State Of Honour. Gary Haynes

the scent of the secretary via an article of clothing taken from her bedroom at the embassy. The GPS had pinpointed the building, but the signal had faded en route, so it was impossible to tell her exact position in the many dark corridors and small rooms that constituted the fort proper. The corridors were on three levels and narrow, no more than two-metres high, creating a claustrophobic effect. The walls were uneven, the floors pitted and strewn with small rocks.

      After five minutes or so, the dog, salivating now and snorting, moved down a slope below ground level. It stopped at a reinforced metal door at the end of a pitch-black corridor peppered with rat droppings. The air here smelled of something akin to rotting vegetables. An operator carrying an M4 Super 90 shotgun moved up before banging on the door and calling out. There was no answer. Tom clenched his jaw muscles, feeling anxious. Crane stepped forward and ordered the door blown open.

      “We can’t risk it,” Tom said, intervening.

      He knew that if the door opened inward, the secretary could be killed as it careered into her.

      “Blow it down, son,” Crane insisted.

      Ignoring Crane, the Delta spoke into his cheek mic. “A metal door, sir. Lyric could be beyond it. No question of knocking out the hinges with Hatton rounds. It’ll need an explosive breach.” After getting an order from Sawyer, he said, “Copy that.”

      The rear operator came forward and placed a strip of adhesive breaching explosives over the lock, which would rip it apart. He primed it with two blasting caps, so that if one malfunctioned there’d be less chance of failure, and reeled out the connecting wires. Tom and the others retreated a way back down the dim corridor. As blast shields were held up in front of them they lowered their heads. Tom just hoped the door would blow back outwards.

      “Fire in the hole,” the Delta shouted.

      After a two-second delay, the explosion was ferocious, making the shields almost buckle, the shock wave exaggerated by the confined space. An operator ran forward, with bolt cutters strapped to his back. He leapt over the blown-down door, his red-dot laser scanning the room. He flipped up his night-vision goggles, activated his helmet flashlight and double checked for any sign of the secretary, a booby trap or Leopard.

      “Clear,” he shouted.