Stressed, shocked – he wasn’t going to give me anything coherent. Depending what I found outside, I could come back for him. At least getting shot by him didn’t seem likely. I took another step towards him, delved into his coat pocket and removed his cell phone. I stuck it into my jeans, frisked him quickly and looked inside the portmanteau. No weapons. I moved out of the container. Immediately to my right the man whose hand I’d blown off was sitting up in a pool of his own gore clutching his wrist. I shot him twice in the chest. He toppled sideways and I shot him again, at point blank, in the left ear.

I looked around. Wall-mounted tungsten lights illuminated the interior of an almost-empty green-painted steel hall, twice as long and three times as wide as the container itself. A row of metal drums – of diesel, most likely – sat along the near wall, two deep, one high. At either end heavy bulkhead doors covered the exits. Steep metal ladders climbed to a gallery twenty foot above, running the length of the wall. Realization dawned. My gut tightened. I was in the hold of a ship.

Fuck.

Down the passageways, heavy footsteps were coming for me.

I slung the assault rifle across my back and made for the nearest companionway, lurching sideways, my bare feet slipping in a pool of oil. I caught hold of the rail before I fell and hauled myself up, climbing as fast as I could. But as I clambered on to the narrow ledge of the gallery, three men in tactical vests and combat boots stomped into view thirty feet to my left, cutting me off. I rolled, bringing the rifle around again, looking over the iron sights with both eyes open. I fired low. The rounds tore through the leader’s thigh, groin. He made a half-turn, arms flailing, blocking the men behind him, who swore in Russian. I kept firing. The leader staggered backwards and fell over the guard rail on to the metal deck below. The other two were exposed now. I shot centre mass. Two rounds each. Their vests caught the bullets, but the shock of the impact gave me enough time to get to my feet.

Neither returned fire. I closed on them, firing rapid single shots. Both were dead by the time I’d covered the distance to where they lay. I reloaded my AKS from theirs and took a pistol from a thigh holster strapped to the nearest body – a 9mm Grach, like the doctor’s: standard Russian military sidearm. I stuck it in the back of my jeans.