Name Maker (Sam Pope Series Book 9), page 1
NAME MAKER
A SAM POPE NOVEL
ROBERT ENRIGHT
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
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Copyright © Robert Enright, 2022
In memory of Liam Seager,
CHAPTER ONE
As always, the gun felt comfortable in his hand.
Sam Pope crouched beside the parked lorry, shielded from the few streetlights that were still working, as well as the full moon, which illuminated the night sky with a beautiful glow. The cool spring evening had only just dipped into darkness, and a gentle breeze coasted across the street, tickling his muscular forearm as he held the weapon.
After nearly two decades as one of the UK’s most dangerous ever snipers, and a few years as the country’s most wanted vigilante, the Glock 17 that he held in his grip felt as much a part of him as the hand that clasped it tightly. It had been a long road to this moment, one which Sam had never expected to travel again, especially after walking away from his war against crime under the false pretence of his death. Despite his staged demise, helped by a notorious Motorcycle Gang in South Carolina, The Death Riders, nearly two years ago, Sam had found his way back once again. When he had first taken a stand against the criminal underworld, it was an outlet for him. A way to deal with the devastating death of his son, Jamie, who had been killed nearly six years ago by an errant drunk driver who had escaped the full penalty of the law. From that moment on, with the remaining fragments of his heart still beating, Sam had channelled his deadly skills into bringing justice to those outside the law, for those who couldn’t fight back.
Jamie’s death had ripped a hole through Sam’s life, costing him his marriage to Lucy and shutting him off from the world. While she had managed to move on and find happiness in a new marriage, Sam had never been able to forgive himself for failing to protect his son.
For failing to do what a father should do.
In the years since, some of the most dangerous and powerful criminals the UK had ever seen had fallen by his trigger finger.
Frank Jackson.
Andrei Kovalenko.
Harry Chapman.
General Ervin Wallace.
And most recently, Slaven Kovac, a brutal ex-mercenary who had staked a claim to the throne that Sam had left vacant when he slit Harry Chapman’s throat. But that wasn’t the reason Sam had returned to the fight.
It had been personal.
A good friend of his, Sean Wiseman, a man who Sam had pulled out of the criminal lifestyle and thrust into the mentorship of Adrian Pearce, found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Beaten to near death in a vile act of intimidation, Wiseman had done nothing but fall in love with a reporter who was on the cusp of the dangerous breakthrough.
A story that people were willing to shed blood over.
Sam just made sure the rest of the blood that was shed was their own.
Since then, with the rumours of his return escalating within the press and multiple police forces, Sam had all but confirmed them when he took down Slaven Kovac’s gun and drug operation by destroying one of his shipments before gunning down him and his entire crew in Kovac’s remote cabin in the Suffolk woodland. An undercover police officer, Jack Townsend, received the plaudits and was hailed a hero. Townsend was a good man and had saved Sam’s life by hauling him out of the blazing building Sam had burnt to the ground.
Kovac’s entire operation was nothing but ash, and despite Townsend doing his best to deflect away any notion that Sam Pope was involved, the police and media soon started to piece it together. After Sam’s vengeance for Wiseman’s attack, the police found the slaughtered body of Daniel Bowker and his crew, jumpstarting the idea that Sam Pope was alive and well. A few weeks later, Kovac and his entire operation were put in the ground, cementing their theory.
Sam Pope was back.
The Metropolitan Police had already released a statement claiming they were to coordinate a nationwide operation to bring him to justice, and that the sins of the men that Sam killed didn’t wash away his own. The press had jumped all over it like a breaking celebrity scandal, each one throwing their own spin on what Sam Pope truly stood for.
To some, he was a murderous psychopath who needed to be stopped.
To others, mirroring the take of the sadly deceased Helal Miah, Sam was the hero the country needed.
Either or, as Sam crouched against the side of the lorry, he knew that now he had returned to the fight, there was no way back off the road he had chosen. His one and only chance to walk away and disappear had been thrown away, and now he knew that eventually, despite everything he did to stay a step ahead, there were only two ways his journey ended.
Prison.
Or death.
There would be no riding off into the sunset, and as a soldier who had faced the barrel of many a gun, he didn’t fear death. There would come the time where he would see his life flash before his eyes, and he would cling tightly to the images of his son and hope that Jamie was there to welcome him on the other side. But until that moment came, Sam knew he had to keep fighting.
To fight back.
That was what had brought him to the abandoned industrial estate just outside of Draycott in Derbyshire. Less than ten miles out of the city centre, the industrial park had once housed a number of major UK businesses, providing a perfect central location for their manufacturing needs. But over time, as businesses cut costs and sought cheaper alternatives overseas, the large factories soon found themselves emptied and abandoned. Although not an impoverished area of the country, as had happened with numerous factory towns, hard times had fallen across the majority of the midlands, meaning there were countless vacant buildings such as the one Sam found himself watching.
