The bullet hit Hope just below her right eye. It exited through the back of her head, a spray of blood and brain matter splattering outwards. The head jerked back in a delayed response, the body arcing forward, the arms flying upwards, the effect like a crash test dummy flung from a moving car. Then came a double crack as the echo from Silva’s gun came back along with the bang from Hope’s pistol.

‘Shot,’ Itchy said in the same pan-flat manner he used when they were on the practice range. He reached out and patted Silva’s back. ‘Now the other one.’

Taher was moving fast towards the door to the house as Silva reloaded. She fired again but the shot smashed into the stone lintel and he was gone.

‘Shit,’ Silva said.

‘Don’t sweat it, we’ll get another chance.’

Silva reloaded and raised her head. The two men had fallen over the edge of the veranda and into the olive grove. They were invisible beneath the trees.

‘Are they alive?’ Silva said.

‘I don’t know,’ Itchy said. ‘But Taher’s going for the pick-up.’

Silva moved the rifle to the left. Taher had raced through the house and emerged at the other side. He clambered into the truck. She had a split second to act while the vehicle was stationary, because hitting a moving target with a rifle was next to impossible – something for the movies, not real life. Taher was in the vehicle now, but his head was partially obscured by the door pillar. Silva squeezed the trigger and a moment later the glass on the driver-side door crazed in a spiderweb pattern. Inside, Taher jerked sideways, but even as he did so the vehicle was moving forward, the back wheels spinning in the dry dirt. The pick-up slewed round in the yard and shot towards the gates to the complex, causing an explosion of wood as the bull bars smashed through. Then the truck was away and heading down the track, weaving back and forth, dust rising.

‘Last chance,’ Itchy said. ‘But take your time.’

Silva already had the rifle aimed down the track way ahead of Taher, anticipating the moment when the vehicle would crest a small rise and she could get a shot in through the rear window. She couldn’t see Taher’s head because he was hunched down, but that wouldn’t matter; the bullet would pass through the seat. Just a couple more seconds and—

And then she could see nothing. The dust had risen to obscure the track.

‘Damn it!’ Silva fired anyway, but the odds were minuscule and when the dust cleared the vehicle was gone.