He pulled his overcoat tightly around him and realized just how cold his nose was.

He breathed out, attempting to loosen the stress of the day and failing badly.

How could things have gone so badly wrong? He shifted again on the settee and closed his eyes. He needed to sleep; he needed to think clearly tomorrow. It was going to be another long day, and he needed it to go better than the one that was coming to a close.

He sighed, shivered, pulled the coat tighter, and closed his eyes.

And then he heard the smash of glass outside.

He was up off the couch and at the window in a flash. He pulled back the tattered net curtain and looked down to the car.

All looked well; he wiped at the window to clear the mist from his breath and looked up the street both ways as far as he could see.

Nothing.

He looked back down at the car.

Nothing.

Except . . . there . . . a flicker, a flash of orange and then it was gone. He wiped again and adjusted position, shielding the glass with his hands as he tried to improve his view.

There, again, the flicker of orange.

The inside of the car was on fire.

“Eric!” King shouted as he turned from the window and grabbed his own Thompson off the floor next to the couch. “Eric!” he shouted again as he ran down the stairs, two at a time, working the bolt on the machine gun as he went.

As he reached the front door he heard Cook on the landing above him.

“Stay with the girl!” King shouted up the stairs as he pulled open the door.

The car interior hadn’t quite caught; whoever had set it alight hadn’t used enough fuel for the fire. Thick black smoke was rising from the smashed window as King ran toward it. Cook came out of the front door behind him.

“The girl!”

“She’s all right.”

Cook looked up and down the street and then back at the car as a dancing flame licked around the broken window, reaching for oxygen outside the choking car.

“Get some water.”

King struggled to keep his voice low. He dropped the Thompson and started to scoop up snow to throw through the smashed window and onto the burning seat.

Cook ran back into the house. King scooped another armful of snow and pitched it into the car, then tried the door. He fumbled in his pocket for the keys, cursing when he remembered Cook had them.

Another four scoops of snow had gone through the window by the time Cook returned, balancing a metal bowl of water, which he emptied through the window onto the smoldering seat. The flames died and then sprang up again, not quite extinguished.

“The keys, give me the keys.” King held out his hand as Cook dropped the bowl and put his hand in his coat pocket.

Someone opened up with a machine gun from the alleyway across the street.

Cook and King both dropped to the pavement. The firing across the street stopped and silence fell, punctuated only by the occasional pop and crackle from the fire, which was threatening to take hold again.

King grabbed his own weapon out of the snow and looked under the car toward the alley opposite.

It looked dark and empty.

Then he saw movement in the darkness. King fired a quick volley under the car. The muzzle exhaust from his Thompson blocked his view momentarily; he paused to let it clear.

Silence.

King rolled to the side and took up position, belly flat to the ground, partly hidden behind the rear wheel of the car. Cook got up to a crouch and risked a look over the bonnet.

“Who was that? Did you see them?” King called.

The machine gun in the alleyway let loose again. Cook barely ducked his head before the car jumped under the weight of the incoming rounds.

King returned fire with a three-­round burst and then called to Cook.

“Did you see them?”

“It’s not soldiers. I saw one of them, a scruffy bastard.”

“Resistance?”

Cook shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t look like a German, that’s for sure.”

“Where is your gun?” King checked the buildings behind them.

“In the kitchen. I couldn’t carry the bowl and the gun at the same time.”

Everywhere was dark; another alleyway lay behind them on their own side of the street, maybe twenty feet away. King doubted he’d make it, even at a run; he’d be exposed with no covering fire.

“Fuck! Can you get back into the house?”

“If you cover me. On three: one, two, three!” Cook ran for the house as King let go with two short bursts toward the alley.

The gunman in the alleyway ignored him and fired a long tracing arc of bullets after the sprinting Cook, who slipped at the last moment and dived headlong into the open doorway.

The wood around the door splintered, rounds ripping into it as Cook disappeared from view, kicking the door closed behind him.

The firing stopped again.

King could hear the flames, and he knew the car was done for. He looked across the pavement, back toward the flat, watching the door a moment, hoping to get a sign that Cook was okay.

He shifted again in the snow to look at the alley again. Nothing moved. It was impenetrably black. He imagined whoever was in there was changing magazines.

He considered advancing in the lull but decided against it.

He wiped some snow off the barrel and bolt of the machine gun.

Then he heard the shooting behind him.

From the flat where Cook and Anja were.

A short burst, then a shout, then another.

As if on cue the alleyway opposite lit up again, rounds hitting the Opel and causing it to rock. The car lurched as a tire deflated and glass rained down on King, who buried his face in the snow that kicked up and danced around him.

King heard the muffled rattle of a Thompson behind him, in the flat, in addition to what he was now guessing were two Thompsons in the alleyway.

Finally all the shooting stopped.

He was caught in a pincer: he’d messed up basic field craft.