Tom Brace had taken out the guy leaving from the side door. At the same time, the front entrance to the factory had opened and a Doyle goon appeared. Abbott took him out. One, two, three clustered shots, coming forward at the same time and using the guy’s falling body as a shield to step across the threshold with Miller at his rear. Guys inside. Guns being drawn.

‘Another one,’ said Brace. ‘Target acquired.’

‘Fire at will,’ said Abbott, a target in his own sights, bloke in sportswear, hardly out of his teens, taking him out, pop, pop, pop, seeing the familiar landscape of the factory floor but through new eyes now, as a battleground, a plane of combat divided into metre squares.

He went left, indicating for Miller to go right and advance, both finding cover behind industrial equipment and dropping to one knee. Pop, pop. Another gunman fell. One of the enemy got a shot off, but it was wild and panicked, the guards in complete disarray as Abbott and Miller moved forward. There were three bodies on the factory floor ahead of them and a general sense of panic in the air. Somebody took a pot shot at them from the back of the factory floor and they both went flat behind cover, searching him out, Miller’s suppressed AR-15 chugging.

‘Magazine!’ Abbott shouted, removing his empty mag and replacing with a fresh one, at the same time moving behind cover and then surfacing to engage the enemy, allowing Miller to carry out a similar drill. On the stairs was another guy. He held his pistol sideways like an LA gangbanger, firing wildly, and it gave Abbott no pleasure to take him out, the red dot laser sight finding its mark in the centre of mass followed by two rounds. A terrified crew member made a dash to their right and Miller took him down.

Two other shooters had taken cover behind machinery to their twelve and were loosing off shots that zinged overhead, splitting the air above them. At the same time, Abbott looked up and saw activity on the gantry, McGregor holding a gun on Doyle. As he watched, McGregor seemed to be leading Doyle out, Doyle wearing a stricken, shell-shocked look.

Two things happened next: McGregor reached and punched the grinder button, the machine instantly leaping into life, and Doyle clutched at his heart, his whole body going taut for a second, face slackening, the classic symptoms of cardiac arrest.

With a signal to Miller – cover me – Abbott scooted forward, popping off with the Scar, creating noise and ricochets, keeping the enemy’s heads down as he reached the steel steps leading to the gantry, boots on metal as he raced to the top, where he came up on where McGregor had moved towards Doyle and was surely about to shove him into the funnel of the grinder.

‘McGregor,’ he shouted. ‘What the hell are you doing?’