She was less than twenty feet away from Duffy now. She was the only Westerner in the crowd.

A man in front of her tripped and fell, and she was pushed into him, stumbling, and reached out for support against the shoulder of the protester to her left. The fallen man reached up himself, his fist closing around the abaya and, tearing at it, yanked it down so that it fell away from her face.

She tried to rearrange it, but the crowd was constricting, and her arms were pressed against her sides.

If Duffy turned in her direction, if he saw her . . .

There was a screech of metal as one of the gates was pulled away from a hinge. The crowd yelled in jubilation, and the men at the front redoubled their efforts. The second hinge popped out, and the gate was thrown into the yard, forcing the guards to retreat.

Beatrix looked over at Duffy. He fell back, yelling something that she couldn’t hear. The guards drew the batons from their belts and surged forward, meeting the crowd on top of the wrecked gate. The tenor of the protests became angrier as the shouting was punctuated by the deadened thwack of the batons crashing against skull and bone.

The man with the burning Stars and Stripes threw his smouldering pole like a javelin and rushed at the guards, bellowing in fury. Beatrix was jostled again, bumping into the little girl and knocking her over. She saw her face, looking up in terror as the stampede swarmed around her, and she realised that if she didn’t do something, the child would be trampled underfoot.

She was pushed into the crowd again, but she pivoted, narrowing her profile, and shot out a hand. Her fingers fastened around the girl’s wrist, and she wrenched her up into her arms and edged into a gap in the scrum, forcing a passage out to the side of the crowd. The first few yards were treacherous, and a guard’s baton pummelled her arm as she shielded the girl’s head. A second blow clattered against her forehead, dizzying her. The guard drew his arm back again, but Beatrix was faster, straightening her fingers and supporting them underneath with her thumb, driving her hand like a dagger into his larynx. He dropped to his knees, unable to breathe, his hands fluttering at his throat.

She kept moving, clutching the girl to her breast.

Once she was out of the mêlée, it was easier to move. She broke free of the crowd below the gatepost. A fully fledged battle was underway inside the gates until, as Beatrix picked the girl up and carried her out of the way, a single rifle shot rang out from the observation tower. The brawling paused, and then there were screams of terror as the protesters staggered back away from the gate, leaving a wide circle around the body of the man who had burned the flag in its centre. Beatrix saw a flash of red on his scalp but did not wait.