But he didn’t want that.
He had enough death on his hands.
Riggs’s voice wormed its way through the Bluetooth headphones Sam had attached to his ear.
‘You still there, Pope?’
‘I am indeed,’ Sam replied politely, adjusting his gloved finger on the trigger. His Glock was pressed against the small of his spine. A flash and smoke grenade hung from a sling across his chest, which he had pushed to one side.
He was there. And fully equipped.
‘So, what you gon do? You gon wait there like a pussy all night, or you gon come see me?’ Riggs spat, his bravado as fake as the gold chains he had round his neck. ‘Because we already sent word we under fire. That’s right, white boy, we gon have two Beamers full of some hard motherfuckers here in five minutes. But they ain’t comin’ to my building, they’ll be comin’ to you.’
‘Is that right?’ Sam said dismissively.
‘You damn right,’ Riggs said triumphantly. ‘You took a shot at the king and guess what, you missed.’
‘I didn’t take a shot at you,’ Sam corrected. ‘I took a shot at your biggest dog and by the looks of things, he might need to be put down.’
Silence sat between them, as well as a torrential downpour and an empty street. Sam knew Riggs wasn’t bluffing. Very soon that street would be filled with some more of his soldiers, all tooled up, all looking to find his vantage point.
Then, once word hit the police of a suspected gang hit with high powered guns, the whole of the Met would be swarming over the streets, not resting until they’d overturned the last paving slab if it meant they had a chance of finding him.
Sam had to end this soon.
As if he knew what Sam was thinking, Riggs finally spoke up.
‘So what the hell you want, man? You already hurt two of my boys. You want me?’
‘I want you to shut it down,’ Sam said calmly.
‘Shut it down? Are you dizzy, bruv?’ Riggs chuckled. ‘I got more money, gear, and pussy in this damn room than you will get in your lifetime. I ain’t shutting it down.’
‘The last man who ran the High Rise, he decided he didn’t want to listen to me neither. It didn’t work out so well for him.’
‘Yeah, well he was too polite for his own good, ya feel me?’ Riggs said. ‘We don’t play by the same rules.’
‘I’m going to give you to the count of three, Riggs, to do the right thing and shut it down. Or else I will.’
The rain clattered all around Sam, the open, damaged building offering little protection from the winter evening. He readjusted his grip, pulling the stock of the rifle tight against his shoulder.
‘You wanna shut me down? Give it your best.’ Riggs yelled defiantly. ‘Like I said, there is only one of you and from what I heard, you ain’t killed anyone since you put a bullet in Jackson and saved me a job.’
Sam shuffled uncomfortably on the stone floor, the image of ramming a knife into Colin Mayer’s stomach flashed to the front of his mind. The warmth of the blood rushing over his hands as he gutted the corrupt cop before leaving him for dead on that small boat in Dawlish.
The last time he broke the promise to his son.
As he stared through the scope of his rifle, the crosshairs still aimed at the overturned table that sheltered Riggs, he felt the temptation to break it once more. He took a breath and spoke.
‘One.’
‘I’m hanging up the phone now, Sam. You wanna come see me, you come across now. Before my boys turn up and tune you up.’
‘Two.’
‘Congrats. You can count,’ Riggs retorted, craning his neck to the side, signalling to his eager henchmen to aim at the window. Sam could hear his words shaking, the fear in the gangster’s voice betraying his apparent bravado. Sam took a deep breath before responding calmly.
‘Three.’
At that moment, the door to the top floor of the new High Rise burst open and a middle-aged man was hurled over the threshold, stumbling forward and falling flat onto his chest. Two hulking men, both with cane rowed hair and several tattoos followed, laughing, with one of them holding a handgun. Sam quickly scanned the situation through his scope, squinting hard through the torrential rain to piece together the situation. The man was clearly terrified, scrambling to his knees and looking around frantically. Sam could hear the commotion over the phone, the noise calming down to a laughter before Riggs piped up.
‘Well, what do we have here?’ he said, standing up from behind the table and looking out of the window, daring Sam to fire. ‘I thought you worked alone, Pope?’
‘I have no idea who that man is,’ Sam responded, smoothly shifting his line of sight from Riggs, back to the panicked man who feebly held his hands up in surrender. Sam could see blood trickling from the man’s eyebrow, evidence of a beating that Riggs’s henchman undoubtedly enjoyed giving. As Riggs sauntered across the room towards the terrified man, Sam assessed the man’s situation and quickly concluded it wasn’t good.
The man was as good as dead.
Sam told himself to stick to his spot.
To keep his focus on the mission at hand.
Riggs interrupted his internal struggle.
‘Let’s find out the name of our contestant, shall we?’ Riggs cackled, the laughter of his henchmen audible behind him. Sam watched through his scope as he leant down towards the frightened visitor. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I-I-I…’ the man stammered, and Sam watched as Riggs lashed out, the clunk of the gun colliding with the man’s head echoing down the phone.
‘Leave him
