He momentarily considered falling back to take cover behind the Sentinel with Wade. Use its bulletproof armour for protection. But instantly rejected the idea as abandoning any shred of initiative they had left. Looked instead at the battered wreckage of SEG One. Seventy yards or so distant. And his best chance of putting something hard between him and the threat. Bent low, he moved down the road. The carbine raised and ready to fire.

The street was eerily quiet, the occupants of the houses on its left side presumably shocked into immobility by the two massive explosions and gunfire. That, or casualties of the twin hails of shrapnel. As he got closer to the vehicles, the sheer violence of the suicide vest’s explosion became clearer. The van’s paint work was pocked with shiny craters, where hot metal had vapourised paint in an instant. SEG One was a charnel house, its bloodied crew lolling lifelessly in their seats. Of the bomber himself, there was nothing to be seen other than a booted human foot lying in the road.

Sirens were sounding from all sides now, still distant but getting louder by the second. Mickey grinned mirthlessly. Let the bastards who’d just slaughtered close to a dozen officers know that their mission time was running down fast. Moving south towards the roundabout, he looked back without breaking pace. Seeing Wade hunkered down behind the Sentinel’s rear end.

Looking forward again, he saw Maisie trying to get back to her feet from behind the dropped bike that had been her cover. She raised a pistol in her left hand and fired unsteadily down the street. Her other arm hanging uselessly, blood dripping from the fingers as she engaged whoever it was she could see around the corner. A violent hammer of automatic fire answered her shots. Mickey flinched as the rounds sent her sprawling to lie motionless. The weapon’s racket sounded dangerously close, as if its wielder was about to come around the corner.

He went down on one knee. Holding the Rattler roughly on target with his left hand. Using the other to pull a smoke grenade from his belt. Cocked his gun hand’s little finger to grasp the pin. Pulled it out, let the lever fly, then hurled the slim canister over the wrecked Jag. A plume of grey smoke gushed out. Jetted across the junction and filled the air in seconds. In for a penny, he decided. Threw the second grenade a little shorter. The street was suddenly filled by an absence of vision, the streetlights’ illumination ghostly and flickering as the cloud thickened.