In a moment of nerve-shredding suspense that will affect many thousands of lives, a handful of men and women converge on a barren stretch of Yemeni desert.

The mission is to take down a high-value player in the war against Al-Qaeda.

It is the brainchild of an old, fat fool called Jericho. In his striped cricket blazer, never without a G&T, he is a sweating figure of fun among the ex-pats across the border in Muscat.

Yet perhaps he is not quite as old, or foolish, or even fat as he appears.

Nor as harmless…

Welcome to Jericho s War: its weaponry is state-of-the-art, its brutality as timeless as the desert.