The gunmen began firing as they came. The snap of pistol shots filled the café and more people screamed. Ben’s capsized table offered little in the way of protection. Two bullets punched through the flimsy wood and a third passed over the top of him. He was suddenly very conscious of the hard, angular shape pressing against the back of his right hip, inside his waistband, hidden under the hem of his leather jacket. The Glock he’d captured from the Corsicans and pointed in Michel Yassa’s face. He’d almost decided to leave it in the car. Which would have been a fatal decision.

Ben drew out the pistol. The butt fitted into his hand like an extension of his arm. He thrust it up and over the edge of the table and fired back at the gunmen, BLAM BLAM BLAM. The one who’d picked up the phones now dropped them again, along with his pistol, and clapped a hand over his chest and fell back among the blood and the broken glass. The other two kept on coming, focusing their fire Ben’s way. The remaining bearded one was maniacally yelling the war cry ‘ALLAHU AKBAR!’ as he squeezed off shots as fast as he could. Ben caught him square in his gunsights and took him down with a triple-tap to the chest, three holes almost touching, like a clover leaf. As number two went down to meet with the seventy-two virgins of jannah, the last gunman suddenly seemed to realise that he was about to become the third, and wasn’t ready for such a fate. He faltered, squeezed off two more shots that smacked into the tabletop in front of Ben, then turned and began to bolt towards the shattered window through which he’d come.

Ben had no problems with shooting him in the back as he tried to escape. But as he levelled his sights and pressed the trigger, nothing happened.

Even the ultra-reliable mechanism of a Glock could jam sometimes. Ben was trained and ready for it, and he cleared the jam and punched the gun back up to find its target, who was now leaping wildly through the shattered window and racing across the pavement, pistol in hand, his empty submachine gun swinging about on its sling, running for all that he was worth.

Out in the street, pedestrians were fleeing in terror. Others had thrown themselves to the pavement or huddled behind parked cars, trying to make themselves as small and invisible as possible. Some were simply rooted to the spot, paralysed with fear and shock. Ben was about to open fire on the fleeing shooter when he saw the group of frightened women and children right in his field of fire behind the target. He swore, lowered the gun and gave chase.