Tim Cobb, Director of the ARU.

  Adams. Spears. Carver. Floyd. Cobb.

  Five names, random and meaningless to probably everyone else watching the report, but with a chilling significance to King.

  Everyone involved in that operation was being taken out.

  He had stepped back, the treadmill beside him still whirring as the running strip continued to rotate round and round. He’d glanced around the gym, suddenly full of fear to see if anyone was watching him. He’d left the building instantly and driven home as fast as he could, trying to stay calm and work out a plan of escape.

  Arriving back at his home, he’d raced through the lobby of his apartment building, frantically pushing the button for the lift. Eventually it arrived and he made his way up to his apartment as quickly as he could, making sure no one had followed him, checking that no one was waiting for him either side of the corridor when he got up on the 8th floor. Seeing no one, he’d eased his key into the lock of his apartment, quietly turning it and edging open the door. He stood still for a moment, watching and listening, trying to see if he could sense a presence, anyone hiding in there waiting for him. The place felt empty.

  Shutting the door behind him, he’d quickly checked the entire apartment and to his relief there was nothing unusual, nothing disturbed, no one there. He’d found a bag and packed as quickly as he could, grabbing the most essential things and leaving everything else. He needed to get out of London immediately, lay low and hide out until someone explained what the hell was going on and got him some protection.

  But just as he'd started packing, the phone on his bed-side table started ringing, making him jump, short-circuiting his already wired-up nervous system.

  Standing still, his heart racing, he looked over at the phone as it rang.

  Its shrill sound echoed around the silent apartment.

  Like a warning siren. Or an alarm.

  He stared at it.

  Maybe it was the police.

  Or maybe it's someone else.

  Maybe they were waiting for him to answer. Maybe there were explosives hidden somewhere in the apartment, hooked up to the phone line.

  He ignored it and continued to throw everything he needed into the bag, while the phone continued to ring. He finished packing, then looked quickly around the room, grabbing his wallet and passport from the top drawer of a desk in the living area. He had enough money to leave the country for a few weeks, and with every passing second that was looking like an attractive option. He moved through the apartment quickly, checking he had everything he needed to disappear, then headed to the door, still dressed in his tracksuit bottoms and hooded sweatshirt, his t-shirt underneath damp with sweat from a combination of his workout and fear.

  He pulled open the door and stepped outside slowly, checking the corridor left and right.

  It was empty.

  He moved out, locking the apartment quickly, then turned and realised he had a choice to make. The lift or the stairs. He went with the lift. He was on the eighth floor, and it would be faster. Then he could get the hell out of here, go somewhere he couldn’t be found, far away from any danger. An old friend of his from the service lived in Spain on the coast, leasing out boats. He could stay with him for a while. He walked quickly down the corridor, his bag over his shoulder, his mind racing through his options as he arrived at the lift. He went to press the button, but as he did it dinged in front of him, already arriving at the floor.

  The light above the door lit up.

  He stood there, checking either side of the corridor again, and waited for the doors to open.

  Back at the ARU's headquarters, Jackson had left Cobb and his family to some privacy and had just connected to one of the two agents headed to pick up Fraser in Washington DC. It was still mid-morning over there and Fraser would surely be in his office. The phone held to his ear, Jackson stood behind the tech team in the ops room, fidgeting and on edge, pacing back and forth. Saving this man's life meant a lot more to him than Cobb and his team realised.

  'Hello?' a voice said.

  'Agent Wallace?' he asked. 'This is Operations Officer Ryan Jackson. Where are you?'

  'We just entered the building, sir. Mr Fraser works on the fourth floor. We'll be up there as soon as the lift arrives.'

  'You don't have time. Take the stairs. And stay on the line.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Are you armed?'

  'Yes, sir. We both have our side-arms.'

  'Good. Be ready to use them.'

  Across the city, First Team made it to Angel fast, Porter getting them there with typically impressive speed in one of the back-up Fords from MI6. They pulled up outside the apartment building on Holloway Road as Nikki gave them details of the man over the hands-free phone hooked up to the car.

