He bundled the weapons and made his way back behind the fence, transfixed on the scene being played out less than fifty meters away. A tsunami of helplessness swamped his resolve. Mathematics doesn’t lie. You’re facing an unknown foe. Who outnumber and outgun you twenty-plus to one. Shit. The proverbial snowflake in hell had better odds.

Ried watched on through the fence, a tactile metaphor for his cage of indecision. He wiped a sweaty palm down his trouser leg and remembered what his grandfather said: “The world loves a brave hero, but only the family mourns a dead one.”