None of the four bodies were fully intact.

Ten down.

Dempsey was not distracted by the carnage. He continued along the corridor without missing a step.

He swept the first bedroom at speed. The two dead bodies in the doorway told him that the room had taken the brunt of the blast. The odds of a survivor were slim, but still the area had to be cleared.

‘NEXT ROOM!’

This time it was Gallo who shouted. He had passed Dempsey as the British agent took the first door, and it seemed that his search had borne fruit.

Dempsey covered the few feet between rooms at speed. He entered to find Gallo with his shotgun raised to his shoulder and aimed towards the room’s large open window. A thick black curtain billowed in the breeze, obstructing both agents’ view.

Dempsey stepped forward, placed his palm on the barrel of Gallo’s M90 and guided it down. Gallo glanced towards him and Dempsey simply shook his head. He knew what was to come: the sound of three rounds, discharged just outside.

Eleven.

Dempsey lowered his own weapon and stepped towards the window. He moved the curtain aside and stepped through, onto the metal fire escape outside. Ahead of him was the body of a white man, his bloody eyes staring lifelessly into the sky.

‘Empty apartment, Kate?’

Dempsey looked across to the furthest end of the fire escape. Kate Silver was standing with her rifle raised to her shoulder.

‘Yeah,’ Silver replied. ‘Unlike yours.’

Dempsey pointed towards the first apartment.

‘No sign of a hostage in there, I take it?’

‘No.’

‘What about Dai and Jabari?’

‘I don’t know.’

Dempsey put his hand to his ear and reactivated his wrist-mic. He switched the frequency to the ISB band.

‘Dai, you there? Over.’

The mic crackled to life.

‘I’m here. Over.’

‘What have you got? Over.’

‘Nothing. Apartment empty. Over.’

Dempsey looked down at the body close to his feet. The man had been armed. He had worked in a drug den. There was no doubt that he was a criminal, and maybe he deserved his fate. But he was not the man the ISB were here to find. None of them were.

‘Dammit.’

FOUR

Michael Devlin held a champagne-laden ice bucket under his left arm, a glass of sixteen-year-old Lagavulin in his left hand and a cold Pinot Grigio in his right as he manoeuvred his way through the packed room.

The temperature outside was only a degree or two north of zero. Still, the wood and glass main doors of the busy wine bar were wide open. With so many warm bodies rammed inside its two rooms, the colder fresh air was badly needed.

With the bar filled past capacity, the sheer size of the crowd made Michael’s journey from bar to table difficult. His recognition of what seemed like every second face slowed him further: a succession of colleagues and opponents from almost two decades in London’s criminal courts, all wanting to say ‘hi’ – in some case much more – and transforming Michael’s few necessary steps into a nightmare of forced smiles and inane pockets of conversation.