Page 39 of Never

Tamara lay flat on her belly with her elbows on the ground, holding her pistol in both hands, taking care to point her thumbs forward so that they would be out of the way of the slide when it sprang back. She set her Glock to single-shot firing – otherwise she could run out of ammunition in seconds.

The soldiers paused their fire. Immediately, there was a third burst from the bridge but, this time, within a split second, the soldiers fired a returning burst.

Tamara could not see the high bridge from her position, so she kept an eye on the pedestrian bridge. There was something like a riot as those desperately fleeing the near end, where the shooting was, shoved into less-terrified people at the far end who probably were not sure what the bangs meant. The two border guards in camouflage trousers were at the back of the crowd and panicking just as much as the civilians, beating the people in front of them in their attempt to get away faster. Tamara saw someone jump into the river and start swimming for the far side.

At the near end, she saw the two jihadis clambering down to the riverbank. As she inched the sight of the Glock towards them, they took cover under the bridge.

The firing stopped, and Susan said: ‘I think we got him. Anyway, he’s vanished. Oh – oh – he’s back – no, this is another guy, different headdress. How-the-fuck-many of them are up there?’

In the brief quiet Tamara again heard someone shout: ‘Al-Bustan!’

Susan used her radio to call for urgent reinforcements and an ambulance for Pete.

There was another exchange of fire between the soldiers and the high bridge, but both sides had good cover and it looked as if no one was hit.

They were pinned down and helpless. I’m going to die here, Tamara thought. I wish I’d met Tab a bit sooner. Like five years ago.

On the pedestrian bridge, the jihadi with the gaunt face reappeared, on the riverbank where the parapet ended and the roadbed of the bridge blended into the stony ground, only about twenty yards away. As she moved the sights towards him he got down on the ground, and she knew he was about to lie flat and take careful aim and shoot at all of them sheltering under the cars, something she felt sure he would do with no remorse.

She had only a second or two to do something about it. Without thought she got the man’s face in the sights of the pistol, looking through the notch of the rear sight and getting the white dot of the forward sight between his eyes. Some distant corner of her mind marvelled at how calm she was. The barrel of her pistol followed the slow downward movement of the man’s head as he settled to the ground, moving quickly but not hastily, knowing as she did that anything but a quietly calm shot was likely to miss. Finally, he steadied himself and gripped his rifle and brought up the barrel, and then Tamara squeezed the trigger of her Glock.

The gun kicked up, as it always did. Calmly she brought the muzzle down, and re-sighted on the head. She saw that there was no need for a second shot – the man’s head was shattered – but she squeezed the trigger anyway, and her round smashed into a motionless body.

She heard Susan say: ‘Good shooting!’

Tamara thought: Was that me? Did I just kill a man?

The other jihadi appeared farther along the riverbank, running away with his rifle in his hand.

Tamara shifted her position so that she could see the high bridge, but there was no way to tell whether the shooters were still there. She could hear the sounds of trucks and cars continuing to pass. She noticed the throaty roar of a high-powered motorcycle: if there were only two shooters they might have fled on that.

Susan was thinking along the same lines. She spoke into her radio. ‘Before you deploy to the pedestrian bridge, check the road bridge in case any of the shooters are still there.’

Then she spoke to the soldiers under the green car. ‘Stay where you are while we find out whether they’ve all gone.’

Most of the commuters had now exited the pedestrian bridge on the far side. Tamara could see some of them clustered around a scatter of buildings and trees, peeping around corners, waiting to see what would happen next. The two border guards in their bright shirts appeared at that end of the bridge but hesitated to cross back.

Tamara began to think it might be over, but she was willing to lie here all day until she felt sure it was safe to move.

A US army ambulance came racing along the dirt road and pulled up behind the green car.

Susan shouted: ‘All guns take aim at the high-bridge parapet, now!’

The three soldiers who were still unhurt rolled from under their car and took cover behind other vehicles, aiming their rifles at the high bridge.

Two paramedics jumped out of the ambulance. ‘Under the green car!’ Susan yelled. ‘One man with gunshot wounds.’

No shots were fired.

The paramedics brought a stretcher.

Tamara stayed where she was. She watched the remaining jihadi running along the riverbank. He was almost out of sight and she guessed he was not coming back. The two border guards began to walk cautiously back across the bridge. They had their pistols out, too late. Tamara muttered: ‘Thanks for your help, guys.’

Susan’s radio squawked and Tamara heard a distorted voice say: ‘All clear on the road bridge, colonel.’

Tamara hesitated. Was she willing to bet her life on a fuzzy radio message?

Of course I am, she said to herself. I’m a professional.