Both men wielded their carbines. Hammering at the crazed glass with the weapons’ butts. Punching holes in the crazed windscreen big enough to see through. Mickey reversed his weapon, ready to fire. Gaping at the scene of destruction revealed.

The street down which they’d been driving had been transformed. A thriving city thoroughfare reduced to carnage. A dozen corpses lying scattered around what appeared to have been a massive car bomb. The leading car and the Land Rover in front of it appearing to have taken the brunt of the blast.

The Jeep was on its side with its nearside bodywork and glass blown away. The Land Rover stopped, its bodywork engulfed in fire. Its occupants were apparently unable to move, dimly visible through the flames. The rearmost Jeep was sagging at the front on deflated tyres. The two soldiers in the front seats either dead or incapacitated. James and Franklin, perhaps shielded by their bodies, climbing unsteadily out from the rear doors. Their carbines ready to fire but lacking targets.

The panel behind them slid open. Cavendish shouting through it from the rear of the vehicle. ‘Can we get through?’

Mickey looked at the rubble-strewn road surface. ‘Not without blowing the tyres on debris! We’ll have to go back!’

Cavendish’s reply was crisp.

‘This vehicle is ex-Afghan! Armoured tyres!’

Mickey leaned forward to shout through the ragged hole in the windscreen. ‘Get in, guys! We’re pushing through!’

The other two officers climbed hurriedly into the Land Rover’s rear. Wade drove slowly past the wreckage of the other vehicles. Mickey’s carbine was raised and ready as he searched for any sign of a hostile target. The sheer brutal power of the car bomb that had smashed the convoy becoming apparent. A twisted wreck, vaguely discernible as a pick-up truck, at the roadside. The cars parked beside it both ablaze, shunted into their neighbours. Shopfronts blown in, scattered dead and wounded in their dozens. And in the leading Land Rover, the stick-like figures of its occupants were engulfed in flames from the ruptured fuel tank.

The drive to the airport was conducted in silence, other than radio comms with the airport. Telling the Voyager’s crew to be ready for immediate take-off. When they reached the airstrip the big plane’s engines were already idling with a thin shriek of restrained power. Mickey stopped the Land Rover at the foot of the single stairway. Then told his team to debus and cover their arcs. He shot glances to his rear as Sir Patrick, still white-faced, got out of the vehicle’s rear. His parting comments to the Belizeans shouted over the engine noise. Loud enough for Mickey to hear.

‘Rest assured, this outrage will not go unnoticed! The United Kingdom is made of sterner stuff than our enemies seem to think!’

He shook hands with the two men and went up the steps. Leaving Cavendish and the Prot officers to follow him.