asked without turning to look at him.

  Danny ignored that. ‘Al-Zafawi’s hiding out in a cave thirty klicks north-east of here.’

  ‘He’ll have guys,’ Caitlin said. ‘And there’s ANA forward operating bases north and east of here. They patrol the area at night, sometimes during the day.’

  ‘I know. I’ll need your help. I won’t be able to get to him alone.’

  ‘We should bring Tommy.’

  ‘No. I don’t know the guy. I can’t trust him not to contact the head shed.’

  ‘How do you know you can trust me?’ She looked at him and they locked gazes for a moment before Caitlin lowered her eyes. ‘When do we go?’

  ‘Soon as. We need to be out of the village by afternoon prayers – that’s when people will start to miss this guy. And if word gets to Al-Zafawi that something’s happened to his precious Imam, he’s likely to get spooked and move position. We need to get to this cave by tonight at the latest.’