He swore softly to himself as he listened to the fire popping in the car again.

He made up his mind.

He was running before either gunman in the alleyway had the chance to change their magazines. Away, away, as fast as he could run, a tactical retreat to buy him time to regroup and think. He dived into the alleyway on his side of the road, crashing into an old metal bin, tumbling with it and its contents into the protective darkness, hitting his head on the ground.

The Thompsons opened up again behind him.

He rolled onto his back and aimed his own Thompson down his body.

His head pounded.

He waited.

Not for long.

He hit the first man to appear at the end of the alley in the hip and across the stomach, two short rattles of fire as the Thompson kicked in his hand. He heard the man cry out. He didn’t bother to fire again as the man thrashed and dragged himself to cover. King knew he had only a few rounds left in his weapon; he didn’t want to have to resort to his pistol unless he had to.

He got to his feet and made his way backward down the alleyway, taking small, silent steps, keeping the machine gun pointed at the street. The other Thompson peeked around the corner of the building, letting rip with a high and wide salvo.

King cried out, even though he wasn’t hit. He dropped to his knee and waited for the head he knew would follow when the shooting stopped.

It did.

He fired, low and to the left, feeling the Thompson lift and pull to the right as he squeezed the trigger. He saw the dust of the bricks as the rounds hit home. Whomever the head belonged to cried out and withdrew back behind the wall.

King guessed a stone chip had got the man, painfully enough to make him think twice.

King was on the front foot now, in charge of the fight. He advanced slowly toward the street, toward his attackers. Holding the machine gun with one hand, he opened his coat and pulled open the holster on his belt so that he could use his sidearm quickly if required.

He stopped short, some ten feet from the corner, leaning to the right slightly, and saw the legs of someone lying on his back in the snow.

He took a step to the right and then another, trying to get a better view of the man who was lying still. King was almost at the end of the alleyway by the time he was certain the man on the ground was alone.

The fire in the Opel had turned into a full-­on inferno, as thick black smoke billowed from the orange flames inside. He craned his neck to see over the roof of the Opel into the alleyway opposite, but the smoke was too thick.

He pointed the Thompson at the man on the ground.

“Where did he go?”

“Gone,” the man replied, his breath short, a bubble of blood on his lips. He was bleeding heavily. Around him the snow was staining red, and his breath was coming in short watery gasps.

He was as good as dead. King stepped over the man toward the bullet-­splintered front door a few feet away and half pushed it open, keeping his head close to the frame for cover.

“Eric!” he called up the stairs, looking back at the car and then down at the dying man, who now had his eyes closed, his breathing quieter.

“Eric?” he tried again, this time looking up into the darkness of the flat.

“She has my gun!” Cook shouted back, his voice high, panicked.

King dropped to a knee and leaned back from the door; he risked another glance up into the darkness.

“Are you okay?” he called. He was nervous. If the resistance knew they were here and that there were only two of them, they’d be back.

He needed to get moving quickly.

“I’m in the front. She has me pinned down, Frank. I can’t move,” Cook called again, and King considered leaving him. He figured he could probably make it to a main road and flag down a car with his machine gun.

It would be the end of the operation, he’d have questions to answer, but he’d be alive. Maybe Cook and the girl would be killed by the resistance and the whole thing would blow over.

Who was he kidding?

He wasn’t the sort of guy to abandon Cook. He’d gotten the kid into this, and he’d do his best to get him out.

Besides, this wasn’t going to blow over.

He’d never get out of the country to tell his tale. Dulles would see to that, just to cover his own back. If he had any chance it rested on either success or no loose ends.

And he had none of one, and a lot of the other.

The man on the ground groaned and gurgled, and King looked down at him as he breathed his last. King felt something trickle down his own face. He dabbed the top of his scalp with his fingers and saw it was blood. As if to confirm his injury, his head started to ache again.

“Where is she?” he called up to Cook.

“The back bedroom!” Cook shouted back.

King stepped into the building and, keeping low, advanced halfway up the stairs. He could see the flicker of the candle in the bedroom.