Porter stood up. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said.

Katie’s eyes were darting from one man to the other. She was standing six inches to Collinson’s left: close enough to be a threat, Porter judged, but not close enough to stop the bastard from shooting me.

‘Go back to ragheads, man,’ Collinson sneered. ‘They can fix you up with a bottle of vodka and a nice archway to kip down in.’

Outside, Porter could hear Hassad moving towards the door, but it was still too dangerous for him to come inside. There was no sign the guards back on the Lebanese side of the border were going to intervene. Maybe they hadn’t heard the gunfire, or else they didn’t want to move into the demilitarised zone.

There were only two men who were going to sort out this fight, Porter told himself. And they are both in this hut.

‘I’ll give you one more warning,’ said Collinson.

Porter held the gun steady. He was pointing it straight at Collinson’s stomach and groin. When he fired, he didn’t much care any more if Collinson shot him back. He just wanted to rip out the man’s guts and his balls before he went down.

‘Take your shot,’ Porter snapped.

He could see beads of sweat starting to pour from the man’s brow. His hand was trembling, the same way he’d started trembling back in Beirut seventeen years ago.

‘We’ll see who the coward is now,’ said Porter. ‘Take the fucking shot.’

Collinson remained motionless.

‘You’re fucking afraid, aren’t you, just like you were all those years ago,’ Porter snarled. ‘Except this time, you’re not going to have me to blame.’

The hand was shaking perceptibly now.

Porter held steady, the sights of the AK-47 lined up straight.

A shot.

Porter could see the recoil on the Beretta as the gun kicked back.

He could feel a bullet winging his shoulder, taking out a chunk of flesh, and biting off a piece of bone.

His feet remained rooted to the ground. He swallowed hard, ignoring the pain raging through him.

He could see Katie jumping out of the way.

He squeezed the trigger on the AK-47.

The bullets flew out of the barrel of the assault rifle. One smashed into Collinson’s guts, spilling blood and intestines onto the ground. Another clipped his groin, taking at least one ball with it as it chewed its way through his body.

Collinson fell back onto the floor. He was clutching his stomach, trying to hold his intestines in place, but his hands were drenched with his own blood. He was screaming for his mother.

Porter kept the AK-47 tight in his hand, and walked the few paces of empty ground that separated him from the dying man.

He looked down. Collinson was writhing in agony. Porter put his boot down on his chest to hold him still. Then he looked into his eyes. They were pale and watery as the life slowly drained out of him, but the man was still conscious. Porter smiled. ‘I’ve got a quote from Winston bloody Churchill you might enjoy,’ he said. ‘“When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”’