She then settled her cheek against the cool, plastic stock of the German-made assault rifle. With the grip seated firmly in the palm of her hand, she thumbed the selector switch from safe to auto. She waited over iron sights. No need for fancy optics this time.

Birdsong, the buzz of insects, the gurgling of the stream behind her, all seemed to grow louder as she ignored the torrid humidity. Caitlin listened for the sound of an approaching engine. She thought she heard one, but the drone, somewhere far off in the distance, faded away. Her webbing and equipment weighed her down and chafed wherever they happened to rub against her skin. Sweat trickled down her legs inside the trousers she had bloused into her boots to prevent stingers crawling inside. She took a sip from the camel-back water bladder just as the unmistakable sound of a vehicle grinding through its gears reached her. Whoever was coming was having trouble negotiating the steep descent.

Good. Hopefully they’d be travelling with care, moving slowly and attending to the road.

She wiped a slick of perspiration from her face, not wanting to be inconvenienced by the sting of sweat in her eyes at the wrong moment.

The engine strained and misfired, just once, as the truck – it sounded like a truck – negotiated the twisting road above. All the while, she didn’t flinch or take her focus off the hairpin bend she had chosen. About a minute later the old pick-up inched its way around the turn. Caitlin took a half-second sight picture of the driver and passenger, laying the gun’s front sight post on the driver first. Having confirmed them as her guys, she settled into a slightly more comfortable shooting stance – bending her knees fractionally, breathing out, bracing her core muscles to accept the recoil.

As the truck turned towards her, giving the assassin a clear view of the cabin, she squeezed the trigger once, twice, a third time. One, two, three bursts down-range.

The driver slumped forward. His passenger reached for the wheel as Caitlin shifted just a notch, laying the sights on his right temple.

Repeat. One, two, three more bursts of automatic fire.

Nine rounds, from the twenty-round mag. A mix of armour-piercing and hollow-point, and a tracer for every third shot. The bullets exited the small, black hole in the business end of the suppressor in a fraction under one second, with a rapid thrumming noise. Their impact was less than discreet, shattering the windscreen of the aged Ford and tearing into the occupants like the threshing claws of some terrible, unseen carnivore. The men were dead before the vehicle veered slowly off the road and crashed down the hillside into the safety net of a dense strand of thorny vines. The engine coughed and stalled.