His name was Hauser and he moved down the corridor as fast as his bad right leg allowed. The metal toolbox he carried was heavy and exaggerated his limp. He paused in front of the last door on the right. A yellow sign on the door read ‘WARNING! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’. He fished a key chain from his paint-flecked trousers and skimmed through the keys until he found the right one. His hand was trembling. He looked across his right shoulder at the bank of lifts ten metres back down the corridor. Satisfied the coast was clear, he inserted the key in the lock and twisted it. There was a sequence of clicks as the pins inside jangled up and down, and then a satisfying
Hauser stepped inside the room. It was a four-metre-square jungle of filing cabinets, cardboard boxes and industrial shelves with a tall, dark-panelled window overlooking the street below. Hauser hobbled over to the window. An electric pain shot up his leg with every step, like someone had taped broken glass to his shins. He stopped in front of the window and dumped a roll of black tarpaulin he’d been carrying under his left arm. Then he set the toolbox down next to the tarp and scanned the scene outside. He was on the fourth floor of an office block adjacent to the Lanesborough Hotel at Hyde Park Corner. The current tenants were some kind of marketing agency who, he knew, were badly behind with their rent. They’d have to relocate soon. Shame. From that height Hauser had quite a view. The pavements were packed with commuters and tourists flocking in and out of Hyde Park Corner Tube station. Further in the distance lay the bleached green ribbon of the park itself.
Yep. It was quite a view. Especially if you wanted to shoot somebody.
Hauser was wearing a tearaway paper suit that had been vacuum-packed. The overalls came with a hood. He also wore a pair of surgical gloves. The suit and gloves would both prevent his DNA from contaminating the scene, as well as protecting his body from residue such as gunpowder. Now Hauser knelt down. Slowly, because any sudden movement sent fierce volts of pain up his right leg, he prised open the toolbox. It was rusty and stiff and he had to force the damn thing apart with both hands. Finally the cantilever trays separated. There were three trays on either side of the central compartment. Each one was filled with tools. Hauser ran his fingers over them. There was a rubber-headed hammer, tacks, putty, bolt cutters, a pair of suction pads, a large ring of different- sized hexagonal keys and a spirit level.
There were two more objects in the bottom of the main compartment of the toolbox. One was a diamond cutter. The other was a featureless black tube ten inches long and three and a half inches wide. Made of carbon fibre, it weighed just 300 grams, no more than a tennis racquet. Hauser removed the tube. There was a latch on the underside. Hauser flipped this and a pistol grip flipped out, transforming the tube into a short-barrelled rifle.
Hauser cocked the bolt. The whole operation had taken four seconds. Four seconds to set up a selective- fire rifle effective up to 300 metres.
Hauser set the rifle down and took the diamond cutter from the toolbox. Moving with speed now, he ran the cutter around the edges of the window until he had cut out a rectangle of glass as big as a forty-inch TV. Then he took out the suction pads and, with one in either hand, pressed them to the sides of the cut-out sheet. The glass came loose easily. Hauser laid this down on the floor with the suction pads still attached. Then he took the black tarp, hammer and tacks and pinned one end of the material to the ceiling, allowing the rest to drape down over the opening. Seen from the street below, the tarp would give the appearance of reflective glass. If anyone looked up at the window, they wouldn’t see shit.
Going down on one knee, Hauser tucked the stock tight into the Y-spot where his shoulder met his chest. His index finger rested on the trigger, then he applied a little pressure. He went through the drill he had practised thousands of times before.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Keep the target in focus.
Firm shoulder. Left hand supporting the right.
The woman in his sights meant nothing to him. She’d simply been the first person he targeted. She was sitting on a bench and eating a sandwich. The optics were so precise that Hauser could identify the brand. Pret a Manger.
He pulled the trigger.
She was eating a sandwich one second and clutching her guts the next.
The subsonic .22 long-rifle rimfire round tore a hole in her stomach big enough to accommodate your middle finger.
And he went for the stomach with the next seven targets too. Unlike head shots, gut shots didn’t kill people, and Hauser had been specifically told not to kill. Only maim. He kicked out the rounds in quick succession. Two seconds between each. With each shot the muzzle
The bodies dropped.
The crowd was confused by the first two shots. The built-in suppressor guaranteed that the shots didn’t sound like the thunderous
Twenty-four seconds. That’s how long it had taken Hauser to leave eight civilians sprawled on the pavement soaked in their own blood and pawing at their wounds. The victims were strangely silent. No one else dared approach them. Any sane person would wait for a clear sign that the shooting had stopped.
Hauser stepped back from the window. He was confident no one had seen him. The suppressor had phased out more than 90 per cent of the sound, making it difficult for anyone to clearly understand that they were gunshots, let alone pinpoint their origin. A breeze kicked up. The tarp fluttered. Hauser quickly folded up the weapon and stashed it in the toolbox. He removed the overalls and stuffed them into the toolbox. The overalls he would dispose of shortly, in a nearby public toilet, courtesy of a lit match and some wetted toilet paper to cover and disable the smoke detector. He left the room.
Police sirens in the distance. And now screams from the crowd, as if the sirens had given them permission.
TWO
He downed it in three long gulps that had the barmaid shaking her head and the three gnarled alcoholics at the other end of the bar nodding welcome to the newest member of their club. Joe Gardner polished off his London Pride and tipped the foamy glass at the barmaid.
‘Another,’ he said.
The barmaid snatched his empty glass and stood it under the pump. Golden beer flowed out of the nozzle and settled into a dark-bronze column. She cut him a thick head and dumped the glass in front of him.
‘Cheers, Kate.’ Gardner raised his glass in a toast but she had already turned her back. ‘But you’re forgetting one thing.’
Kate sighed. ‘What’s that?’
‘Your phone number.’
‘The only thing you’ll get from me is a slap.’ A disgusted expression was plastered over the right side of the girl’s face. Gardner doubted her left side was any more pleasant. ‘That’s your last pint till you settle your tab.’
‘Give us a break,’ Gardner grunted, rooting around in his jeans pocket for imaginary change.
Then a voice to his left said, ‘This one’s on me.’
At the edge of his vision Gardner glimpsed a red-knuckled hand slipping the barmaid a pair of crisp twenty-quid notes. She eyed the queen’s head suspiciously before accepting it.
‘Thanks. This’ll about cover it.’
‘My pleasure,’ the voice said. ‘After all, we’ve got to look after our own.’
The voice was hoarse and the man’s breath wafted across Gardner’s face and violated his nostrils. It was the smoky, medicinal smell of cheap whisky.
‘Didn’t I see you on the telly once?’
Gardner didn’t turn around.
