And there was screaming. Caitlin identified two voices. They were screams of pain, not panic – she could tell the difference. And as she approached the vehicle she saw two figures on the road. They’d been thrown through the windscreen. They lay on their backs, surrounded by shattered glass. Caitlin shone her torch at them. A man and a woman. Their faces were bloodied from the impact of the glass. The man’s forearm was jutting out at an angle. Caitlin could see that the ulna bone had broken away from the joint and pierced the skin around the elbow. The bleeding, however, was slow and the blood dark. It was not a catastrophic wound. Caitlin made a mental triage note: although the guy was making the most noise, his wounds were not life threatening. His screams were a good sign – they meant he was conscious and breathing.

  The same went for the woman. She appeared to have twisted her foot. There were no obvious signs of major bleeding. She was in great pain, but she’d live.

  Caitlin’s immediate thought was for other passengers. She strode over to the smouldering shell of the vehicle and shone her torch into the rear seats.

  She felt sick.

  There were two children in the back. One of them was clearly dead. The heat of the explosion had peeled away the skin on the child’s face. The flesh was cauterised in places, and still weeping in others. There was a glimpse of bone around the forehead, and what remained of the hair was still smoking. She couldn’t tell if it was a little boy or a little girl.

  A second child was next to the corpse. A girl. She was wearing traditional garb and couldn’t have been more than fourteen. A twisted chunk of metal had embedded itself into the top of her forearm. She was staring at it, and her whole body was shaking. Caitlin shone her torch directly at the wound site. The girl’s robes were black, so it took a moment for Caitlin to register the thick, gushing blood that was saturating them. She leaned in through the broken window of the rear door and touched one hand to the wet material. She looked at the blood on her fingers. Bright red. Arterial. The child was bleeding out. Fast.

  Caitlin moved into autopilot. The rear door, misshapen from the explosion, was difficult to open. It took several yanks. Once it was open, she leaned in and, gripping the torch with her teeth, grabbed the sopping clothes around the wound and ripped them open. She winced when she saw the nature of the wound. The shard of metal had caused a gash at least three inches wide, and was deeply embedded just below the shoulder. Arterial blood was pumping out in waves to the rhythm of the girl’s heart. If it carried on like that, she’d be dead in less than a minute.

  The temptation was to remove the shard of metal from the girl’s arm, but that would be a mistake. There was a chance it was partly stemming the arterial bleed. If she took it away, the blood loss could increase. There was only one other medical option. Caitlin opened up her shoulder bag. It took her less than five seconds to find the item she needed: a military tourniquet. She ripped it from its packaging and wrapped the sturdy elastic around the arm a couple of inches above the wound. Then she started twisting the windlass to tighten the tourniquet as hard as she could, and stem the bleeding from above.

  Her hands were covered in blood. The windlass was slippery and sticky as she twisted it. The girl was shaking all over. There was no time to offer her any words of comfort. There was only time to stop the bleeding before she lost consciousness. It became hard to tighten the tourniquet any further. Suddenly the girl screamed in pain. Caitlin felt a moment of satisfaction. If the tourniquet hurt, it was doing its job. And if the girl was screaming, there was life in her.

  Caitlin exited the burning vehicle. She looked around. There was no sign of anyone coming to help. She called over to Tommy, who was kneeling by the adults with Gabina, administering to them. Their screams had stopped. Caitlin didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one. ‘Carry this girl,’ she shouted. ‘Get her back to our quarters. We can come back for the others.’

  Tommy rose. He moved swiftly to the back of the vehicle and, gently for someone of his great size, manhandled the girl out of the back seat. He held her very carefully, cocooned in his arms and started jogging back towards the village. Caitlin turned to Gabina. There were tears on her beautiful, petite face. ‘Tell the parents we’re going to do everything we can to keep the girl alive. We’ll be back for them as quickly as possible.’

  Gabina relayed this in urgent Pashto. The message seemed to get through, because the parents nodded vigorously. Caitlin and the interpreter sprinted after Tommy.

