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reached to his hip. The woman’s partner threw himself sideways off the path. Her gun came up, and Croft dropped sideways, throwing himself behind the tree. In the emptiness of the cemetery, the noise of her gun was deafening, and he heard several rounds impact the oak. Then he was on his knee, gun up, aiming at the man who he was not shielded from, saw the gun pulled free, coming up, aiming.
    Croft put three in the guy’s chest right over the heart, saw the guy’s arm jerk up and fire off wildly. As he fell, Croft put another towards the legs and saw it enter just above the right knee. Even with chest armour, the pain from that leg wound would give Croft time, especially as the man lost the grip on his gun as he fell to the floor. He heard the other two moving. They would try and flank him, coming at him from both sides of the tree, so he moved. He fired another shot at the fallen man, heard the impact and the cry and stepped out from behind the tree towards the other threat, gun up, firing as he went … 11 shots left, 10. He felt a round hit his right ear, ignored it, found his targets, centred on the first. One was running, panicking; the other, the woman, was the one firing at him, a look of surprise and shock in her eyes. They hadn’t expected things to go down like this; they hadn’t expected him to come out shooting. They had underestimated him. Her stance was off, she didn’t have control, her shots not accurate. Croft was the trained one, the professional, the man who had killed before and who would kill again. He was the man who could outshoot any of the men who had served under him, who had faced enemy fire and who knew what to expect when the bullets started flying. So barring the miraculous, there was really only one outcome from all this. And so, without a moment’s hesitation, he put one round straight into the woman’s forehead. The impact sent her backwards, the front of the skull cratering from the impact, the back of the head exploding as the round exited, taking much of her brain with it. She was dead almost instantly, and he moved forward as he aimed at the last attacker.
    “Stop, don’t make me shoot you in the back,” Croft shouted, looking left, seeing the lone man moaning, gun out of arm’s reach behind him on the path. The remaining man stopped and turned, fear riddled across his face. “Hands on your head, palms up.” The man did what he was told, visibly shaking with fear. “Interlock your fingers.” Croft walked around the man so that he could see all three without turning his head, then came up behind the guy and kicked out his legs, sending him painfully to the floor. This was definitely no professional hit. These guys were amateurs. What the hell was this? Nobody got mugged at gunpoint in a cemetery at ten in the morning.
    “What have you done?” the man cried. “How could you do this?”
    “What have I done? I defended myself, you wanker.” With that, he holstered his weapon and took the man from behind in a rear naked choke, his strong arm constricting the carotid arteries. Ten seconds of struggling and the man was out cold. A quick pat down revealed no weapons and no ID. Why would only two of them be armed?
    Croft stood up and looked around. He heard nothing moving – the noise of the fire fight would have scared off most of the wildlife. How many people even heard the commotion? This time, he did turn on his Bluetooth as he walked over to the shot man.
    “Call Control,” he said to the Bluetooth. There was a beep and the phone rang for two cycles.
    “Control here.”
    “Control, this is Croft, voice recognition, please.”
    “Voice recognition accepted. Verification code required.”
    “Alpha, Gamma, Foxtrot, 154783, Lima, Echo.”
    “Thank you, Major Croft,” said the unseen female. “What do you need?”
    “GPS on my location. Get GCHQ on the line; I need video feed surveillance checked for the last hour around Brookwood Cemetery and railway station. I have