Max remembered his words in the locker room – I have brother too. Back in Chechnya – and felt a momentary pang of sympathy.

– One …

Max’s eyes flickered anxiously towards the window behind T7’s head. T7 seemed to notice this. He cocked his head and threw himself to the ground.

– Go go go!

Everything seemed to happen at the same time. Lukas, Abby and Sami jumped to their feet and hurled themselves off the stage. There were shouts of alarm from the hostages. A fraction of a second later, there was an enormous explosion from the back of the stage and a flash of blinding light. It sent a physical jolt through Max’s body, as though somebody had pushed him hard. There was the distant retort of weapons, and the splintering of broken glass as the windows imploded. The blinds were breached on both sides of the hall by incoming sniper rounds. They were aimed precisely at the four targets that Max had identified. But only three had still been in place.

Out of the corner of his eye, Max was aware of gruesome explosions of blood and brain matter as three targets collapsed to the ground. Screams ripped through the air. Groups of hostages fled from the horrific sight of the bleeding corpses. Max’s attention, though, was all on the target who had not been hit by the sniper round intended for him. His attention was on T7.

The loose sniper round had slammed into the floor of the dining hall, just missing a child. More people started shouting in panic. The atmosphere in the room had deteriorated into panic. For Max, however, the voices of the other hostages receded in comparison to the commotion at the back of the stage. He looked up to see that it had collapsed in a billowing cloud of smoke. There was no sign of the targets who had been standing there, but it was immediately clear what their fate was: Max heard a sequence of four double shots as the hidden SAS team dealt with them, terminally.

So far, the assault had lasted less than five seconds. Already seven targets were dead.

That left two: T7, and the fake decoy.

Max was astonished by how quickly the smoke billowed out from the back of the stage. In an instant, the air in the hall was thick and choking. He could hardly breathe and couldn’t see more than a metre in front of him. He found himself shouting, ‘Seven targets down! Two targets remaining! One of them has a vest!’

For the first time there was a note of panic in Hector’s voice.

– FIND HIM. PUT HIM DOWN! REPEAT: PUT … HIM … DOWN!