‘Slow it down.’
His words were cold, and Etheridge obliged. Sam’s eyes narrowed with anger as he watched a car pull up next to the van and two black youths spill out of the back, both of them grabbing at the terrified girl in the backseat, who swung her feet and clawed for freedom.
No one was coming to help her.
Not in that area.
Sam watched as one of the young men lunged into the back seat, throwing a violent fist and the kicking stopped. Quickly and with little regard for her safety, they hauled her out, roughly grabbing her arms and legs before the side panel of the van slid open, another unknown man waiting inside. With the same amount of care as a baggage handler at an airport, the two youths tossed Jasmine Hill into the back of the van.
The door slid shut.
Both vehicles sped off in different directions.
‘Run the plates,’ Sam demanded.
‘Already on it,’ Etheridge responded, his eyes glued to the screen. ‘The van is registered to a Vaneheim Building Solutions. It’s a dud. A shell company.’
‘Damn it.’
‘Hang on.’ Etheridge’s fingers clicked along the keys. ‘Checking the government records and the company was set up a week ago as a subsidiary to a larger company known as Red Room Inc., a property management company. One that has set up separate shell companies every two weeks for the last few years.’
Etheridge rolled the screen, the information whizzing by and Sam watched, impressed as his genius friend began to connect the dots. The screen stopped and he placed a finger on the screen.
‘Red Room Inc. has a controlling stake in a small shipping firm, with weekly shipments heading out to Europe from the Docklands in South London.’
‘That’s them.’ Sam stood, his eyes wide with fury. ‘The guy I spoke to, he told me he worked for some guys with thick accents.’
‘Spoke to?’ Etheridge smiled. ‘He just offered that information did him?’
‘I can be persuasive if I have to.’
‘Well, they have another shipment heading out tomorrow. Scheduled in.’
‘That’s her. I need that crate number.’
Before Etheridge could respond, a shrill alarm erupted in the corner of the room, a red light flashing into life. Both men looked at each other and Etheridge made a couple of clicks of his mouse and the perimeter of his expensive house filled the screen. A man who spent his life securing the online world made sure he had top of the line security for his own.
A large police van was parked to the side of the gate and Sam watched as six men with tactical vests and rifles quietly and carefully filtered out of the van, lining up against the wall.
Sam saw the same woman he’d seen at Shepherd’s Bush, the lady who had grilled Aaron Hill and was clearly in charge of the task force set up to catch him. She was stood, hands on hips, talking to Kayleigh.
Sam glanced at Etheridge, who remorsefully looked away.
Both men knew that marriage had an expiry date.
They also knew they didn’t have much time.
‘Paul, I need that crate number and location.’
‘It’s going to take some time, they’re covering their tracks well with an ever-changing manifest working off a two-minute algorithm.’
‘English?’
‘They are doing a good fucking job covering their tracks.’ Etheridge scanned the screen, which was filled with numbers and symbols that may as well have been Russian to Sam. ‘I don’t have time to decipher it. We need to go.’
‘Find it and call me. You still good with numbers?’
Etheridge raised his eyebrows and committed to memory the mobile number Sam gave him. On the left-hand screen, they watched as four of the armed men approached the patio door in the back garden. Two stood guard at the front gate, rifles clutched to their bodies. Sam stepped away from the computer, walking with purpose towards the stairs.
The power died in the house.
Emergency lighting filtered through, enough to light the way.
‘Where are you going, Sam?’
Sam didn’t look back as he approached the stairs to the first floor of the mansion.
‘To buy you some time.’
On the ground floor below, the panel to the patio door shattered and the SWAT team breached the house.
As Sam disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell, Etheridge turned back to his screen, cracked his knuckles, and hoped like hell he could find what they needed.
Chapter Twenty-One
When the call had come through that Sam Pope was holed up in a luxurious mansion forty miles from London, Singh had been in the incident room, her eyes firmly on the wall of evidence before her. The pyramid of photos all led to a smart photo of Sam Pope, his military issued beret inch perfect on his shaven head. The scattered photos below all presented bullet-ridden bodies, broken buildings, and the devastation he had left in his wake. A picture of Aaron Hill was pinned to the side, along with Sean Wiseman.
Both men were protecting Pope.
It made her blood boil.
As her fists had clenched with anger, a young officer had knocked on the door, her eyes full of admiration for the strong woman leading the task force.
‘Ma’am,’ she muttered nervously. ‘It’s Sam Pope. We have him.’
Singh burst through the door and into the corridor, the young officer struggling to keep up. As they entered the office, a gathering crowd quietened down as Singh snatched up the phone and curtly demanded information from the Farnham police department.
The wife of an old army acquaintance confirmed that Sam Pope was in her house and was working with her husband. She had
