Zahra smiled, even though she didn’t understand much English. James powered up his engine as Kyle rolled their plane out into sunlight.

‘It’s cold up high,’ Tovah said, as she handed Zahra a sleeping bag they’d been planning to leave behind. Then she helped the girl fix her five-point harness.

Kyle was about to board James’ plane when he remembered the detonator in his shirt pocket.

‘If you’re leaving last,’ Kyle explained, as he handed it to Tovah.

As Kyle buckled up behind, James upped the throttle and trundled out on to the tarmac. More 20mm shells were thumping the far side of the supermarket and a vehicle had parked up, shielding behind the two fast-food restaurants at the lot’s far end.

‘Full throttle,’ James announced, deciding that the risk of staying on the ground for an extra minute was greater than the risk of not making final checks that Tovah was sure to have done at least twice already.

Bruce throttled up before James was even off the ground and there was now small ammunition coming towards the planes from behind the garage.

‘Tovah, don’t hang around,’ Bruce warned over the com, as he pulled up the flaps, following James and Kyle into the air.

Tovah was out on the concrete within seconds of Bruce taking off. As she hit the throttle she heard shots coming from all sides and tried not to think about the frailty of her air-filled wing. As she neared take-off speed, she felt something hit the runway in front, then bounce up and smash the front wheel. As an instructor-level pilot, she instinctively raised the flaps slightly, so that the nose lifted and the plane continued its take-off balanced on two rear wheels.

Another half-dozen shots ripped off as she finally got up to speed and since she was flying solo and manual, she put the little plane into the steepest climb that she dared. James and Bruce’s craft were visible, their grey wings merging with the colour of clouds high above.

Tovah took one last glance back at the supermarket as she pulled the remote detonator, waited a few more seconds to be certain that the explosion vortex didn’t suck her in. Then she pressed a button and blew the whole place to hell.

39. TENTS

Cruising at eight hundred metres, cold air blasting from the east and the autopilot making corrections with the flaps. The world seemed beautiful from up here, but Lauren couldn’t get the bodies out of her head. She’d killed a man on her first mission, aged eleven, but that was a him-or-me. This had been like some weird one-sided video game.