He feared for his life and Sam knew it.
With the metal pressing against Wiseman’s skull, Sam stared deep into his bloodshot eyes.
‘Address. Now.’
Wiseman let out a pathetic whimper and Sam pushed the gun harder, pressing him back into the seat. Sam raised his voice.
‘The address of the new High Rise. Give it to me or I’ll blow your goddamn brains out.’
Wiseman shook with fear before he stammered a few words out.
‘The old Kodak factory in Shepherd’s Bush. Please, please don’t kill me.’
Wiseman began to weep, and Sam shook his head in disgust. The man worked for a violent criminal, brokering deals and shipping drugs and women through the city. Yet here he was, stripped of power, begging for his life in piss stained trousers.
Sam pulled the gun away from the young man’s forehead, the pressure leaving an indent in the skin. Wiseman breathed a palpable sigh of relief.
The sirens pierced through the night sky and Sam could see the flashing lights through the blurry, cracked windscreen. He snatched Wiseman’s wrist and pressed his hand down against the white leather seat. He then, much to the young gangster’s horror, pressed the barrel of the gun against it.
‘This is your last night as a criminal. Do you understand me? If I find you again, this bullet will be between the eyes.’
Before Wiseman could protest, Sam pulled the trigger, a cocktail of burning gun powder, splatters of blood and bone, and anguished screams filled the back of the car as he stepped out, Wiseman rolling on the chair in agony, clutching his shattered hand.
Two police cars sped as fast as they could up the main road, their lights and sirens announcing their arrival as elaborately as the cabaret shows in the nearby theatres.
Sam didn’t have any time to think about it. There was only the next phase of the mission.
He had the address. As Wiseman wept with uncontrollable pain, Sam reached into the man’s coat and withdrew his mobile phone, pocketing it instantly. Wiseman begged for help, but Sam ignored him, allowing the rattle of the rain against the window to drown out the man’s pitiful pleas. He would need to regroup, draw up his plan of attack, and hit it as soon as possible.
Riggs would be expecting him, especially when news of this filtered back to him.
Sam wasn’t going to disappoint him.
Under the blanket of the torrential rain, Sam sprinted off towards a nearby side street, allowing the dark, interlinking backstreets of London to swallow him.
Chapter Two
Mark Harris held the newspaper open, scanning his eyes across the article and slowly shaking his head. A disappointed sigh left his immaculately dressed body and he ran a manicured hand through his well-maintained brown hair. As the leading candidate to replace the current Mayor of London, Harris was aware of how important his image was. The youngest candidate to ever get this close to the chair, his entire campaign was based around the rise of crime within the city, boosted considerably by the bomb attack six months previous. Now, as he read about a reported shooting in Holborn the night before, he could already hear his next speech.
Gun crime needed to be stopped.
His office, a minimalistic yet expensive room, sat overlooking the wonderful grounds of Regent’s Park, the vast, sprawling fields in the heart of London which housed London Zoo, and, when the weather was more accommodating, the London Food Festival. Not far from his office was Harley Street, a plethora of private hospitals charging vast amounts for the sort of healthcare most people could only dream of. A short twenty-minute walk would take him to Holborn itself, the scene of the alleged shooting. The details were murky, the only eyewitnesses were either drunk or ducking for cover, but apparently a man blew out a Range Rover’s tyres, before shooting one man in the legs and the passenger in the hand.
Harris knew exactly who it was.
The man making the headlines for the last six months.
On a rainy night in London, Sam Pope had once again handed out his own brand of justice.
Frustration surged through his body like an electric shock, causing his hands to ball into fists and the pages to crunch. Harris took a deep breath and set the paper down on his oak desk, atop of the closed laptop. He needed to calm himself. His entire campaign was hinging on the capture of a known vigilante, the extra effort to reduce a gun-toting maniac would surely solidify his seat. From there, it would only be a few years until he would undoubtedly be prime minister, the entire country at his fingertips.
He pushed himself from his leather chair and slowly walked to the window, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out over the city he was hoping to govern. The extra effort hadn’t gone unnoticed, and he had already received word of a large crowd outside the building, ready to listen to his next speech. They would devour every word, cheering his strong stance on making the city safe once more. Journalists would eagerly lift their recording devices, struggling against each other to ask him a question like they were fighting for the last life jacket on the Titanic.
Mark Harris knew he was big news. He was handsome, smart, charming, and pushing all the right buttons. Three months shy of his fortieth birthday, his hair was starting to grey at the edges.
His wife thought it made him look more endearing.
His mistress didn’t seem to care at all.
Carl Burrows, his executive assistant, was the only other person who knew of his infidelity, arranging the secret meetings and the removal of evidence. Burrows was a stern, well-educated man who had a permanent sneer across his world-weary face. Tufts of grey hair framed his bespectacled head and did so that day as he opened the door and stepped into the office.
Harris didn’t even turn from the window.
‘Good morning, sir,’ Burrows said approaching the desk, a stack of folders resting in his arms.