  'He lives in Apartment 8B,’ she said. ‘Blond, six-three, distinctive. He's probably seen the news, so be prepared. If he’s there, he’ll be twitched or just won’t answer the door. He’s not picking up the phone, so we might have missed him.'

  The four men nodded and stepped out of the car. They slammed the doors shut, Porter pressing the button on the key and locking it, and all four moved quickly towards the apartment building. As they pushed open the main doors, Archer saw a tall man coming the other way towards them.

  Archer checked him out, but saw the guy had dark hair, not blond, so it wasn’t King. This man had a harsh face, a beak of a nose and slicked, jet black hair over angry eyes. Archer stepped to the side to let him pass, but they still bumped shoulders, the man turning and glaring at Archer. They held each other's gaze for a brief moment, then the man looked back to the street and walked off, disappearing out of sight.

  Inside the building lobby it was quiet. No one was about. Porter turned to Chalky and Archer, who had just joined them.

  'Take the stairs.'

  The two men nodded and Archer moved across the marble floor, pulling open the door to the stairwell as Chalky moved through it, his weapon in the aim. The two men disappeared, sprinting up the stairs as Fox pushed the button for the lift. It was already there on the ground floor and once the doors parted the two officers stepped inside, Fox pushing the button for 8 and then hit the button for the doors to close.

  Inside the Washington DC office building, former Staff Sergeant Matthew Fraser was indeed at his desk. He worked as a software analyst, a reliable if tedious job, a world away from his past life, but it provided a regular and stable pay-cheque and meant his family had a good standard of living. He'd left the United States Army Rangers in 2010 and in all honesty was struggling to make the adjustment from military to civilian life. Back then, he'd taken it for granted, but the places he'd been and the times he'd had, even in combat, had been some of the greatest of his life. He'd mistakenly figured it would all last forever.

  But it hadn't. His wife had become pregnant the year before and although they’d been expecting just one child, they’d had twins. After a decade of being absent and away on operations with the Rangers overseas, she’d begged him to leave the military. She told him she needed him around to help her with the two babies, but he also knew that she wanted her boys to grow up with their father, not just look at images of him in photograph frames or ultimately at a wooden coffin lifted off a plane from some foreign country, an American flag laid across the top as a brass trumpet played on the runway.

  He’d relented and mustered out in December, saying goodbye to his fellow Rangers and a career he’d spent sixteen years building. He’d applied and been accepted for the job in this office, offered a reasonable salary and no healthcare. Considering the responsibilities he’d used to carry, like taking on rebel forces in Iraq or performing covert hostage rescues in Kosovo, reviewing software specifications paled in comparison.

  He had arrived just over an hour ago, Thursday, two days before the weekend, and was at his desk examining some emails on his computer, most of them from disgruntled customers asking a question about the company products or claiming something didn't work and demanding action. He reached over and picked up a cup of coffee by the screen, taking a sip and hoping that the more he read the complaint on the screen the more he would end up giving a damn about it.

  As he leant back, bored already, he caught a glimpse of some movement in the long window running down the upper half of the door to his office. Leaning right, he saw two men in suits talking with one of the workers out there. The two men both looked his way and then started heading straight for his office, spotting him through the glass. They looked official, definitely government men, and in a hurry, one of them holding a cell phone to his ear and talking into it, keeping his eyes on Fraser. The former US Ranger could have picked them out in a crowd. CIA, or maybe NSA. Square jaws, clean shaven, pistols in pancake holsters hidden under their suit jackets. He took a long pull from his cup of coffee as they approached wondering what they wanted, secretly thankful for the break in his monotonous routine. He felt his pulse quicken, for the first time in a long time, that old rush, like a junkie scoring a fix.

  Finally, some excitement.

  Suddenly, there was a smash of glass as something hit the window of his office.

