Now Ben could see the blood dripping from Nazim’s right thigh, the leg of his combat trousers soaked black with it. He must have caught a stray round during the exchange in the doorway. It explained why he’d chosen not to run, but to stay and fight.

‘Think what you want,’ Ben said. ‘Just let her go.’

Nazim smiled. ‘I think she must die.’

‘There’s been enough blood for one day.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong, shaitan. There is never enough blood.’

As though in slow motion Ben watched the muscles in Nazim’s hand holding the knife start to tighten. The fingers clenching, knuckles whitening. The sinews in the forearm squeezing as the blade’s pressure on her throat increased and the cutting edge began to draw horizontally across her soft flesh. She screamed. She was already as good as dead. So Ben no longer had anything to lose by taking a crazy chance. In one smooth, superfast motion he swung out his other weapon. The MP9 that was slung behind his back where Nazim couldn’t see it. Not until this moment. Not until the submachine gun was in Ben’s hands and spitting flame from its short muzzle. Ben actually saw the girl’s blond hair flutter, like meadow grass in the wind, as his bullets passed within two inches of the side of her head and punched into Nazim’s chest. The knife dropped. Nazim staggered back two steps and let her go, and stumbled away up the passage. He crashed through a door and disappeared from sight.

Ben hurried over to the fallen girl. Another second, and Nazim would have slashed her from ear to ear. The cut was bleeding but not deep. She’d probably live to a very old age, with a little white scar on her throat to remember this moment by.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Roxane,’ she whimpered, hardly able to speak for emotion.

‘Roxane, I’ll be right back. You sit tight, okay?’

She gave a tremulous nod, gazing into his eyes. ‘Okay.’

Ben left her and chased after Nazim. There was a bloody smear on the door that the injured terrorist had crashed through, below a sign for TOILETTES. Ben batted the door open and stepped inside the staff bathroom, smelling the scent of ammonia mingling with the harsh tang of smoke. The fire alarm had stopped jangling and the lights had begun to flicker as the fire spread through the building and slowly melted down its electricals.

Ben stood rock-still in the bathroom and looked around him. The walls were tiled white. A line of sinks and mirrors covered one side, a row of cubicle stalls the other. One of the cubicle doors was open. There was another oily red smear of blood all down the door. And a leg sticking out from inside. A leg clad in combat trousers, with a black high-lace boot on the end of it.