"Dammit, you'll tip him off, tell him we know where he is! He'll jump ship before you're even close—"

A rifle bullet snapped past Stirling's ear, striking sparks along the brick wall. He ran faster, trying to gain the corner, and cursed the interference of bloody, stupid coppers and their fixation on taking the guns and capturing the shooters, rather than stopping the immediate threat. The rest of the unit finally opened up with a withering hail of fire, clearly having won the argument with the balance of the coppers. The heavy barrage drove the sniper back, giving them a clear chance to cross the street. Stirling speeded up, racing across the open road for cover on the far side. Fierce heat from a blazing tenement blasted down an alleyway, then they were past and running for the corner. Behind them, a steady rattle of semiautomatic fire chattered, most of it coming from Stirling's pinned-down squad, with periodic shots from high overhead, where the IRA gunman held them off.

He skinned over a wall in a rollover, never lifting more than his shoulder blades above the top, and dropped into a dingy yard where a couple of cats huddled under a scraggly bush. Murdoch was over in a flash, darting ahead to kick out a window. The coppers came over the wall awkwardly, heading automatically toward the rear door.

"Get down, you bloody fools!" Stirling snapped. "Never use the doors, they expect that!"

Murdoch was already inside, through the broken window. Stirling followed, motioning the constables back when they tried to follow too closely. Stirling and Murdoch eased across the room, weapons held at low-ready position, butt-stocks tucked into their shoulders, muzzles pointed toward the floor. Easing round a corner with a rifle at low ready, a bloke didn't advertise his presence, whereas carrying it the way chaps did over in America, snout up, the first thing round a corner was the muzzle. Jolly bad form and a good way to die, trying that in Belfast.