Public Enemy (Sam Pope Series Book 14), page 18
‘Quite.’
Wainwright offered a polite smile at the insensitive joke. Jensen was a bullish man, lacking in tact, and manners, but Wainwright appreciated the man’s finer qualities. He seemed to be completely without empathy. The idea of killing someone was what drove him on, and once Pope, Sarratt, and unfortunately, Murray were taken care of, Jensen would make a handy ally going forward. Aligning himself with such a man, and using Guardian as his own personal army drew parallels with his predecessor and Blackridge, and Wainwright was more than aware of them.
But Wallace had been sloppier than he ever would be. The man craved power and attention, whereas Wainwright craved only the former. His status as a noble and respected leader and the weight of his word in the House of Commons was something Wainwright cherished. Rumours were rife that he was due a knighthood for his service, and that was a title he would wear with pride.
No matter how much blood, innocent or otherwise, needed to be shed for him to get it.
Wainwright took another sip of his drink and watched Jensen finish his food greedily.
‘Do they not feed you at Guardian?’ Wainwright joked.
‘Oh, I love my grub.’ Jensen smiled back. ‘Plus, nobody likes blowing someone’s head off on an empty stomach.’
‘Well, if you had done as you were asked the first-time round, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we?’ Wainwright’s tone shifted. ‘And you’d still be able to walk.’
‘Look. I saw an opportunity and I—’
‘You let ego get in your way. I appreciate that being the man to bring down Sam Pope has a morbid sense of prestige, but you had a loaded gun to the man’s head, yet you didn’t pull the trigger.’ Wainwright shook his head. ‘Ego is one of the greatest weaknesses within us. How can I be assured it won’t happen again?’
‘Well, for one thing, I can’t fucking walk properly,’ Jensen snapped back. ‘And second, there’s only one man more dangerous than me behind the scope of a rifle, and he’ll be the one in my crosshairs.’
‘Well, you won’t do any good sitting here, will you?’ Wainwright looked out of the tall, wide window of the room at the torrential storm laying siege to the mansion. ‘If he’s coming as you suspect, he’ll want the cover of darkness. I suggest you move.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Jensen pushed himself to his feet. ‘This ends tonight.’
Wainwright kept his gaze on the dark, thundering sky beyond the window. He didn’t turn back to face Jensen.
‘Let’s hope so.’ He finally turned and smiled. ‘And once all this mess has been cleared up, Jensen, you will be richly rewarded.’
Jensen offered a respectful, half-hearted salute, and then hobbled to the door, ready to make his way through the icy rain to his outpost, where he would have the whole of the mansion within his deadly sight. As soon as Sam Pope stepped into it, he would blow him to hell. As for the reward, the control of Guardian, and being the Chief of Defence Staff’s personal clean-up crew, Jensen was champing at the bit to get started. The moral compass that Murray had used to dictate some of their contracts would be buried six feet deep, along with Murray, and whoever else Wainwright directed him towards.
Whatever the admiral had done, Jensen didn’t care. In fairness, he’d probably done worse, and combining both their disdain for the modern world and their ruthless efficiency in eliminating those before them, he was interested to see what changes he and Wainwright could make.
For better or worse.
As Jensen pulled open the door to the dining room, a loud, shrill siren began to wail, and he turned back to Wainwright, who didn’t so much as blink. The alarm had been tripped, meaning somewhere across the acres of property that surrounded the gorgeous home, there was an intruder.
Sam Pope.
Wainwright calmly lifted his glass and finished the rest of his drink, before reaching for his box of cigars that sat neatly beside his cutter. He took one out, cut and lit it, and then turned back to Jensen.
‘Well, don’t just stand there. Go and kill him.’
Jensen nodded, and as fast as his hobbled leg could manage, he headed for the outpost.
The storm that had laid siege to the capital city offered Sam a blanket of cover as, for the most part, the streets were clear. Those, who like him, were braving the elements, did so under the cover of umbrellas and walked at such a pace that they paid no heed to who went by them. With his face still beaten from the day before, he was likely to draw attention, something the current situation didn’t call for, so for once, Sam was thankful for the reliability of the British weather.
Having left Sarratt to continue her part of the plan, Sam had walked gingerly through the city, stopping only once at a dodgy looking off-licence based on the sign they’d failed to take down in the window.
Thankfully, they had what he needed, and he stuffed them into his bag along with the weapons Sarratt had provided. Then, he’d walked the six miles needed to get to Victoria Station, and as he stepped onto the massive concourse, he kept his hood up and his head down.
The last thing he needed was someone identifying him and raising a panic.
He was still a wanted man, and after the events of the past twenty-four hours, he was certain the actual police would waste little time in bringing him down. Then it would be over. Sarratt would do her best, but with Wainwright still in command, Sam’s life would be over.
He wasn’t ready for that.
Not yet.
Sam bought a ticket for the next train to Crawley, and then a sandwich and coffee from one of the stands, and then hobbled through the barriers to the train platform. The Southern service to Crawley took a surprisingly short amount of time, stopping at just five stops on its way to West Sussex. The mid-afternoon service wasn’t too busy, as the majority of the commuters were those heading to Gatwick Airport and were too consumed by their own travels to pay any attention to the man who slumped at the back of the carriage with his hood up and his head down.
