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He presses the button which sends an SMS to Tempero calling for help. The team leader later says the door slammed shut as they approached, although the door is always shut. Even if it were open, and Dotcom was peering through a gap, he would have seen armed men charging up the stairs carrying weapons of a sort he was most familiar with from computer games.

The armed officers meet the closed door and force it open. Downstairs, similar equipment is being used to smash a way through the service entrance, past the indoor lap pool and up the rear stairway to Dotcom's room. A third entrance is also forced open — the heavy glass door shattered as another team charges upstairs.

Officers enter heavily pregnant Mona's room and she is given space to get out of bed and make her way down the stairs. Her fears, naturally, turn to the children where they are waking to a terrifying day. They sleep across the courtyard in The Cottage — a large barn used as their quarters. It's a pastel-and-wood youngster's paradise with bean bags, games and toys and a large bedroom where the children sleep together. The children are still sleeping and the nannies, also asleep, are still in their rooms when the raid happens. Their unlocked doors are smashed open, door jambs splintering with the force of entry. The officers, they report later, are screaming: “Where are the bombs? Where are the guns?”

The nannies cry and shake in fear, gather the children close, before being herded out into the early morning.

6.50AM

Dotcom by now has disappeared. He had been drilled time and again by Tempero: if trouble comes, then seek cover. There is nothing you can do, Tempero told him. Dotcom knows by now it is an attack of some sort and begins to follow the precise plan drilled into him by Tempero.

Forget Mona, Tempero had said. It was his job to protect her. “Go to the safe room and do not come out until I come for you.” Confused, terrified and not built for moving quickly, Dotcom hurries across the master bedroom area, around the corner and through a secret door hidden inside a linen cupboard. By now, he can hear the shouting behind him and knows it is the police who have just smashed their way into his bedroom. He expects to be found but doesn't want the police to over-react so decides to wait somewhere he knows they will find him eventually. He shuts the secret door behind him, passes but does not hit a deadbolt button which would have secured the room completely, and heads upstairs to wait in the panic room. Eventually, he believes, when everything is sorted out, Tempero will find him.

Ortmann, by now, is waking, hearing loud voices outside. He had

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