The man looked back at him. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, but although there was fear in his expression, there was defiance as well.

‘Piss off,’ he spat.

Even through a couple of broken teeth, and a mouthful of blood, Porter recognised the accent. A Scouser.

‘What the fuck are you doing out here?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to nick. Now tell me who sent you –’

‘Fuck off.’

Porter glanced towards Hassad. ‘Cut him,’ he snapped. ‘Work on the gunshot wound.’

Hassad leant into the man’s chest. He ripped open his shirt, and sliced open a wide, deep cut in his shoulder. Blood bubbled up out of the open wound, spilling down into the ground.

Porter knelt down, leaning into the man’s ear. He picked up a handful of dust and dirt and chucked it into the open wound. ‘The Arabs are fucking savages, and so am I,’ he said. ‘Now just tell us, and then you can go out and sleep in the scrub with your mates.’

There were tears of pain streaming down the man’s cheeks.

Porter punched him hard in the stomach. He coughed violently, and a fresh river of blood tipped out of the gaping wound in his stomach.

‘Just tell me,’ Porter growled, ‘and I’ll let you fuck off to the great Scouser-nicking shop in the sky.’

‘We work for Connaught Security,’ he shouted. ‘Perry Collinson is ultimately in charge of it. He sent us out here to kill you.’

Porter slammed another foot into the man’s stomach. ‘Fucking mercenaries,’ he spat. ‘There’s a lot of competition for who’s the lowest scum in this hellhole. But I reckon you blokes are right at the bottom.’

I’m bloody through with bastards trying to kill me, he told himself. I’m going to take it out on someone.

‘Why?’

Another half-pint of blood spilt onto the dusty ground.

‘Why?’ shouted Porter, louder this time.

But the man’s eyes had already closed.

I already know why, Porter thought. And the only man I have left to speak to is Collinson himself.

TWENTY-FIVE

Katie felt heavy in Porter’s arms. He lifted her clean from the ground, and ran quickly towards the car. The safe house might be isolated, and there wasn’t much in the way of law and order in this part of Lebanon, but the explosions in the house would attract attention. We don’t want to be around when the police or the Hezbollah militia show up, Porter thought.

‘Want me to finish him?’ said Hassad, pointing towards the wounded man on the ground.

‘Let him die slowly,’ said Porter. ‘A quick death is too good for that bastard.’

With Katie still in his arms, Porter ran across to the Polo. She needed rest, and the firefight had only made her worse: if he didn’t treat her gently she wasn’t going to make it through the next few hours. Waves of heat were rolling out of the house as the flames licked up inside it. Across the scrubland that separated it from the road, there were three dead bodies, all of them lying face down in the dirt, their bodies shot to pieces. It hadn’t been much of an attack, Porter reflected grimly. Whoever that bastard Collinson was using to do his dirty work for him, it wasn’t Regiment guys. These blokes had no proper training. First they’d tried to kill them with fragmentation grenades inside the house, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d created a diversion with some more grenades and had reckoned that would be enough to allow them to charge the wall. Idiots, thought Porter. The Regiment would have taught them that a well-dug-in target, with plenty of ammunition, had to be taken by surprise or ground down slowly and relentlessly. Otherwise you were just committing suicide.