Two guys marched briskly over to Mallet. The OC of D Squadron, Stuart Thriepland, was a buff former Guardsman, tall and ramrod straight, with a shiny blond quiff and an accent so posh it probably had a seat in the House of Lords. The man at his shoulder, Sergeant Major Craig Dundas, was a short wiry Scot, teak-tough and bulbous-nosed, with an aggressive attitude and a permanent angry stare. His voice carried a slight trace of his Aberdeen roots as he addressed the team.

‘Bloody hell. How the fuck did you lot survive this?’ Dundas said as he surveyed the chaos of the battlefield.

‘We almost didn’t,’ Mallet replied. ‘Another minute and we would have been overrun.’

‘What took you so long?’ asked Bowman.

‘We ran into a rebel ambush a few miles outside the airfield,’ Thriepland replied in his public schoolboy accent. ‘Had to clear the area before we could get over here. Unavoidable.’

Dundas spat on the ground. ‘Rebels had us pinned down for an hour. Proper ambush tactics. They knew how to fight.’

‘The Russians must have sent them over,’ said Mallet. ‘Bastards know every trick in the book.’

Thriepland cleared his throat and said, ‘I count only four of you. Where’s the other fellow?’

‘Loader’s dead,’ Mallet said.

‘I see.’ Thriepland nodded sombrely. ‘Sorry to hear that. And the rest of you?’

‘Alex took a couple of frags to the shoulder. We’ve got a few nicks and cuts. Nothing major.’

Dundas smiled at Casey. ‘I hear you’re deadly on the old mortar.’

‘Something like that,’ she replied tonelessly. Her expression had a faraway quality.

‘Looks like you fought off half the rebellion,’ said Thriepland. ‘There’ll be some citations coming out of this, I imagine.’ He looked at Mallet, and a sarky tone crept into his stiff voice as he went on. ‘Pity you guys in the Cell can’t be named.’

Bowman stared wordlessly at him.

‘What happens now?’ asked Webb.

‘We’ll stick around here and guard the family,’ Thriepland said. ‘We’ve got orders to wait here until the country is fully secure. Which will take a few days, I expect.’

‘It’ll take us that long to clear all them bodies away,’ Dundas muttered. ‘This is a right bloody mess.’

Bowman said, ‘Why isn’t the president flying straight back? The coup will be over soon enough.’

‘There’s a force coming in from 2 Para,’ Thriepland explained. ‘A long-term training team. We’re due to hand over to them in a couple of days. The president’s refusing to return until the handover is complete.’

‘Probably wants the extra boots on the ground,’ Dundas added.

Webb snorted. ‘Yeah, that fucker will want this place like Fort Knox before he comes in.’

‘So much for caring about the welfare of his family,’ Bowman said. ‘If he was that concerned, he’d be flying back now.’