All at once there was a commotion at the far end of the room. A door flew open. As I looked in that direction, Akula tried to take advantage of the diversion and began dragging himself away along the edge of the pool. In a split-second I took in the fact that the newcomer was Sasha, who dashed in with his Gepard levelled. Before I could move or speak he’d opened up with three short bursts. The first missed, but the second caught the Shark full in the flank. As he rocked on his hands and knees, the third raked him again and toppled him sideways into the pool.

Behind me, from the changing cubicle he’d been in, came a sudden noise and movement and the door flew open. Out burst a young blonde woman, stark naked, holding a pistol in her right hand.

Before she could pull the trigger, Sasha cut her down with a burst into her back from point-blank range.

He was on a total high, uncontrollably violent, half mad. He fired two more bursts into the ceiling, splintering the planks, and rushed up to me with a triumphant roar of ‘ZHEORDIE! WE KEELL THEM ALL!’

With a couple of bounds he reached the edge of the pool. The man’s body was half-floating, face-down in the water, feet on the bottom. Blood had flooded out all round it, staining the water, dark red close in, paler farther out.

‘Akula in the water!’ Sasha shouted. ‘Breelliant! We make him kneel! We make him swim!’ Again he let drive a burst into the body, causing it to bob violently up and down.

Men came pounding into the room. Our guys. One, two, three.

‘Out!’ yelled one of them. ‘The place is on fire. Gotta go downwards.’

‘Here!’ I pointed towards the door.

All five of us flew down the concrete stairs and through the wooden door. The inner store-room was empty. The hostages had gone.

Outside, the impact of frosty air cooled all of us down. I realised I’d been on just as vicious a high as Sasha.

As we drew away from the building and up the hill, we could see flames raging inside the ground-floor windows. Then a great tongue of fire burst out of the roof. Out of breath, I got down on one knee, jabbed my pressel and called, ‘Pat?’

‘Yes?’

‘Geordie here. I’m east of the building. Where are you?’

‘Straight above the villa. The Chinooks are coming in.’

‘Great. Is there a medic on board?’

‘Should be. I asked for one.’

‘The hostages are in a bad way.’

‘OK. RV on the helipad, soonest.’

‘Roger.’

We started through the trees, but we’d only gone a few yards when another explosion burst out above us. I heard later that the guys in Party C saw somebody sneak up into the cockpit of the Alouette, so they put a 66 rocket into its fuel tank.