I winced and clamped a hand to the wound. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Standard procedure to keep a man behind to pick off the loose pieces the bomb hadn’t dealt with, and to take pleasure in their explosive handiwork.

‘Keep down, Carter!’ shouted my CO from somewhere behind the ruined jeep. ‘The shooter’s in the building behind that Volvo,’ he added somewhat unnecessarily. I held my hand to my wounded arm – I already had that particular intel. I snapped open the holster on my belt and drew out my service revolver.

‘Just stay where you are,’ Richard Smith called out again. ‘He’s got you in his sights.’

‘Sir!’ I shouted back and craned my head up to see over the top of the vehicle.

Another bullet thudded heavily into the metal of the car and I dropped down to the ground again. Captain Smith fired a shot back at the sniper – he was in a covered position in a burnt-out shell of a house.

Always listen to your commanding officer – don’t think about it, just do what he says. Pretty much summed up what they’d drummed into us at boot camp before I’d specialised with the RMP. Stay where you are, he’d said. Certainly seemed like good advice just then.

Until Sergeant Anne Jones moved her head.

Chapter 9

I rolled onto my side again and hoisted myself up.

Stretching out my good arm, I pushed the revolver over the top of the wrecked Volvo and fired a shot in the general direction of the insurgent sniper.

For God’s sake, didn’t these people know the war was over?

An immediate hail of bullets rocked the Volvo. I was glad that whoever it was that had me locked in his sights wasn’t carrying a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher.

‘What in the name of holy Christ are you up to, Carter?’ my CO bellowed.

‘Anne, sir,’ I replied. ‘I saw her move.’

‘Shit!’