Bailey stopped, staring towards the gate, his face several shades paler than just a moment before.

He turned back towards them. ‘Get moving,’ he barked, ‘now.’

Peggy shoved Saul forward again, and this time they broke into a run.

Bailey suddenly made an oof sound, after they’d covered a couple of dozen metres, before collapsing to his hands and knees. At first Saul assumed he’d tripped over something, but then the colonel slid to one side, his jaw slackening. Blood began pooling under his chest, and quickly spread out across the tiles.

Peggy gaped down at him, her eyes round and wide. He’s been shot, thought Saul, realizing he had heard a sound like a wet cough from smewhere far away across the concourse, just before Bailey had collapsed.

Peggy swung her Cobra all around, but there was nothing for her to aim at. If the attacker was Mitchell, he was thoroughly hidden.

‘We need to keep moving,’ hissed Saul, and began backing towards the elevators. ‘We’re too exposed. He can pick us off easily while we’re out in the open.’

‘No!’ she yelled, spinning around until the Cobra was directly trained on him. ‘Stay right where you are.’

Saul glanced towards the barricades, fifty or so metres away, and saw Mitchell materialize next to Merrill, with alarming suddenness. He drew a knife across Merrill’s throat and the trooper collapsed, blood spurting out from his neck in a gruesome arc.

There was no sign of Jessup. Already dead, Saul guessed.

Peggy must have seen Mitchell too, for she fired off her Cobra, explosive rounds digging cavities in the tiled floor at the precise spot he had been standing. But Mitchell was already gone, speeding back towards the central courtyard and the deserted restaurants surrounding it.

‘Isnard,’ Peggy yelled across the concourse, her face twisting in panic, ‘where the fuck are you?’

Saul heard more gunfire, followed by screams.

‘Peggy,’ Saul tried again, ‘if you want to stay alive, we need to get to those elevators now.’

She glanced at him blankly, as if she’d forgotten he was there. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘let’s go.’

They started running again, Peggy sprinting ahead of him. That subsonic rumble had intensified, he thought: it was definitely a little louder. He prayed that didn’t mean it was already too late.

The door of one of the elevators slid open at their approach, and Saul allowed himself to hope that his lifespan might still be measured in more than just seconds. Then a shadow flew past him, slamming Peggy against the wall adjoining the elevator, and he then realized it was already much, much too late.

Mitchell had one arm tight around Peggy’s neck. She uttered a small cry, like a bird, in the moment before Mitchell snapped her spine. As she dropped in a lifeless heap at his feet, he stepped back, his chest heaving from exertion. There was a Cobra slung over one shoulder.