The target’s hands hovered each side of his head, shaking so much that they looked like they were about to fall off. Callum’s forefinger curled round the trigger of his Heckler & Koch MP5SF, his right eye studying the target’s wide-eyed grimace down the night sight. The man, IC6 – Middle Eastern, early thirties, six one, well built – stood framed in the Transit’s open passenger door, lit by the glare of the halogens from one of their 5 Series ARVs.

‘Name?’

All that came back was the high-pitched whinnying sound of the man, who was either a terrified van passenger or a wannabe suicide bomber.

‘Name, now!’

‘Still no DSO,’ shouted Vic from the car, his headset mic flipped down, mobile pressed to his ear. But it didn’t matter at that stage. Even if they hadn’t lost radio contact, SCO19’s designated senior officer back in the control room at Scotland Yard couldn’t see what they were seeing. Soon they would have cameras on helmets, but not yet. Right now they were on their own, the choice theirs: to kill or not to kill. Callum was the lead; it was his call, his neck if they fucked up.

‘No wheelman.’

Cook, who’d taken off after the driver had done a runner, had given up the chase, his words pushed out between gasps of breath.

Even though it was past two a.m., the hottest day of the year was showing no sign of cooling. A short, sharp shock of rain had merely covered the street with a sticky slick of gloss that was now steaming the place up. Vic was dripping with it and even Callum who, a few lives back, had seen service in hell-hot Sierra Leone and, even further back, had had a few sweltering holidays with his gran in Jamaica, was feeling it.

His brain scrolled through standard procedure.

Target should drop like liquid. Aim for the head to avoid triggering explosive devices attached to chest or waist: tick. Confrontation to be made in secluded location to avoid risk to personnel or public: tick. Prepare to fire multiple shots at the brain stem to minimize the risk of detonation. Brain stem? Who wrote this shit? This wasn’t keyhole surgery.

The man’s mouth moved. ‘Suleiman.’

At last, a name.

‘Suleiman what?’

‘Suleiman, sir?’

You had to laugh.

‘The rest of your name.’

‘Nazul. Suleiman Nazul.’

Callum could hear Vic’s fingers dancing over the laptop, then an agonizing pause.

‘Negative on that. No form coming up.’

The sweat pouring down Suleiman’s face was being blotted up by the T-shirt under his padded gilet. Who wears a fucking padded gilet on a night like this? What’s in it? Duck down or Semtex? One of his wobbling hands strayed close to his streaming head.

‘Hands back up! Up! ’