Eight was losing a lot of blood. Björn had thought it was a gut shot, but it was worse than that. The wheezing suggested that his lung had been punctured, and, if he was right about that, Eight didn’t have long at all.

Björn calculated their odds again: stay here and wait to be arrested, or run. Control had been clear in her orders. If Björn felt that La Bruja was compromised, and that there was a risk that she might fall into the hands of the local authorities or the Americans, then he was to terminate her and get out. The Group was deeply implicated in the recent history of El Centro, and, even though the firewalls between Björn and the others meant that it would be difficult to prove a connection to British intelligence, there would be enough circumstantial evidence for the implication to be made. That would not be tolerated.

La Bruja knelt down and took Eight’s pistol from him.

“You’ve failed,” she said. “You failed in the jungle and now you’ve failed again.”

Björn eyed her. She had not reached her present position by scrupulously honouring her alliances. They all knew how she would view the situation: the most valuable asset with which she would be able to bargain was information. She could offer the locals proof that the American ambassador to Colombia had been assassinated by four British ex-soldiers. The government would deny all knowledge of them, and nothing would be proven, but the damage would be done.

Control couldn’t have been clearer.

Björn had his orders.

He slipped his finger through the trigger guard of the Tavor.

“We stay here and they find us,” La Bruja said. “I’m not waiting for that to happen.”

And, with that, she ran.

* * *

Hicks looked through the window of the car, through the cabin and out of the windshield. His gun was clutched in both hands, ready to bring up and fire. Chase was next to him.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Hicks warned him. “It’s a stalemate right now. They—”

They both saw movement from the alleyway. A woman sprinted out of cover, a pistol clasped in both hands. She turned and fired at them, a storm of bullets that she sprayed liberally, some of them chinking against the bodywork of the car and punching through the glass, others studding into the surrounding buildings. Hicks fired back, missing the woman, then ducked back into cover as a volley crashed through the windshield.

It was her.

Chase took a breath and gripped his pistol a little tighter.

“Cover me.”

He stood, stepped around the rear of the car and sprinted after her.

“Shit,” Hicks breathed.

He shuffled a pace to the right, rested his forearms on the hood and squeezed off three rounds, aiming at the alleyway, giving those sheltering there a reason not to follow.

111