Down the street from them he could see where the neighborhood’s residential buildings ended, and beyond them the road that ran along this side of the compound. The area on the other side of the road had been cleared of trees to remove any cover for attackers on the thirty feet or so between the road and the perimeter wall, its top proverbially sizzling with the electric razorwire that the two main teams were supposed to disable.

The sound of sputtering, angry gunfire sprang to life in the distance. The AI overhead informed him that both attacks on the main gates were now in full swing, and Shahim started the car’s engine, his face set as he pressed down hard on the throttle.

The old car accelerated slowly but steadily over the two hundred yards to the wall. Overhead, the satellite was monitoring traffic and told him it was all clear, but the three men he was with did not know that, and they started to shift in their seats nervously as they approached the junction, unable to see either way on the road ahead because of the buildings lining their street.

Bursting out from the side road, their relief was only momentary as they crossed the main avenue unharmed. Now doing thirty miles an hour, they quickly covered the short, open patch of grass between the road and the wall. We are not slowing, they all thought, why are we not slowing? One man managed to release a scream as they flew headlong into the reinforced barrier wall.

This should deal with these incompetents, thought Shahim, as he locked his phenomenally strong arms and legs and braced for impact. The man in the front passenger seat of the car had not worn a seat belt, as there wasn’t one for him to wear in the old junker, and he flew straight through the front windscreen, shattering the glass and his skull as he went. His journey was short, ending a moment later as he connected with the thick concrete wall that had so effectively stopped the car.

Even as his head and upper body splattered into the wall, the heads of the two men in the back were forcibly wrenched forward under the stress of the seat belts they had been slightly more fortunate to have. The one who had been behind the front passenger’s seat suffered severe but not fatal chest and neck injuries as the force whiplashed through him, but the one behind Shahim shot forward into the seemingly brick wall of the driver’s inhumanly strong shoulders and neck. Shahim’s head did not even move as the other man’s cracked open on the back of it, his skull shattering and crumpling against the Agent’s like a melon colliding with a cannonball.