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al-Qaeda, right?’ said Shortt. ‘Has to be.’
    ‘It’s not as simple as that, Jimbo,’ said the Major. ‘There is no al-Qaeda any more, not really. These days, it’s more of a brand than an organisation. All the groups I mentioned have a similar ideology to al-Qaeda, but the days of a criminal mastermind with overall control are long gone. The guys in these groups were probably trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Pakistan ten years ago, but now they function as autonomous units. In effect, they’ve become a terror franchise. It’s like Burger King. A franchise in Birmingham doesn’t have to call head office every time it cooks a burger. These guys are just out there to cause chaos. If we had an al-Qaeda source, he probably wouldn’t even know where Geordie was being held.’
    ‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ said Armstrong. ‘Why don’t we just fly over there?’
    ‘And do what?’ asked the Major. ‘We wouldn’t be able to move around. Any Westerner’s a target. We’ve no intel sources on the ground. No one’s going to talk to us. We’d spend all our time just staying alive. At least here we can take a broader view, see the wood for the trees.’
    ‘How about Billy and I head to Baghdad?’ said Shortt. ‘At least we’d be on the spot.’ Armstrong nodded in agreement.
    ‘No one’s going to Iraq,’ said the Major. ‘At least, not yet. We’re only eight hours away. We’ve got just under two weeks, so we don’t have to rush into anything, okay?’
    Shortt didn’t look convinced.
    ‘I want you and Billy trailing the video,’ said the Major. ‘We need to know how it reached the TV stations. The first to get it was al-Jazeera in Qatar. They usually get the kidnap videos first and pass them on to others around the world. If we can follow that video back to the source, we’ll know where Geordie is. Plus, there might be more video with more usable intel on it. I’ll get the pictures we already have analysed, see if there’s anything there to help us. Spider will look into getting American intel on what’s going on in Iraq, and as I said, Geordie’s boss arrives tomorrow so we’ll have a briefing from him.’ The Major stood up. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll bring Geordie home, whatever it takes.’
    Geordie Mitchell put down the paperback book he’d been staring at for the past hour. He hadn’t got beyond the first page of The Da Vinci Code . It was creased and there were greasy fingerprints on the cover, and Mitchell couldn’t help wondering who had read it before and if he had lived to finish it.
    The room was fifteen paces long and nine wide. There were no windows and only one door. The inside of the door was featureless except for a peephole at head height. There was no lock, and no handle. Other than a threadbare blanket and a blue plastic bucket, there was nothing. When they fed him it was on paper plates and he had to eat with his hands. Water came in paper beakers. He’d been over every inch of the floor and walls and there was nothing he could use as a weapon – except his hands, of course, and his feet, elbows, knees. Mitchell knew a couple of dozen ways to kill with his bare hands, but despatching one of his captors wouldn’t get him out of the basement. He had seen at least six men, and had no way of knowing how many more were upstairs. He could grab one and threaten to kill him unless they let him go, but he doubted they’d be intimidated by threats of violence.
    Besides, the chance of catching them unawares was virtually nil. Most of the time he was alone in the basement. When they came to feed him, they shouted through the door that he was to stand against the back wall with his hands out to the side. They wouldn’t open the door until he had complied. One man would come in, usually the one called Kamil, with food or water or to empty the bucket. Kamil was the only one who had spoken to him, and he had always been polite and friendly. While Kamil was in