It was passed to the writers of Leviticus, Exodus and Deuteronomy. Broadly, all those years ago, it was stated, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Legitimisation for an act of revenge. Would it not send a message if it were done with discretion? Done “somewhere”, wherever “somewhere” might be. My summary: we couldn’t approve any act of extra-judicial murder and would wish to separate ourselves from any such folly. We would not wish to hear any more of this nonsense. And I’m as busy as the rest of you and have other matters more pressing to concern myself with.’

He thought she caught his glance and that she winked fractionally at him, the barest flutter of an eyelid.

All except his section head and himself had left the meeting convinced that a plan of outrageous folly and illegality had been roundly squashed by the lady from the FCO.

Back in his office that evening, the daylight ebbing, his screen had lit with a message relayed from another floor of the Towers. A man had, apparently, been selling dates at a border settlement. It was a good part of the world for dates and they were a local favourite: many sellers roamed communities for the opportunity to trade.

The Engineer saw the date seller when he came out of his home and walked towards the palm tree that threw shade on the chair that the security officer, Mansoor, used. The man carried a pair of baskets, each slung from the ends of a pole that he balanced on a shoulder. The Engineer saw that Mansoor had a handkerchief on his lap and it was loaded with dates. The seller had scored once at least. When he himself was approached he waved the wretch away. He had never, of course, heard of Abigail Jones – known to a choice company as Echo Foxtrot, a code-sign for the Eternal Flame – and had never, of course, imagined that an itinerant date seller could earn five hundred American dollars for each day he spent loitering at the border settlement.