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was a red-rimmed MOD sign pointing to the gate of RAF Barford St John. I turned right and found myself come to a halt before a massive set of gates with the usual sign. “MOD Property – Keep Out.”
    I got out of the car. That would be fine, I had my MOD pass. But as I neared the gate I realised they’d been chained and padlocked shut. From the outside. I looked through, away across the airfield to a large, maybe T-shaped building with a massive radio mast on top. There were a few sodium lights but no movement. None at all. More washing-line type antennae marched away across the base, into the distance. This place was big . You could hide a lot here. I went to the car boot, popped it, and had a dig about in the go-bags. Here was what I was after. A VIPIR2+ thermal imaging sight. I turned it on and walked back to the gate. I gave the entire airfield a slow, thorough scan from left to right. No heat. Nothing.
    Time to get in there then. I got back in the car and drove back the way I came, round the outer perimeter. Within a minute on my left I found an entrance and a farmers’ gate. I pulled in and parked, retrieving the second go-bag from the boot. I vaulted the low metal fence, stopped and looked around. Some black bedraggled sheep were regarding me curiously. I nodded back. ‘Evening ladies.’
    I started walking up the dirt path as I checked over the kit in the bag. Bang-Bang’s old boltcutters, some wire snippers, some flashlights and portable RAC striplights. Off to the north of the base was another set of blockhouses in standard RAF configuration. If I was going to hide someone I’d do it there. I started jogging.
    After a few minutes I came to a second chainlink fence that surrounded the building complex. The buildings reminded me of the ones at the RAF Museum at Hendon. Big. Generic. And all the double doors looked to be shut and padlocked. I stood for a few minutes and let myself tune into the surroundings. All was quiet. The waxing moon was hanging, ghostly and fat, in the clouds. I looked up at the darkening sky and the fading vapour trails.
    Right next to me a woman’s voice spoke.
    ‘If you’re looking at them, bhai, you’re looking in the wrong place. The people we’re after fly lower than that.’
    I jumped. Farzana Shaheen was standing next to me. She grinned at me with that famous broken-teethed grin.
    I regained my composure.‘Hello Fuzz. And please tell me how you managed to sneak up on me.’
    She pointed to the hand that held her diamante sandals and then pointed down to her bare feet.‘Old Gujrati trick, bhai.’
    She jingled an ankle chain.
    ‘These only make a noise if you move quickly. So, we’ve found the airfield. Says it’s MOD property but it’s a US airfield, isn’t it. From my maps, it’s a CIA Mystic Star signals site. You gonna cut this fence?’
    ‘But of course, ukhti.’
    I readied the wire snippers and selected an area nearest a fence post. We were going in via the most remote corner. Fuzz laughed quietly. ‘Looks like fun.’
    We cut the wire and went forward to the concrete blockhouse. I ran to the first set of big black doors. Padlocked. I cut the hasp with the boltcutters. Knife through butter. We opened the doors and went in. We turned our flashlights on and swept them around the interior.
    ‘Ya allah.’
    Fuzz wasn’t happy. Neither was I.
    The interior was a huge, hollowed-out warehouse with Portakabins and haphazardly-placed levels. Way off in the murk, we could just about make out another cinderblock wall.
    Fuzz spoke. ‘We could be here all night. OK, you take the left…’
    We searched from bottom to top and all we found was dust and a few bits of furniture. After twenty minutes we’d reached the far end of the block. We shone our lights around and saw a wall blocked by a large sheet of plywood. We looked at each other. We got to shifting it. It fell with a rattle and we both cringed. We waited but there was no sound from outside. The dust swirled. We