She reaches the ruined door of the ground floor and presses her back against the wall at the same instant as two black-clothed men clutching assault rifles burst through. She drops her assault rifle and lunges between them, knowing their own forms and big guns will hamper their movement. She throat punches one and slams her elbow into the face of the other. They both stagger from the ferocity of the attack that she presses home. Grabbing the bulging section of the respirator of the closest she pulls down hard, making him bend over at the waist and using her knee to slam up into his head while forcing him round in a circle into his comrade, pressing them both into the wall.

She anticipates the moment the bent-over attacker surges up and moves round his body, getting her right arm across his throat. With a grunt she tenses and snaps viciously to the right, breaking his neck. A step away as she draws her pistol, turns and fires into the one just pushing off from the wall. He goes back from the power of the rounds slamming into his chest. She twitch aims to fire one through his head, killing him instantly. Movement in her peripheral vision. She adjusts to aim and fire into the doorway at the black-clad figure charging through.

‘REAR GARDEN,’ the sergeant’s voice screams in her ear with gunshots in the background. Safa moves out from the doorway, striding down the smoke-filled corridor, stepping on and over the bodies. ‘MULTIPLE TARGETS . . . I’M HIT . . . I’M HIT . . .’

She grabs a new magazine from a body, reloads and runs towards the firefight in the enclosed rear garden. Pistols, submachine guns and assault rifles. Grenades exploding. Flames burning. Smoke billowing. Staff dead in every doorway and room. Carmichael slumped down with the top of his head missing.

Safa pauses outside the room leading to the rear garden. Two men ahead of her kneeling in a doorway firing into the garden. Both of them dressed in black and she hesitates, not knowing if they are attackers or the first response teams. One of them turns, showing the respirator on his face. She opens fire, killing them both instantly. She holds still for a second then runs to take their position at the doorway with bullets slamming into the walls.

Chaos everywhere, people screaming in pain, bloodstains on the ground and smeared up the walls. The cacophony of noise drowns out the rushed words coming over the radio. She aims into the garden, scanning left and right as her eyes work to adjust from the red flashing lights within to the darkness outside.

‘Safa?’ She turns quickly to see two uniformed police officers running towards her but recognising neither of them. Both of them with bruised faces and one has a thin strip of white material across his recently broken nose.

‘GET DOWN,’ she shouts, waving for them to take cover.