Col. Mike Martin is dead.

- The man who choose the desert and the SAS over a wife is dead.
- The man who introduced me to the H&K MP5 and the Ka-Bar is dead.
- With these lines in his mind, he died...
And how can man die better,
than facing fearful odds,
for the ashes of his fathers,
and the temples of his Gods?

After trekking through the deserts of Arabia, the jungles of Borneo, the streets of Belfast and the Afghan mountains, after no-god and god, tending a garden, slitting enemy throats and stitching up dying friends, he is finally gone - dissolved and disappeared amidst the sordid reams of pulp fiction.

And in a way like Col.Mike Martin, Forsyth too is kind of gone...a relic of an era bygone. After some racy books like The Day of the Jackal, The Devils Alternative and The Veteran, Forsyth kind of lets us down with The Afghan. A decent plot with deep background, lots of interesting facts but a loose storyline and some improbable coincidences make for a very superficial novel (not that international conspiracy thrillers are expected to spout metaphysical truths) which is half Forsyth and half-not.

And a very shallow reason to kill Mike.

So long and thank you for everything, Mike - the Brecons, Qui Audet Vincet, Horatius and the Lays of Ancient Rome, the terrible beauty of Ireland, the Holy Quran, Saddam and the House of Sa'oud. If my father had not insisted, perhaps we would have known each other better - in the Paras, the Grenadiers or the Rifles....if only life was not what it was...ah, but it is.

Rest in peace,Colonel.