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a ragged hole in his leg.
    Before the guard could fire again Keenan, still perched in the crook of the tree, filled his sight with the target’s head, took up first pressure, aimed at the base of his nose, exhaled a long breath that was more like a sigh, and squeezed the trigger. Firing a subsonic round, his sniper rifle hardly made a sound.
    ‘Sierra One,’ Keenan said. ‘I had to take the shot.’
    Gavin had watched the 7.62mm round make contact on the monitor and knew it had been the right decision. ‘Alpha, roger that.’
    The Range Rovers slewed to a halt in front of the house as the two Blue team medics dragged the injured man into cover. A moment later the ladders clanged against the walls next to the shuttered windows and the assault teams clambered up them to make entry into the CN-filled rooms.
    Tom and Blue Five were ahead of them, sweeping through the downstairs rooms. Domestic servants, many still incapacitated and in shock after the detonations on White and Red, were curled up on the floor in pain as the CN did its job.
    Jockey and his team, Blue One, had made the second explosive entry. They met no resistance as they moved from room to room, but it was only when he opened a door that should have led to the hall that he found out why. The Scotsman’s face registered neither surprise nor alarm: like the rest of the team he was now on auto-pilot. The reason the Regiment were so good at assaulting buildings was because they trained every single day. Jockey got on the net. ‘More concrete, they’ve blocked us in sectors.’

10
    TWO DARK SHAPES cradling AK-47s ran to intercept Tom and Blue Five as they burst into the hall and made for the stairs. The guards swung up their weapons; Tom dropped to one knee and fired two Value rounds, which struck them not with the soft thud of a projectile hitting flesh but with a hard, almost metallic sound that indicated they were wearing body armour.
    The two men were driven backwards by the force of the impact but remained upright until the CN clouds started to take effect. Tom closed in and gave them another two rounds between their legs that took them down. He checked their faces. The imagery of Laszlo might be old, but there was one thing that time wouldn’t change: the South Ossetian’s washed-out grey-blue eyes.
    Tom ran for the stairs. Bryce Rea, Blue Five commander, was right behind him with another of his team. The other two zip-tied the fallen guards while they were still fucked up by the CN.
    The din of percussive bangs, thuds and shouts thundered from the upper floor as the Blue team cleared the house, fighting their way through yet more false doors and barricades. Tom’s group found no further obstructions as they cleared the hall and raced up the sweeping staircase. Hecrossed the landing, the plan of the upper floors firmly imprinted on his mind.
    He pushed open the master-bedroom door and dived through it, his gaze tracking the moving barrel of his rifle until it came to rest on a body-shaped hump on the emperor-sized bed. Tom pumped two rounds into it as the rest of the team made entry. He moved forward, ripped the duvet aside. The two pillows beneath it were dented by the hits, but were too soft a target to project their CN.
    Blue Five cleared the bathroom and dressing room.
    The half-full cup of coffee on the bedside table was still warm to the touch. ‘He’s here somewhere . . .’ Tom’s voice rasped through the respirator.
    Bryce yelled, ‘It could be the blonde’s.’
    ‘Could be.’ Tom headed for the door. ‘But in that case, whose is the one on the dressing-table?’
    The net was heaving with assault teams telling Alpha that their areas were clear. Then Jockey chipped in: ‘Stand by, stand by. Blue One has a possible escape route under the main hall stairs. Wait out.’
    Tom’s team peeled out of the room. They found the Scotsman fitting a framed charge down the hinged side of a steel-reinforced door. They flattened themselves against the