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Koenig couldn’t see their expressions, but it didn’t take an expert in body language to know the men in body armour were confused. Anxious even. He could sense doubt. Like when a sheepdog is confronted by a ewe with lambs. Ewes with lambs came with a whole bunch of attitude. Belligerent, not docile.

He had stepped out from behind the Jag, and the three men had opened fire. Short, controlled bursts. Disciplined. But despite him now being within the Spectres’ effective range, none of the bullets hit him. The grass airstrip was hurting them. Only direct hits counted. The bullets were kicking up puffs of dirt, but they weren’t bouncing up like they would if the Gulfstream had landed on a blacktop. Koenig didn’t have to think about ricochets.

The men in armour glanced at each other. Koenig wasn’t playing the game. He was supposed to cower behind whatever cover he could find. He wasn’t supposed to walk towards them like he was the one wearing body armour. Koenig didn’t think he needed it. Not yet. Despite it being a machine gun, the Spectre’s barrel was only slightly longer than the SIG’s. There was less than an inch in it. And the Spectre was heavier, and the men’s vision was compromised. If Koenig could have designed a perfect opponent to walk towards, he’d have had them wearing cumbersome, impractical body armour, firing one of the most inaccurate machine guns in production.

If they knew what they were doing – or were being led by someone who knew what they were doing – they’d have stood still, taken the best aim they could, then kept their triggers pressed until they’d emptied their magazines. One hundred and fifty 9-millimetre Parabellums, the same ammo Koenig was using, all headed his way. The law of large numbers said at least one bullet would have hit him.

But they didn’t know what they were doing. They were using the Spectres like scalpels when they should have been using them like sledgehammers.

One of them got lucky. A bullet slammed into the front of Koenig’s boot. Right into the thick rubber tread. Stuck in it. Made his boot look like it had a small metal nose. Koenig stumbled but stayed on his feet.

‘You ready, Koenig?’ Draper yelled.

‘Not yet.’

His first shot had to count. He had to put one of them on the ground. Make them understand that up close, their body armour was a liability, not an asset. He wanted their hearts beating faster than a hamster’s. He needed to be the only thing they were looking at. Only then would Draper have a chance of getting Margaret and Carlyle on the Gulfstream.

So Koenig kept walking towards them. SIG held at his side. Not brave, not stupid. Just doing what had to be done. They slowed down. Didn’t want him closing the distance. Their adrenaline making them jittery and erratic.

‘Aim for the pelvis!’ Draper shouted. ‘There’s no armour there, just padding!’

She was right. Koenig had hoped to get in close enough to put two rounds into the torso of the guy on his left. His bullets wouldn’t penetrate the armour, but the kinetic energy would knock him on his ass. It would feel like a circus strongman had hit him with a tiny hammer. But the pelvis was a better target. The pelvis was the basin-shaped bone that connected the spine to the legs. Pelvic trauma turned a biped into a monoped. It put you down.

Koenig stopped, pointed his SIG at the guy to his left. Aimed for his hip. He snapped off a single round. Saw a puff of blood exactly where he’d aimed. The guy spun round, then slammed into the dirt. Began thrashing about like a landed fish. He screamed. High-pitched, childlike.

Koenig moved on to the guy in the middle. Aimed for the hip again but missed. Hit him in the lower abdomen instead. The guy staggered backwards, then tripped. Ended up on his ass, legs in the air. Like an upended turtle. He tried to rock himself into a shooting position. Koenig shot him in the balls. The balls were an even better target than the pelvis. The guy dropped his weapon, clutched his groin, and gurgled something. It sounded like ‘Ah, man, not cool,’ but probably wasn’t. He then either died or lost consciousness. Didn’t matter to Koenig.

The guy to the right had seen enough. He dropped his weapon and ripped off his mask and tactical helmet. Threw his hands in the air. ‘I surrender!’ he screamed.

Koenig said, ‘Good for you,’ and shot him in the face.

He walked towards the guy he’d shot in the pelvis, aware that stuff was happening behind him. Draper was shouting for Margaret and Carlyle to get on the plane. She was also shouting someone’s name. Sounded like ‘Alan’ but could have been ‘Alain.’ The copilot. Koenig wondered if he was still cowering in the Gulfstream’s toilet.

Pelvis guy was writhing on the grass airstrip. It was clear he’d forgotten all about the Spectre he was holding. Koenig stood on his wrist anyway. He reached down and pulled off his mask. Saw a woman, not a man. There was no reason why a woman couldn’t be a mercenary asshole, but it took him aback anyway. She was about thirty-five and had hard eyes.

‘Who do you work for?’ Koenig said.

‘Go to hell!’

She had an accent he couldn’t place. The H in ‘hell’ had been throaty and breathy. Not Russian, but that part of the world. Estonia maybe. Possibly Ukraine.

‘Last chance.’

‘Fu—’

Koenig shot her in the mouth.

He jogged over and checked on the guy he’d shot in the balls. He was unconscious. Lots of blood on the airstrip. Too much blood for him to survive. Koenig removed the guy’s mask. His face was swarthy and stubbled. His fillings were cheap. Koenig committed his face to memory, then stomped on his windpipe. No point wasting bullets.

He checked them for ID but found nothing. Lots of cash, which Koenig pocketed, but no credit or debit cards. He gathered up their Spectres. He wasn’t interested in keeping them, but he didn’t want them lying around where kids might find them.

‘Let’s get the hell out of here, Koenig!’ Draper hollered. ‘The cops are coming. I can see the blue lights.’

He looked up. Saw the lights too. At least two cars. Probably a mile away. Five minutes on these roads. He ran to the Gulf-stream. The engine had already started. The plane was vibrating with energy. Draper was waiting at the door, ready to pull up the steps.

Time to go.