Collinson was reaching inside the chopper. ‘Stretchers,’ he shouted to the waiting sailors.

‘Shit,’ said Porter, his voice no more than a whisper quickly stifled by the sea breeze. I hope to hell we didn’t take any more casualties.

Two sailors had already disappeared inside the chopper carrying a stretcher, then two more, then two more. There was a wait of a few seconds. Porter took a step forward, taking a final hit on his cigarette. A stretcher was emerging, carried flat out of the helicopter.

With a white sheet covering it.

‘Fuck, no,’ Porter muttered.

He could feel the pain stabbing up his left arm.

Another stretcher.

And another white sheet.

Porter could feel his heart thumping. He took another step forward, then stopped. He couldn’t bear to go any closer.

One final stretcher emerged from the Puma.

And it too had a white sheet covering it.

Porter wiped away the bead of cold sweat that had formed on his brow.

All three of them, he thought to himself. Steve, Mike and Keith. Dead.

How the fuck did that happen?

‘Porter.’

The voice was sharp, insistent.

Porter turned round. A young sailor was looking straight at him.

‘You’re needed in the debrief room,’ he snapped. ‘Now.’

With his pulse still racing, Porter began to walk. He knew exactly where to go: the same room where they had been briefed on the mission just a few hours ago. He was walking slowly, gripping on to the rails of the metal staircase. When he left them, Steve said he had the situation under control. He told him they just needed to secure the building, then evacuate. Now the three of them were dead. And I wasn’t there to help them.

He pushed open the door to the debrief room. Pemberton was already there and so was Collinson, flanked by a pair of officers. Nobody was smiling. Pemberton looked at him coldly. ‘Come in, Porter,’ he said slowly. ‘Glad to see somebody survived the bloody mission.’

One chair had been positioned directly opposite the main desk. ‘Take a seat, Porter,’ said Pemberton.

‘I prefer to stand.’

‘I said, take a seat,’ he repeated icily. ‘You’re injured, you need to rest.’

Porter pulled out the chair. He didn’t recognise the two other officers, but he could see that one of them was taking notes. ‘What happened, sir?’ he said. ‘To the other blokes, I mean.’

Pemberton rested against the edge of the desk but didn’t sit down. ‘I’ll let Collinson tell you,’ he said.

Glancing up, he could see Perry taking a step forward. He was standing just three feet from where Porter was sitting and you could still smell the gunpowder on his uniform. There was a tear on his jacket, and a plaster covering a cut on his face. ‘It was like this,’ he began. ‘We evacuated you as well as the hostage. Steve wanted to secure the building. It was a sound enough plan. Steve’s a good man. We laid down some fire, enough to keep the Hezbollah guys at bay. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. We were getting ready to clear out when the little Arab fucker you left unconsciousness suddenly came round. He’d crawled across the floor, and picked up one of the AK-47s his mates had left on the floor.’ He paused, glancing towards Pemberton before continuing. ‘Then he sprayed the place with bullets. Took Steve and Keith down instantly. Poor blokes didn’t have a chance. Mike managed to start returning fire, and might have winged the kid, but by then he was running backwards out into the alley. He managed to hit Mike just as he was disappearing from view. He was still alive for the next twenty minutes or so but he was losing a lot of blood, and there wasn’t anything I could do to help him. I knew the chopper would be waiting for us, so I laid down as much fire as I could, and started to make my way upstairs. I was lucky. I reckon the kid had already legged it. I told the pilot to stay put, then I went back to get our boys.’