They burst into an office. A plump black woman in her forties, wearing a pink dress, froze in wide-eyed horror by the window she’d been unsuccessfully trying to climb out of. Nazim let the hostage slip from his shoulder and kept a tight grip on her arm as he pointed his gun one-handed at the woman in the pink dress. He demanded, ‘Are you a manager? A technician?’

Her words tumbled out in a breathless gasp, ‘No, I’m just a secretary. Please, don’t—’

Nazim shot her twice in the chest before she could finish, and watched impassively as she slid down the wall by the window. ‘Just as I thought.’

He swept out of the office, dragging the hostage along behind him. The girl was unsteady on her feet, traumatised past the point of dumb shock. Abbud followed, then young Jafar, then Dariush and Zahran bringing up the rear. Further down the same corridor they reached another office. Nazim smashed the door open so violently that it nearly came off its hinges, and stormed inside the room to see a middle-aged white man cowering on all fours under a crowded desk, as though trying to shelter from a bomb attack. Suit, crooked tie, greying hair, and a large slab of a belly that hung down to the floor. This one seemed a more likely proposition. The blood drained from his face and he showed his palms in supplication. ‘P-please! I don’t want to die!’

Nazim repeated the question, ‘Are you a manager?’

The fat man’s head pumped up and down, shaking his jowls. ‘I-I’m Daniel Lebrun. I’m CEO of this facility. Who are you people? W-what do you want?’

At Nazim’s nod, Abbud and Dariush dragged the company director out from under the desk and forced him into a chair. He was wheezing and clutching his chest, and his face had flushed from ghastly pale to purplish-red. ‘Oh, oh! I think I’m having a heart attack. My pills!’

‘You can have your pills if you help us. I’ll even get you a doctor.’ Nazim could lie with great sincerity when needed.

Lebrun could barely take his eyes off the gun in Nazim’s hand. ‘Help you do what?’ he croaked.

‘You’re going to show us where we can access the public water supply from your facility. I want to see blueprints. Maps. Or else you take us to it personally. I don’t care which. But you’d better make it quick.’

Lebrun babbled, ‘I d-don’t understand. Access it for what?’

‘To spike it with poison and kill all the infidel pigs like you,’ Dariush said fiercely.