Marsden watched on with pride.
Wallace was right.
This squadron was something special.
As the men made their way back through the rocky path to their base camp to collect their stuff, Murray and Griffin began plotting a new location to set up as their position had been compromised. Etheridge took a seat on a dusty rock, the pain of his broken body bouncing through him like an echo. Theo began packing away the gear, updating Marsden on the condition of their fallen comrade. As the first stars began to emerge like blossoming flowers in the navy skyline, Sam Pope stood, one foot rested on a rock, his rifle resting against his chest, the barrel aiming at the wondrous twilight above. The evening soon turned chilly and as the night sky lit up with a thousand more stars, Etheridge felt a chill run through him.
‘Thank you, Sam.’
Sam smiled, nodding his acceptance to his friend and looked out into the dark, rocky surroundings.
‘No problem, bud.’ He offered him his hand, to help him limp through the base. ‘Although for someone with a high IQ, you have pretty shit vision.’
The two men laughed and Sam’s attention turned to Marsden, who beckoned him to the side. Sam smiled at Etheridge, before walking across the dusty gravel path to his superior.
‘That was some good shooting, Sam,’ Marsden said admiringly.
‘It’s what I’m here for, sir.’
‘Quite.’ Marsden smiled. ‘Tell me, Sam, you have a family, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Sam said with respect. ‘My wife, Lucy, is expecting our first child.’
‘Fantastic.’ Marsden genuinely beamed. ‘Etheridge also has a wife who, because of you, will be seeing him again.’
They both let the importance of his actions sit silently between them like an ugly secret. Sam glanced back to Etheridge, who was trying his best to get the radio to work.
Despite the horrendous fall and injury, he was still following orders.
They all were.
Sam took a deep breath, his chest filling with fresh, humid air and swelling with pride.
‘Like you said, we are trained not to lose.’
‘That maybe so.’ Marsden chuckled. ‘But we are also trained not to put ourselves in those situations to begin with.’
Sam could sense Marsden’s frustration and offered him another smile.
‘With all due respect, sir, he fell. It’s not like he ran head first into a gun fight.’
Marsden shook his head.
‘What he did was reckless. We are trained to win, Sam. But we are also trained not to put ourselves needlessly in danger.’ Both of them could see an embarrassed Etheridge arch his head round. He had obviously heard but Marsden ignored it. He rested a reassuring hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘Because if we do, regardless of whether we walk out alive, we still lose a piece of ourselves if we go looking for it.’
Sam watched as Theo finished packing up and called their superior down the final few rocks and into the group which had begun to regroup, their packs strapped to their backs. A glum, humiliated Etheridge pushed himself to his feet, waiting patiently as the always attentive Theo scurried to help.
The mission would need to be re-evaluated and most likely postponed for the night.
As another brisk chill danced along the night sky, Sam climbed down to the rest of the group and followed his orders.
Sam sat in the passenger seat of Aaron Hill’s black Ford Mondeo and thought about no-win situations. Everything since the High Rise six months before had been meticulously planned. Every attack on a safe house, every ambush of a criminal’s hide out. Sam had scoped and planned it to the finest detail.
There were no surprises.
No blind spots.
There was always a chance of winning.
This … this was different.
Sam stared out of the rain-covered windscreen at the towering concrete block before them. Similar to the urban pillar that they’d confronted Wiseman on, the Acid Gang were a notorious stain on the map of Wembley. Despite its connections to the national football team, the town of Wembley had decayed badly. While the modern, gentrified streets that surrounded the stadium gave off the scent of money, the poverty rippled outwards from it, as if the stadium was a huge, expensive rock dropped in a sea of suffering.
‘So … what’s the plan?’ Aaron asked, his brow furrowed and his fingers nervously drumming the leather steering wheel.
‘Plan is, is I go into that building and try to find out where the hell they took your daughter.’
‘And how are you going to do that, huh?’ Aaron’s words were laced with agitation. ‘You’ve never been here before.’
‘Look, you need to calm down,’ Sam said sternly. ‘What you did back there, to Wiseman. You can’t lose your mind like that.’
‘Fuck him.’
‘Say you had pushed him over the top of that balcony? Say you painted the pavement with his blood. Then what?’
‘Then I would say good riddance. Another scum bag off the streets,’ Aaron spat, shaking his head. ‘I’ll be just like you.’
‘You’re nothing like me.’
‘What? Because you don’t kill criminals?’
‘I’ve only killed the ones I’ve had to. And believe me, Aaron, it isn’t easy. None of it is easy and I wish I didn’t have to do it.’
‘Then why do it then?’
‘Because…’ Sam sighed. ‘Look, bottom line is, if you had killed him, we wouldn’t have known to come here, would we? That kid is just that. A kid. He grew up in a world that you and I will never understand and has had to do things just to survive. That isn’t a reason to take the law into our own hands. You want to do that, then at least do it for the right reason and aim higher.’
Aaron scoffed, shaking his head and peering angrily out of the window. A group of black youths were gathered in a doorway to one of the buildings, their hoods up, their eyes focused fully on the car.
They were
