‘Stay here,’ yelled de Payns, keeping his helmet on as he watched Murad, dressed in a black bomber jacket and jeans, skip along the footpath and dive down into the Metro.

‘I’m right here,’ said Shrek.

‘Be careful in there,’ said Briffaut over the radio. As de Payns took off his helmet and dismounted, he could hear the police helicopter overhead.

Ensuring the CZ was tucked into the waistband of his jeans, he headed for the Metro. It was one of the main train routes west across the Seine and there were people everywhere as he got to the concourse. Crowds jostled to get through a limited number of turnstiles—a worse traffic jam than the streets at ground level. De Payns jogged across the concourse, eyes peeled for a tall Pakistani man in a black jacket. When he reached the main turnstile, he realised he could neither get around the throng of people nor get over them. He couldn’t see Murad at either end of the long concourse, so he assumed the terrorist had to be going through to the platforms. De Payns got into the shortest line for the turnstiles, figuring he’d find Murad on a platform or hiding in a toilet.

A tall person behind him wearing a white LA Lakers hoodie got too close, but de Payns shrugged him off as just another rude Parisian. The queue had stalled because an old man in front of him didn’t know how to use his Navigo card; he wasn’t fast enough to go through when the machine beeped. He tried again, walked through and then back, confusing the machine. Travellers in the queue mumbled about the idiot and the Allemand as the old man raised his arm for a Metro employee. Impatient, de Payns started to move to another queue, but as he did he felt the nose of a pistol push into his kidney and an accented voice whisper in his ear, ‘Stay calm.’ The tall man moved into his left shoulder, staying very close, and shepherded de Payns away from the turnstile, pistol in the back, a handful of de Payns’ windbreaker sleeve in his hand.

‘What do you want?’ asked de Payns, feeling the pistol dig deep as they moved back onto the main concourse.

‘An insurance policy,’ said the voice from under the hoodie, and de Payns recognised the distinct tones he’d heard on the Murad voice tape. He realised this man, the man who had been driving the van and wearing a black bomber jacket, had completed a desilhouettage.

‘Insurance for what?’ replied de Payns.