Ben threw down the launcher. No way to know how many of the task force were still alive as they raced in the direction of the vans. The enemy seemed to have fallen back for the moment, possibly to regroup before coming back even harder. The grenade-hit van was a roiling inferno belching black smoke from its open doors. The other was badly perforated with bullet holes and its windows were smashed, but it might still be drivable. If it wasn’t, their one chance of escape was gone because there was no possibility of reaching the Humvees. Only one way to find out.

Buchanan tossed Ben the keys, saying, ‘I’m hit. I can’t drive.’ Ben looked and saw the dark bloodstain soaking through his clothes from shoulder to sternum, and the way he was holding himself bent over with his teeth clenched in pain. Just then Ben heard running footsteps coming up behind him and whirled around, ready to fire. It was Saleem, bloody but apparently still all in one piece, clutching his AK-47.

Buchanan yelled, ‘Let’s get out of here!’ For once, Ben was inclined to agree with his tactical decision. He leaped into the van, twisted the key and to his infinite relief heard the engine rasp into life. Saleem helped Buchanan inside and then piled in after him. Ben slammed the transmission into gear and floored the gas, and the van accelerated hard away, lurching over the bodies of the dead Talib that littered the street. Still driveable, all right. But how long for was another question. Because before they’d reached the end of the street the way ahead was suddenly blocked again, this time by a lumbering sandy-coloured monster.

It was what the US military called the M1117 Guardian Armoured Security Vehicle. Thirteen tons of impenetrable, unburstable, mineproof, rocketproof and unstoppable fighting machine. And it was bearing right down on them.

Chapter 17

The armoured car’s turret-mounted machine gun swivelled to point straight at the oncoming vehicle and exploded into life. The light, flimsy van offered about as much protection from the devastating fifty-calibre rounds as a wet cardboard box, and if Ben hadn’t swerved violently out of the gunfire’s path he and his passengers would have been shredded into mincemeat. The sweeping arc of fire caught the side of the van, shearing through its roof pillars and opening up the bodywork like a can opener. The half-detached roof flapped like a sail as Ben hurtled straight for the narrow and fast-diminishing gap between the monster’s armoured flank and the wall of the adobe building next to it.

From behind him Ben heard Saleem’s voice indistinctly yelling something in Pashto that might have been ‘You’ll kill us!’