Sprinting across the street, the gunman almost collided with a car whose driver was desperately trying to get away from the scene. Ben headed after him in pursuit. He jumped over the dead body of the bearded terrorist who’d tried to take the phones. The guy was lying with his arms outflung, eyes staring up at the ceiling, already enjoying the promised rewards of the afterlife. All three phones were lying next to his body. Ben grabbed them and stuffed them into his pocket and kept running. He reached the shattered window and leaped through. Hit the pavement running and sprinted after the fleeing gunman, trying to get a shot at him, but the guy had reached the opposite side of the street and was ducking behind parked cars for cover.

As Ben ran into the street he was aware of the blood running down his side and wetting his shirt. His own, not Françoise Schell’s. A strange chill was coming over him. But he’d been injured before, and lived to tell the tale; and at this moment his focus was too intensely locked on his target to dwell too much on his own wellbeing. Catching a glimpse of movement through the parked car windows, he debated whether or not to shoot. Innocent bystanders as well as the gunman were taking cover back there. There’d been enough collateral damage from this thing already.

Then the shooter came up again, this time with his left arm clutched in a stranglehold around the neck of a young Nigerian woman who’d taken cover in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Her face was tight with fear and she was clawing at his arm to escape his choking grip, but he was hanging on tight as he swung her body in front of his, using her as a human shield while he aimed past her shoulder and fired at Ben. A shop window shattered to Ben’s rear, showering glass over the pavement. He ducked as more bullets whistled past him. Couldn’t shoot back for fear of hitting the shooter’s hostage.