Between the rounds coming in from the front and the north-east, Bowman and Loader were under almost non-stop pressure. With no mortars to drop and the extra fire support, the frontal assault teams were advancing with greater speed than the first wave. A few of the enemy wielded RPGs or machine guns. Several others were gripping newer Russian assault rifles with grenade launchers fitted under the barrels.

‘These bastards are gonna be right on top of us in a few minutes,’ Bowman shouted.

‘It’ll be sooner than that,’ said Loader, ‘if we can’t put the drop on that shooter.’

As he spoke, the concealed shooter fired at them again, driving the men back from the parapet. The incoming burst was suddenly interrupted by the boom of the .50 cal as Mallet popped off two rounds at the shooter. The latter replied with a frenzied burst. Mallet fired a third time. The rebel machine gun still kept on peppering the rooftop. Mallet fired and got the dead man’s click as he reached the end of the ten-round clip. He set the weapon down, grabbed his rifle. Shouted into his mic.

‘Alex, stick an RPG in! Right of the arch. Corner. Engage!’

Bowman glanced down at the mortar pit, fifty metres to the north-west of the mansion. He spied Casey breaking cover from behind the rock wall, the RPG-7 launcher propped up on her right shoulder. She knelt down, took aim at the spot Mallet had identified next to the archway. Fired.

Flames gushed out of the flared opening at the back of the tube. The grenade whooshed across the front grounds of the estate and slammed into the turf next to the arched entrance, flattening the sentry box and another section of the fence.

‘Throw another one in there,’ Mallet said to Casey. ‘He’s still firing. Wallop the bastard!’

Bowman looked down. Casey was beside the mortar pit, jamming the stem of a second rocket into the tube. A handful of the rebels concentrated their fire at her, spattering the nearby wall with lead. Casey held up the RPG in spite of the rounds flying past her, aimed at the archway through the launcher’s flip-up sights. She fired again. The missile hissed across the front drive and smashed into the base of the archway with a crashing boom, burying the technical beneath an avalanche of rubble.

The shooter fell silent.

Then Bowman became aware of a movement at his ten o’clock, at the periphery of his vision. He saw a couple of figures kneeling beside the nearest assault team, their rifles elevated at angles as they popped off rounds from their under-barrel 40 mm grenade launchers. Aiming them directly at the mortar pit, two hundred metres away.

He screamed over the radio at Casey.

‘Alex! Incoming! Get the fuck down!’

Fifty metres away, Casey turned and ran towards the mortar pit.