But it seemed to Ben as though someone else was already making a pretty good attempt at that. The left front wing of the van smashed through the wall, the impact throwing him and the others forward in their seats. Bits of stone block and masonry shattered what was left of the windscreen and bounced harmlessly off the armoured car. The whole van tilted up sideways at a crazy angle and for an instant it seemed about to overturn – but Ben kept his foot nailed down hard to the floor, ploughed blindly onwards with the engine revs soaring and the wheels spinning, and somehow managed to keep the thing upright. Then they were through, bucking and jolting out of their seats over the rubble of the half-collapsed building. More gunfire was coming at them from different directions, bullets punching into the van’s battered bodywork. Ben heard Buchanan yell something, but his words were drowned, lost in the chaotic noise, and he was more worried about the armoured car. Its gun turret was rotating around to blast them as they escaped, but as Ben glanced in his remaining mirror he saw that a chunk of rubble had wedged under the big Browning machine gun, preventing the turret from rotating all the way around.

A lucky break – but this wasn’t over yet. From behind the ruined building came three Talib aiming assault rifles and a grenade launcher straight at them. Ben twisted the wheel and mercilessly rammed into the three men, rolling straight over two of them while the third was catapulted over the bonnet; a fleeting glimpse of his astonished face before he was dashed violently back down onto the road.

They kept going. More men came running after them, yelling, firing wildly, rifle bullets drilling more holes in their already badly torn-up rear. Saleem was shouting, ‘Faster, faster! That way!’ Leaning forwards and pointing a bloody finger. Ben swerved left and then right through more buildings. Then suddenly the last of the houses were flashing past, and they were out of the village and speeding back along the open road. The chasing gunfire was diminished to just the occasional popping crack behind them. Ben could hear something rattling loudly from under the van’s bonnet and he had no idea what kind of damage had been done in there, but he kept driving the thing forwards as fast as it would go. He was having trouble seeing properly; thought it was the dust blowing in through the smashed screen – then realised that it was the blood from his head wound running into his eyes. He wiped it away, and with the movement he felt a tingling numbness in his left arm telling him it was injured too, but he didn’t have much interest in that as he kept glancing in the mirror for the column of speeding trucks he fully expected to see giving chase at any moment. Nothing yet. But they’d come.