As the train departed and began picking up speed as it headed through Croydon, Sam connected his phone to the feeble Wi-Fi that was advertised on the small poster above his head, and tried his best to do some recon. There wasn’t much information about the estate online, which made sense given its priority, but by trawling through the maps available, he could see that the back end of the premises connected with the Tilgate Lake and Park. It was his best point of entry, as walking up to the front gate would be suicide.
Undoubtedly, the man Sam had threatened that morning would have already notified Wainwright on what happened. The admiral may have been a despicable man, but Sam was willing to bet he wasn’t a coward. Instead, drawing Sam to a remote location and welcoming him with a private army would make the most sense.
Sam was expecting resistance.
And he was ready to meet it head on.
Not a day went by that Sam didn’t look in the mirror and see a killer looking back at him. Over a hundred people had died by his hand, whether by pulling a trigger or by his own, beaten fists. There was always a voice in the back of his head, telling him to stop, and begging him to turn himself in. He often thought it was an echo of Jamie’s memory. His young son, pleading with his father to be a better man.
But Sam was being the best man he could.
There wasn’t a family life for him to return home to. No wife to devote his heart to, nor a son to raise with the indescribable pride that comes with parenthood.
That life had been ripped from him.
Had sent him on this path of redemption that had stopped him from self-destructing.
His old sergeant, Carl Marsden, had arrived at a time in his life when Sam had given up. When he was willing to end it all, and allow his pain and his grief to swallow him completely.
Marsden had told him to fight.
And Sam sipped his coffee, looked out of the window as the morose beauty of the drenched countryside flew past his window, and knew that was what he would do.
If this was his last fight, then so be it.
But he couldn’t walk away. It wasn’t in him to do so.
Wainwright had tried to lay waste to the country and align with Balikov, and now was willing to kill an innocent woman in Ruth Ashton to try to cover his tracks.
Wainwright would push as hard as he could.
And Sam was coming to push back.
By the time the train had arrived in Crawley station, the sun had already set, submerging the quaint town in darkness. The street lights illuminated the downpour, and Sam hailed a taxi from the rank just to the side of the car park. After trying, and failing, three times to start a conversation with Sam, the driver turned on the radio and joined the rush hour traffic through the town centre.
Sam didn’t mind.
There was no rush.
The longer he had to form a plan of attack in his head, the better. Plus, the longer Wainwright had to wait for Sam to come for him.
Eventually, the car pulled up to the front gate of the Tilgate Park, and Sam duly paid the man and gave him a generous tip. He stepped out into the rain and then headed into the park. The vast woodland spread over two-thousand acres, and Sam kept to the concrete paths that wormed through the park like veins. With the torch on his phone illuminating the path ahead, he saw not a soul as he pushed on, passing the Go Ape and the adventure playground. Unsurprisingly, the pop-up eateries within the park were all shut, and Sam soon found himself looking out over the lake. The torch only illuminated so far, but Sam carefully began his march around the edge of the water. Each step was carefully placed, and after a solid half hour of walking, Sam’s torch soon fell upon the mighty trunks of the woodland trees. Thankfully, he hadn’t fallen into the water, but the sports bag was beginning to dig into his bruised ribs and his hands were numb from the cold.
Sam carefully navigated his way between the trees, holding the phone with his aching left arm as he used his right to clear any errant branches or twigs from his line of sight.
He carried on for what felt like a mile.
Soon, he came across a high, stone wall that stretched from one edge of the darkness to the other, and Sam hoped it was the wall to the Everly Estate. The reception on his phone had long since evaporated, meaning he couldn’t use the navigation function to confirm.
He dropped to one knee and thankfully unhooked the sports bag with a grunt. He unzipped it, and then tentatively wrapped the tactical vest around his broken body and fastened it. Then he checked his Glock 17, sliding out the magazine before snapping it shut again and stuffing it into the back of his sodden jeans. He pulled out a few more magazines from the bag, putting the pistol rounds in the left pouch of the vest, and the rifle rounds on the right. Then he lifted the Heckler & Koch G36 and hoisted the strap over his shoulder. He pulled out the fireworks he’d purchased on his journey and a lighter, and stuffed them into the front of his vest, lodging them against his chest to keep them dry.
Lastly, he scooped up two handfuls of mud beneath his feet and then smeared it across his cheeks and his forehead, and then rubbed it down his forearms too.
It was an extra layer of camouflage, and Sam needed every marginal gain he could get.
He was the walking wounded.
His body was battered, and the pain in his ribs kept threatening to topple him completely.
He could barely lift his left arm.
His head was pounding, likely dealing with an untreated concussion.
But there was a war to be won.
And armed and ready, Sam shunted that pain to the back of his mind and began to scale the nearby tree that hung over the wall.
Minutes later, he dropped down on the other side, pulled up his rifle, and with careful steps, waded through the woods to lay siege to the Everly Estate.