Hard times also meant opportunities, many of which were snapped up by ambitious criminals, looking to prey on the desperate or the terrified.
Hard times also meant desperation, which saw many good, law-abiding citizens turn to drugs or worse, a life of crime, just to get through.
Headlights illuminated the street and Sam shuffled back into the shadow afforded to him by the van, and he watched as a grey minivan approached the abandoned factory on the other side of the street. As if by clockwork, as the van swung round to reverse, the shutter that adorned the factory wall began to rise, welcoming the vehicle into its dark mouth. Within a matter of seconds, the van had been expertly guided into the darkness, and the shutter slammed shut.
That was Sam’s signal to move.
Keeping low to the ground, Sam swept the street with his expert eye and tucked his Glock into the waistband of his jeans before scurrying across the empty road, through the chain-link gate and pressed himself against the factory wall. With his ear close to the shutter, he listened to the commotion within.
Two doors slammed shut, indicating two people getting out of the van. Two voices could be heard, swiftly followed by another.
A minimum of three men.
Minimum.
Sam had already scoped the site before, watching the operation unfold from a different vantage point, just so he could mentally document the process. The last two times he’d taken on criminal outfits, he had gone in blind, which had proven a near fatal mistake on both occasions. Bowker’s men had cornered him in an abandoned factory, only for Sam to just about survive. Without the help of Jack Townsend, Sam would have been incinerated alive in a burning mansion.
A Sam Pope that went in unprepared was dangerous.
A Sam Pope that had done his homework was deadly.
Once a week, Sam had watched as the grey minivan entered the factory before exiting less than thirty minutes later. Having followed the van before, Sam had ascertained that it belonged to Hakan Sanli, a Turkish drug-dealer who had stepped up to run the drug imports formerly under the control of one of Slaven Kovac’s men. Transporting drugs from the Port of Felixstowe, Sanli and his henchman had carved out a nice payday from the embers of Kovac’s broken empire. Driving them one hundred and seventy miles across the country, Sanli would then drop them to his benefactor, George Murphy, who had become a prominent drug dealer in the Derbyshire area. Despite his illegal operation, Murphy wasn’t a hard man to track down, and Sam had spent a few days following the criminal as he flashed his ill-gotten wealth in bars and casinos, all while under the watchful eye of his bodyguard, Terence. Murphy was dangerous, and Sam had the testimony of a number of local businesses about the man’s violent temper and more worryingly, his undeserved s
Terence, however, was a mystery to Sam.
But judging from the man’s size, his flattened knuckles and permanently crooked nose, Sam could at least logically estimate that the man enjoyed a scrap or two.
Murphy’s distinctive Irish accent echoed behind the shutter, and Sam pushed away from the wall and followed the building round to the far side. Earlier that evening, before the incumbents had arrived, Sam had driven his elbow through the glass pane of the emergency exit, meaning gaining entry to the building was simple. As quietly as he could manage, Sam slid his arm into the opening, thankful for the protection of his leather jacket, and he slowly pressed down on the release bar that ran the length of the door.
The secure lock flicked open with a gentle clang, quiet enough to be absorbed by Murphy’s ego, and Sam entered the abandoned factory and pulled the door gently behind him. The emergency corridor was pitch-black, with only the far end illuminated by the dim lighting of the main factory floor, which Sam used to guide himself forward. With each careful step, Murphy’s voice boomed louder, the man making thinly veiled threats to his Turkish business partners, all while maintaining they were going to be rich men.
With the economy taking one of its most severe hits in decades, unemployment and poverty had washed over so much of the country that people had become easy targets. As desperation kicked in, those affected looked for any escape, and by undercutting the drug market, along with cutting the cocaine with laundry detergent didn’t just mean they could sell more, it also meant they could sell cheaper than any other rival drug dealers in the area. It had pulled in a number of “employees”, all of whom had begged Murphy for a slice of the action. With an ego in constant need of satisfying, Murphy had been more than happy to expand his product’s reach, which was now the most notable strain of cocaine in the entire county.
But it was also the deadliest.
By cutting the already potent and dangerous drug with detergent it had caused an increase in overdoses within his customer base. Sam knew, from the time he spent working inside the Met over three years ago, that a drug overdose didn’t register highly on the police’s list of priorities. Ironically, his own fight against such criminals had pulled the police’s attention away from them.
To the police, men like Sam were more of a danger to the public than those who preyed on them.
There was no way of knowing how many deaths Murphy was responsible for, but Sam knew, without intervention, there would be countless more.
