Richie crouched by the front offside lights, putting a padded knee onto the tarmac. Raised a hand and shouted the expected statement of preparedness.

‘Ready!’

Pearce echoed the shout. Looking back at the other two as they replied. Both on one knee behind him. Weapons pointing at the verge. A good team. No, a great team. He instinctively knew they’d do him proud.

‘Stinger in twenty seconds.’

Still something at the back of Pearce’s mind. Something he’d lost in the rush to embus and kit up. Richie looking back at him, waiting for the go order.

‘Stinger in ten, nine, eight...’

And Pearce realised what it was that was bothering him.

‘Six, five, four...’

Too late to ask the question now. He exchanged a last-minute nod of respect with Richie.

‘...two, one... Stinger deployed!’

The suspect vehicle whipped past them with a howl of protesting rubber. Tyres already deflating as the hollow spikes allowed their air to escape in a rush. The driver’s foot hard on the brakes, barely controlling the car as it skewed into the outside lane. Coming to a halt forty metres past the carrier.

‘Go! Go! Go!’

Richie led them out onto the empty motorway, carbine raised. Pearce a pace behind him and to the left. Carbine held on target with one hand. The other keying his mike back to the control room in Chelmsford.

‘Control, FSU. Suspect vehicle stopped. Interrogatory: is there an explosives risk? Urgent response please!’

Still moving forwards, hearing the mosquito whine of a drone in the air behind them. Pearce waved the other two further out to his left. Wanting more than one rifle on target if the suspected jihadis had the means of going loud.

‘FSU, Control–’

The doors of the battered looking Vauxhall opened. Four men in the act of getting out. And anything that control had to say was suddenly way less interesting than the situation to hand.

‘Armed police! Down on the ground!’

Richie amping up the volume to a roar. As trained. Intimidate the person you’re looking through the sights at hard enough and you might not have to shoot them. Or so the theory went. Jenny and Karl were shouting too. Still advancing. Pearce drew breath to reinforce the bellowed commands. And a single word in whatever control were trying to tell him broke through the cognitive chaff that was swamping his ability to process their message.

EOD.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal.

Shit.