Igor came across next, and made it with no fuss. So did Nikolai, who hadn’t even bothered with a safety rope. It was Misha who got into trouble. Exactly what happened, I’ll never know. All the rest of us saw, as we crouched shoulder-to-shoulder in the gale, was that he stopped half-way across the bridge. Whinger came up in my earpiece saying, ‘Blue – got a hold-up. Oh, for fuck’s sake . . .’ and then, ‘Get on, yer twit.’

Obviously Whinger didn’t shout. Even if he could have been heard it would probably have been counter-productive, because in that situation, if someone loses his nerve, yelling only intensifies the fright. But seconds were ticking away. From exchanges on the radio I knew that Black team were starting their final approach to the front of the building. We couldn’t afford to lose time.

Another dark figure started crawling out on to the ladder. With a double weight on it, the aluminium sagged horribly. The second man reached the feet of the stationary Misha, who was frozen in a face-down attitude. The back-up guy began talking, first in a low voice, then louder. When bollockings had no effect, the newcomer turned physical. From the blurred movements it looked as though he had started thumping Misha with his fist on the backs of his knees.

Still there was no reaction.

The wind and rain were hitting our faces so hard that, even from close range, it was impossible to tell exactly what happened next. It looked to me as though the second guy had tried to crawl over Misha’s prostrate body. He was right on top of him when there came a sudden eruption of movement. I saw a flurry of limbs, much faster than men crawling, as if the two were wrestling.

An instant later one of them was falling. Without a sound he dropped away into the dark.

Jesus! I thought. Too low for his chute. But of course he had no chute.

He went straight down, 150 feet on to concrete.

I grabbed the pressel of my radio and hissed, ‘Red leader. We have a casualty. One guy’s fallen.’

‘Roger,’ came Anna’s unemotional voice. She said something else in Russian. Then, ‘Can you recover him?’

‘Not a chance. He’s gone right to the ground.’

‘Proceed, then.’

‘Roger.’

The guy who’d survived the mid-ladder encounter reached us. Not Misha. It was Volodya from the Blue team. Misha was written off. Peering over the edge of the roof, I could just make out a little dark heap splatted on the deck. At least the controllers knew what had happened. It was up to them whether or not they made any move to help him. I was pretty certain there’d be no point. No way could he have survived that impact, especially with the weight of the weapon on his back, the ammunition in his pouches and all his other gear. All I could think, selfishly, was, I hope to hell nobody saw him go past their window.