‘Seriously, Tom,’ said Mike, ‘I’ve been a CIA agent for long enough to have seen some bad shit and seen some bad mother-fuckers do some bad stuff to bad guys, but I’ve never seen anyone as icy and calm as you. It was like you were just taking out the garbage, or something. Which I guess, in a way, you were!’

Tom shifted, feeling a little discomfort at the American’s words, his awkwardness made stronger by a snort of amusement from Buster.

Buster smiled. ‘They used to call Tom “the Balkan Psycho”, or “Bootneck Robot”, after he killed loads of Taliban when he was sniping in Afghan. He doesn’t show much emotion, does our Tom, and he’s not prone to panic.’

Tom gave a half-smile that he hoped hid his disquiet. It was true that he had killed many times over in Afghanistan as a sniper with the Royal Marines, and each time had not felt even a flicker of emotion. No revelling in the red mist of an exploded Taliban head from a thousand metres. No regret, no celebration, just… Nothing. It didn’t make him feel comfortable with himself. It was the reason he had quit being a sniper and moved to SRR. He wanted to be a door-watcher, not a door-knocker. He hadn’t wanted to confront that absence of emotion, the void he felt in spite of having just killed once again.

Buster continued, a look of embarrassment now in his grey eyes. ‘I’m sorry we took so long, guys. We were happily parked up nearby when a fuck-off big lorry blocked us in at the off-side and an SUV came right tight up our arses. I had to pull a bit of pavement-mounting action, pissing off lots of pedestrians.’

‘Our regular army reaction force got in pretty quickly and must have scared everyone else away,’ said Damien. ‘The two bodies are being tagged and bagged, and hopefully we can get an ID on them.’

Mike nodded. ‘The phones are hopefully going to give us some leads on who ordered this. The intel will be valuable … but, fuck, that was too close. I had visions of us in some video in orange boiler suits getting our heads cut off.’

‘We have to get back to the Embassy,’ said Hamed. ‘Everyone is jumping up and down and wants to know what happened. The President wants updating,’ he added, with a trace of nervousness.

The group stood and there were handshakes all round.

Mike gripped Tom in a hug, the emotion detectable in the tension of his muscles. ‘Tom, I’ll never be able to repay you for what you just did. You saved our lives, man. You ever need anything—I mean anything—you call me. I’ll always owe you.’ He handed Tom a business card on which was listed two phone numbers and an email address.

‘No worries,’ grinned Tom. ‘Orange wouldn’t have suited you two.’