him.’

‘The reason I am your best marksman is because I underestimate nobody.’ A pause. ‘You will be… ’

‘I will be where I need to be.’

‘It is happening then? Today?’

Ashkani nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘The British soldier and his son must not survive this morning. You would not wish to deny the Lion his final roar?’ As he said this, he fiddled absent-mindedly with the data stick.

The other man looked over his shoulder. His expression, when he looked at the boy, was one of contempt. ‘Does he never speak?’

‘Sometimes. When forced. He won’t give you any trouble. He doesn’t know what’s going on.’

‘Good. I will take him now.’

Ashkani nodded. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight.’

‘I can’t have him with me when I—’

Don’t let him out of your sight.’

‘Whatever you say.’

Ashkani did not expect the boy to make any fuss when he was removed from the back seat and transferred to the other car, and he wasn’t disappointed. The child said nothing. He still didn’t even seem aware that anything was happening. Not that it mattered to Ashkani any more. He wound down the passenger window and looked out at the other man when he’d bundled the boy into the back of his car. ‘I want to know when it is done,’ he said.

The other man nodded, before climbing into the car, closing the door and driving off. Ashkani waited for five minutes, then he too drove from the station car park. Commuters would start arriving soon and besides, he had somewhere else to be.

Ashkani’s marksman drove slowly, westwards towards the coast. He wanted to be there early and if he could set up his position when the light was still dim, so much the better. As he drove, he cursed the mist that seemed to cling to this country. He had not wanted to say so in front of Ashkani, but it made things a great deal more difficult. Still, he had done difficult jobs before, and he had never failed yet.

He looked in the mirror at the kid. There was something unnatural about him, the way his pale face simply gazed into the middle distance, the way his silence seemed to fill the whole car. He considered disobeying Ashkani, gagging the kid and leaving him in the boot. He thought better of it. Ashkani was not a good man to disobey. But the sooner this morning was over, the better.

The marksman had already decided that he would not park the car at the clifftop car park, but would drive it out of sight down an old dirt road about a kilometre from the coast. He and the boy would then walk to the firing point under cover of darkness. He had already chosen, too, the precise location from which he would take the shot. The beach itself was 500 metres wide and the part of the cliff that overlooked it was covered in vigorous bracken, almost a metre high and stretching back about 100 metres from the edge of the cliff. There were many channels in the bracken – made mostly by walkers and children playing hide and seek, he supposed – and that was to his advantage. It meant nobody could tell what path he had taken through it to the cliff’s edge. And because the bracken extended all the way to the edge, he could overlook the beach and remain completely hidden, except for the barrel of his rifle peeking out, which nobody would be able to see in poor light and at a distance. Ordinarily he would have found some way to set up a ribbon on the beach to tell him which way the wind was blowing. On this occasion it was not necessary: the safety flag, there to indicate how safe or dangerous the sea was on a given day, would do the job for him.

Getting the boy out of the car was simple. Forcing him a kilometre cross-country was less so. He tripped and stumbled, falling helplessly to his knees on three occasions, and once flat on his face. Each time, the man pulled him up by his hair, thinking that the pain would make him stand more quickly. But the boy didn’t even seem to feel it. He said nothing. He didn’t complain, howl, or gasp. He just pushed himself slowly up and continued at his own pace.

It was four thirty by the time they reached the cliff’s edge. He pushed the boy to lie down and kicked his knee when he didn’t respond. But once he was down, prostrate on the cold ground, he didn’t move. He just shivered. The man eyed him suspiciously for a moment. It was all very well for Ashkani to believe that the kid was beyond causing problems, but he preferred to be sure. From his rucksack he pulled a length of rope. He tied the boy’s limp hands behind his back and bound his ankles together using the other end of the same piece. The boy didn’t struggle or complain.

The marksman turned his attention to the other contents of his rucksack. First, a satellite phone, which he laid on the ground next to him. Then his sniper rifle – a Galil .308 with a full magazine of tuned, match-grade rounds – which was separated into five sections. He could have slotted them together blindfolded – indeed, he had practised doing so many times in the past – so the darkness was not an obstacle for him. In less than a minute the rifle was assembled, its magazine of five 7.62mm rounds firmly clicked into place. He unfolded a small bipod, placed it on the edge of the bracken, and rested the barrel of the rifle on it. Lying on his front behind the weapon, he closed his left eye and looked through the sight.

It was still dark and the mist was thick, yet he could just make out the individual waves crashing onto the beach. He estimated the distance between his firing point and the sand at about 350 metres. Close enough for a swift, clean kill.

He looked over his shoulder. The boy was still lying on the ground. Still shivering. Still silent. It crossed his mind that he should kill him now, but Ashkani had been quite clear: the boy would only cease to be useful once his father was dead. The marksman looked at his watch. Four fifty-six: that gave the kid just over an hour to live.

0558 hours.

The gulls that had flocked on the flat, sandy beach had predicted the arrival of dawn. Their chorus had lasted for a full half-hour. There hadn’t been a particular moment when night had become morning. The sky had just grown almost imperceptibly lighter. The marksman lay very still, watching, waiting. There was a weak offshore wind. It blew the safety flag almost exactly in the marksman’s direction. He checked the direction of the spray, to make sure it matched up with the wind direction further from the ground. It did. He would wait until his target was positioned on a straight line between the rifle and the flag. It would make the shot more accurate because he would then not have to adjust for the altered trajectory of the round.

It was the gulls, too, that announced the arrival of the target. The marksman became aware of crowds of them flocking up from the sands at the northern end of the beach, shrouded by the mist and screeching loudly.

The figure came into view at 0600 hours exactly.

At first he was just a vague darkening of the mist 200 metres to the north, the shapeless form gradually developing a human frame as the gulls screeched and flew away from him. He was walking slowly, his head bowed, his hands stuck into the pockets of his hooded top. His frame was bulky – barrel-chested, almost – and although the hood he was wearing obscured his features, the marksman had the impression that his gait was slow and ponderous. Almost as if he knew he was walking to his death.

Do not underestimate him,’ Ashkani had said. The marksman didn’t. He examined every facet of the man’s movement. Something wasn’t right. Why was he not looking around? If he was here to see his son, why was he not searching for him?

Perhaps he was not so impressive as Ashkani had predicted.

Or perhaps he thought that if he sacrificed himself, his son would be set free. A foolish thought, but the marksman knew that, at times of stress, a person’s decision-making could lose clarity.

The figure continued to walk at a slow, steady pace. He was ten metres from the line of fire.

Five metres.

Three.

The marksman’s fingers brushed the cold metal of the trigger.

Two metres.

One.

The target stopped.

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