'Are you OK?' he asked quietly.

  She nodded frantically, looking at his face.

  'What happened to you?'

  'I'm fine,' he said. 'It's just a cut. Looks worse than it is.’

  'Where is he?' she asked, scared.

  'He's dead. We need to get out of here. They'll be back any minute.'

  As he undid her ankles, she shook her head. 'No. They won't.'

  He paused and looked up at her.

  'Why?'

  'Because I told him where Director Cobb and his family are.'

  Archer looked at her as her chin quivered. Tears brimmed in her eyes and fell down her cheeks.

  'I'm sorry, Arch. He told me he'd kill you if I didn't tell him where they were. Then he put the knife to my stomach. Said he was going to cut out my ovaries and show them to me.'

  'It's OK. He's gone. C'mon.'

  He helped her up, wiping blood from his eyes.

  'Wait,' she said, grabbing a towel from a hook beside her with her free hand. She pushed it to Archer's cut, and he held it there, trying to staunch the flow of blood. Gun in hand, he took the lead and moved out into the safe-house, keeping her behind him protectively.

  The place had been abandoned.

  The team were gone. He could see two televisions set up on a desk, silently playing the news, the one to the right showing a fresh report of the second gunfight at the ARU’s headquarters.

  But he saw something else in the distance in the dark.

  A series of red numbers.

  Counting down.

  And they were at 1:01.

  1:00.

  00:59.

  'Oh shit,' Archer said. He turned to Nikki. ‘Stairs! Go!’

  She ran forward towards the door to the stairwell. Archer went to follow her, but suddenly stopped. Nikki burst open the door to the stairwell, and turned back.

  ‘Arch, we have to go!’ she shouted.

  ‘Wait!’ he shouted.

  In the silence, the room was still, the only activity the two muted televisions and the red numbers ticked down. But Archer heard something else, faint but unmistakeable.

  Whimpering.

  There was another door beside the bathroom, a store cupboard of some sort. He ran forward, wiping blood from his eyes and pulled it open.

  A woman and a boy were in there, both bound and gagged with duct tape.

  They stared at him in terror.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  The garden of the north London hospice covered about three acres, centred around the duck pond that provided some quiet space for the patients and their visitors. The outer fence was there both to provide privacy and a sense of security to the residents at the hospice, but also as a soft deterrent to anyone who was tempted to access the park from the outside.

  The whereabouts of the English soldier had been a puzzle for the Panthers squad. They’d kept his dog tags from the night they kidnapped him, so they knew his name, but the fat CIA analyst who had pulled the information on the others hadn’t been able to come up with anything on the guy. In the car on the way here, Wulf told Flea that once they’d arrived in England, the group had scoured everything they could think of. Phonebooks, internet, everything they could access. But nothing. No one had any idea where he was. They had reluctantly come to the conclusion that, like the American soldier Webster, Fletcher had died in the years since. There was no way he’d still be a soldier, not without seven of his toes. However, when Worm had tailed the two cars leaving the police station earlier, they had led him here. And after he moved around into this garden, just before the police shut the curtains in one of the rooms, he had seen a familiar face lying in the bed.

  Corporal Fletcher.

  Flea scaled the outer fence of the hospice garden with ease and had crept forward, the dark shrubbery and trees providing perfect cover. He was lying prone on his front, the Dragunov Tigr hunting rifle set up towards the building, his shoulder in the stock. The Dragunov was a Russian weapon, semi-automatic and gas-operated, and despite being bought illegally on the street was in pretty good condition. The end of the barrel was fitted with a flash suppressor, which made it a good choice for covert shooting. The rifle was effective at over 1000 metres, but Flea was less than 100 from his target. He had made shots like these thousands of times, and could almost do it with his eyes closed. Being a perfectionist like most snipers, he would have liked to have had some practice with the rifle, zeroing the sights and getting used to the feel of the weapon, but right then he didn't have a choice. On the way here in the car, he had loaded four spare NATO 7.62 bullets into the magazine of the weapon as extra insurance should he do the unthinkable and miss.

