The software firing mechanisms he put in place were ahead of and defeated the electronic counter-measures they employed. He was proud to be supreme in his field. Now that Iraq was almost purged of foreign military, he concentrated on developing the roadside bombs, of great sophistication, that would be issued to units of the Revolutionary Guard Corps if his country were invaded by Americans, their poodles or the Zionists. He was also called upon to instruct leaders of the Afghan resistance in the manufacture of simpler devices, and he had heard they had learned well what he had taught them; the best of his work, as used in Iraq, would repel any invader of his beloved country. He thought his status should afford his wife the help she needed. Another cigarette was thrown down, another pack opened. He heard his name shouted.

It was part of the Engineer’s status that he was allocated a personal security officer. He turned. The officer was ten or a dozen years younger and walked with a limp, but would not use a stick or crutch. He had no love for the man, objected to his constant presence round their home. He would have thought the secrecy surrounding his name, his work, made protection unnecessary, but the man was evidence of status. A stream of apologies babbled from the officer’s mouth: he had been told that the Engineer and his wife were due back on the last flight of the evening from Tehran.

He said they had caught the first, that two passengers had been dumped off the manifest. His face would have shown the grimness of his news. He walked back towards the house and heard the officer, Mansoor, yell abuse at the old Arab man.

His status permitted him to demand better. He did not know that a cigarette end had already been picked up and placed in a plastic sachet to be taken across the frontier along one of the many smugglers’ routes that passed through the marshes.

He did not know that the cigarette end, with his spittle on the filter, would be flown to Europe for examination, or that men and women, privy to the result, would clap and cheer.