As he took considered steps towards the doorway to the factory floor, Murphy’s booming laugh echoed through the building, with the wild claims that he ran things now. Moments later, a gunshot rang out, followed by the unmistakable sound of a dead body hitting the ground.
Sanli yelled something angrily in Turkish, his words laced with venom, before they were instantly shut off by another gunshot.
Sam backed up against the corridor wall, his shoulder in line with the door frame, and ever so slightly, he arched his head around the corner.
Murphy was in the midst of taking a deep breath, the gun loosely hanging by his side. Before him, on the large table, were piles of white blocks, wrapped in clingfilm. Stacks of money and a few guns were also visible. Sam noted the weapons, confident they were loaded, and then looked at the two bodies on the floor. Sanli and his associate were dead, their prone bodies quickly being surrounded by their own blood as it pooled around them. Terence, Murphy’s loyal attack dog, hauled Sanli’s feet up and carelessly dragged his body across the factory floor, leaving a smear of blood behind him like an injured slug.
Two other men were present, both seemingly unmoved by the unceremonious ending of a partnership. To Murphy and his crew, it was a hostile takeover, and as Sam moved back into the corridor, he knew he was responsible for some of the chaos.
He had removed Harry Chapman from the criminal machine, and from the moment he had slit the man’s throat with a box cutter inside a maximum-security prison, he had set off a chain of events that had undoubtedly led to moments like this. Men like Murphy, and before him, Slaven Kovac, who saw an empty throne atop a pile of drugs and money and fancied themselves as the rightful heir.
Murphy had got a taste, and clearly, it had only whetted his appetite.
‘Clean this fuckin’ shite up and then let’s get this movin’.’ Murphy ordered, placing a cigarette between his lips and lighting it. His crew went to work moving Sanli’s associate from the room as he blew a victorious plume of smoke into the air.
Sam took a moment, drawing his shoulders back and cracking his neck slightly. Now into his forties, his body, despite the peak physical condition he kept himself in, had been through the wringer one time too many.
The scars of war adorned his body, and he needed to work out any stiffness from it. It had been nearly a month since he’d taken down Kovac, and since then, he’d tried to lie low.
Tried to finally keep his promise to his son.
A promise not to kill anymore.
He took a breath, patted the Glock that was pressed against the base of his spine and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. Given what had just transpired, he doubted it.
But he would give them a chance at least. He owed it to Jamie to try.
‘Here we go,’ he uttered to himself, and then stepped out of the corridor and into the dim light of the factory.
CHAPTER TWO
George Murphy loved being a criminal.
After years spent working in construction in Dublin, Murphy had eventually found himself unemployed, as the recession hit his home country like the plague. With a rocky marriage that was undercut constantly by his adulterous ways, his wife left him as soon as his employment did. Desperate, he had taken stock of what he could do to get ahead, and with little to no education, he turned to the one thing he knew he could rely on.
His penchant for violence.
Murphy had gained a reputation throughout the bars and pubs in the city as a man who didn’t just know how to handle himself in a fight, but as a man who actively enjoyed it. Growing up with two older brothers and a father who drank, Murphy could take a beating.
He quickly learnt how to dish one out as well.
But it was two months after his wife had left him that Murphy had his awakening. Stepping outside of a local pub for a cigarette, he stumbled straight into an awkward drug deal. As the punter ran away in panic, the dealer, foolishly trying to save face, squared up to Murphy with fake aggression. Reasonably wasted and with months of pent-up fury coursing through his body, Murphy unloaded on the man with reckless abandon. Once the man had stopped moving and the gasps from the onlooking crowd quickly turned to emergency calls, Murphy took off and within hours, he was hiding away on a boat across the Irish Sea. Once he arrived in England, he took up a job as a bouncer, found his way into the drug game and in the three years since, he’d been biding his time.
A year after Murphy arrived back in the country, Sam Pope eliminated Harry Chapman, declaring it open season for any perspective drug lord. When news of Sam’s demise filtered through the country, it was as if a starting pistol was fired into the sky. The criminal underworld began to eat itself, with every ambitious criminal slithering over each other, trying their best to get a stranglehold on the country.
Some came close.
But the landscape had changed with the recent murder of Slaven Kovac and the destruction of his empire. While others were running scared, Murphy had stepped up, grabbing the opportunity and now, as he lowered his gun on the table before him, he knew he’d made the right choice.
As the bodies of Hakan Sanli and his associate were being carted away to be disposed of, Murphy drew a long, victorious pull on his cigarette. With Sanli out of the way, he would take over the importing of the drugs at the Port of Felixstowe, filling the gap Kovac had vacated. Without Sanli taking his cut, Murphy’s grip on the cocaine supply in the Midlands was ironclad, and with his adoration of the lifestyle, he was already making plans to expand.