  Cutting round the edge of the parched field, Caitlin saw that there was activity in the village up ahead. Several people had ventured out of their compounds. A man was shouting something. But nobody was heading in the direction of the road. Caitlin overtook Tommy and ignored the hard stares of the few locals outside the entrance to her compound as she raced inside to prepare some medical equipment. She had a checklist in her head of everything she’d need before she could get the girl taken to one of the nearby military hospitals for proper treatment. Morphine, a saline drip, clean bandages . . .

  The old woman and her granddaughter were still in Caitlin’s room, huddled on the bed. They stood up as soon as Caitlin entered and shrank into the shadows when Tommy arrived holding the girl. ‘Lay her on the bed,’ Caitlin said. Tommy silently did as he was told. Caitlin had her back turned to them as she rifled through her boxes of medical gear, looking for everything she needed, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

  She spun round. It was Tommy who had tapped her. Now he was pointing at the girl, and it was clear why. Caitlin’s patient had her eyes shut. She wasn’t moving. She didn’t appear to be breathing. Caitlin swore under her breath, lurched over to the bed and felt for a pulse. Nothing. She swore again and started to administer CPR. Pressing the heel of her hand against the girl’s chest, she pumped it vigorously thirty times before squeezing her nose and administering two rescue breaths. There was a dreadful silence in the room as Tommy, Gabina and the two Afghan women looked on. Caitlin repeated the process twice, three times, refusing to give up on the kid. As she leaned down to give her fourth set of rescue breaths she noticed warmth from the girl’s mouth. She was breathing. Her pulse was back. She wasn’t conscious, but she was alive.

  ‘Get on the radio,’ she told Tommy. ‘We need to get her to the nearest hospital.’

  Tommy nodded and ducked out of the room. Caitlin checked the girl’s pulse again and became aware of the granddaughter standing behind her left shoulder. She said something in Pashto. Gabina, her face still tear-streaked, translated. ‘She says she knows the casualty.’

  ‘Right,’ Caitlin said. She was more concerned with caring for her patient than with small talk.

  ‘They are friends,’ Gabina said.

  Caitlin swallowed her irritation. She turned round. The girl was crying. She couldn’t take her eyes off her friend, lying close to death on the bed. ‘You need to go home now,’ Caitlin said as kindly as she had patience for. ‘I’ll make sure she gets to a hospital.’ She looked towards the door. ‘Go carefully. Come and see me tomorrow, I’ll let you know how she is.’

  Once Gabina had translated, the two women shuffled towards the door. The young girl was clearly reluctant to leave her friend, but her grandmother hurried her out with a sharp word. Caitlin went back to her patient. There was still a pulse. She was still breathing. The bleed had almost stopped and the blood around the wound was beginning to congeal. She turned to find the saline bag she had retrieved from her stores, and it was only then that she saw the granddaughter standing in the doorway.

  ‘What is it?’ Caitlin asked.

  The girl stepped inside and muttered something quietly in Pashto. Caitlin didn’t understand her, but there was something in her tone that made her want to hear more. ‘Gabina!’ she called. ‘Get in here.’

  The interpreter hurried in. Caitlin nodded at the girl, who repeated herself.

  Gabina hesitated. ‘She says she knows who planted the roadside bomb,’ she said.

  Caitlin breathed deeply. She stood up, walked over to the girl, put one hand on her shoulder and smiled. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said.

  The girl sat on the corner of the bed. Caitlin knelt next to her. The girl’s eyes flickered between Caitlin and the patient. ‘I think she’s going to be okay,’ Caitlin said, not entirely truthfully, and Gabina translated, her innocent eyes wide. The girl nodded. ‘Who did it?’ Caitlin said quietly. ‘Can you give me a name?’

  The girl swallowed hard. This was clearly difficult for her. She was scared.

  ‘Nobody will know,’ Caitlin said. ‘I promise nobody will know it’s you.’

  The girl closed her eyes. She muttered two names. Gabina had to ask her to repeat herself. When she did, they were scarcely more audible.

  ‘Abu Manza,’ Gabina translated. ‘And Abu Noor.’

  ‘How do you know it was them?’ Caitlin asked. ‘Is it just a rumour?’

  ‘I heard some men talking . . .’ the girl said, and it was clear to Caitlin that she didn’t want to elaborate.

  ‘Do you know where they live?’ she asked. ‘Can you tell me that?’

  The girl looked at the floor.

