‘What do you want?’ And I realise immediately that I have said this with an English accent. I look across at Francisco, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. So I turn back to the window and listen to Barnes for a while, and when he’s finished I take a deep breath, hoping desperately and not caring at all, both at the same time.

‘When?’ I say.

Barnes chuckles. I laugh too, in no particular accent. ‘Fifty minutes,’ he says, and hangs up.

When I turn back from the window, Francisco is watching me. His eyelashes seem longer than ever.

Sarah is waiting for me.

‘They’re bringing us breakfast,’ I say, bending my Minnesotan vowels this time.

Francisco nods.

The sun is going to be clambering up soon, gradually heaving itself over the window sill. I leave the hostages, and Beamon, and Francisco, dozing in front of CNN. I walk out of the office and take the lift to the roof.

Three minutes later, forty-seven to go, and things are about as ready as they’re going to be. I take the stairs down to the lobby.

Empty corridor, empty stairwell, empty stomach. The blood in my ears is loud, much louder than the sound of my feet on the carpet. I stop at the second floor landing, and look out into the street.

Decent crowd, for this time of the morning.

I was thinking ahead, that’s why I forgot the present. The present hasn’t happened, isn’t happening, there is only the future. Life and death. Life or death. These, you see, are big things. Much bigger than footsteps. Footsteps are tiny things, compared to oblivion.

I had dropped down half a flight, just turned the corner on to the mezzanine, before I heard them and realised how wrong they were - wrong because they were running footsteps, and nobody should have been running in this building. Not now. Not with forty-six minutes to go.

Benjamin rounded the corner and stopped.

‘What’s up, Benj?’ I said, as coolly as I could. He stared at me for a moment. Breathing hard. ‘The fuck have you been?’ he said.

I frowned.

‘On the roof,’ I said. ‘I was…’

‘ Latifa’son the roof,’ he snapped.

We stared at each other. He was blowing through his mouth, partly from exertion, partly from anger.

‘Well, Benj, I told her to go down to the lobby. There’s going to be breakfast…’

And then, in a rush of angry movement, Benjamin lifted the Steyr to his shoulder and jammed his cheek against the stock, his fists clenching and unclenching around the grips. And the barrel of the weapon had disappeared.

Now, how could that be? I thought to myself. How could the barrel of a Steyr, four hundred and twenty millimetres long, six grooves, right hand twist - how could that just disappear?

Well of course it couldn’t, and it hadn’t. It was just my point of view.

‘You fucking shit bastard,’ says Benjamin. I stand there, staring into a black hole.

Forty-five minutes to go, and this, let’s face it, is about the worst possible time for Benjamin to bring up a subject as big, as broad, as many-headed as Betrayal. I suggest to him, politely I hope, that we might deal with it later; but Benjamin thinks now would be better.

‘You fucking shit bastard,’ is the way he puts it.

Part of the problem is that Benjamin has never trusted me. That’s really the gist of it. Benjamin has had his suspicions right from the start, and he wants me to know about them now, in case I feel like trying to argue with him.

It all began, he tells me, with my military training. Oh really, Benj?

Yes really.

Benjamin had lain awake at night, staring at the roof of his tent, wondering where and how a retarded Minnesotan had learnt to strip an M16, blindfold, in half the time it took everyone else. From there, apparently, he’d gone on to wonder about my accent, and my taste in clothes and music. And how come I put so many miles on the Land Rover when I was only going out for some beer?

This is all trifling stuff, of course, and, until now, Ricky could have batted it back without any trouble.

But the other part of the problem - the bigger part, frankly, right at this moment - is that Benjamin was fooling around with the telephone exchange during my conversation with Barnes.

Forty-one minutes.

‘So what’s it to be, Benj?’ I say.

He presses his cheek harder against the stock, and I think I can see his finger turning white on the trigger.

‘You going to shoot me?’ I say. ‘Now? Going to pull that trigger?’

He licks his lips. He knows what I’m thinking.

He twitches slightly, then pulls his face away from the Steyr, keeping his huge eyes on me.

‘ Latifa,’ he calls over his shoulder. Loud. But not loud enough. He seems to be having trouble with his voice.

‘They hear gunshots, Benj,’ I say, ‘they’re going to think you’ve killed a hostage. They’re going to storm the building. Kill us all.’

The word ‘kill’ hits him, and for an instant I think he might fire.

‘ Latifa,’ he says again. Louder this time, and that has to be it. I can’t let him shout a third time. I start to move, very slowly, towards him. My left hand is as loose as a hand can be.

‘For a lot of guys out there, Benj,’ I say, moving, ‘a gunshot is just what they want to hear right now. You going to give them that?’

He licks his lips again. Once. Twice. Turns his head towards the stairs.

I grab the barrel with my left hand, and push it back into his shoulder. No choice. If I pull the weapon away from him, the trigger’s depressed, and so am I. So I push it back and to the side, and as his face comes further away from the stock I drive the heel of my right hand up under Benjamin’s nose.

He drops like a stone - faster than a stone, as if some massive force is pushing him down to the floor - and for a moment I think I may have killed him. But then his head starts to move from side to side, and I can see the blood bubbling away from his lips.

I ease the Steyr out of his hands and flick down the safety catch, just as Latifa shouts up from the stairwell.

‘Yeah?’

I can hear her feet on the stairs now. Not fast, but not slow. I look down at Benjamin.

That’s democracy, Benj. One man against many.