Or in the apartment, he instinctively knew. The intelligence is wrong.

Dempsey’s experience allowed him to register every detail at once, and to see the picture those details painted. It was a skill learned over countless days in the Killing House in Hereford. Staged assault after staged assault. Every possible scenario covered. Every possible threat anticipated and enacted.

He’d been thankful for that training in the years that had followed. Time and again it had been the difference between life and death.

But today it told him that they were engaging the wrong targets. This was clearly a drug factory. Nothing to do with their hostage. And there was not a single thing he could do to change that.

The sound from Gallo’s M90 was like a physical blow as the Italian discharged it to Dempsey’s right. Once. Twice. The violence of the vibration could have disorientated even the most experienced soldier.

To Dempsey, it signified nothing more than an increased body count.

Two down.

The number was still passing through his mind as he noted the movement to his left. Four figures, dressed in sterile clothing. At first glance they looked like medics or forensic examiners – an impression ruined by the weapons each was now clumsily raising in Dempsey’s direction.

He aimed his own G36C, already at shoulder height, and applied four kisses of pressure to its trigger. Each touch discharged a three-round burst. Each burst found a target. Still disorientated from the flash-bangs, none of the four had a chance against a weapon far more lethal.

Six down.

Dempsey glanced towards Gallo. The Italian was already facing him. Like Dempsey’s side of the room, Gallo’s was now clear.

Dempsey lifted his right index finger and drew a horizontal circle in the air: the signal that they were now moving to the next stage of their choreographed assault.

This was not why they had come. These people were not who they were here to kill. But with the shooting started, they had no choice now but to see it through.

Gallo acknowledged the instruction with a nod and turned his back towards Dempsey’s own, his shotgun now covering the only entrance to the apartment. They slowly progressed towards the sole interior door that led off the main room.

Dempsey stepped forward slowly. Carefully. The ringing in his ears from the gunfire had temporarily robbed him of a key sense. Hardly ideal, but he would manage without it. It was far from the first time, and he would not be the only one suffering.

Another step. And another.

Dempsey’s eyes kept a laser-focus on the empty opening that led to the rest of the small apartment. He had no way to know if there were targets beyond it, but he had to assume there were. In his experience, drugs factories were always heavily defended.

And even if this one was not, it was diligence that kept professionals alive.

One more step and he would be through the inner doorway.