‘Clear,’ said Steve, as he looked out around the empty room.

Porter motioned down the staircase. Keith and Mike started helping Bratton up the staircase.

In the next instant, an explosion splintered the night air. Porter looked round, startled. His pulse was beginning to race again.

The grenade had exploded just inches from the front door. Steve had already fallen back, crouching down low next to the staircase. ‘Covering fire,’ he snapped at Porter.

Without thinking, Porter laid down a burst of fire in the direction of the doorway. One fighter appeared, and was killed instantly, then another walked into the same hailstorm of bullets. Both corpses were lying bleeding across the doorway. Then a grenade was tossed into the doorway, ten yards in front of him, and for a split second Porter could see it hissing. His blood was pumping. He could tell it was about to blow, possibly bringing the whole house down and killing all of them. He ran forward, grabbing hold of it, tossing it through the doorway and watching as it rolled back down the alleyway: two seconds later, it exploded, bringing down half a wall in a heap of rubble.

‘Take the doorway,’ shouted Collinson behind him.

Porter glanced back. With his right hand, Collinson was directing him towards the doorway. Straight into the line of fire.

‘Go, man,’ screamed Collinson, his face red with anger. ‘I’ll cover you.’

‘Since when were you in charge, you tosser?’ snarled Steve.

Moving forward, Porter crouched in the doorway. Amid the deafening roar of the explosion from the grenade, he took a second to catch his breath. His pulse was racing and his nerves were shredded. As his lungs filled with smoky, dusty air, the sniper eluded his gaze. It was only later that he realised the bastard must have been perched right in front of him. The shot came as if from nowhere, and the first Porter knew of it was when he felt the index finger of his left hand dropping clean away from his body. He looked down, at first unaware of the pain, then felt a strange tingling sensation running through his arm, like a mild electric shock. He was using his right hand to position the M16, looking through the murky night to see if could get a fix on his assailant. Then the second shot struck, hitting him just below the existing wound, and smashing the bone that connected another finger to his left hand. This time he felt it. The numbness and the shock had started to subside, and the pain was like a blistering explosion. His nerve endings were screaming from pain, and the gun dropped from his right hand. He could feel the blood pouring from the wound, but the tears already welling up in his eyes meant he could hardly see anything. Another shot blasted the concrete in front of him, and instinctively Porter fell back from the doorway, edging back inside the room.

That’s just a hand, he thought to himself. He could feel the desperation rising within him. There was no way of telling how many of them were out there, or how long the firefight would last. The next shot was going to be far worse.