The rebels are pepper-potting, Bowman realised. Fire-and-move tactics. They were advancing incrementally, one group moving forward while the two others covered them with sustained fire. The most efficient way of moving across exposed ground. Two of the teams could engage their opponents at all times, forcing them to keep their heads down while their muckers rushed ahead to establish a new baseline.

‘This isn’t a rebel force,’ Loader shouted. ‘It’s a fucking army. These guys are trained soldiers.’

Webb yelled at Bowman, drawing his attention to the group of rebels to the left. Bowman shifted round on his belly, shoved the Gimpy barrel through a small aperture in the parapet. He aimed at the assault team as they ran forward, hit them with a couple of short bursts moments before they disappeared behind a dip in the ground.

‘Go right, go right! Rebels moving!’ Webb shouted.

Bowman slid round to a new firing position. The team on the opposite flank was now breaking forward. He put in three more bursts, saw the tracers punching into the rebel ranks, reached the end of the belt.

‘Changing mag!’

He yanked the bolt back, flipped open the top cover and cleared the freed tray. Then he grabbed a fresh belt from the stack, replaced the cover, stared down the sights. Webb bellowed at him to go left. Bowman saw the middle fire team emerge from cover and opened up on them, killing two more rebels before they went static again.

The guys on the rooftop were communicating with one another constantly. Giving orders, making sure that every member of the team knew exactly what they were doing. Webb and Mallet were shouting out enemy movements to the two guys on the Gimpys, directing them on to target and taking out key individual figures. Anyone rallying the troops or whose body language suggested they might be a senior officer. The quickest way to win the battle, Bowman knew. Take out the commanding officers.

Mavinda’s voice sounded in his earpiece.

‘Enemy attacking from the west flank,’ he said. ‘Machete Boys. Forty of them.’

Bowman glanced across his shoulder. Through the gaps in the western parapet, he caught sight of the line of Boys swarming forward, firing on the gun pits on the west side of the garden. The ragtag leftovers of the earlier assaults.

Loader was looking in the same direction. ‘Where the fuck did they come from?’

‘Must have snuck in through the fence.’

‘Shit. Just what we bloody need.’

The Boys were the sacrificial lambs, Bowman realised. Sent in by the Russians to draw the defenders’ fire away from the main attack. They weren’t crucial to the plan. If they got within close proximity of the stronghold, it was a bonus. If they failed, it didn’t matter. They would still tie the opposition down.

‘The Russians know what they’re doing,’ Loader growled.

Mallet spoke into his mic.