A single sharp gunshot and a woman’s scream. I was up, around the corner and down the front of the building. Leap over the bodies, sprint. A plate glass window, spider-webbed from the bullet that had passed through it, was speckled with arterial blood. I saw one of the big guys writhing on the floor clutching at the bloody ruin of his throat.

I jumped through the window, sent shattered glass flying. I was into the other gunman before he knew to start saying his final prayers. A chop to the wrist knocked his gun away, a grab and a twist as I moved around him and I felt the satisfying snap of the bones in his arm before I introduced my knife to his eye and he fell to the floor.

People were screaming, now, hectic, diving out of the building. I could almost feel the sniper’s eye on me, a blazing point of deadly concentration.

The guy with the bag was just a few meters away. He had his pistol, a mean little chrome number. Our eyes met with flash of recognition. He knew. He raised the gun and shot me.