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training to their proper use. We’d both have been spared a whole lot of trouble if he had.
    There were no further obstacles between me and the door so I crossed the room and paused for a moment, to listen. At first I heard nothing. I was beginning to think that Rollins must have bottled and run away when I picked up a slight sound. It was coming from my left. From the far end of the corridor, where the main living room would be. Maybe a chair leg scraping lightly over a wooden floor. And it was followed by footsteps. One set. They were cautious. Coming my way. They reached the door in front of me, but I let them pass. Even with him injured, I saw no reason to get into a fight with McIntyre if I could reasonably avoid it. So I gave him another couple of seconds to make up some ground on the front door. Then I stepped into the corridor and raised my Beretta so it was pointing at the back of his head.
    “Commander McIntyre,” I said. “Stop. Blue on blue.”
    He stopped, arms by his sides, a Beretta matching mine in his right hand.
    “Bend down,” I said. “Put the gun on the floor. Gently.”
    He bent his knees so he could reach the ground, but kept his waist completely straight. The move looked awkward. Rollins had told me he’d been injured in the lower abdomen during the shoot-out with Fothergill. I guess he was still feeling the effects of the surgery. Or at least, that he wanted me to think so.
    “Stand up,” I said. “Raise your hands. And kick the gun away, behind you.”
    So far, so good. Stopping him had been perfectly straightforward. And I was still wondering whether he would give up the gas canister just as easily when the front door was ripped off its hinges. Something had sent it hurtling down the corridor toward us, cannoning off the floor and walls and finally biting into the wooden boards at McIntyre’s feet.
    It seems that the movies had a point about the inevitable sound of hooves in the distance. But there’s one thing those old Westerns never warned you about.
    The cavalry might always arrive. But it isn’t always on your side.

FIVE
    Civilians were mentioned a lot during our first couple of weeks of training. The instructors never missed an opportunity to remind us that members of the public always came first. Everything we were taught was ultimately aimed at preserving their safety and well-being. Because although our job was very specialized, when you boiled it down to the bare bones, it was actually extremely simple. We were there for one thing. To look after those who couldn’t look after themselves.
    I didn’t have a problem with that. In fact, it made perfect sense. On the whole, I welcomed it. My only reservation was about the people who were capable, but wouldn’t look after themselves. Who chose not to. Who thought they were entitled to have someone else do all the hard work on their behalf. But in the end I didn’t have much time to waste thinking about them. As our exercises became more complex, mention of the wider population dropped off dramatically. Soon they were hardly part of our thinking at all.Not much more than a background presence. We were too focused on the job in hand.
    Until one Saturday when we were sent out, on our own, to major cities around the country.
    We were told that a fringe terrorist group was planning to activate a device that would release clouds of fumes into the crowd at a Premier League football match, later that day. The vapor was thought to be highly acidic. It was capable of causing horrific burns wherever it came into contact with bare skin. Possibly permanent blindness, if it got into the eyes. And even death, if enough was breathed in to destroy a victim’s lungs.
    The attack was to be part of a protest against the working conditions the group alleged were forced on workers in clothing factories in the third world. The ones who made the replica shirts the supporters were so keen on wearing. It would be carried out by four people. All would