  The bullet hit Fraser in the side of the head, shredding through his skull and brain and exiting the other side in a bloody spray, killing him in an instant. He was dead before his cup of coffee hit the desk. The mug hit the table side-on, the hot liquid spilling out over the keyboard and the dead man’s thighs. Fraser dropped from his seat, the spattering of his blood and brains a harsh red on the clean white of the far office wall.

  The two CIA agents in suits saw all this through the window and rushed forward, barging open the door. Looking down at the dead man, they both pulled their pistols, shouting back at everyone else on the level to get down as they tried to see where the shot had come from.

  NINETEEN

  Back in London, Archer and Chalky moved fast up the stairs of the apartment building, their MP5s tight to their shoulders and in the aim, scaling the steps quickly and silently. They arrived on 8, and Chalky grabbed the door handle. He looked at Archer, who nodded, and he pulled the door open.

  Archer was the first into the corridor, looking straight down through the aimed MP5's hair-trigger.

  And he saw King.

  The man was slumped against the wall in front of the lift doors, a smeared red stain behind him from where he had been shot in the head and his body had slid down the wall. He had a carry-on bag next to him on the ground, the bag half-unzipped, clothes spilling to the floor. Archer and Chalky ran down the corridor, coming to a halt by the dead man. Just then, the elevator arrived and the doors parted, Porter and Fox seeing for themselves what had happened.

  'Oh Jesus Christ,' Fox said, moving forward.

  King's eyes were still open, staring at the ground, his head lolled to the side, a trickle of blood coming from the entry wound in his forehead.

  'We were too late. Shit.'

  Chalky pointed at the passport, jutting halfway out of the holdall on top of some clothes.

  'Looks like he knew they were coming.'

  'Call Nikki, Chalk,' Porter said. 'Let her know. We need a clean-up crew and a body-bag team from the morgue.'

  As Chalky nodded and pulled the mobile phone from his tac vest, Porter noticed that Archer had a concentrated look on his face, not listening to the other men.

  'What?' Porter asked, noticing his demeanour.

  Archer looked over at him.

  'You seen anyone else in the building since we walked in?'

  'Only the guy we passed at the front door.'

  They held each other's gaze.

  They sprinted to the stairwell, pulling open the door, taking the stairs three at a time. Archer was the first back down to the lobby and he rushed past a surprised couple towards the entrance. He burst through the front doors, looking left and right down Holloway Road either side of him, but he was too late. All he saw were pedestrians, passing cars, the constantly moving maze of midday London. The tall dark-haired man with the harsh face was long gone.

  Behind him, the other three had arrived. Chalky was already calling in the murder on his phone as he and Fox jumped back into the car. Porter climbed into the front seat, firing the engine and called out of the window to Archer.

  'Arch, let's go! We need to get McCarthy!'

  Archer took one last despairing look at the street. He cursed himself. He’d looked the killer right in the eyes. He’d even made physical contact with him when they knocked shoulders. Swearing, he turned and ran over to the car, jumping inside, the vehicle already speeding off as he pulled his door shut.

  A hundred yards across the street from Fraser's office in the centre of Washington DC, the dark-haired man who had taken the shot that killed Fraser was already moving down the stairwell of the building across the block.

  He had left the rifle in position on the roof, like a calling card. It had been bought illegally and was untraceable, along with the ammunition, and he had only ever handled the ammunition and rifle with gloved hands to protect against DNA and fingerprinting. His cheek had touched the stock, so there would probably be something for the Americans to work with, but even if they managed to find anything, he'd be out of the country long before anything could be done with the information. No one knew his real name, or who he was. He was truly anonymous, which was the best thing in the world for a sniper to be.

  Arriving on the ground floor, he turned left and moved down the corridor to the fire exit, pushing it open and stepping outside onto the street. Closing the door behind him, he peeled off the two layers of latex gloves on his hands, stuffed them into his pocket and raised his hand as traffic moved past. Moments later a yellow cab pulled up. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him, and within ten seconds he was speeding away from the scene, camouflaged amongst all the other vehicles and headed straight to Dulles International Airport and his soon-to-depart flight to London.