Ready to end things once and for all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Murray hadn’t seen his kids in nearly two days, and as the afternoon bled into another cold, dark evening, he looked up from his laptop screen and rubbed his eyes with his fists. He was tired, and in need of a shower, but the threat from Wainwright was still echoing in the back of his mind.
The man had made a clear threat to his family.
One of the promises he’d made Becky, when he’d decided to run with the idea of Guardian, was he wouldn’t bring any of the mess to their front door. She hardly approved of her husband dealing in guns and blood, but she understood that was where he was from. He was forged in the army and had been able to transfer the violent skills into a multi-million business. While a designer handbag at Christmas was usually enough for her to not judge him so harshly, the idea that his work could put his boys in harm’s way would be the end of their marriage.
Despite wanting to put a bullet through Wainwright’s skull for even uttering his son’s names, there was only one way out of it for Murray now.
He had to find the man who’d saved his life all those years ago.
He needed to kill Sam Pope.
Murray had handed Sam’s forged driver’s license over to Ranjit and told him to scan through every database he could to try to locate him. It didn’t take too long to find the address, and Murray sent two of the last contacts at his disposal to search the place.
It was empty.
The photos they sent through to Murray showed that Sam lived with the bare minimum, the polar opposite to himself. There were no designer clothes or plush furnishings.
None of that mattered to Sam.
It was beginning to matter less to himself.
Beyond that, Ranjit had little else to work on, so Murray ordered him to hold off handing any intel over to the Met. If Ranjit couldn’t locate him, there was no hope of the Met succeeding, and the more cooks in his kitchen, the messier it would become.
The grainy CCTV boxes on his laptop screen were beginning to merge into one, and Murray pushed the screen away and stood, stretching out his back, and then he reached for his coat. He pulled the door to his operation room closed, locked it with the only key, and then marched through the hallways of New Scotland Yard. He drew a few glances, either through intimidation or unfamiliarity, but he couldn’t be bothered to respond. He took the stairs two at a time and felt himself sigh with relief as he stepped out into the freezing downpour. The instant impact of the cold sent a rush through his body that jolted him awake, and he held his head up to the rain that fell relentlessly.
The fresh air felt good as it filtered into his lungs, and as he basked in the downpour, he thought about just heading to his car, packing up his family, and using his extensive resources to just move them to safety.
But he knew he couldn’t.
Wainwright had made it clear that Sarratt was a loose end and had already laid bare how he intended to deal with her. If Murray was to run, he’d be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.
And when the time came that he turned and came face to face with a gun, the shooter would no doubt have orders to fire at least three more bullets.
Murray marched past the famous spinning sign outside the modern glass office and headed towards the Starbucks on the other side of the parade. Few cars ventured down these busy streets, although the rain had made it much more accommodating. As Murray opened the door, he noticed the disappointment on the young barista’s face, who was already packing up the shop.
‘We’re closing in like two minutes, mate,’ he called out.
‘I just want a coffee.’ Murray smiled. As he approached the till, he made a show of folding up a twenty-pound note and tucking it into the tip jar. ‘Americano. Black.’
The barista offered him a thankful nod and went to work, and as Murray waited patiently, he paid no attention to the door opening once more. As the footsteps drew closer, he turned, and his eyes widened slightly.
‘Murray.’
Commissioner Sarratt approached him, her thick, rainproof jacket covering her always immaculate uniform. Despite their early quarrels, Murray had come to respect the woman for how resilient she was.
‘Ma’am.’ He nodded to the menu above the counter. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘Funnily enough, I didn’t come in here for a coffee.’ She spoke with haste. ‘It would seem we both have an issue we may need to resolve.’
‘What, find Sam?’ Murray scoffed. ‘How many haystacks have you been reaching into?’
‘Actually, I wasn’t talking about Sam.’ Sarratt turned and looked him dead in the eye. ‘And if you must know, he’s fine by the way. I was with him this morning.’
Murray spun to face her, his eyes wide with desperation.
‘Where is he?’
‘Right now?’ Sarratt elaborately looked at her watch. ‘I’d say, getting ready to lay siege to Wainwright’s safe house. I take it he made the same threats to you and your family that he’s made to mine?’
Her question caught Murray cold, and before he could lie to her, he realised his reaction confirmed it. The barista placed the coffee in front of Murray, turned to take Sarratt’s order, but then swiftly read the situation and made himself scarce.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Earlier today, Sam and I found the location for Wainwright’s safe house, and I loaded Sam up with some weapons and sent him on his way.’ Sarratt spoke calmly.
‘Why the hell would you do that?’
‘Because for the past week, Murray, I’ve been doing every single thing to upset my conscience, and I haven’t eaten, or really slept since I first walked into the room with you.’ Sarratt shook her head. ‘It’s not your fault. You were just doing your job. But we both know that whatever is going on here, it’s much bigger than Sam Pope.’
Murray blew out his cheeks. If what Sarratt said was true, then there was a good chance that Wainwright was dead already. On the other hand, there was an even bigger chance that Sam was heading to his slaughter.
The fact that he hadn’t thought once about notifying Wainwright and warning him told him everything he needed to know.
