'I did what was asked of me.'

'Back to Chicksands. Working to Major Brian

Arnold. Rarefied long-range guessing on the agenda.

What do we know about the Iraqi order of battle?

How mobile is a Republican Guard armoured division? Who are the personalities in command of Iraqi units? Where have they been trained? What is the quality of Iraqi logistics and support arms? War is getting closer, work hours longer – earlier away from the little woman and later back. Immersed in work, head never above the parapet… Am I getting it right?'

'If you want to believe it, you can believe it.'

'Don't get shirty with me, Malachy. I'm the one with a home and family to go back to. You've neither. The war starts. All those clever papers you've written, they're all proven crap. The Yanks slice through the defences, which was not in your predictions. No, you hadn't got that right. Hardly time to blink and the fighting war's over, and it's peace. You are one of many, suddenly sitting on your hands and looking at the sun shining down on Chicksands. Your trouble, though – and it's the same trouble for all the work-obsessed geeks – is that you don't do hobbies.

Nothing to fill your days, and nights. Not going well with the lovely Roz, eh? Then Major Arnold drops his bombshell. You're off to Iraq.'

He understood. It was as if a rope had tightened round his throat. He said hoarsely, 'There was work, worthwhile work, to be done there.'

'That's better. Now we're singing from the same hymn sheet – excellent. And the excreta's in the fan.

Supposed to be mission accomplished, but it's not.

The time for rose petals chucked under the tracks of tanks is a memory. It's about terrorism and about improvised explosive devices and law-and-order breakdown and the assassination of collaborators, and a dream that's as sour as old milk. First you get to Brigade in Basra. I expect they get the message – another junkie from Intelligence, boasting brain power over brawn and telling the brigadier where he's doing it wrong – short-cut to getting popular, eh?'