A wounded inspector crawled across the floor to the booth. Read couldn't see his wound, only the pain scratched on his face and the blood he deposited on the floor.
"Did you get Umluana?" he asked Sergeant Rashid.
"He's in the booth. What's going on?" Rashid's Middle East Oxford seemed more clipped than ever.
"They hit us with two companies of troops a few minutes ago. I think half our men are wounded."
"Can we get out of here?"
"They machine-gunned the controls."
Rashid swore. "You heard him, Read! Get out there and help those men."
He heard the screams of the wounded, the crack of rifles and machine guns, all the terrifying noise of war. But since his eighteenth year he had done everything his superiors told him to do.
He started crawling toward an easy-chair that looked like good cover. A bullet cracked above his head, so close he felt the shock wave. He got up, ran panicky, crouched, and dove behind the chair.
An inspector cracked the valve on a smoke grenade. A white fog spread through the building. They could see anyone who tried to rush them but the besiegers couldn't pick out targets.