Carr raised his hand to stop Geordie, and put his finger to his lips. Wayne immediately took a knee and turned to cover their rear.

Carr moved forward and looked through the gate.

He saw four men, one of them placing an RPG7 warhead into its launcher, the others peering cautiously around the side of the building towards the target house where the assault teams were still engaged.

Carr looked back towards Geordie.

Gave a thumbs down – enemy – and held up four fingers.

Geordie nodded.

Carr removed a fragmentation grenade from his assault vest and showed it to Geordie, who nodded back and immediately brought up his weapon to cover him. Noiselessly, Carr removed the pin and casually lobbed the grenade over the wall, and moved back into cover.

In the darkness, and amidst the cacophony from the firefight, the men neither saw nor heard the grenade land.

Three seconds later it detonated, partially eviscerating the three to the side and leaving them moaning and writhing on the ground. Carr stepped through the gate, followed closely by Geordie. The RPG man turned, seeing only black shapes – though Carr saw him well enough, and saw his look of utter surprise – and opened his mouth to say something.

Carr placed the barrel of his weapon into the centre of the man’s face and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flash illuminated his head as it exploded from the impact of the high velocity round, and Carr was turning and moving before the body hit the floor.

Geordie took care of the three on the ground and then they moved quickly to the back door of the house, ready to make entry.

As they reached it, a burst of gunfire erupted from the window above, followed by shouting.

Carr turned: Wayne Rooney had been following them through the gate, and had taken rounds directly into the chest and face; his body armour had absorbed the impact to his chest, but a round had just clipped his right temple. It might have been survivable, ironically, if it hadn’t been for his helmet. As it was, the bullet had bounced around inside the Kevlar, ricocheting through his brain and making mincemeat of it. An inch to the left and things would have been different.

*

But shit happens.

The temptation was to run to help him, but that would have been suicidal, and pointless: Carr knew the young trooper was dead before he hit the ground.

The only thing to do now was get into the house and kill everyone inside.

Cursing, he opened the door.

He and Geordie stepped into a darkened kitchen, and paused to listen. They could hear some movement upstairs, but nothing in the immediate vicinity. While Geordie covered an open doorway which led into a hall, Carr keyed his mike and transmitted. ‘Steve, it’s John. We’re in the downstairs of the house. Make sure no-one fires into the downstairs, okay?’

He listened for a response.

Nothing.