The man jerked, as if he’d run into a clothesline. He was still falling away as Webb fired two quick shots at the other targets. The guy in the basketball shirt, the guy in the orange cap. They were both dead before they hit the ground.

‘Keep your eyes on the front,’ Mallet said. ‘There might be more of the fuckers on the way.’

Bowman and Loader scanned the woodland on the left side of the approach road, looking for movement in the narrow gaps between the trees. Webb and Mallet watched the patch of ground to the right. But no one emerged from the woods. The ground outside the estate was eerily quiet and still. Mallet got on the open radio and briefed the team on the ground.

‘What was that about?’ Gregory asked. ‘Why would the Russians send those guys to their deaths?’

‘They’re testing us,’ Mallet said. ‘Probing for weak points. They want to know if we’ve got eyes on the perimeter fence.’

Gregory was silent for a beat.

‘They’re going to hit us soon, then.’

‘Looks that way,’ Mallet said grimly.

‘Reckon we’re in for a proper fight this time, guys,’ Loader said. ‘These Russians ain’t stupid.’

‘No. They’re not.’

‘Do us a favour, John,’ Gregory said over the comms.

‘Aye, what’s that?’

‘Leave some of the enemy for us this time. You bastards have had all the fun up there.’

Mallet laughed drily. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

The stillness continued. Bowman and the rest of the rooftop team searched the treeline for the enemy. Every few minutes Mallet checked in with the team on the ground to see if they had spotted anything. Time inched past. Like a sports team watching the clock and finding out they were only three-quarters of the way through a gruelling match. Bowman sipped bottled water, squinted at his G-Shock.

08.12.

He looked back at the woods.

In the distance, a single shot rang out.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Loader asked.

Then the fence exploded.

Bowman glimpsed the split-second pulse of orange flame in the north-west corner of the estate. Then came a deafening bang as a pall of smoke spread outwards, engulfing the chain-link fence in a teeming mass of earth and debris. Acrid smoke bubbled upwards, mushrooming into the early morning sky.

Amid the chaos, Bowman saw that four sections of the steel mesh had disappeared. A forty-metre-long stretch. Only a single scorched post remained standing.

‘Fuckers have planted charges!’ Loader yelled.