The patrol back up to a wall. The point man hunkers in a doorway twenty metres away. Through her scope she can see water bottles being passed round, straps on helmets loosened. She reaches for her own bottle and takes a gulp without moving her right eye from the scope. Through her left eye she sees the world close to. Empty streets. A stray dog with three legs scrabbling in a patch of dirt five storeys below. A blur of helicopter fuzzing the air on the horizon.

She refocuses on the cross street near the patrol and something catches her eye. A low dwelling with washing on a line. She didn’t realise anyone still lived in this part of the city. But it isn’t the clothes flapping on the line that have caught her attention. Something just slipped beneath the washing line. Someone.

He’s small. Not a combatant. A boy perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old. His clothes aren’t much more than rags, but he’s got a smile on his face as he leaves the little walled area and steps onto the street, heading for the intersection.

‘Itchy?’ she says, but he’s already on it.

‘Charlie,’ he says, clicking the radio. ‘Got a kid to your three o’clock. Just a kid, no drama, copy?’

Nothing but static in her earpiece.

She adjusts her position so she can see the patrol again. They’re still in the shadow of the building. Against regulations, helmets have been removed. Three of the patrol are sitting on the ground. She sees one man laughing. Somebody is eating from a ration pack. They haven’t heard Itchy. She tries her own headset in case Itchy’s radio is down.

‘Charlie, do you copy, over?’

Still nothing.

‘Shit,’ Itchy says. ‘He’s carrying something.’

She looks back at the kid. Itchy’s right. The boy is holding an object in his hands. A metal ammunition box. And, come to think of it, perhaps his smile is more of a grimace than an expression of happiness.

‘Bloody hell, I can see a wire. It’s an IED.’ Itchy is moving now. Out from under the camouflage net and standing as if he could wave or shout even though the patrol is nearly half a mile away.

‘Get down, you idiot,’ she says.

Itchy could call control and try to route a message through them, but there’s no time. The kid will reach the intersection in ten seconds. When he turns left he’ll be within a couple of metres of the men. If the box contains a bomb then the patrol are dead. What remains of them will have to be scraped off the street and sent home in a tub.

‘Charlie, do you copy, over?’

Five seconds.

‘Charlie, come in, over.’

Three.

Two.

‘Take him,’ says Itchy.

One.