  He had his cheek resting against the stock, his right eye looking down the scope. It was a PSO-1 Optical Sight, a modern scope which had features such as bullet-drop compensation, a rangefinder grid and also a reticule that allowed target acquisition in conditions without sufficient light. His position gave him direct sight into the room, and the crosshairs on the scope were at that moment resting on Fletcher’s face. The curtains had been half shut but there was slight gap and it gave Flea ample view of his target. Through the scope, he looked at the man up close and recognised him instantly, despite how sick he looked. He remembered helping take seven of his toes.

  His eye behind the scope, the crosshairs on Fletcher's chin who was totally unaware that he was about to die, Flea smiled.

  He lived for this.

  As a boy, his father had been a sniper in the Albanian army, and had educated his son about the craft of sharpshooting. He told him how two men called Hiram Berdan and Robert E Lee were the first in history to set up units of designated sharpshooters in a military force, during the American Civil War. How the Germans had been the first to use specially-trained marksmen during World War One. How the Russians had taken it further and started using two man teams. How in the Vietnam War, the average amount of ammunition used for each kill with the M-16 assault rifle was over 50,000, but for their snipers it was just 1.3. How in World War Two, a Nazi sniper with sixty confirmed kills would be rewarded with a personal hunting trip with Hermann Goring. Snipers were valued and treasured like walking gold in conflicts and wars. They had been responsible for some of the most defining moments in military and world history.

  Speaking of history, Flea's own hero was a Finnish sniper named Simo Hayha. During the Second World War, this small Finnish farmer had joined his nation’s army and had gone into the forests with his rifle to take on the invading Russian forces.

  In below freezing conditions, dressed in simple white camouflage, Hayha killed over five hundred Russian soldiers in less than a hundred days.

  505, to be exact.

  The Russians had sent entire task forces and counter-snipers into the regions to find and take out Hayha, but he had killed them all. Entire squads and units of some of the best men the Red Army had to offer went out there and never came back. And the amazing thing was, Hayha did it all without using a scope on his rifle, using a simple bolt-action iron-sighted shooter instead. In Flea’s eyes, he was without a doubt the greatest sniper who had ever lived. The Russians had dubbed him White Death. What an honour, to have such a name bestowed on you by the enemy. Most nights Flea dreamt of the same thing happening to him.

  During the war, Flea had tried his best to go after Hayha’s record. He had spent weeks out in the Kosovo plains and valleys, hunting the enemy, desperate for kills and the chance to build his own legend. He had done pretty well, his confirmed kill-count up to 321, but that was a lifetime of work so far, not achieved in under four months like his hero. Three months before they were captured and thrown into prison, Wulf had also ordered that they start taking the enemy alive instead of shooting them. That had damaged Flea’s kill-count somewhat.

  Most of his targets during the conflict had been moving or shielded by cover, but this next shot was just like target practice. He kept his breathing even and saw the target lying there in the bed, fast asleep. One of the men who was responsible for murdering the only people Flea had ever loved. In the camp that night, his father had been staying with Flea’s wife and two children.

  All four of them had been killed.

  In one smooth, gentle motion, he took the slack out of the trigger and gently squeezed all the way. The weapon kicked back and gave a muffled cough and there was a smash of glass in the window ahead. He watched through the scope and saw the target’s head jerk, a white puff of feathers from the pillow behind his head joining the red blood as the round passed through his forehead and the back of his head exploded.

  322.

  Flea didn’t hang around. He rolled to his right and found the empty shell casing, then picked up the rifle and moved back to the fence, scaling it quickly and dropping down the other side.

  On the street, two cars were waiting, the five surviving members of the squad aside from Worm in each. Bird was waiting in the front car, the engine running. Flea climbed in beside him, laying the rifle on the foot-well and covering it with a blanket. He looked over at the other man and nodded.