  Across the Atlantic in London, the leader of the Panthers was preparing to take out McCarthy. This was a job that he had previously delegated to Crow and Grub, but with both men dead he would have to do it himself. It was an inconvenience, but this change of plan often happened in the field, an operational setback, but one that he would rectify soon enough. Besides, the old mantra definitely held water here. If you wanted to get something done, get it done yourself.

  Rising from his seat at the centre of the command post, the man shot the cuff on his fatigues and checked his watch. He’d just miss Bug and Spider, who were on their way here. They might even pass each other on the road. Bird was already on his way back and Flea would be here by nightfall, once he killed Fraser and got to Dulles for his flight. Keeping both televisions on but muted, the big soldier walked over to the wall and the line of weapons laid neatly across the carpet. He scooped up a Kalashnikov rifle, pulling back the cocking handle and checking the mechanism inside the chamber. He had cleaned and oiled all the weapons the day before, and for street-bought guns they were in surprisingly good condition. He picked up a double-taped magazine and slapped it into the weapon, pulling back the handle and loading it, then picked up a black weapon case. Inside, there was a bazooka and a single rocket-propelled grenade that would insert inside the launcher with a click. That was it. Once that was done, it was ready to fire. Turning, he looked around, making sure everything was in order. As he did so, he caught another Breaking News report on the CNN screen.

  Man killed by suspected sniper inside office in central DC, the screen said.

  The big man allowed a faint smile to creep across his mouth.

  Fraser was down.

  Then he pulled open the door to the corridor of the empty building and walked out, closing it behind him and making his way downstairs to the car.

  The building had a parking lot in the basement, protecting the men and whatever they were carrying from any prying eyes on the street, and as the lift dinged open the commander saw one of his men, Worm, sitting in the front seat of a silver Fiat, the engine running.

  He moved forward and tossed the weapons on the back seat, covering them with a blanket. He slammed the door, then climbed into the front passenger seat, pulling the door shut.

  'King is dead, sir,' Worm said, in Albanian. 'Shot him in the face. I made it just before the police showed up.'

  'Good,' his commanding officer said, adjusting the seat in the car to accommodate his large frame. 'Let's go. We need to get to McCarthy before they do.'

  Without another word, Worm nodded. He put his foot down, and the tyres squealed as the car took off towards the exit and the street outside. As they moved up the ramp and into the afternoon sunlight, the commander ticked off both Fraser and King from the checklist in his head.

  Eight down.

  Just three to go.

  TWENTY

  Unlike King, the reason that McCarthy wasn’t picking up his phone wasn't out of fear or apprehension. He simply hadn't been at home.

  He'd just got back from his girlfriend’s place from across town, the time on the clock ticking to 2:30 pm. He had been asleep all morning after a heavy drinking session last night and hadn’t seen or heard anything on the news. He had a half-day today, working the afternoon shift from 3:00 'til closing, and wanted to freshen up and drink some water before he made his way over to the warehouse, his head pounding from the hangover.

  Pulling the front door of the house shut behind him, he dropped his keys on a table by the door then walked upstairs, taking off his shirt as he went. Moving into the bathroom, he twisted on the tap for the shower, pulling off the rest of his clothes. He showered fast, peering out from behind the curtain to check the time on the clock across the room on the bedside dresser. It had just gone 2:10 p.m.

  He didn’t mind the job at the depot. He was a manager and the pay was surprisingly good, enough to put food on the table and put his nine year old son through a local school. He had left the army in 2009 as a Sergeant, and had bagged the job at the warehouse immediately after he left. Staying in the army hadn't been an option for him. His views and the way he saw things had changed. He didn’t agree with the war in Afghanistan and he sure as hell wasn’t willing to put his life on the line for it. A lot of his friends were out there at the moment, and he knew it was likely at least some of them would never be coming back.

 

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