Beatrix stayed in the cover of the treeline until she was adjacent to the house and then paused again to take stock. One of the windows on the ground floor of the house faced her, and she was able to look inside with the binoculars. She saw a flash of movement as a figure wearing black moved around inside.

She reached down for the MP5’s pistol grip and scurried across the track until she was able to press herself against the side of the Escalade. She paused in its shelter, hidden from the house, and listened hard. Nothing, just the singing of the birds. She peered around the open door of the Cadillac so that she could see inside the cabin.

The vehicle was empty.

She edged along the body of the SUV until she was at a vantage point that allowed her to look around the rear to the open door of the house. The body of the older woman had been moved farther inside. A man in black clothes moved across the open doorway; he had a weapon in his hand.

Beatrix waited until he was out of sight and then crossed the space between the vehicle and the house. She pressed her back against the stone wall next to the door and listened. Cradling the MP5 in both hands, she took a deep breath and then put her head around the edge of the door so that she could look inside.

It was a kitchen: there was a table, an American-style refrigerator, and an old washing machine that had seen better days. The old woman’s body had been dumped next to a kitchen table, her legs splayed, her arms limp at her side, blood running from the fresh wound in the centre of her forehead.

Beatrix crouched low and slipped inside. She could hear people upstairs: the sound of feet on creaking floorboards and low voices. She crossed the kitchen to a door that opened onto a hallway but, before she was halfway there, she heard feet descending a flight of stairs. She diverted, sliding behind the open door. The kitchen counter was to her left and there was a knife block within reach. She left the machine pistol to hang on its strap, took a large chef’s knife and held it in her right fist.

The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs and came toward the kitchen.

Beatrix gripped the knife tight and raised it to head height.

One of the three men came through the door and into the kitchen. He was wearing a shoulder rig, the leather straps crossing over his back with the holster and a magazine pouch beneath his armpits.