  'He's gone,' he said, in Albanian.

  'Time to go get Cobb,' Bug said, from the back.

  Bird took off the handbrake and swung a U-turn in the road. The car moved off into the night, Wulf and Spider following them close behind.

  Across town, Porter was speeding at above sixty down the street towards the safe-house, Chalky and Fox in the car with him. Jackson's dried blood was still all over his hands, maroon in the grooves of the edges of his fingernails, the harshest of reminders of the kind of enemy they were dealing with and what awaited Archer and Nikki if they didn't get there in time. Second Team had stayed with the tech team back at the HQ, guarding their base. The building had been attacked twice in a day already and they had no idea if there would be a third attempt.

  'Hurry, Port, hurry,' Chalky said, jiggling his leg anxiously.

  The streets were already flashing past, and barely slowing an inch, Porter turned left, speeding down a side road. He then cut across the next road, weaving through traffic, and headed into a car park, the building ahead of them. As they arrived, the three men saw there was no sign of the white van that had brought the two hostages here.

  That wasn’t good.

  As Porter slammed on the brake pedal and the car skidded to a halt, they saw the lobby door to the building suddenly burst open. Archer and Nikki were rushing from the building together, but with two other people, a woman and a boy. Archer was carrying the kid on his hip, sprinting as fast as he could. His face was a mask of blood, his white t-shirt covered in it. He had a gun in his hand as he, Nikki and the other woman sprinted away from the building.

  'What the-', Fox started.

  And behind them, there was a huge explosion.

  The eighth floor of the building detonated above them, fire billowing out of the windows.

  The group were flung to the ground, landing heavily, Archer rolling to his side as he fell to protect the boy from hitting the concrete. Up ahead, the three officers rushed out of the car and ran over towards the group, the eighth floor ablaze, smoke pouring out of every window and sliding up the building.

  'Arch!' Chalky shouted, running over. His friend’s face was covered with blood. 'Jesus, what happened?'

  'I'm fine,' he said, kneeling and wiping his eyes with his t-shirt. He turned to the boy. ‘Are you OK?'

  The boy started crying. Behind him, Nikki removed a set of binds from the other woman’s hands and the moment they were free the woman rushed forward and hugged her boy, crying herself.

  Chalky helped Archer to his feet, whilst Fox checked Nikki.

  'Are you OK?' Fox asked, concerned, checking her.

  'I'm OK,' she said, coughing, and he gently helped her stand.

  ‘Who are you?’ Porter asked the woman they didn’t recognise.

  ‘Kate Adams,’ she said through her tears.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  The woman didn’t respond. She just hugged her boy close. Porter turned to Archer.

  'Where are the soldiers?' he asked, as the shrill fire alarms on the building behind them started to sound, echoing in the London night.

  'They're gone. They know where Cobb is,' Archer said loudly.

  Fox and Nikki had joined them as Chalky went over to try and comfort the woman and boy. After hearing what Archer had said, Fox swore.

  'So let's call ahead and warn him,' he said.

  Porter was already doing so, but turned to him, his mobile phone in his hands.

  ‘I can't get through. There’s no signal his end,' he shouted.

  'So let's go,' Fox said. 'We need to take a shortcut or beat them there.'

  'We don't have time. They’re already way ahead of us,' Porter said.

  ‘What about these two?’ Nikki said, pointing at the distraught woman and boy.

  Porter thought for a second.

  ‘Right, everyone in the car. It’s going to be a squeeze.’

  Chalky and Fox guided the woman and boy to the car while Porter tried calling Cobb again.

  'I still can't get through,’ he said, climbing into the driver’s seat and firing the engine.

  'So what can we do?' Nikki asked, sitting on Chalky’s lap in the back seat and pulling the door shut. 'We have to do something. They'll kill him and his whole family.'

  'Wait,' Archer said, from the front passenger seat.

