If he were to find his family, Caleb needed food, water and clothes, and he needed help.

He pushed himself up but his knees gave under him and he sprawled back on the ground. The second time he tried he was able to stand. His legs were in agony, and his arms, shoulders and chest.

He had no choice but to approach the village. He bent and picked up a stone, hurled it at the oldest dog, the pack leader. His decision was made: he must approach the village. In all the life he knew – two years and then twenty months – decisions had never come hard to him. He was too weak to skirt the village, to put off the crisis moment of contact. He had to trust and hope.

He knew that his arrival would cause panic. At Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta, the interrogators had told him that the power of A1

Qaeda was broken, for ever, in Afghanistan, and he had believed them, and that the leaders of his family were in flight; it had been the story they told to encourage him to confess involvement and contacts

… but he was just a taxi-driver, Fawzi al-Ateh, and he knew nothing.

To return to his family he must go to the village and hope for help.

The dogs trailed him. Half-way to the village, staggering, unable to walk with a steady stride, he saw a woman's face at the window of the nearest house. She ducked away and the nearer he went to the house, the greater the cacophony of barking. A door opened.

A man, half dressed, roused from sleep, was framed in the doorway, a rifle raised to his shoulder.

Caleb's life, at that moment, hung by a thread.

He knew that in some villages the Arabs of the 055 Brigade had been detested, seen as arrogant foreigners. Now he might be shot, or he might be bound and sold back to the Americans. He straightened his back, and smiled. He spoke in the language he had learned, the language he had used in Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta, that of Fawzi al-Ateh.