As Carpenter turned for the stairs to the cabins, he heard footsteps. Several people, moving quickly. He frowned. There were five guards on the bridge, nine in the canteen. That was the full complement. The crew who weren’t on the bridge were in the engine room.

Carpenter dropped behind a sofa, his heart pounding. He knew instinctively that the men running up the stairs were connected with the mysterious plane. And that they meant trouble.

Major Gannon had obtained structural plans of the tanker from its original builders, a huge industrial conglomerate in South Korea. They’d rehearsed the storming of the superstructure a dozen times in the Stirling Lines barracks in Hereford with troopers from the counter-revolutionary warfare wing playing the part of the Colombian foot-soldiers. Gannon had never managed to seize the objective without taking fewer than two casualties. But the counterrevolutionary warfare wing troopers were the best-trained soldiers in the world bar none, and the Colombians on the tanker were just thugs with big guns.

Shepherd had been at the briefing and at the rehearsals. Twice he’d taken a fictional bullet in the chest. Not that it worried him: that was the purpose of rehearsals, to iron out all the kinks so that no one got hurt during the real thing. Now he followed Gannon up the narrow stairway that led from the deck to the crew’s quarters. Troopers were already moving through the cabins. All were empty. Four troopers headed down towards the engine room.

The rest moved up the stairs to the mess and canteen level, with Gannon and Shepherd.

They rushed through the mess area, sweeping their weapons from side to side, and heard laughter from the canteen. The lead trooper burst through the open doorway, telling the men to get down on the floor. One of the Colombians got to his feet, grabbing for his Kalashnikov. Two more troopers piled into the canteen. One let off a three-round silenced burst and the Colombian slammed into the wall. The rest raised their hands as their colleague slid to the floor in a pool of blood. The troopers pushed them to the ground and started to bind their hands and legs with plastic ties.

Shepherd did a quick head count. One dead, eight captured. No home team casualties. So far so good.

Gannon waited until all the Colombians had been bound and gagged, then motioned for three of the troopers to move up the stairs to the bridge. The fourth stood guard over the Colombians. There were two stairways, at either end of the mess room. The three troopers went up the right-hand side, Gannon and Shepherd the left.

As Shepherd reached the bridge he heard the muffled explosions of a three-shot burst and saw a Colombian slump to the floor over his Kalashnikov. The captain was standing with his hands held high. Another Colombian had his weapon up and was about to fire. Gannon let loose a burst and the Colombian spun round, blood spurting from his neck.