But it wasn’t the bullet holes Ben was fixing on as he swerved to a stop. On the cart’s rear load bed stood two shiny aluminium drums. The same exact kind that Ben and Roth had seen aboard the beached boat at Plage de Vaucottes that morning. And standing beside the cart were three armed men. An instant earlier they’d been kicking it and jabbering curses at it in loud Arabic. Now they whirled their weapons around to aim at the Alpina and opened fire.

Bullets raked the car’s bonnet and windscreen. Jeff, Tuesday and Roth leaned from the windows with their MP9s and let rip. Their combined fire was devastatingly more accurate than that of the terrorists, and all three targets crumpled and hit the ground. Two instantly dead, the third badly injured. But the pure fentanyl spouting from a perforated drum and spattering over his face and chest would soon finish him off.

‘Just what the doctor ordered,’ Roth quipped.

Nobody replied. Ben went to drive on in pursuit of the others. The moment he pressed the accelerator he knew one of the terrorists’ high-velocity rounds had hit something critical under the bonnet and the car was in bad trouble. It limped a few metres then ground to a halt. A loud mechanical rattle from the engine compartment getting rapidly louder. Smoke already beginning to leak out from the edges of the bonnet. He pressed the pedal all the way down. No power. No response. Useless.

He kicked open his door. ‘Everyone out. We’re on foot from here.’

Chapter 62

‘Someone’s out there.’

‘The police?’ Abbud said, creasing his brow as he peered up at the ceiling and listened hard to the thump and clatter of the rotor blades not far away. ‘So soon?’

‘Maybe,’ Nazim said. He hadn’t anticipated them turning up this fast. But he didn’t have time to worry. ‘It’s not important. We do this, no matter what.’

They pressed on. The hostage had come to and was squirming and struggling on Nazim’s shoulder. He thumped her again. Outside, the helicopter sounded as though it had landed. Then, just moments later as the terrorists pushed on deeper into the building, kicking open doors as they went, they heard it taking off again.

Nazim thought that was extremely odd. A police helicopter wouldn’t just touch down momentarily and then fly off. It would be joined by a whole mass contingent that would surround the building, seal off every exit and prepare for an armed siege.

His puzzled thoughts were cut short as he picked up the muffled and distant-sounding reports of shots being fired somewhere outside in the compound. Something strange was happening out there. He couldn’t believe that the security guards were trying to remount a resistance. This was somehow connected to the mysterious helicopter. Nazim didn’t like not knowing, but the pressure only made him more determined to succeed.