  The group looked at him.

  'Go back to the station.’

  'What?' Porter said, firing the engine. 'Why? We need to get over there, Arch.’

  ‘I know how we can get there ahead of them.’

  *

  Twenty minutes later, the streets of London morphing into countryside and fields shrouded by nightfall, the Black Panthers were making good time as they headed for Cobb's safe-house. They couldn’t miss it. Bug had found it on the map, isolated, a significant estate, no neighbours nearby or anyone to hear Cobb scream. The men were in two cars, all of them now dressed in black combat fatigues, silenced black sub-machine guns in their hands, magazines in the chambers, their faces grim. In the front passenger seat of the front car, Wulf shot his cuff, then lifted his mobile phone from his pocket and redialled Worm's number, keeping his sub-machine gun in his hand.

  It rang through.

  No response.

  'Damn,' he said, in Albanian.

  'What is it, sir?' Spider asked, behind the wheel.

  'Worm isn't picking up the phone.'

  'Maybe it's the signal. Pity. He's going to miss out.'

  Wulf nodded.

  'Drive faster.'

  Spider put his foot down and the car roared on through the winding country lanes, heading closer and closer to Cobb and his family twelve miles away.

  Who had no idea they were coming.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  An hour’s drive south of London, Hawkings Hall had been in Eleanor Cobb's family for almost seven hundred years. The property was stunning, surrounded by 200 acres of woodland and forestry, the main Hall itself built just at the end of the 14th Century. The building had been developed and added to over the years, and it had been passed down through the family from generation to generation. The Hall had twelve bedrooms, six bathrooms and three separate floors, but the pride of the house was a magnificent drawing room. With its large fireplace, antique furniture and beautiful mahogany walls hung with both family portraits and expensive paintings, the room was the centrepiece of the house, the jewel in the crown. The Hall had been featured in many magazines and newspapers over the years as one of the most famous of its type in the country, and given that Eleanor Cobb was an only child with no living male relatives, the entire property would one day be inherited by her and then on her death, passed on to her eldest son.

  Upstairs, her husband had just finished putting his two boys to bed in two of the bedrooms. The boys were twelve and nine, and loved the times they were able to stay with their Grandparents at this house. On the way here their father had told them nothing of the seriousness of the situation, merely saying he had been granted an extra few days holiday and that he'd decided they should all go to stay at Granny and Grandpa's house whilst they were abroad.

  But downstairs, out of sight of the two boys, Cobb's smile had faded.

  He had methodically checked every possible entrance to the house to make sure they were all secure, ensuring every door and window was locked, a Glock 17 pistol from the ARU gun-cage gripped in his right hand. His wife had wanted to draw the curtains on all the windows but Cobb had refused. Not yet. If anyone was coming, he wanted to see who they were well in advance, friend or foe. It was a full moon tonight and the moon was low in the sky, which, despite some occasional cloud cover, was already lighting up the gardens and outer park of the estate like a giant silver floodlight. Given the Hall's position as the nucleus of the estate, Cobb wanted a head's up if anyone approached the house.

  Having just checked in the long kitchen and one of the back doors, he walked down the main corridor and moved into the drawing room. He found his wife standing there quietly, looking out of one of the windows, her arms folded. He saw that rain had just started to fall gently outside, drops of water tapping against the glass, sounding like someone drumming their fingers on a table-top, each droplet clinging to the window then sliding down the pane. Cobb nodded wryly. It looked like their run of good weather was over. This was April in the UK, after all.

  Making sure the safety catch on the Glock was on, he tucked it into the back of his waistband, and came up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist protectively, looking out into the darkening garden, still well lit by the moonlight despite the shower of rain. He glanced at a clock across the room.

  It had just gone 9:31 pm.

  'All done,' he said.

  She nodded gently. The two of them stood still, in silence, watching the drops starting to rap against the pane.

  'Everything OK?' he asked her.

 

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