Three rounds sped down-range with methodical, calm, singular squeezes of the trigger. As before, a mix of armour-piercing and hollow-point, with Caitlin channelling the recoil into a short, efficient movement that swept the muzzle of the suppressor from the first target onto the second. The men died instantly. A bloody squall of viscera and shattered bone chips sprayed the dirty white stucco behind them. Instantly, she shifted her aim to the front door where, as she had hoped, the facility’s corpulent, hapless commander soon ducked his head around.

A single pull put a round of 7.62 mm through the officer’s forehead, spraying hair, bone and brain back into the building. Another brace of shots destroyed the junction box, where a single phone line ran into the building.

She rolled to the right, retreating a few steps into the heavy undergrowth. The assassin moved swiftly along the same path as before, emerging at speed at a point by the side of the road where she could approach the building at a run, without being directly seen from inside. Not that Caitlin expected the altogether more impressive deputy commander, the only surviving militia man in there now, to show himself.

Sprinting across the road, she leapt high onto the old hitching rail, using it to boost herself into a second leap skywards. She grasped the broken clay half-pipe of the building’s guttering and used her momentum to swing up onto the roof in one fluid movement. Caitlin crossed to the rear, where she quickly darted her head over the roof line to recon what lay below. It seemed to correspond with the fuzzy satellite image in her data set. Pressing on with her attack, from a completely different direction now, she swung down from the roof and landed with feline grace, and very little noise, next to a blank section of the rear wall.

Crouching to keep her head below the line of a window, the Echelon agent moved quickly to enter the building through the small cook-house. She adjusted the stock of the HK for close-quarters work. A small hand mirror on a telescoping extension allowed her to survey the interior before swinging in. Two pots stood bubbling on the wood-fired stove, next to an old coffee pot. The kitchen was longer than it was wide, leaving no room for a table. An internal doorway gave out onto the small open-plan office she had spied earlier from the brush. There was no sign of the second militia officer.

She took care now. Unlike his boss and the men under him, this one was no fool. He knew the layout of the building and would use it to good effect. Caitlin eeled around the corner, gun up, safety off, ready to fire and roll.

Nothing. Only the cries of the prisoners in the cell block. They were mostly incoherent, although one did babble, calling for help from his ‘compadre’. Caitlin ignored them. They were not yet relevant.