The nearer he got to her the more tightly packed was the crowd. Some people were almost on tiptoe as they jostled to get a look at the most powerful man on the planet. It wasn’t so easy any more to pass them. Nobody likes queue-jumpers. Tom had to be careful: he didn’t want to alert her.

Yet he had to be very fast. She had to be dropped – instantaneously – to have no chance whatsoever of detonating. It was no good fighting her, no good trying to grab the device. If it was just a button that had to be pressed, she had to go down immediately.

He didn’t worry where Sahim was: he just had to keep pushing forward without her being aware. If he was too slow, he would find out very soon, when bits of president and prime minister sprayed the room.

The glimpses of blue were now three deep away from him and the mobile was vibrating once more in his pocket. The blonde woman to his right, standing immediately behind the woman in blue, gave him a smile and took a sip of champagne.

Tom knew that the woman in blue would be doing exactly the same as he was, only she would be focusing on Sahim, all her attention on that drone of hers delivering his payload to the front of the crowd, waiting for the moment when he would jump onto the podium and she would complete the mission.

A scream sliced through the crowd as it surged back. Members of the presidential protection team were leaping from the podium. Sahim must have broken free and was making his bid.

Tom grabbed the blonde woman’s champagne flute and snapped off the base as he zoned in on the right of the exposed neck of the woman in the blue dress. With his left hand he grabbed a handful of her hair to keep her head in position and rammed the shaft of glass deep into her neck.

The screams around him were joined by gunshots. Sahim was being taken down. But it wasn’t over yet. Tom kept all his focus on the deep gash in her neck as he plunged the glass down again and again into the mess of tendons and flesh. Blood spurted like a geyser from her disintegrated jugular and arced into the air. She buckled straight away but he kept ramming and twisting the glass stem as she went down. If she could move, she could detonate the device. If he had to sever her entire head to be sure he’d stopped the threat, then so be it. He fell with her, leaving the stem in her neck, both hands scrabbling for her left arm. He ended up on top of her and saw the detonation device by her hand on the carpet. As he went to grab it and get control, three weapons carried by dark suits bore down on him.

‘Freeze!’