Dirty Little Secret. Jon Stock

two of them, they had agreed that Dhar would be more valuable as an MI6 asset than dead. ‘A back channel into the global jihad,’ as Fielding had put it.

      So Marchant hadn’t killed Dhar when they had met in Russia. He had tried to turn him as they had approached Britain, flying at five hundred feet. It had been an incalculable gamble, but now it was worth it. Seeking refuge in Tarlton had seemed suicidal for Dhar, but his confident talk of freedom had given the operation new life. Marchant just had to figure out a way to honour his side of the deal.

      ‘Bagram isn’t exactly an open prison,’ Marchant said. ‘I can’t see a way to help if they take you there.’

      ‘The West’s senses have been sharpened by technology. Maybe all I’m asking for is a blind eye, a deaf ear.’

      Marchant watched Dhar as he became lost in thought, studying the Binekhi label on the vodka bottle. Did he mean GCHQ?

      ‘When you first told me our father was not working for Moscow, I was shocked, angry,’ Dhar continued. ‘I had wanted to believe he was a Russian agent.’

      Marchant thought back to the terrifying moment when he had broken the news to Dhar in the Russian SU-25 jet. Up until that point, Dhar had believed – hoped – that both Daniel and their father were Russian moles, all three of them united in their fight against America. But it hadn’t been as simple as that.