trying to crawl away.
Shot him in the head.
The second pair, forty metres to their right.
Levelling their weapons at four people.
Four of the Brits from earlier, Carr realised.
Not far from where he and Alice had been sitting.
But none of them was Alice.
And now, with a three-round burst into the chest, one of them killed the only male of the group.
The other grabbed the middle girl – the tall blonde in the shocking pink bikini – by the scruff of her neck, and started half-dragging, half-pulling her off the beach.
His mate got behind the other women and pushed them after him.
Shouting, Yallah imshi! Yallah imshi!
Hurry the fuck up!
Carr looked at George. ‘Can you see Alice and Chloe?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Please God,’ breathed Carr.
He was not a religious man, and he didn’t see the inside of a church from one funeral to the next, but plenty of men find time to say a quick prayer when the rounds start flying.
Every man says a prayer when they’re flying around his baby girl.
‘What do we do?’ said George.
Carr thought for a second or two.
His lengthy secondment to the Det in Northern Ireland had left him an outstanding pistol shot, that being the primary weapon of the surveillance operator, but if he engaged the further pair to his right at this range… The best shot in the world would be just as likely to kill the three women.
Whereas the closer pair, to the left, were actually edging his way.
Plus which, they were focused on the streets, not on what was behind them.
No-brainer.
‘Those two first,’ he said. ‘Then we get after the others.’ He turned to his son, and winked. ‘Hold your fire until they get as close as possible, and if it all goes to shit I’ll see you in Valhalla.’
‘Bollocks to that,’ said George. ‘One of these days it’s got to be your round, and I’m not missing that for anything.’
THE TWO MEN were within fifteen metres when they began to turn around.
‘Now,’ said John Carr.
Both Carrs stood up and levelled their weapons.
The terrorists stopped in the sand, mouths open, startled eyes, and started to raise their AKs.
They never stood a chance.
Cumulatively, John Carr had spent months of his life double-tapping targets in various ranges and shooting galleries in Hereford and elsewhere around the world, and he’d done it for real enough times, too.
At the peak of his skills, he’d have got off four aimed shots in under a second, easy.
He was a little rusty, so it took him just over a second – though they were still fired so quickly that it was hard to distinguish between each round.
Tap-tap.
Tap-tap.
The Grim Reaper reached out from the muzzle of Carr’s pistol and took both of the jihadis away to hell, a fifth shot – from George – extinguishing the last vestiges of movement in the twitching fingers of one of them.
Carr looked at his son, eyebrows raised.
George looked back at him, sheepishly. ‘Fucked if I’m going back to Battalion and telling them bastards that you did all the shooting,’ he said.
‘I’ll give you that one,’ said Carr. ‘Now grab that AK, and let’s get going.’
He reached down and pulled the Krinkov from the nearest dead man’s grasp, turning at the same moment to engage the remaining shooters.
But they were now out of sight at the bottom end of the beach.
George Carr had picked up the other carbine, and frisked his guy for spare magazines, and now he hopped onto the low wall and looked in the direction of the marina.
‘No sign,’ he said, and hopped off onto the Calle Ribera on the other side.
He started walking down the line of the wall towards the sea, AK at the ready.
John Carr followed him, keeping good spacing, turning often to cover their rear, finger over the trigger, the weapon in synch with his eyes.
Ready to engage instantly.
‘Anything?’ he said, after fifteen metres.
‘No.’
And then they heard the sound of powerful marine engines – twin 7,400hp Codag gas turbines, to be precise – and a white yacht powered out of the marina.
Both men watched the boat go.
It was really shifting.
Carr raised his AK, but it was already out into the open sea and heading due south.
‘WAS THAT THEM?’ said Carr.
‘Fuck knows,’ said George.
They continued down the line of the wall until Calle Ribera turned right and they were into the marina.
‘Go firm,’ said Carr.
They both took a knee and listened and looked, covering their arcs as they did so.
Nothing.
At least, nothing but the sound of shouting and groaning from the beach behind them, and a distant wail of sirens.
Carr looked at his watch.
Three minutes since they’d clicked off the pistol safeties.
‘Must have been them,’ said Carr. ‘Let’s find your sister and Chloe.’
He jogged in the direction of the patch of sand that Alice had been occupying.
Jogged past the corpses of young children, elderly people, girls in bikinis, young men in dayglo shorts.
Past a man on his back staring sightlessly at the sky, a John Grisham novel still in his hand, the yellow sand dark with red blood.
Another slumped over a cool box, shot in the act of getting himself another beer.
‘Fucking hell,’ he whispered to himself.
He reached the spot.
Their towels were there, but there was no sign of either of the girls.
A wave of something like panic swept over him – a fear he didn’t recognise, because he’d never experienced it before.
And then a police vehicle drove onto the beach, and Carr thought he’d better drop the AK and put his hands up.
‘George,’ he shouted, over his shoulder. ‘Game over, son. Let them see you’re unarmed.’
IT HAD BEEN a quiet day at the Vauxhall HQ of the Secret Intelligence Service.
Although the threat level across Europe had been high for some years now, there was nothing to suggest any imminent attack, and the duty officer on the Spain desk