Casey continually swapped between thermal and night-vision lenses, and Sam sent pulses down the long streets as he checked his motion scanners. Both teams used the sprint and cover approach – each pair sprinting forward to the next place of concealment only when clear, then the next pair would do the same. Each moved fast, silent, and near invisibly within the night-shadows.

Alex was first into the side alley two buildings down from their target. He came to a locked steel grate. Sam appeared beside him, braced and readied himself to launch a mechanical assisted kick to the framework. Alex held up a hand.

“Opens outward,” he whispered. “You’ll wake up half of Mosul.” He reached forward and took the handle, bracing his other hand against the metal frame, and began to pull. After a few seconds, there came a popping sound and then the screech of complaining steel, before the metal locking plate flicked out of the frame and clattered to the ground.

Alex turned and winked at Sam. “Brought my own key.”

Eli looked at Moshe and pointed at the fallen grate, raising his eyebrows. Adira nudged him. “Must have been rusted. Focus, gentlemen.”

Alex entered; inside it was tomb-dark and they switched to night vision. Jon-Pierre placed a hand on the shoulder of Moshe and stumbled after them.

Alex went first up a set of decrepit steps, sensing the sleeping bodies behind each door. On a landing there was a threadbare cat, watching the huge human beings with indifferent eyes, as if it had seen the same thing a thousand times before.

The door to the roof opened with a squeal of rusted hinges, and Alex held up a hand to the group. He went out a few paces and crouched. There was no one on the roof, or any movement close by. He called them out.

Each Special Forces soldier stayed low and took a position up at the small rampart at the building’s edge. They used sensors and scopes to scan the other rooftops, looking for snipers. In the distance they could see a few anti gun batteries, but there was no one manning them. They would only fly into action if their radar picked up an approaching solid object. Alex doubted they’d be focused on their own rooftops even if they were awake.

He motioned with a flat hand toward the target building, and they moved quickly, but carefully – the ancient rooftops were scoured by years of harsh weather. One wrong footfall and they could end up in someone’s bedroom.

Alex leaped across the first divide between the buildings, then the second, and then ran over to their target building. This one had a new roof, and looked to have been recently reinforced. He called Adira over and pointed to some marks on the concrete.

“What do you think? Looks like the skids of a chopper, wide, possibly a SeaCobra.”