  ‘I can stop them doing this,’ Caitlin whispered. ‘I can stop them from ever doing it again. But you have to tell me where they live.’

  The girl closed her eyes. ‘They both live in the village of Gareshk,’ she said. ‘Two compounds, on different sides of the village.’ A sudden fierceness crossed her face. ‘They have families,’ she said. ‘Young children.’

  ‘The children will be fine,’ Caitlin said. ‘I promise you that.’

  The grandmother appeared at the doorway. She wore a scowl. ‘What has she been telling you?’ she demanded through Gabina.

  The girl gave Caitlin an urgent look, but it wasn’t necessary. Caitlin collected another box of sanitary towels and handed them over. Then she walked up to the grandmother and grasped her hands. ‘She’s a good girl,’ she said. ‘Take her home. Look after her. Come to me if you need anything.’

  Her words softened the grandmother’s granite face. The old woman nodded and gestured at her granddaughter to leave. She walked out into the courtyard. The girl followed with a grateful look at Caitlin.

  ‘Wait! What’s your name?’

  The girl blinked. ‘Mina.’

  Caitlin smiled at her. ‘Thank you, Mina,’ she said.

  Gabina gently escorted them out of the compound and locked the main gate just as Tommy appeared from his room. ‘Did you contact the hospital?’ Caitlin asked.

  Tommy nodded.

  ‘Good.’ She hurried back into her room, checked her patient’s pulse once more, then retrieved an item from a flight case under her bed: an encrypted Iridium satellite phone. She powered it up and dialled a number. The call was answered in seconds. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘This is asset Charlie Foxtrot Niner,’ Caitlin said. ‘Inform Spearpoint that we have two new targets for confirmation. Repeat, inform Spearpoint that we have two new targets for confirmation.’

  ‘Roger that. Wait out.’ The line went silent. Caitlin kept her eyes on the shallow rising of her patient’s chest as she waited for Cornwall to come on the line.

  It took approximately twenty seconds.

  CHAPTER 3

  Cornwall, 21.00 hours BST

  Danny was behind the wheel, his satnav directing him to the Spearpoint base. The booze did nothing to ease the thought of coming face to face with Tony Wiseman.

  The roads were deserted. This was deep Cornwall. The needle tipped seventy as Danny expertly but subconsciously negotiated the winding country lanes. When the satnav announced that he was approaching his destination, he realised he’d been in something of a trance for the past ten minutes. He hit the brakes and brought the vehicle to a halt. He had just crested the brow of a hill. The road continued down towards a forest. Twenty metres away there was the corner of a high wire fence blocking off land to his right. He couldn’t make out the extent of the cordoned-off area because it was dark, but the headlamps of his vehicle illuminated an entrance in the fence with a ‘Danger’ plaque warning against high-voltage electricity. As good a way as any, Danny thought, of keeping people out. On the near side of the fence he saw an armed soldier standing guard. He started up his vehicle again and wound down his window as he approached the soldier.

  ‘They’re expecting me,’ he said.

  The soldier peered into the vehicle, nodded abruptly and opened a gate in the fence. Danny entered the Spearpoint camp. The road took him through an inner perimeter fence, guarded by another armed soldier, and into a forested area. Thirty metres beyond the treeline was a clearing of a couple of acres. It housed a complex of low concrete buildings with a large white comms satellite dish on the roof. The headlamps of the vehicle illuminated the rain-stained walls. Danny had the sense that, although the satellite dish looked modern, the building was at least pre-war. There were no windows and just one door, which looked like a much more recent addition: metal, sturdy and very secure.

  There were several vehicles parked in a line. Danny parked up alongside them and approached the door, aware of a camera covering the access. The door buzzed as he approached. He opened it and stepped inside.

  Danny found himself in a small, brightly lit room. A soldier behind a desk stood up as he entered. He had a blond beard that attempted – not successfully – to mask a disfigurement of the right-hand side of his face. A burn, maybe. At the far side of the room was a secure metal door with an access keypad. To his left, two unsecured wooden doors. One of them had a sign: ‘Mike Holroyd, Special Investigation Branch’. The other was unmarked. A briefing room, Danny guessed.

