He thought of his daughter, praying she wasn’t held down against her will in this place.
Tears began to fill his eyes and he wiped them with the back his sleeve, taking a deep breath and calming himself down.
His daughter was missing but he had just been promised by the most wanted man in London that he would help him.
Sam Pope.
Now, under his instruction, Aaron was to wait in this room, among the seedy remains of a deplorable evening, and tarnish his name by pretending to be a punter. It made his skin crawl.
But Sam had been adamant that this was the only way Aaron would get out of the building quickly. The police would be too busy focusing on Pope to care about the depraved, middle-aged man who needed to get his jollies from a drug ravaged prostitute.
They would pity him.
As he heard the doors being kicked open on the floor below by the cavalry, he felt bad for the other guy who had certainly drawn the short straw in Sam Pope’s plan. Aaron stared out of the window once more, his heart pining for his missing daughter and he hoped beyond hope that Sam Pope was as good as the news reports said he was.
Regimented footsteps echoed up the derelict stairwell as the Armed Response unit made their way to the second floor. They would have found the unconscious man from before, but no paramedic would be sent in until they’d given the all clear.
Until they’d neutralised him.
With his back against the grimy wall, Sam leant forward, peering over the bannister, scanning the stairs between the gaps in the stairwell.
Heavily armed police officers were charging up.
Slipping quickly back through the door into the corridor, he dashed across the corridor and slipped behind the door to one of the vacant rooms, pulling the door to but keeping the handle turned.
He would need to be quick.
Just then, he heard the corridor door burst open and the sound of the tactical unit filtering in, their quiet commands just audible against the crashing rain outside. With the dim light bathing the grotty corridor in a thick shadow, Sam gently pulled the door open, peeping through the crack. Two officers were a couple of feet ahead of him, bringing up the rear of the group. Their weapons were raised, their steps as measured and as quiet as possible.
The command to stop filtered through the radios, followed by the bellowing voice of the Specialist Firearms Officer who was in charge of the team.
‘Down on the ground!’
Through the pathetic, flickering light of the hallway, all ten guns were trained upon the figure at the end of the hall. The man had his back to them, wearing a black jacket, a detail passed on by eyewitnesses who had seen Pope on a few occasions.
The man didn’t oblige.
‘I said, down on the ground.’
The figure slowly raised his arms, his hands trembling as he held onto the cylinder. Shrouded in darkness, it took the officer in charge a split second too late to realise what it was.
‘Grenade!’
A shot fired out, the bullet whipping through the hallway and embedding into the centre of the man’s spine. With a cry of anguish, he fell forward, releasing the object and a bright, white flash exploded through the corridor like a tidal wave. As the man collapsed to the floor, the Armed Response team all turned in discomfort, the bright, sudden flash debilitating them for a few moments. Knowing that the visual effects of the grenade would only last seconds, Sam opened the door and rolled the smoke grenade into the centre of the room. As the dizziness of the flash bang pinballed around the room, the smoke began to filter out of the grenade like a genie. A few angry orders were barked, a genuine sense of panic as members of the team spun on the spot, their vision skewed and their senses shaken.
Sam stepped out.
Swiftly, he lunged to the nearest officer, obscured from the rest of the team by the billowing smoke. He expertly wrapped an arm around his throat, blocking his airway and any hope of calling for help. The officer tried to raise his weapon, but Sam latched his other hand onto the man’s wrist, squeezing the pressure point and causing his grip to loosen. He spun back towards the door with the flailing officer in tow.
Thirteen seconds was all it took.
The commotion had alerted the rest of the team, the commands coming through on the radio strapped to his captive’s chest. With time ticking away, Sam spun the man around, striking the back of the man’s leg with his foot, bringing him to his knees. With a silent apology, he removed the gun from the waistband of his jeans and cracked it across the man’s head.
Slumping forward, the man was unconscious before he hit the floor.
Nearly a minute.
As the smoke-filled corridor began to regain a sense of a calm despite the thick, unwelcome smoke, Sam quickly stripped the officer of his jacket and helmet, sliding his own, muscular frame into it. A little tight, but it fit. He took the man’s face mask, latching it around his face before securing the helmet tightly.
With a mighty heave, he pulled the unconscious man to the corner of the room, picked up the thin, stained sheet from the mattress and draped it over him. In the dark, it could easily be dismissed by a quick search.
It would have to do.
An order crackled from the Kevlar on his chest and Sam slipped on the man’s gloves, hoisted the rifle to his waist, and marched to the door. Carefully slipping back into the corridor, he closed the door quietly and assumed the position of the man he had just expertly eliminated.
Ninety-seven seconds.
It’s all it had taken.
Now, as the after effects of the flash bang had begun to wear off, the Armed Response team approached the fallen man, the commanding officer instructing two of his officers to check him.
It wasn’t
