‘I’ll be a lot better off out of here,’ Caitlin assured her companions.

Apart from Monique, who remained suspicious after discovering Caitlin’s hidden gift for her native tongue, the secret squirrels weren’t doing much better than any of the ranting, unbalanced Frenchies around them. Maggie, after picking herself up off the floor, was blabbering on about needing to phone her sister in Connecticut. And Aunty Celia had settled on a never-ending string of curses and oaths as her favoured response. They’d all made perfunctory efforts to get her to stay in the hospital, to argue with Colbert that she was too ill to move, but Caitlin could tell that each was spinning off into her own little world of free-floating and violently unstable anxiety. The whole city was probably going to be like this. The whole fucking world.

For her part, she didn’t know what to think about the news out of the States. It was bordering on psychotic. But she did know that even if this all turned out to be some post-millennial War of the Worlds shakedown, if she’d been cut off from Echelon, she was travelling blind and unarmed in a world of predators. She had to run to ground as soon as possible, re-establish contact with Wales, her controller, and get some updated instructions. Christ only knew what had gone down while she’d been out of it. Plus, of course, Monique was eyeing her off with increasing suspicion.

A single television, suspended from the ceiling in the main waiting room, had drawn a huge pool of onlookers, all muttering and gasping at every new revelation from the French-language news service. Caitlin ignored it. She was having trouble negotiating her release with the large, distracted black woman on the front desk. Like everyone else, the woman seemed incapable of dragging her attention away from the TV for more than a few seconds. Monique tugged at her elbow, saying ‘Cathy, je veux te parler,’ while Maggie, having spied a bank of payphones, exclaimed, ‘All righty then!’

The American took off past Caitlin and Monique – and her head suddenly burst open. Ropey strands of blood, bone chips and gobbets of brain tissue splattered everybody within two metres.

As Maggie’s oversized, badly dressed and utterly lifeless frame began to drop to the floor, Caitlin was already in midair, having launched herself without thought towards the nearest cover. She sailed over the counter, crashing bodily into the nurse with whom she’d been making so little headway. A cheap pink radio exploded on top of a filing cabinet. The screams began as the hundred or more people crammed into the foyer finally realised that somebody was shooting into their midst, but Caitlin was already on the move, belly-crawling towards an open door that she hoped would give onto another exit point.

‘Wait!’

She felt a hand on her ankle and lashed back with a heel strike, only checking the move as she recognised the voice. Monique. The blow still caught the French girl heavily on one cheek and she cried out in pain. Caitlin swore and reached back behind her, grabbing Monique by her collar and roughly dragging her up into a crouching run. She slipped once, losing her footing and painfully twisting one knee. ‘Move!’ Caitlin yelled. ‘If you want to live, move your ass!’

Behind them a riot had seemingly erupted. She heard two muffled shots and the crash of breaking glass, barely masked by the uproar of the terrorised crowd. A frightened nurse stood in their way, her eyes wide and staring. Caitlin elbowed her aside and made for a doorway behind her.

‘What is happening?’ cried Monique before Caitlin cut her off.

‘Shut up and run!’

Crashing out into the corridor, they ran headlong into a couple of security guards, one fat and wheezing, the other looking like he might have started his career as a public security professional back in the days of the Maginot Line. ‘That way,’ shouted Caitlin, throwing a glance back over her shoulder, where she caught the briefest glimpse of pandemonium in the hospital foyer.

Snaking around the guards, she sped up again, turning left and right, slamming through a series of swinging rubber doors without regard for who or what she might find on the other side. She’d let go of Monique and didn’t much care whether the Frenchwoman was keeping up or not, as she blew through yet another set of swinging doors, crashing into an orderly and the trolley he’d been pushing. It tipped over and fell to the tiles with a great metallic clattering of medical instruments and stainless-steel bowls. Never stopping, Caitlin swooped down on a foil package, slipping it into her sleeve as she hurried on.

‘Wait, Cathy, wait…’

Monique was still with her.

They’d found the treatment area of the hospital’s emergency ward, and even by the usually chaotic standards of an ER unit, their entrance drew attention. With no televisions in this ward and most everyone distracted by whatever injuries or raging illnesses had gained them access to the overstretched facility, the sudden noisy appearance of two women, covered in gore and moving at great speed with no apparent regard for their own safety or anybody else’s, caused heads to turn and all conversation to cease.

Monique was obviously about to start demanding answers and looked like she might just put down roots on the spot where she’d slid to a halt. A formidable grey-haired woman in a matron’s uniform started moving towards them with her head down and eyes glaring murderously. She put Caitlin in mind of a big blue bulldozer.

‘What the hell are you doing, Cathy?’ asked Monique. ‘What is going on?’

Before Caitlin could answer, or even just spin around and keep running, the same heavy rubber doors swung inwards and two men, both armed, muscled through. They were dressed in suits, one of them badly blood-stained, and their eyes swept the room, quickly settling on their quarry. Caitlin knew there was no chance of running.

Two bullets took the formidable-looking matron in the chest, throwing her through the air and rendering her a whole lot less formidable as her body crashed into a bed and dropped to the floor, twitching and pulsing extravagant amounts of blood onto the yellowing tiles. Monique screamed and ducked, covering her ears with both hands. Her cries were lost in the bedlam of the emergency room as patients and medical staff flew into a panic. Having no cover and no safe exit, Caitlin took the only option left. She attacked.

One of her assailants had been caught out with a nearly empty magazine, leaving his partner as the primary threat. She grabbed the only ranged weapon to hand – a couple of stainless-steel bowls – and launched them with great force like bright metal frisbees directly at his head. He had no choice but to duck and weave, firing anyway, the bullets heading down-range unaimed, uncontrolled. One splattered an IV bag. Another struck a patient in the arm. Taking the foil pack from inside the sleeve at her wrist as she charged, Caitlin stripped the silver wrapping away from a disposable scalpel and, focusing her kiai, her war shout, into the very centre of her target, she closed the short distance between them as quickly as she could.