  There were no pleasantries with the scar-faced desk jockey. ‘I’ll need an iris scan and a fingerprint please,’ he said to Danny, indicating a small camera on a tripod next to him. Danny nodded, stepped up to the camera and allowed the soldier to scan his eye, before pressing his thumb on to a touch-screen sensor. There was a short pause as the soldier checked his laptop. ‘You’re Spearpoint cleared,’ he said. ‘I’ll let them know you’re here.’

  The disfigured soldier tapped at his keyboard. Danny loitered for thirty seconds. A man entered the reception area from the room with the marked door. He wore a suit and tie. Danny instantly noticed a silver badge in the shape of a fish on his lapel. He was carrying a bit of weight and had something of a swagger. Straight black hair, thinning. Clean shaven. Maybe thirty years old. He had the unmistakable air of a policeman. Nosy, Hammond had said. Cripples him that he doesn’t have sufficient vetting to get through the door into the main ops room . . .

  He looked Danny up and down, then noticed that Danny was looking at the fish on his lapel. ‘The sign of the fish,’ he said. He had a very pronounced Ulster accent and there was a definite smugness in his voice. When Danny didn’t reply, he seemed to feel the need to elaborate. ‘Once a secret Christian symbol. Are you—?’

  Danny gave him a ‘you must be joking’ look.

  ‘Well,’ the man said. ‘We have no need for secrecy these days, do we?’ A smile spread toadlike over his face as he realised this line of conversation wasn’t going to get anything out of Danny. ‘I’m Mike Holroyd,’ he announced. ‘Special Investigation Branch. You are?’

  Danny didn’t reply. He just looked back towards the secure door.

  ‘Your name is?’ Holroyd persisted.

  ‘My own business,’ Danny replied.

  Another toadlike smile. ‘Who is this, please?’ he asked the soldier at reception.

  The soldier looked flustered. ‘Danny Black, sir,’ he muttered. ‘From Hereford. He’s Spearpoint cleared.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Holroyd stepped round so that he was facing Danny again. He sniffed dramatically. ‘You’ve been drinking,’ he said.

  Danny stared at him.

  ‘I said, you’ve been drinking.’

  ‘My hearing’s pretty good.’

  ‘Listen to me, soldier, you might be in the SAS, you might think that puts you above the law, but you’re clearly over the limit, and we are none of us—’

  The secure door opened, interrupting Holroyd. Hammond appeared. The rings around his eyes seemed to darken on the spot as he saw Danny talking to Holroyd. Holroyd turned to him. ‘If this is one of yours, Ray . . .’

  ‘Thanks, Mike,’ Hammond cut him short. ‘I’ll take it from here.’ He glanced into Holroyd’s office. ‘Songs of Praise not on, Mike?’ he said lightly.

  Holroyd’s face visibly flushed. Hammond turned and walked back through the secure doorway. Danny winked at Holroyd. ‘Work to do, buddy,’ he said. He followed his boss, closing the door on the RMP man who was fuming in the reception area, unable to follow where he had no clearance.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Hammond said. ‘Puritanical twat’s just there to tick boxes for the lawyers. Spearpoint know how to keep him quiet.’ They walked along a corridor, past a couple of doors on the right. ‘Signals,’ Hammond said, pointing at them, ‘plugged into the network in Afghanistan.’ He indicated another door at the end of the corridor. ‘This is the ops room,’ he said.

  It looked like a bomb shelter. Thick concrete walls. No windows. There were ten men here, and a huge array of wall-hung screens, laptops and comms equipment. The screens showed maps of Afghanistan, layouts of military bases and towns, satellite imagery and live footage through a NV lens of a cluster of boxy buildings, from what Danny assumed was a drone hovering above. Most of the men wore camo and headsets. Hammond indicated the room with a sweep of his arm. ‘This is where we run Spearpoint. Completely separate from Hereford, and we provide all operational support—’

  ‘This our new boy?’ A man in civvies had stood up from his desk and was approaching. He was in his sixties, with floppy blond hair that was only now showing signs of grey. Hammond’s previous comparison to Boris Johnson was well placed. He walked with a stick that helped him with a pronounced limp and blew his floppy hair off his forehead in an affected manner as he approached him.

  ‘This is Danny Black,’ Hammond said. ‘Our kill team replacement.’